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diff --git a/old/thott10.txt b/old/thott10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6e27960 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/thott10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7682 @@ +**The Project Gutenberg Etext of The History of the Telephone** + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +The History of the Telephone + +by Herbert N. 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If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association within the 60 + days following each date you prepare (or were legally + required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent periodic) + tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Scanned by Charles Keller with OmniPage Professional OCR software + + + + + +THE HISTORY OF THE TELEPHONE + +BY HERBERT N. CASSON + + + + +PREFACE + + +Thirty-five short years, and presto! +the newborn art of telephony is fullgrown. +Three million telephones are now scattered +abroad in foreign countries, and seven millions +are massed here, in the land of its birth. + +So entirely has the telephone outgrown the ridicule +with which, as many people can well remember, +it was first received, that it is now in most +places taken for granted, as though it were a +part of the natural phenomena of this planet. It +has so marvellously extended the facilities of +conversation--that "art in which a man has all +mankind for competitors"--that it is now an +indispensable help to whoever would live the +convenient life. The disadvantage of being deaf and +dumb to all absent persons, which was universal +in pre-telephonic days, has now happily been +overcome; and I hope that this story of how and +by whom it was done will be a welcome addition +to American libraries. + +It is such a story as the telephone itself might +tell, if it could speak with a voice of its own. +It is not technical. It is not statistical. It is +not exhaustive. It is so brief, in fact, that a +second volume could readily be made by describing +the careers of telephone leaders whose names +I find have been omitted unintentionally from +this book--such indispensable men, for instance, +as William R. Driver, who has signed more telephone +cheques and larger ones than any other +man; Geo. S. Hibbard, Henry W. Pope, and +W. D. Sargent, three veterans who know telephony +in all its phases; George Y. Wallace, the +last survivor of the Rocky Mountain pioneers; +Jasper N. Keller, of Texas and New England; +W. T. Gentry, the central figure of the Southeast, +and the following presidents of telephone +companies: Bernard E. Sunny, of Chicago; E. +B. Field, of Denver; D. Leet Wilson, of Pittsburg; +L. G. Richardson, of Indianapolis; Caspar +E. Yost, of Omaha; James E. Caldwell, of +Nashville; Thomas Sherwin, of Boston; Henry T. +Scott, of San Francisco; H. J. Pettengill, of +Dallas; Alonzo Burt, of Milwaukee; John Kil- +gour, of Cincinnati; and Chas. S. Gleed, of Kansas +City. + +I am deeply indebted to most of these men for +the information which is herewith presented; +and also to such pioneers, now dead, as O. E. +Madden, the first General Agent; Frank L. +Pope, the noted electrical expert; C. H. Haskins, +of Milwaukee; George F. Ladd, of San Francisco; +and Geo. F. Durant, of St. Louis. + +H. N. C. +PINE HILL, N. Y., June 1, 1910. + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER +I THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE + +II THE BUILDING OF THE BUSINESS + +III THE HOLDING OF THE BUSINESS + +IV THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ART + +V THE EXPANSION OF THE BUSINESS + +VI NOTABLE USERS OF THE TELEPHONE + +VII THE TELEPHONE AND NATIONAL EFFICIENCY + +VIII THE TELEPHONE IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES + +IX THE FUTURE OF THE TELEPHONE + + + + +THE HISTORY OF THE TELEPHONE + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE BIRTH OF THE TELEPHONE + +In that somewhat distant year 1875, when the +telegraph and the Atlantic cable were the +most wonderful things in the world, a tall young +professor of elocution was desperately busy in a +noisy machine-shop that stood in one of the narrow +streets of Boston, not far from Scollay +Square. It was a very hot afternoon in June, +but the young professor had forgotten the heat +and the grime of the workshop. He was wholly +absorbed in the making of a nondescript machine, +a sort of crude harmonica with a clock-spring +reed, a magnet, and a wire. It was a most +absurd toy in appearance. It was unlike any +other thing that had ever been made in any country. +The young professor had been toiling over +it for three years and it had constantly baffled +him, until, on this hot afternoon in June, 1875, +he heard an almost inaudible sound--a faint +TWANG--come from the machine itself. + +For an instant he was stunned. He had been +expecting just such a sound for several months, +but it came so suddenly as to give him the sensation +of surprise. His eyes blazed with delight, +and he sprang in a passion of eagerness to an +adjoining room in which stood a young mechanic +who was assisting him. + +"Snap that reed again, Watson," cried the +apparently irrational young professor. There +was one of the odd-looking machines in each +room, so it appears, and the two were connected +by an electric wire. Watson had snapped the +reed on one of the machines and the professor +had heard from the other machine exactly the +same sound. It was no more than the gentle +TWANG of a clock-spring; but it was the first time +in the history of the world that a complete sound +had been carried along a wire, reproduced perfectly +at the other end, and heard by an expert +in acoustics. + +That twang of the clock-spring was the first +tiny cry of the newborn telephone, uttered in the +clanging din of a machine-shop and happily +heard by a man whose ear had been trained to +recognize the strange voice of the little newcomer. +There, amidst flying belts and jarring +wheels, the baby telephone was born, as feeble +and helpless as any other baby, and "with no +language but a cry." + +The professor-inventor, who had thus rescued +the tiny foundling of science, was a young Scottish +American. His name, now known as widely +as the telephone itself, was Alexander Graham +Bell. He was a teacher of acoustics and a student +of electricity, possibly the only man in his +generation who was able to focus a knowledge +of both subjects upon the problem of the telephone. +To other men that exceedingly faint +sound would have been as inaudible as silence +itself; but to Bell it was a thunder-clap. It was +a dream come true. It was an impossible thing +which had in a flash become so easy that he could +scarcely believe it. Here, without the use of a +battery, with no more electric current than that +made by a couple of magnets, all the waves of +a sound had been carried along a wire and +changed back to sound at the farther end. It +was absurd. It was incredible. It was something +which neither wire nor electricity had been +known to do before. But it was true. + +No discovery has ever been less accidental. +It was the last link of a long chain of discoveries. +It was the result of a persistent and +deliberate search. Already, for half a year +or longer, Bell had known the correct theory of +the telephone; but he had not realized that the +feeble undulatory current generated by a magnet +was strong enough for the transmission of speech. +He had been taught to undervalue the incredible +efficiency of electricity. + +Not only was Bell himself a teacher of the +laws of speech, so highly skilled that he was +an instructor in Boston University. His father, +also, his two brothers, his uncle, and his +grandfather had taught the laws of speech in the +universities of Edinburgh, Dublin, and London. +For three generations the Bells had been professors +of the science of talking. They had even +helped to create that science by several inven- +tions. The first of them, Alexander Bell, had +invented a system for the correction of stammering +and similar defects of speech. The second, +Alexander Melville Bell, was the dean of British +elocutionists, a man of creative brain and a most +impressive facility of rhetoric. He was the author +of a dozen text-books on the art of speaking +correctly, and also of a most ingenious +sign-language which he called "Visible Speech." +Every letter in the alphabet of this language +represented a certain action of the lips and +tongue; so that a new method was provided for +those who wished to learn foreign languages or +to speak their own language more correctly. +And the third of these speech-improving Bells, +the inventor of the telephone, inherited the +peculiar genius of his fathers, both inventive and +rhetorical, to such a degree that as a boy he had +constructed an artificial skull, from gutta-percha +and India rubber, which, when enlivened by a +blast of air from a hand-bellows, would actually +pronounce several words in an almost human +manner. + +The third Bell, the only one of this remarkable +family who concerns us at this time, was a young +man, barely twenty-eight, at the time when his +ear caught the first cry of the telephone. But he +was already a man of some note on his own account. +He had been educated in Edinburgh, the +city of his birth, and in London; and had in one +way and another picked up a smattering of +anatomy, music, electricity, and telegraphy. +Until he was sixteen years of age, he had read +nothing but novels and poetry and romantic tales +of Scottish heroes. Then he left home to become +a teacher of elocution in various British +schools, and by the time he was of age he had +made several slight discoveries as to the nature +of vowel-sounds. Shortly afterwards, he met in +London two distinguished men, Alexander J. +Ellis and Sir Charles Wheatstone, who did far +more than they ever knew to forward Bell in +the direction of the telephone. + +Ellis was the president of the London Philological +Society. Also, he was the translator +of the famous book on "The Sensations of Tone," +written by Helmholtz, who, in the period from +1871 to 1894 made Berlin the world-centre for +the study of the physical sciences. So it happened +that when Bell ran to Ellis as a young +enthusiast and told his experiments, Ellis informed +him that Helmholtz had done the same +things several years before and done them more +completely. He brought Bell to his house and +showed him what Helmholtz had done--how he +had kept tuning-forks in vibration by the power +of electro-magnets, and blended the tones of several +tuning-forks together to produce the complex +quality of the human voice. + +Now, Helmholtz had not been trying to invent +a telephone, nor any sort of message-carrier. +His aim was to point out the physical basis of +music, and nothing more. But this fact that +an electro-magnet would set a tuning-fork humming +was new to Bell and very attractive. It +appealed at once to him as a student of speech. +If a tuning-fork could be made to sing by a +magnet or an electrified wire, why would it not +be possible to make a musical telegraph--a telegraph +with a piano key-board, so that many messages +could be sent at once over a single wire? +Unknown to Bell, there were several dozen inven- +tors then at work upon this problem, which +proved in the end to be very elusive. But it gave +him at least a starting-point, and he forthwith +commenced his quest of the telephone. + +As he was then in England, his first step was +naturally to visit Sir Charles Wheatstone, the +best known English expert on telegraphy. +Sir Charles had earned his title by many inventions. +He was a simple-natured scientist, and +treated Bell with the utmost kindness. He +showed him an ingenious talking-machine that +had been made by Baron de Kempelin. At this +time Bell was twenty-two and unknown; Wheatstone +was sixty-seven and famous. And the +personality of the veteran scientist made so vivid +a picture upon the mind of the impressionable +young Bell that the grand passion of science became +henceforth the master-motif of his life. + +From this summit of glorious ambition he was +thrown, several months later, into the depths of +grief and despondency. The White Plague had +come to the home in Edinburgh and taken away +his two brothers. More, it had put its mark +upon the young inventor himself. Nothing but +a change of climate, said his doctor, would put +him out of danger. And so, to save his life, he +and his father and mother set sail from Glasgow +and came to the small Canadian town of Brantford, +where for a year he fought down his +tendency to consumption, and satisfied his nervous +energy by teaching "Visible Speech" to a +tribe of Mohawk Indians. + +By this time it had become evident, both to +his parents and to his friends, that young Graham +was destined to become some sort of a creative +genius. He was tall and supple, with a pale +complexion, large nose, full lips, jet-black eyes, +and jet-black hair, brushed high and usually +rumpled into a curly tangle. In temperament +he was a true scientific Bohemian, with the ideals +of a savant and the disposition of an artist. He +was wholly a man of enthusiasms, more devoted +to ideas than to people; and less likely to master +his own thoughts than to be mastered by them. +He had no shrewdness, in any commercial sense, +and very little knowledge of the small practical +details of ordinary living. He was always intense, +always absorbed. When he applied his +mind to a problem, it became at once an enthralling +arena, in which there went whirling a chariot- +race of ideas and inventive fancies. + +He had been fascinated from boyhood by his +father's system of "Visible Speech." He knew +it so well that he once astonished a professor of +Oriental languages by repeating correctly a sentence +of Sanscrit that had been written in "Visible +Speech" characters. While he was living in +London his most absorbing enthusiasm was the +instruction of a class of deaf-mutes, who could +be trained to talk, he believed, by means of the +"Visible Speech" alphabet. He was so deeply +impressed by the progress made by these pupils, +and by the pathos of their dumbness, that when +he arrived in Canada he was in doubt as to which +of these two tasks was the more important--the +teaching of deaf-mutes or the invention of a +musical telegraph. + +At this point, and before Bell had begun to +experiment with his telegraph, the scene of the +story shifts from Canada to Massachusetts. It +appears that his father, while lecturing in Boston, +had mentioned Graham's exploits with a +class of deaf-mutes; and soon afterward the Boston +Board of Education wrote to Graham, offering +him five hundred dollars if he would come to +Boston and introduce his system of teaching in a +school for deaf-mutes that had been opened recently. +The young man joyfully agreed, and on +the first of April, 1871, crossed the line and became +for the remainder of his life an American. + +For the next two years his telegraphic work +was laid aside, if not forgotten. His success as +a teacher of deaf-mutes was sudden and overwhelming. +It was the educational sensation of +1871. It won him a professorship in Boston +University; and brought so many pupils around +him that he ventured to open an ambitious +"School of Vocal Physiology," which became at +once a profitable enterprise. For a time there +seemed to be little hope of his escaping from the +burden of this success and becoming an inventor, +when, by a most happy coincidence, two of his +pupils brought to him exactly the sort of stimulation +and practical help that he needed and had +not up to this time received. + +One of these pupils was a little deaf-mute +tot, five years of age, named Georgie Sanders. +Bell had agreed to give him a series of private +lessons for $350 a year; and as the child lived +with his grandmother in the city of Salem, sixteen +miles from Boston, it was agreed that Bell should +make his home with the Sanders family. Here +he not only found the keenest interest and sympathy +in his air-castles of invention, but also was +given permission to use the cellar of the house as +his workshop. + +For the next three years this cellar was his +favorite retreat. He littered it with tuning- +forks, magnets, batteries, coils of wire, tin +trumpets, and cigar-boxes. No one outside of +the Sanders family was allowed to enter it, as +Bell was nervously afraid of having his ideas +stolen. He would even go to five or six stores +to buy his supplies, for fear that his intentions +should be discovered. Almost with the secrecy +of a conspirator, he worked alone in this cellar, +usually at night, and quite oblivious of the fact +that sleep was a necessity to him and to the +Sanders family. + +"Often in the middle of the night Bell would +wake me up," said Thomas Sanders, the father +of Georgie. "His black eyes would be blazing +with excitement. Leaving me to go down to +the cellar, he would rush wildly to the barn and +begin to send me signals along his experimental +wires. If I noticed any improvement in his +machine, he would be delighted. He would leap +and whirl around in one of his `war-dances' and +then go contentedly to bed. But if the experiment +was a failure, he would go back to his workbench +and try some different plan." + +The second pupil who became a factor--a +very considerable factor--in Bell's career was a +fifteen-year-old girl named Mabel Hubbard, who +had lost her hearing, and consequently her speech, +through an attack of scarlet-fever when a baby. +She was a gentle and lovable girl, and Bell, in his +ardent and headlong way, lost his heart to her +completely; and four years later, he had the +happiness of making her his wife. Mabel Hubbard +did much to encourage Bell. She followed each +step of his progress with the keenest interest. +She wrote his letters and copied his patents. She +cheered him on when he felt himself beaten. +And through her sympathy with Bell and his ambitions, +she led her father--a widely known Boston +lawyer named Gardiner G. Hubbard--to +become Bell's chief spokesman and defender, a +true apostle of the telephone. + +Hubbard first became aware of Bell's inventive +efforts one evening when Bell was visiting +at his home in Cambridge. Bell was illustrating +some of the mysteries of acoustics by the aid of +a piano. "Do you know," he said to Hubbard, +"that if I sing the note G close to the strings of +the piano, that the G-string will answer me?" +"Well, what then?" asked Hubbard. "It is +a fact of tremendous importance," replied Bell. +"It is an evidence that we may some day have +a musical telegraph, which will send as many +messages simultaneously over one wire as there +are notes on that piano." + +Later, Bell ventured to confide to Hubbard +his wild dream of sending speech over an electric +wire, but Hubbard laughed him to scorn. "Now +you are talking nonsense," he said. "Such a +thing never could be more than a scientific toy. +You had better throw that idea out of your mind +and go ahead with your musical telegraph, which +if it is successful will make you a millionaire." + +But the longer Bell toiled at his musical telegraph, +the more he dreamed of replacing the telegraph +and its cumbrous sign-language by a new +machine that would carry, not dots and dashes, +but the human voice. "If I can make a deaf- +mute talk," he said, "I can make iron talk." For +months he wavered between the two ideas. He +had no more than the most hazy conception of +what this voice-carrying machine would be like. +At first he conceived of having a harp at one end +of the wire, and a speaking-trumpet at the other, +so that the tones of the voice would be reproduced +by the strings of the harp. + +Then, in the early Summer of 1874, while he +was puzzling over this harp apparatus, the dim +outline of a new path suddenly glinted in front +of him. He had not been forgetful of "Visible +Speech" all this while, but had been making +experiments with two remarkable machines--the +phonautograph and the manometric capsule, by +means of which the vibrations of sound were +made plainly visible. If these could be im- +proved, he thought, then the deaf might be taught +to speak by SIGHT--by learning an alphabet of +vibrations. He mentioned these experiments to +a Boston friend, Dr. Clarence J. Blake, and he, +being a surgeon and an aurist, naturally said, +"Why don't you use a REAL EAR?" + +Such an idea never had, and probably never +could have, occurred to Bell; but he accepted it +with eagerness. Dr. Blake cut an ear from a dead +man's head, together with the ear-drum and the +associated bones. Bell took this fragment of +a skull and arranged it so that a straw touched +the ear-drum at one end and a piece of moving +smoked glass at the other. Thus, when Bell +spoke loudly into the ear, the vibrations of the +drum made tiny markings upon the glass. + +It was one of the most extraordinary incidents +in the whole history of the telephone. To an +uninitiated onlooker, nothing could have been +more ghastly or absurd. How could any one +have interpreted the gruesome joy of this young +professor with the pale face and the black +eyes, who stood earnestly singing, whispering, +and shouting into a dead man's ear? What +sort of a wizard must he be, or ghoul, or madman? +And in Salem, too, the home of the +witchcraft superstition! Certainly it would +not have gone well with Bell had he lived +two centuries earlier and been caught at such +black magic. + +What had this dead man's ear to do with the +invention of the telephone? Much. Bell noticed +how small and thin was the ear-drum, and +yet how effectively it could send thrills and +vibrations through heavy bones. "If this tiny disc +can vibrate a bone," he thought, "then an iron +disc might vibrate an iron rod, or at least, an iron +wire." In a flash the conception of a membrane +telephone was pictured in his mind. He saw in +imagination two iron discs, or ear-drums, far +apart and connected by an electrified wire, catching +the vibrations of sound at one end, and reproducing +them at the other. At last he was on the +right path, and had a theoretical knowledge of +what a speaking telephone ought to be. What +remained to be done was to construct such a machine +and find out how the electric current could +best be brought into harness. + +Then, as though Fortune suddenly felt that he +was winning this stupendous success too easily, +Bell was flung back by an avalanche of troubles. +Sanders and Hubbard, who had been paying the +cost of his experiments, abruptly announced that +they would pay no more unless he confined his +attention to the musical telegraph, and stopped +wasting his time on ear-toys that never could be +of any financial value. What these two men +asked could scarcely be denied, as one of them +was his best-paying patron and the other was the +father of the girl whom he hoped to marry. "If +you wish my daughter," said Hubbard, "you must +abandon your foolish telephone." Bell's "School +of Vocal Physiology," too, from which he had +hoped so much, had come to an inglorious end. +He had been too much absorbed in his experiments +to sustain it. His professorship had been +given up, and he had no pupils except Georgie +Sanders and Mabel Hubbard. He was poor, +much poorer than his associates knew. And his +mind was torn and distracted by the contrary +calls of science, poverty, business, and affection. +Pouring out his sorrows in a letter to his mother, +he said: "I am now beginning to realize the +cares and anxieties of being an inventor. I have +had to put off all pupils and classes, for flesh and +blood could not stand much longer such a strain +as I have had upon me." + +While stumbling through this Slough of Despond, +he was called to Washington by his patent +lawyer. Not having enough money to pay the +cost of such a journey, he borrowed the price of a +return ticket from Sanders and arranged to stay +with a friend in Washington, to save a hotel bill +that he could not afford. At that time Professor +Joseph Henry, who knew more of the theory of +electrical science than any other American, was +the Grand Old Man of Washington; and poor +Bell, in his doubt and desperation, resolved to +run to him for advice. + +Then came a meeting which deserves to be +historic. For an entire afternoon the two men +worked together over the apparatus that Bell had +brought from Boston, just as Henry had worked +over the telegraph before Bell was born. Henry +was now a veteran of seventy-eight, with only +three years remaining to his credit in the bank +of Time, while Bell was twenty-eight. There +was a long half-century between them; but the +youth had discovered a New Fact that the sage, +in all his wisdom, had never known. + +"You are in possession of the germ of a great +invention," said Henry, "and I would advise you +to work at it until you have made it complete." + +"But," replied Bell, "I have not got the +electrical knowledge that is necessary." + +"Get it," responded the aged scientist. + +"I cannot tell you how much these two words +have encouraged me," said Bell afterwards, in +describing this interview to his parents. "I live +too much in an atmosphere of discouragement for +scientific pursuits; and such a chimerical idea as +telegraphing VOCAL SOUNDS would indeed seem to +most minds scarcely feasible enough to spend +time in working over." + +By this time Bell had moved his workshop from +the cellar in Salem to 109 Court Street, Boston, +where he had rented a room from Charles +Williams, a manufacturer of electrical supplies. +Thomas A. Watson was his assistant, and both +Bell and Watson lived nearby, in two cheap little +bedrooms. The rent of the workshop and bedrooms, +and Watson's wages of nine dollars a +week, were being paid by Sanders and Hubbard. +Consequently, when Bell returned from Washington, +he was compelled by his agreement to +devote himself mainly to the musical telegraph, +although his heart was now with the telephone. +For exactly three months after his interview with +Professor Henry, he continued to plod ahead, +along both lines, until, on that memorable hot +afternoon in June, 1875, the full TWANG of the +clock-spring came over the wire, and the telephone +was born. + +From this moment, Bell was a man of one purpose. +He won over Sanders and Hubbard. He +converted Watson into an enthusiast. He forgot +his musical telegraph, his "Visible Speech," +his classes, his poverty. He threw aside a profession +in which he was already locally famous. +And he grappled with this new mystery of electricity, +as Henry had advised him to do, encouraging +himself with the fact that Morse, who was +only a painter, had mastered his electrical +difficulties, and there was no reason why a professor +of acoustics should not do as much. + +The telephone was now in existence, but it was +the youngest and feeblest thing in the nation. It +had not yet spoken a word. It had to be taught, +developed, and made fit for the service of the +irritable business world. All manner of discs +had to be tried, some smaller and thinner than a +dime and others of steel boiler-plate as heavy as +the shield of Achilles. In all the books of electrical +science, there was nothing to help Bell and +Watson in this journey they were making +through an unknown country. They were as +chartless as Columbus was in 1492. Neither +they nor any one else had acquired any experience +in the rearing of a young telephone. No +one knew what to do next. There was nothing +to know. + +For forty weeks--long exasperating weeks-- +the telephone could do no more than gasp and +make strange inarticulate noises. Its educators +had not learned how to manage it. Then, on +March 10, 1876, IT TALKED. It said distinctly-- + +"MR. WATSON, COME HERE, I WANT YOU." Watson, +who was at the lower end of the wire, in the +basement, dropped the receiver and rushed with +wild joy up three flights of stairs to tell the glad +tidings to Bell. "I can hear you!" he shouted +breathlessly. "I can hear the WORDS." + +It was not easy, of course, for the weak young +telephone to make itself heard in that noisy workshop. +No one, not even Bell and Watson, was +familiar with its odd little voice. Usually Watson, +who had a remarkably keen sense of hearing, +did the listening; and Bell, who was a professional +elocutionist, did the talking. And day by day +the tone of the baby instrument grew clearer--a +new note in the orchestra of civilization. + +On his twenty-ninth birthday, Bell received +his patent, No. 174,465--"the most valuable +single patent ever issued" in any country. He +had created something so entirely new that there +was no name for it in any of the world's languages. +In describing it to the officials of the +Patent Office, he was obliged to call it "an +improvement in telegraphy," when, in truth, it was +nothing of the kind. It was as different from the +telegraph as the eloquence of a great orator is +from the sign-language of a deaf-mute. + +Other inventors had worked from the standpoint +of the telegraph; and they never did, and +never could, get any better results than signs +and symbols. But Bell worked from the standpoint +of the human voice. He cross-fertilized +the two sciences of acoustics and electricity. His +study of "Visible Speech" had trained his mind +so that he could mentally SEE the shape of a word +as he spoke it. He knew what a spoken word +was, and how it acted upon the air, or the ether, +that carried its vibrations from the lips to the ear. +He was a third-generation specialist in the +nature of speech, and he knew that for the transmission +of spoken words there must be "a pulsatory +action of the electric current which is the +exact equivalent of the aerial impulses." + +Bell knew just enough about electricity, and +not too much. He did not know the possible +from the impossible. "Had I known more about +electricity, and less about sound," he said, "I +would never have invented the telephone." +What he had done was so amazing, so foolhardy, +that no trained electrician could have thought +of it. It was "the very hardihood of invention," +and yet it was not in any sense a chance discovery. +It was the natural output of a mind that +had been led to assemble just the right materials +for such a product. + +As though the very stars in their courses were +working for this young wizard with the +talking wire, the Centennial Exposition in +Philadelphia opened its doors exactly two +months after the telephone had learned to +talk. Here was a superb opportunity to +let the wide world know what had been +done, and fortunately Hubbard was one of the +Centennial Commissioners. By his influence a +small table was placed in the Department of +Education, in a narrow space between a stairway +and a wall, and on this table was deposited the +first of the telephones. + +Bell had no intention of going to the +Centennial himself. He was too poor. Sanders +and Hubbard had never done more than pay his +room-rent and the expense of his experiments. +For his three or four years of inventing he had re- +ceived nothing as yet--nothing but his patent. +In order to live, he had been compelled to +reorganize his classes in "Visible Speech," and +to pick up the ravelled ends of his neglected +profession. + +But one Friday afternoon, toward the end of +June, his sweetheart, Mabel Hubbard, was taking +the train for the Centennial; and he went to the +depot to say good-bye. Here Miss Hubbard +learned for the first time that Bell was not to +go. She coaxed and pleaded, without effect. +Then, as the train was starting, leaving Bell on +the platform, the affectionate young girl could +no longer control her feelings and was overcome +by a passion of tears. At this the susceptible +Bell, like a true Sir Galahad, dashed after the +moving train and sprang aboard, without ticket +or baggage, oblivious of his classes and his poverty +and of all else except this one maiden's +distress. "I never saw a man," said Watson, "so +much in love as Bell was." + +As it happened, this impromptu trip to the +Centennial proved to be one of the most timely +acts of his life. On the following Sunday after- +noon the judges were to make a special tour of +inspection, and Mr. Hubbard, after much trouble, +had obtained a promise that they would spend a +few minutes examining Bell's telephone. By +this time it had been on exhibition for more +than six weeks, without attracting the serious +attention of anybody. + +When Sunday afternoon arrived, Bell was at +his little table, nervous, yet confident. But hour +after hour went by, and the judges did not arrive. +The day was intensely hot, and they had many +wonders to examine. There was the first electric +light, and the first grain-binder, and the +musical telegraph of Elisha Gray, and the marvellous +exhibit of printing telegraphs shown by +the Western Union Company. By the time they +came to Bell's table, through a litter of school- +desks and blackboards, the hour was seven +o'clock, and every man in the party was hot, tired, +and hungry. Several announced their intention +of returning to their hotels. One took up a telephone +receiver, looked at it blankly, and put it +down again. He did not even place it to his ear. +Another judge made a slighting remark which +raised a laugh at Bell's expense. Then a most +marvellous thing happened--such an incident as +would make a chapter in "The Arabian Nights +Entertainments." + +Accompanied by his wife, the Empress +Theresa, and by a bevy of courtiers, the Emperor +of Brazil, Dom Pedro de Alcantara, walked +into the room, advanced with both hands outstretched +to the bewildered Bell, and exclaimed: +"Professor Bell, I am delighted to see you +again." The judges at once forgot the heat +and the fatigue and the hunger. Who was +this young inventor, with the pale complexion +and black eyes, that he should be the friend +of Emperors? They did not know, and for +the moment even Bell himself had forgotten, +that Dom Pedro had once visited Bell's class +of deaf-mutes at Boston University. He was +especially interested in such humanitarian work, +and had recently helped to organize the first +Brazilian school for deaf-mutes at Rio de +Janeiro. And so, with the tall, blond-bearded +Dom Pedro in the centre, the assembled judges, +and scientists--there were fully fifty in all-- +entered with unusual zest into the proceedings of +this first telephone exhibition. + +A wire had been strung from one end of the +room to the other, and while Bell went to the +transmitter, Dom Pedro took up the receiver and +placed it to his ear. It was a moment of tense +expectancy. No one knew clearly what was +about to happen, when the Emperor, with a +dramatic gesture, raised his head from the receiver +and exclaimed with a look of utter amazement: +"MY GOD--IT TALKS!" + +Next came to the receiver the oldest scientist +in the group, the venerable Joseph Henry, whose +encouragement to Bell had been so timely. He +stopped to listen, and, as one of the bystanders +afterwards said, no one could forget the look of +awe that came into his face as he heard that iron +disc talking with a human voice. "This," said +he, "comes nearer to overthrowing the doctrine +of the conservation of energy than anything I +ever saw." + +Then came Sir William Thomson, latterly +known as Lord Kelvin. It was fitting that he +should be there, for he was the foremost elec- +trical scientist at that time in the world, and had +been the engineer of the first Atlantic Cable. +He listened and learned what even he had not +known before, that a solid metallic body could +take up from the air all the countless varieties of +vibrations produced by speech, and that these +vibrations could be carried along a wire and +reproduced exactly by a second metallic body. He +nodded his head solemnly as he rose from the +receiver. "It DOES speak," he said emphatically. +"It is the most wonderful thing I have seen in +America." + +So, one after another, this notable company +of men listened to the voice of the first telephone, +and the more they knew of science, the less they +were inclined to believe their ears. The wiser +they were, the more they wondered. To Henry +and Thomson, the masters of electrical magic, this +instrument was as surprising as it was to the man +in the street. And both were noble enough to +admit frankly their astonishment in the reports +which they made as judges, when they gave Bell +a Certificate of Award. "Mr. Bell has achieved +a result of transcendent scientific interest," +wrote Sir William Thomson. "I heard it speak +distinctly several sentences. . . . I was +astonished and delighted. . . . It is the +greatest marvel hitherto achieved by the electric +telegraph." + +Until nearly ten o'clock that night the judges +talked and listened by turns at the telephone. +Then, next morning, they brought the apparatus +to the judges' pavilion, where for the remainder +of the summer it was mobbed by judges and scientists. +Sir William Thomson and his wife ran +back and forth between the two ends of the wire +like a pair of delighted children. And thus it +happened that the crude little instrument that +had been tossed into an out-of-the-way corner +became the star of the Centennial. It had been +given no more than eighteen words in the official +catalogue, and here it was acclaimed as the wonder +of wonders. It had been conceived in a cellar +and born in a machine-shop; and now, of all the +gifts that our young American Republic had +received on its one-hundredth birthday, the telephone +was honored as the rarest and most welcome +of them all. + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE BUILDING OF THE BUSINESS + +After the telephone had been born in Boston, +baptized in the Patent Office, and +given a royal reception at the Philadelphia Centennial, +it might be supposed that its life thenceforth +would be one of peace and pleasantness. +But as this is history, and not fancy, there must +be set down the very surprising fact that the +young newcomer received no welcome and no +notice from the great business world. "It is a +scientific toy," said the men of trade and +commerce. "It is an interesting instrument, of +course, for professors of electricity and acoustics; +but it can never be a practical necessity. As +well might you propose to put a telescope into +a steel-mill or to hitch a balloon to a shoe- +factory." + +Poor Bell, instead of being applauded, was +pelted with a hailstorm of ridicule. He was an +"impostor," a "ventriloquist," a "crank who says +he can talk through a wire." The London Times +alluded pompously to the telephone as the latest +American humbug, and gave many profound +reasons why speech could not be sent over a wire, +because of the intermittent nature of the electric +current. Almost all electricians--the men who +were supposed to know--pronounced the telephone +an impossible thing; and those who did +not openly declare it to be a hoax, believed that +Bell had stumbled upon some freakish use of +electricity, which could never be of any practical +value. + +Even though he came late in the succession of +inventors, Bell had to run the gantlet of scoffing +and adversity. By the reception that the public +gave to his telephone, he learned to sympathize +with Howe, whose first sewing-machine was +smashed by a Boston mob; with McCormick, +whose first reaper was called "a cross between an +Astley chariot, a wheelbarrow, and a flying- +machine"; with Morse, whom ten Congresses regarded +as a nuisance; with Cyrus Field, whose +Atlantic Cable was denounced as "a mad freak +of stubborn ignorance"; and with Westinghouse, +who was called a fool for proposing "to stop a +railroad train with wind." + +The very idea of talking at a piece of sheet- +iron was so new and extraordinary that the normal +mind repulsed it. Alike to the laborer and +the scientist, it was incomprehensible. It was +too freakish, too bizarre, to be used outside of +the laboratory and the museum. No one, literally, +could understand how it worked; and the +only man who offered a clear solution of the +mystery was a Boston mechanic, who maintained +that there was "a hole through the middle +of the wire." + +People who talked for the first time into a +telephone box had a sort of stage fright. They +felt foolish. To do so seemed an absurd performance, +especially when they had to shout at +the top of their voices. Plainly, whatever of +convenience there might be in this new contrivance +was far outweighed by the loss of personal +dignity; and very few men had sufficient imagination +to picture the telephone as a part of the +machinery of their daily work. The banker said +it might do well enough for grocers, but that it +would never be of any value to banking; and the +grocer said it might do well enough for bankers, +but that it would never be of any value to grocers. + +As Bell had worked out his invention in Salem, +one editor displayed the headline, "Salem +Witchcraft." The New York Herald said: "The +effect is weird and almost supernatural." The +Providence Press said: "It is hard to resist +the notion that the powers of darkness are somehow +in league with it." And The Boston Times +said, in an editorial of bantering ridicule: "A +fellow can now court his girl in China as well +as in East Boston; but the most serious aspect +of this invention is the awful and irresponsible +power it will give to the average mother-in- +law, who will be able to send her voice around +the habitable globe." + +There were hundreds of shrewd capitalists in +American cities in 1876, looking with sharp eyes +in all directions for business chances; but not one +of them came to Bell with an offer to buy his +patent. Not one came running for a State contract. +And neither did any legislature, or +city council, come forward to the task of giving +the people a cheap and efficient telephone service. +As for Bell himself, he was not a man of affairs. +In all practical business matters, he was as +incompetent as a Byron or a Shelley. He had +done his part, and it now remained for men of +different abilities to take up his telephone and +adapt it to the uses and conditions of the business +world. + +The first man to undertake this work was Gardiner +G. Hubbard, who became soon afterwards +the father-in-law of Bell. He, too, was a man +of enthusiasm rather than of efficiency. He was +not a man of wealth or business experience, but +he was admirably suited to introduce the telephone +to a hostile public. His father had been +a judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Court; +and he himself was a lawyer whose practice had +been mainly in matters of legislation. He was, +in 1876, a man of venerable appearance, with +white hair, worn long, and a patriarchal beard. +He was a familiar figure in Washington, and well +known among the public men of his day. A versatile +and entertaining companion, by turns +prosperous and impecunious, and an optimist +always, Gardiner Hubbard became a really +indispensable factor as the first advance agent of +the telephone business. + +No other citizen had done more for the city of +Cambridge than Hubbard. It was he who secured +gas for Cambridge in 1853, and pure +water, and a street-railway to Boston. He had +gone through the South in 1860 in the patriotic +hope that he might avert the impending Civil +War. He had induced the legislature to establish +the first public school for deaf-mutes, the +school that drew Bell to Boston in 1871. And he +had been for years a most restless agitator for +improvements in telegraphy and the post office. +So, as a promoter of schemes for the public good, +Hubbard was by no means a novice. His first +step toward capturing the attention of an indifferent +nation was to beat the big drum of publicity. +He saw that this new idea of telephoning +must be made familiar to the public mind. He +talked telephone by day and by night. Whenever +he travelled, he carried a pair of the magical +instruments in his valise, and gave demonstra- +tions on trains and in hotels. He buttonholed +every influential man who crossed his path. +He was a veritable "Ancient Mariner" of the +telephone. No possible listener was allowed to +escape. + +Further to promote this campaign of publicity, +Hubbard encouraged Bell and Watson to perform +a series of sensational feats with the telephone. +A telegraph wire between New York +and Boston was borrowed for half an hour, and +in the presence of Sir William Thomson, Bell +sent a tune over the two-hundred-and-fifty-mile +line. "Can you hear?" he asked the operator +at the New York end. "Elegantly," responded +the operator. "What tune?" asked Bell. +"Yankee Doodle," came the answer. Shortly +afterwards, while Bell was visiting at his +father's house in Canada, he bought up all the +stove-pipe wire in the town, and tacked it to +a rail fence between the house and a telegraph +office. Then he went to a village eight miles +distant and sent scraps of songs and Shakespearean +quotations over the wire. + +There was still a large percentage of people +who denied that spoken words could be transmitted +by a wire. When Watson talked to Bell +at public demonstrations, there were newspaper +editors who referred sceptically to "the +supposititious Watson." So, to silence these doubters, +Bell and Watson planned a most severe test +of the telephone. They borrowed the telegraph +line between Boston and the Cambridge Observatory, +and attached a telephone to each end. +Then they maintained, for three hours or longer, +the FIRST SUSTAINED conversation by telephone, +each one taking careful notes of what he said +and of what he heard. These notes were published +in parallel columns in The Boston Advertiser, +October 19, 1876, and proved beyond +question that the telephone was now a practical +success. + +After this, one event crowded quickly on the +heels of another. A series of ten lectures was +arranged for Bell, at a hundred dollars a lecture, +which was the first money payment he +had received for his invention. His opening +night was in Salem, before an audience +of five hundred people, and with Mrs. Sand- +ers, the motherly old lady who had sheltered +Bell in the days of his experiment, sitting +proudly in one of the front seats. A pole +was set up at the front of the hall, supporting +the end of a telegraph wire that ran from Salem +to Boston. And Watson, who became the first +public talker by telephone, sent messages from +Boston to various members of the audience. An +account of this lecture was sent by telephone to +The Boston Globe, which announced the next +morning-- + + +"This special despatch of the Globe has been +transmitted by telephone in the presence of twenty people, +who have thus been witnesses to a feat never before +attempted--the sending of news over the space of sixteen +miles by the human voice." + + +This Globe despatch awoke the newspaper +editors with an unexpected jolt. For the first +time they began to notice that there was +a new word in the language, and a new +idea in the scientific world. No newspaper +had made any mention whatever of the +telephone for seventy-five days after Bell +received his patent. Not one of the swarm +of reporters who thronged the Philadelphia +Centennial had regarded the telephone as a +matter of any public interest. But when a column +of news was sent by telephone to The Boston +Globe, the whole newspaper world was agog +with excitement. A thousand pens wrote the +name of Bell. Requests to repeat his lecture +came to Bell from Cyrus W. Field, the veteran +of the Atlantic Cable, from the poet Longfellow, +and from many others. + +As he was by profession an elocutionist, Bell +was able to make the most of these opportunities. +His lectures became popular entertainments. +They were given in the largest halls. At one +lecture two Japanese gentlemen were induced to +talk to one another in their own language, via +the telephone. At a second lecture a band +played "The Star-Spangled Banner," in Boston, +and was heard by an audience of two thousand +people in Providence. At a third, Signor Ferranti, +who was in Providence, sang a selection +from "The Marriage of Figaro" to an audience +in Boston. At a fourth, an exhortation from +Moody and a song from Sankey came over the +vibrating wire. And at a fifth, in New Haven, +Bell stood sixteen Yale professors in line, hand +in hand, and talked through their bodies--a +feat which was then, and is to-day, almost too +wonderful to believe. + +Very slowly these lectures, and the tireless +activity of Hubbard, pushed back the ridicule +and the incredulity; and in the merry month of +May, 1877, a man named Emery drifted into +Hubbard's office from the near-by city of Charlestown, +and leased two telephones for twenty +actual dollars--the first money ever paid for a +telephone. This was the first feeble sign that +such a novelty as the telephone business could be +established; and no money ever looked handsomer +than this twenty dollars did to Bell, +Sanders, Hubbard, and Watson. It was the +tiny first-fruit of fortune. + +Greatly encouraged, they prepared a little circular +which was the first advertisement of the +telephone business. It is an oddly simple little +document to-day, but to the 1877 brain it was +startling. It modestly claimed that a telephone +was superior to a telegraph for three reasons: + + +"(1) No skilled operator is required, but direct +communication may be had by speech without the intervention +of a third person. + + +"(2) The communication is much more rapid, the +average number of words transmitted in a minute by the +Morse sounder being from fifteen to twenty, by telephone +from one to two hundred. + + +"(3) No expense is required, either for its operation +or repair. It needs no battery and has no complicated +machinery. It is unsurpassed for economy and simplicity." + + +The only telephone line in the world at this +time was between the Williams' workshop in +Boston and the home of Mr. Williams in Somerville. +But in May, 1877, a young man named +E. T. Holmes, who was running a burglar-alarm +business in Boston, proposed that a few telephones +be linked to his wires. He was a friend +and customer of Williams, and suggested this +plan half in jest and half in earnest. Hubbard +was quick to seize this opportunity, and at once +lent Holmes a dozen telephones. Without asking +permission, Holmes went into six banks and +nailed up a telephone in each. Five bankers +made no protest, but the sixth indignantly +ordered "that playtoy" to be taken out. The +other five telephones could be connected by a +switch in Holmes's office, and thus was born the +first tiny and crude Telephone Exchange. Here +it ran for several weeks as a telephone system +by day and a burglar-alarm by night. No +money was paid by the bankers. The service +was given to them as an exhibition and an advertisement. +The little shelf with its five telephones +was no more like the marvellous exchanges of +to-day than a canoe is like a Cunarder, but it was +unquestionably the first place where several telephone +wires came together and could be united. + +Soon afterwards, Holmes took his telephones +out of the banks, and started a real telephone +business among the express companies of Boston. +But by this time several exchanges had been +opened for ordinary business, in New Haven, +Bridgeport, New York, and Philadelphia. +Also, a man from Michigan had arrived, with the +hardihood to ask for a State agency--George +W. Balch, of Detroit. He was so welcome that +Hubbard joyfully gave him everything he asked +--a perpetual right to the whole State of Michigan. +Balch was not required to pay a cent in +advance, except his railway fare, and before he +was many years older he had sold his lease for +a handsome fortune of a quarter of a million +dollars, honestly earned by his initiative and +enterprise. + +By August, when Bell's patent was sixteen +months old, there were 778 telephones in use. +This looked like success to the optimistic Hubbard. +He decided that the time had come to +organize the business, so he created a simple +agreement which he called the "Bell Telephone +Association." This agreement gave Bell, Hubbard +and Sanders a three-tenths interest apiece +in the patents, and Watson one-tenth. THERE WAS +NO CAPITAL. There was none to be had. +The four men had at this time an absolute +monopoly of the telephone business; and everybody +else was quite willing that they should +have it. + +The only man who had money and dared to +stake it on the future of the telephone was +Thomas Sanders, and he did this not mainly for +business reasons. Both he and Hubbard were +attached to Bell primarily by sentiment, as Bell +had removed the blight of dumbness from +Sanders's little son, and was soon to marry +Hubbard's daughter. + +Also, Sanders had no expectation, at first, that +so much money would be needed. He was not +rich. His entire business, which was that of cutting +out soles for shoe manufacturers, was not at +any time worth more than thirty-five thousand +dollars. Yet, from 1874 to 1878, he had +advanced nine-tenths of the money that was spent +on the telephone. He had paid Bell's room-rent, +and Watson's wages, and Williams's expenses, +and the cost of the exhibit at the Centennial. +The first five thousand telephones, and more, +were made with his money. And so many long, +expensive months dragged by before any +relief came to Sanders, that he was compelled, +much against his will and his business +judgment, to stretch his credit within an inch +of the breaking-point to help Bell and the telephone. +Desperately he signed note after note +until he faced a total of one hundred and ten +thousand dollars. If the new "scientific toy" +succeeded, which he often doubted, he would +be the richest citizen in Haverhill; and if it +failed, which he sorely feared, he would be a +bankrupt. + +A disheartening series of rebuffs slowly forced +the truth in upon Sanders's mind that the business +world refused to accept the telephone as an +article of commerce. It was a toy, a plaything, +a scientific wonder, but not a necessity to be +bought and used for ordinary purposes by ordinary +people. Capitalists treated it exactly as +they treated the Atlantic Cable project when +Cyrus Field visited Boston in 1862. They +admired and marvelled; but not a man subscribed +a dollar. Also, Sanders very soon learned that it +was a most unpropitious time for the setting +afloat of a new enterprise. It was a period of +turmoil and suspicion. What with the Jay +Cooke failure, the Hayes-Tilden deadlock, and +the bursting of a hundred railroad bubbles, +there was very little in the news of the day to +encourage investors. + +It was impossible for Sanders, or Bell, or Hubbard, +to prepare any definite plan. No matter +what the plan might have been, they had no +money to put it through. They believed that +they had something new and marvellous, which +some one, somewhere, would be willing to buy. +Until this good genie should arrive, they could do +no more than flounder ahead, and take whatever +business was the nearest and the cheapest. So +while Bell, in eloquent rhapsodies, painted word- +pictures of a universal telephone service to +applauding audiences, Sanders and Hubbard were +leasing telephones two by two, to business men +who previously had been using the private lines +of the Western Union Telegraph Company. + +This great corporation was at the time their +natural and inevitable enemy. It had swallowed +most of its competitors, and was reaching out to +monopolize all methods of communication by +wire. The rosiest hope that shone in front of +Sanders and Hubbard was that the Western +Union might conclude to buy the Bell patents, +just as it had already bought many others. In +one moment of discouragement they had offered +the telephone to President Orton, of the Western +Union, for $100,000; and Orton had refused it. +"What use," he asked pleasantly, "could this +company make of an electrical toy?" + +But besides the operation of its own wires, the +Western Union was supplying customers with +various kinds of printing-telegraphs and dial +telegraphs, some of which could transmit sixty +words a minute. These accurate instruments, it +believed, could never be displaced by such a scientific +oddity as the telephone. And it continued +to believe this until one of its subsidiary +companies--the Gold and Stock--reported that +several of its machines had been superseded by +telephones. + +At once the Western Union awoke from its +indifference. Even this tiny nibbling at its business +must be stopped. It took action quickly +and organized the "American Speaking-Telephone +Company," with $300,000 capital, and +with three electrical inventors, Edison, Gray, and +Dolbear, on its staff. With all the bulk of its +great wealth and prestige, it swept down upon +Bell and his little bodyguard. It trampled upon +Bell's patent with as little concern as an elephant +can have when he tramples upon an ant's nest. +To the complete bewilderment of Bell, it coolly +announced that it had "the only original telephone," +and that it was ready to supply "superior +telephones with all the latest improvements +made by the original inventors--Dolbear, Gray, +and Edison." + +The result was strange and unexpected. The +Bell group, instead of being driven from the +field, were at once lifted to a higher level in the +business world. The effect was as if the Standard +Oil Company were to commence the manufacture +of aeroplanes. In a flash, the telephone +ceased to be a "scientific toy," and became an +article of commerce. It began for the first time +to be taken seriously. And the Western Union, +in the endeavor to protect its private lines, became +involuntarily a bell-wether to lead capitalists +in the direction of the telephone. + +Sanders's relatives, who were many and rich, +came to his rescue. Most of them were well- +known business men--the Bradleys, the Saltonstalls, +Fay, Silsbee, and Carlton. These men, +together with Colonel William H. Forbes, who +came in as a friend of the Bradleys, were the first +capitalists who, for purely business reasons, +invested money in the Bell patents. Two months +after the Western Union had given its weighty +endorsement to the telephone, these men organized +a company to do business in New England +only, and put fifty thousand dollars in its +treasury. + +In a short time the delighted Hubbard found +himself leasing telephones at the rate of a thousand +a month. He was no longer a promoter, +but a general manager. Men were standing in +line to ask for agencies. Crude little telephone +exchanges were being started in a dozen or more +cities. There was a spirit of confidence and enterprise; +and the next step, clearly, was to create +a business organization. None of the partners +were competent to undertake such a work. +Hubbard had little aptitude as an organizer; Bell +had none; and Sanders was held fast by his +leather interests. Here, at last, after four years +of the most heroic effort, were the raw materials +out of which a telephone business could be +constructed. But who was to be the builder, and +where was he to be found? + +One morning the indefatigable Hubbard +solved the problem. "Watson," he said, "there's +a young man in Washington who can handle +this situation, and I want you to run down +and see what you think of him." Watson +went, reported favorably, and in a day or +so the young man received a letter from +Hubbard, offering him the position of General +Manager, at a salary of thirty-five hundred +dollars a year. "We rely," Hubbard said, +"upon your executive ability, your fidelity, and +unremitting zeal." The young man replied, in +one of those dignified letters more usual in +the nineteenth than in the twentieth century. +"My faith in the success of the enterprise is such +that I am willing to trust to it," he wrote, "and I +have confidence that we shall establish the harmony +and cooperation that is essential to the +success of an enterprise of this kind." One week +later the young man, Theodore N. Vail, took +his seat as General Manager in a tiny office in +Reade Street, New York, and the building of the +business began. + +This arrival of Vail at the critical moment +emphasized the fact that Bell was one of the most +fortunate of inventors. He was not robbed of +his invention, as might easily have happened. +One by one there arrived to help him a number of +able men, with all the various abilities that the +changing situation required. There was such a +focussing of factors that the whole matter +appeared to have been previously rehearsed. No +sooner had Bell appeared on the stage than his +supporting players, each in his turn, received his +cue and took part in the action of the drama. +There was not one of these men who could have +done the work of any other. Each was distinctive +and indispensable. Bell invented the telephone; +Watson constructed it; Sanders financed +it; Hubbard introduced it; and Vail put it on a +business basis. + +The new General Manager had, of course, no +experience in the telephone business. Neither +had any one else. But he, like Bell, came to his +task with a most surprising fitness. He was a +member of the historic Vail family of Morristown, +New Jersey, which had operated the +Speedwell Iron Works for four or five generations. +His grand-uncle Stephen had built the +engines for the Savannah, the first American +steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean; and his +cousin Alfred was the friend and co-worker of +Morse, the inventor of the telegraph. Morse +had lived for several years at the Vail homestead +in Morristown; and it was here that he +erected his first telegraph line, a three-mile circle +around the Iron Works, in 1838. He and +Alfred Vail experimented side by side in the +making of the telegraph, and Vail eventually received +a fortune for his share of the Morse patent. + +Thus it happened that young Theodore Vail +learned the dramatic story of Morse at his +mother's knee. As a boy, he played around the +first telegraph line, and learned to put messages +on the wire. His favorite toy was a little +telegraph that he constructed for himself. At +twenty-two he went West, in the vague hope of +possessing a bonanza farm; then he swung back +into telegraphy, and in a few years found +himself in the Government Mail Service at Washington. +By 1876, he was at the head of this Department, +which he completely reorganized. He +introduced the bag system in postal cars, and +made war on waste and clumsiness. By virtue +of this position he was the one man in the United +States who had a comprehensive view of all railways +and telegraphs. He was much more apt, +consequently, than other men to develop the idea +of a national telephone system. + +While in the midst of this bureaucratic house- +cleaning he met Hubbard, who had just been +appointed by President Hayes as the head of a +commission on mail transportation. He and +Hubbard were constantly thrown together, on +trains and in hotels; and as Hubbard invariably +had a pair of telephones in his valise, the two men +soon became co-enthusiasts. Vail found himself +painting brain-pictures of the future of the +telephone, and by the time that he was asked to +become its General Manager, he had become so +confident that, as he said afterwards, he "was +willing to leave a Government job with a small +salary for a telephone job with no salary." + +So, just as Amos Kendall had left the post +office service thirty years before to establish the +telegraph business, Theodore N. Vail left the +post office service to establish the telephone business. +He had been in authority over thirty-five +hundred postal employees, and was the developer +of a system that covered every inhabited portion +of the country. Consequently, he had a quality of +experience that was immensely valuable in +straightening out the tangled affairs of the telephone. +Line by line, he mapped out a method, a +policy, a system. He introduced a larger view +of the telephone business, and swept off the table +all schemes for selling out. He persuaded half +a dozen of his post office friends to buy stock, so +that in less than two months the first "Bell +Telephone Company" was organized, with $450,000 +capital and a service of twelve thousand +telephones. + +Vail's first step, naturally, was to stiffen up the +backbone of this little company, and to prevent +the Western Union from frightening it into a +surrender. He immediately sent a copy of Bell's +patent to every agent, with orders to hold the +fort against all opposition. "We have the only +original telephone patents," he wrote; "we have +organized and introduced the business, and we do +not propose to have it taken from us by any +corporation." To one agent, who was showing the +white feather, he wrote: + + +"You have too great an idea of the Western Union. +If it was all massed in your one city you might well +fear it; but it is represented there by one man only, +and he has probably as much as he can attend to outside +of the telephone. For you to acknowledge that +you cannot compete with his influence when you make +it your special business, is hardly the thing. There +may be a dozen concerns that will all go to the Western +Union, but they will not take with them all their friends. +I would advise that you go ahead and keep your present +advantage. We must organize companies with sufficient +vitality to carry on a fight, as it is simply useless +to get a company started that will succumb to the first +bit of opposition it may encounter." + + +Next, having encouraged his thoroughly +alarmed agents, Vail proceeded to build up a +definite business policy. He stiffened up the +contracts and made them good for five years only. +He confined each agent to one place, and reserved +all rights to connect one city with another. +He established a department to collect and pro- +tect any new inventions that concerned the telephone. +He agreed to take part of the royalties +in stock, when any local company preferred to +pay its debts in this way. And he took steps +toward standardizing all telephonic apparatus by +controlling the factories that made it. + +These various measures were part of Vail's +plan to create a national telephone system. His +central idea, from the first, was not the mere +leasing of telephones, but rather the creation +of a Federal company that would be a permanent +partner in the entire telephone business. Even +in that day of small things, and amidst the +confusion and rough-and-tumble of pioneering, he +worked out the broad policy that prevails to-day; +and this goes far to explain the fact that +there are in the United States twice as many +telephones as there are in all other countries +combined. + +Vail arrived very much as Blucher did at the +battle of Waterloo--a trifle late, but in time to +prevent the telephone forces from being routed +by the Old Guard of the Western Union. He +was scarcely seated in his managerial chair, when +the Western Union threw the entire Bell army +into confusion by launching the Edison transmitter. +Edison, who was at that time fairly +started in his career of wizardry, had made an +instrument of marvellous alertness. It was beyond +all argument superior to the telephones then in +use and the lessees of Bell telephones clamored +with one voice for "a transmitter as good as +Edison's." This, of course, could not be had in a +moment, and the five months that followed were +the darkest days in the childhood of the telephone. + +How to compete with the Western Union, +which had this superior transmitter, a host of +agents, a network of wires, forty millions of +capital, and a first claim upon all newspapers, +hotels, railroads, and rights of way--that was +the immediate problem that confronted the new +General Manager. Every inch of progress had +to be fought for. Several of his captains +deserted, and he was compelled to take control +of their unprofitable exchanges. There was +scarcely a mail that did not bring him some +bulletin of discouragement or defeat. + +In the effort to conciliate a hostile public, the +telephone rates had everywhere been made too +low. Hubbard had set a price of twenty dollars +a year, for the use of two telephones on a private +line; and when exchanges were started, the rate +was seldom more than three dollars a month. +There were deadheads in abundance, mostly officials +and politicians. In St. Louis, one of the +few cities that charged a sufficient price, nine- +tenths of the merchants refused to become +subscribers. In Boston, the first pay-station ran +three months before it earned a dollar. Even as +late as 1880, when the first National Telephone +Convention was held at Niagara Falls, one of the +delegates expressed the general situation very +correctly when he said: "We were all in a state +of enthusiastic uncertainty. We were full of +hope, yet when we analyzed those hopes they were +very airy indeed. There was probably not one +company that could say it was making a cent, nor +even that it EXPECTED to make a cent." + +Especially in the largest cities, where the +Western Union had most power, the lives of the +telephone pioneers were packed with hardships +and adventures. In Philadelphia, for instance, a +resolute young man named Thomas E. Cornish +was attacked as though he had suddenly become a +public enemy, when he set out to establish the +first telephone service. No official would grant +him a permit to string wires. His workmen were +arrested. The printing-telegraph men warned +him that he must either quit or be driven out. +When he asked capitalists for money, they replied +that he might as well expect to lease jew's- +harps as telephones. Finally, he was compelled +to resort to strategy where argument had failed. +He had received an order from Colonel Thomas +Scott, who wanted a wire between his house and +his office. Colonel Scott was the President of the +Pennsylvania Railroad, and therefore a man of +the highest prestige in the city. So as soon as +Cornish had put this line in place, he kept his men +at work stringing other lines. When the police +interfered, he showed them Colonel Scott's signature +and was let alone. In this way he put +fifteen wires up before the trick was discovered; +and soon afterwards, with eight subscribers, he +founded the first Philadelphia exchange. + +As may be imagined, such battling as this did +not put much money into the treasury of the +parent company; and the letters written by +Sanders at this time prove that it was in a hard +plight. + +The following was one of the queries put to +Hubbard by the overburdened Sanders: + +"How on earth do you expect me to meet a +draft of two hundred and seventy-five dollars +without a dollar in the treasury, and with a debt +of thirty thousand dollars staring us in the face?" +"Vail's salary is small enough," he continued +in a second letter, "but as to where it is coming +from I am not so clear. Bradley is awfully blue +and discouraged. Williams is tormenting me +for money and my personal credit will not stand +everything. I have advanced the Company two +thousand dollars to-day, and Williams must have +three thousand dollars more this month. His +pay-day has come and his capital will not carry +him another inch. If Bradley throws up his +hand, I will unfold to you my last desperate +plan." + +And if the company had little money, it had +less credit. Once when Vail had ordered a small +bill of goods from a merchant named Tillotson, of +15 Dey Street, New York, the merchant replied +that the goods were ready, and so was the bill, +which was seven dollars. By a strange coincidence, +the magnificent building of the New +York Telephone Company stands to-day on the +site of Tillotson's store. + +Month after month, the little Bell Company +lived from hand to mouth. No salaries were paid +in full. Often, for weeks, they were not paid +at all. In Watson's note-book there are such +entries during this period as "Lent Bell fifty +cents," "Lent Hubbard twenty cents," "Bought +one bottle beer--too bad can't have beer every +day." More than once Hubbard would have +gone hungry had not Devonshire, the only clerk, +shared with him the contents of a dinner-pail. +Each one of the little group was beset by taunts +and temptations. Watson was offered ten thousand +dollars for his one-tenth interest, and hesitated +three days before refusing it. Railroad +companies offered Vail a salary that was higher +and sure, if he would superintend their mail business. +And as for Sanders, his folly was the talk +of Haverhill. One Haverhill capitalist, E. J. M. +Hale, stopped him on the street and asked, +"Have n't you got a good leather business, Mr. +Sanders?" "Yes," replied Sanders. "Well," +said Hale, "you had better attend to it and quit +playing on wind instruments." Sanders's +banker, too, became uneasy on one occasion and +requested him to call at the bank. "Mr. +Sanders," he said, "I will be obliged if you will +take that telephone stock out of the bank, and +give me in its place your note for thirty thousand +dollars. I am expecting the examiner here in a +few days, and I don't want to get caught with +that stuff in the bank." + +Then, in the very midnight of this depression, +poor Bell returned from England, whither he and +his bride had gone on their honeymoon, and +announced that he had no money; that he had +failed to establish a telephone business in England; +and that he must have a thousand dollars +at once to pay his urgent debts. He was +thoroughly discouraged and sick. As he lay in +the Massachusetts General Hospital, he wrote a +cry for help to the embattled little company that +was making its desperate fight to protect his +patents. "Thousands of telephones are now in +operation in all parts of the country," he said, +"yet I have not yet received one cent from my +invention. On the contrary, I am largely out of +pocket by my researches, as the mere value of the +profession that I have sacrificed during my three +years' work, amounts to twelve thousand dollars." + +Fortunately, there came, in almost the same +mail with Bell's letter, another letter from a +young Bostonian named Francis Blake, with the +good news that he had invented a transmitter as +satisfactory as Edison's, and that he would prefer +to sell it for stock instead of cash. If ever a man +came as an angel of light, that man was Francis +Blake. The possession of his transmitter instantly +put the Bell Company on an even footing +with the Western Union, in the matter of +apparatus. It encouraged the few capitalists +who had invested money, and it stirred others to +come forward. The general business situation +had by this time become more settled, and in four +months the company had twenty-two thousand +telephones in use, and had reorganized into the +National Bell Telephone Company, with $850, +000 capital and with Colonel Forbes as its first +President. Forbes now picked up the load that +had been carried so long by Sanders. As the son +of an East India merchant and the son-in-law +of Ralph Waldo Emerson, he was a Bostonian +of the Brahmin caste. He was a big, four- +square man who was both popular and efficient; +and his leadership at this crisis was of immense +value. + +This reorganization put the telephone business +into the hands of competent business men at every +point. It brought the heroic and experimental +period to an end. From this time onwards the +telephone had strong friends in the financial +world. It was being attacked by the Western +Union and by rival inventors who were jealous +of Bell's achievement. It was being half-starved +by cheap rates and crippled by clumsy apparatus. +It was being abused and grumbled at by an +impatient public. But the art of making and +marketing it had at last been built up into a +commercial enterprise. It was now a business, +fighting for its life. + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE HOLDING OF THE BUSINESS + +For seventeen months no one disputed Bell's +claim to be the original inventor of the +telephone. All the honor, such as it was, had +been given to him freely, and no one came forward +to say that it was not rightfully his. No +one, so far as we know, had any strong desire to +do so. No one conceived that the telephone +would ever be any more than a whimsical oddity +of science. It was so new, so unexpected, that +from Lord Kelvin down to the messenger boys +in the telegraph offices, it was an incomprehensible +surprise. But after Bell had explained his +invention in public lectures before more than +twenty thousand people, after it had been on exhibition +for months at the Philadelphia Centennial, +after several hundred articles on it had appeared +in newspapers and scientific magazines, and after +actual sales of telephones had been made in +various parts of the country, there began to +appear such a succession of claimants and infringers +that the forgetful public came to believe +that the telephone, like most inventions, was the +product of many minds. + +Just as Morse, who was the sole inventor of the +American telegraph in 1837, was confronted by +sixty-two rivals in 1838, so Bell, who was the sole +inventor in 1876, found himself two years later +almost mobbed by the "Tichborne claimants" of +the telephone. The inventors who had been his +competitors in the attempt to produce a musical +telegraph, persuaded themselves that they had +unconsciously done as much as he. Any possessor +of a telegraphic patent, who had used +the common phrase "talking wire," had a chance +to build up a plausible story of prior invention. +And others came forward with claims so vague +and elusive that Bell would scarcely have been +more surprised if the heirs of Goethe had +demanded a share of the telephone royalties on +the ground that Faust had spoken of "making +a bridge through the moving air." + +This babel of inventors and pretenders amazed +Bell and disconcerted his backers. But it was no +more than might have been expected. Here was +a patent--"the most valuable single patent ever +issued"--and yet the invention itself was so +simple that it could be duplicated easily by any +smart boy or any ordinary mechanic. The making +of a telephone was like the trick of Columbus +standing an egg on end. Nothing was easier to +those who knew how. And so it happened that, +as the crude little model of Bell's original telephone +lay in the Patent Office open and unprotected +except by a few phrases that clever lawyers +might evade, there sprang up inevitably around +it the most costly and persistent Patent War that +any country has ever known, continuing for +eleven years and comprising SIX HUNDRED LAWSUITS. + +The first attack upon the young telephone business +was made by the Western Union Telegraph +Company. It came charging full tilt upon Bell, +driving three inventors abreast--Edison, Gray, +and Dolbear. It expected an easy victory; in +fact, the disparity between the two opponents +was so evident, that there seemed little chance of +a contest of any kind. "The Western Union will +swallow up the telephone people," said public +opinion, "just as it has already swallowed up all +improvements in telegraphy." + +At that time, it should be remembered, the +Western Union was the only corporation that was +national in its extent. It was the most powerful +electrical company in the world, and, as Bell +wrote to his parents, "probably the largest +corporation that ever existed." It had behind it +not only forty millions of capital, but the prestige +of the Vanderbilts, and the favor of financiers +everywhere. Also, it met the telephone pioneers +at every point because it, too, was a WIRE company. +It owned rights-of-way along roads and +on house-tops. It had a monopoly of hotels and +railroad offices. No matter in what direction the +Bell Company turned, the live wire of the Western +Union lay across its path. + +From the first, the Western Union relied more +upon its strength than upon the merits of its case. +Its chief electrical expert, Frank L. Pope, had +made a six months' examination of the Bell +patents. He had bought every book in the +United States and Europe that was likely to +have any reference to the transmission of speech, +and employed a professor who knew eight +languages to translate them. He and his men +ransacked libraries and patent offices; they +rummaged and sleuthed and interviewed; and +found nothing of any value. In his final report +to the Western Union, Mr. Pope announced that +there was no way to make a telephone except +Bell's way, and advised the purchase of the Bell +patents. "I am entirely unable to discover any +apparatus or method anticipating the invention of +Bell as a whole," he said; "and I conclude that +his patent is valid." But the officials of the great +corporation refused to take this report seriously. +They threw it aside and employed Edison, Gray, +and Dolbear to devise a telephone that could be +put into competition with Bell's. + +As we have seen in the previous chapter, there +now came a period of violent competition which +is remembered as the Dark Ages of the telephone +business. The Western Union bought out +several of the Bell exchanges and opened up a +lively war on the others. As befitting its size, it +claimed everything. It introduced Gray as the +original inventor of the telephone, and ordered +its lawyers to take action at once against the Bell +Company for infringement of the Gray patent. +This high-handed action, it hoped, would most +quickly bring the little Bell group into a humble +and submissive frame of mind. Every morning +the Western Union looked to see the white flag +flying over the Bell headquarters. But no white +flag appeared. On the contrary, the news came +that the Bell Company had secured two eminent +lawyers and were ready to give battle. + +The case began in the Autumn of 1878 and +lasted for a year. Then it came to a sudden and +most unexpected ending. The lawyer-in-chief of +the Western Union was George Gifford, who was +perhaps the ablest patent attorney of his day. +He was versed in patent lore from Alpha to +Omega; and as the trial proceeded, he became +convinced that the Bell patent was valid. He +notified the Western Union confidentially, of +course, that its case could not be proven, and that +"Bell was the original inventor of the telephone." +The best policy, he suggested, was to withdraw +their claims and make a settlement. This wise advice +was accepted, and the next day the white flag +was hauled up, not by the little group of Bell +fighters, who were huddled together in a tiny, +two-room office, but by the mighty Western +Union itself, which had been so arrogant when +the encounter began. + +A committee of three from each side was appointed, +and after months of disputation, a +treaty of peace was drawn up and signed. By +the terms of this treaty the Western Union +agreed-- + +(1) To admit that Bell was the original inventor. + +(2) To admit that his patents were valid. + +(3) To retire from the telephone business. + + +The Bell Company, in return for this surrender, +agreed-- + +(1) To buy the Western Union telephone system. + +(2) To pay the Western Union a royalty of twenty +per cent on all telephone rentals. + +(3) To keep out of the telegraph business. + + +This agreement, which was to remain in force +for seventeen years, was a master-stroke of +diplomacy on the part of the Bell Company. +It was the Magna Charta of the telephone. It +transformed a giant competitor into a friend. It +added to the Bell System fifty-six thousand telephones +in fifty-five cities. And it swung the +valiant little company up to such a pinnacle of +prosperity that its stock went skyrocketing until +it touched one thousand dollars a share. + +The Western Union had lost its case, for several +very simple reasons: It had tried to operate +a telephone system on telegraphic lines, a plan +that has invariably been unsuccessful, it had a +low idea of the possibilities of the telephone business; +and its already busy agents had little time or +knowledge or enthusiasm to give to the new enterprise. +With all its power, it found itself outfought +by this compact body of picked men, who +were young, zealous, well-handled, and protected +by a most invulnerable patent. + +The Bell Telephone now took its place with the +Telegraph, the Railroad, the Steamboat, the +Harvester, and the other necessities of a civilized +country. Its pioneer days were over. There +was no more ridicule and incredulity. Every one +knew that the Bell people had whipped the West- +ern Union, and hastened to join in the grand Te +Deum of applause. Within five months from +the signing of the agreement, there had to be a +reorganization; and the American Bell Telephone +Company was created, with six million dollars +capital. In the following year, 1881, twelve hundred +new towns and cities were marked on the +telephone map, and the first dividends were paid +--$178,500. And in 1882 there came such a telephone +boom that the Bell System was multiplied +by two, with more than a million dollars of gross +earnings. + +At this point all the earliest pioneers of the +telephone, except Vail, pass out of its history. +Thomas Sanders sold his stock for somewhat less +than a million dollars, and presently lost most of +it in a Colorado gold mine. His mother, who had +been so good a friend to Bell, had her fortune +doubled. Gardiner G. Hubbard withdrew from +business life, and as it was impossible for a man +of his ardent temperament to be idle, he plunged +into the National Geographical Society. He was +a Colonel Sellers whose dream of millions (for +the telephone) had come true; and when he died, +in 1897, he was rich both in money and in the +affection of his friends. Charles Williams, in +whose workshop the first telephones were made, +sold his factory to the Bell Company in 1881 for +more money than he had ever expected to possess. +Thomas A. Watson resigned at the same time, +finding himself no longer a wage-worker but a +millionaire. Several years later he established a +shipbuilding plant near Boston, which grew +until it employed four thousand workmen and +had built half a dozen warships for the United +States Navy. + +As for Bell, the first cause of the telephone +business, he did what a true scientific Bohemian +might have been expected to do; he gave all his +stock to his bride on their marriage-day and +resumed his work as an instructor of deaf-mutes. +Few kings, if any, had ever given so rich a wedding +present; and certainly no one in any country +ever obtained and tossed aside an immense +fortune as incidentally as did Bell. When the +Bell Company offered him a salary of ten thousand +dollars a year to remain its chief inventor, +he refused the offer cheerfully on the ground that +he could not "invent to order." In 1880, the +French Government gave him the Volta Prize of +fifty thousand francs and the Cross of the Legion +of Honor. He has had many honors since then, +and many interests. He has been for thirty +years one of the most brilliant and picturesque +personalities in American public life. But none +of his later achievements can in any degree compare +with what he did in a cellar in Salem, at +twenty-eight years of age. + +They had all become rich, these first friends +of the telephone, but not fabulously so. There +was not at that time, nor has there been since, +any one who became a multimillionaire by the sale +of telephone service. If the Bell Company had +sold its stock at the highest price reached, in 1880, +it would have received less than nine million +dollars--a huge sum, but not too much to pay +for the invention of the telephone and the building +up of a new art and a new industry. It +was not as much as the value of the eggs laid +during the last twelve months by the hens of +Iowa. + +But, as may be imagined, when the news of the +Western Union agreement became known, the +story of the telephone became a fairy tale of success. +Theodore Vail was given a banquet by his +old-time friends in the Washington postal service, +and toasted as "the Monte Cristo of the Telephone." +It was said that the actual cost of the +Bell plant was only one-twenty-fifth of its capital, +and that every four cents of investment had thus +become a dollar. Even Jay Gould, carried beyond +his usual caution by these stories, ran up to +New Haven and bought its telephone company, +only to find out later that its earnings were less +than its expenses. + +Much to the bewilderment of the Bell Company, +it soon learned that the troubles of wealth +are as numerous as those of poverty. It was +beset by a throng of promoters and stock-jobbers, +who fell upon it and upon the public like a swarm +of seventeen-year locusts. In three years, one +hundred and twenty-five competing companies +were started, in open defiance of the Bell patents. +The main object of these companies was not, like +that of the Western Union, to do a legitimate +telephone business, but to sell stock to the public. +The face value of their stock was $225,000,000, +although few of them ever sent a message. One +company of unusual impertinence, without money +or patents, had capitalized its audacity at +$15,000,000. + +How to HOLD the business that had been established +--that was now the problem. None of the +Bell partners had been mere stock-jobbers. At +one time they had even taken a pledge not to sell +any of their stock to outsiders. They had +financed their company in a most honest and +simple way; and they were desperately opposed +to the financial banditti whose purpose was to +transform the telephone business into a cheat and +a gamble. At first, having held their own against +the Western Union, they expected to make short +work of the stock-jobbers. But it was a vain +hope. These bogus companies, they found, did +not fight in the open, as the Western Union had +done. + +All manner of injurious rumors were presently +set afloat concerning the Bell patent. Other +inventors--some of them honest men, and some +shameless pretenders--were brought forward +with strangely concocted tales of prior invention. +The Granger movement was at that time a strong +political factor in the Middle West, and its blind +fear of patents and "monopolies" was turned +aggressively against the Bell Company. A few +Senators and legitimate capitalists were lifted up +as the figureheads of the crusade. And a loud +hue-and-cry was raised in the newspapers against +"high rates and monopoly" to distract the minds +of the people from the real issue of legitimate +business versus stock-company bubbles. + +The most plausible and persistent of all the +various inventors who snatched at Bell's laurels, +was Elisha Gray. He refused to abide by the +adverse decision of the court. Several years +after his defeat, he came forward with new +weapons and new methods of attack. He became +more hostile and irreconcilable; and until his +death, in 1901, never renounced his claim to be the +original inventor of the telephone. + +The reason for this persistence is very evident. +Gray was a professional inventor, a highly competent +man who had begun his career as a blacksmith's +apprentice, and risen to be a professor of +Oberlin. He made, during his lifetime, over five +million dollars by his patents. In 1874, he and +Bell were running a neck-and-neck race to see +who could first invent a musical telegraph-- +when, presto! Bell suddenly turned aside, because +of his acoustical knowledge, and invented +the telephone, while Gray kept straight ahead. +Like all others who were in quest of a better +telegraph instrument, Gray had glimmerings of +the possibility of sending speech by wire, and by +one of the strangest of coincidences he filed a +caveat on the subject on the SAME DAY that Bell +filed the application for a patent. Bell had +arrived first. As the record book shows, the +fifth entry on that day was: "A. G. Bell, $15"; +and the thirty-ninth entry was "E. Gray, $10." + +There was a vast difference between Gray's +caveat and Bell's application. A caveat is a +declaration that the writer has NOT invented a +thing, but believes that he is about to do so; while +an APPLICATION is a declaration that the writer has +already perfected the invention. But Gray +could never forget that he had seemed to be, for +a time, so close to the golden prize; and seven +years after he had been set aside by the Western +Union agreement, he reappeared with claims +that had grown larger and more definite. + +When all the evidence in the various Gray +lawsuits is sifted out, there appear to have been +three distinctly different Grays: first, Gray the +SCOFFER, who examined Bell's telephone at the +Centennial and said it was "nothing but the old +lover's telegraph. It is impossible to make a +practical speaking telephone on the principle +shown by Professor Bell. . . . The currents +are too feeble"; second, Gray the CONVERT, who +wrote frankly to Bell in 1877, "I do not claim +the credit of inventing it"; and third, Gray the +CLAIMANT, who endeavored to prove in 1886 that +he was the original inventor. His real position +in the matter was once well and wittily described +by his partner, Enos M. Barton, who said: "Of +all the men who DIDN'T invent the telephone, +Gray was the nearest." + +It is now clearly seen that the telephone owes +nothing to Gray. There are no Gray telephones +in use in any country. Even Gray himself, +as he admitted in court, failed when he tried +to make a telephone on the lines laid down in his +caveat. The final word on the whole matter was +recently spoken by George C. Maynard, who +established the telephone business in the city of +Washington. Said Mr. Maynard: + + +"Mr. Gray was an intimate and valued friend of +mine, but it is no disrespect to his memory to say +that on some points involved in the telephone matter, +he was mistaken. No subject was ever so thoroughly +investigated as the invention of the speaking telephone. +No patent has ever been submitted to such determined +assault from every direction as Bell's; and no inventor +has ever been more completely vindicated. Bell was the +first inventor, and Gray was not." + + +After Gray, the weightiest challenger who +came against Bell was Professor Amos E. +Dolbear, of Tufts College. He, like Gray, had +written a letter of applause to Bell in 1877. "I +congratulate you, sir," he said, "upon your very +great invention, and I hope to see it supplant all +forms of existing telegraphs, and that you will be +successful in obtaining the wealth and honor +which is your due." But one year later, Dolbear +came to view with an opposition telephone. It +was not an imitation of Bell's, he insisted, but an +improvement upon an electrical device made by a +German named Philip Reis, in 1861. + +Thus there appeared upon the scene the so- +called "Reis telephone," which was not a telephone +at all, in any practical sense, but which +served well enough for nine years or more as a +weapon to use against the Bell patents. Poor +Philip Reis himself, the son of a baker in Frankfort, +Germany, had hoped to make a telephone, +but he had failed. His machine was operated by +a "make-and-break" current, and so could not +carry the infinitely delicate vibrations made by +the human voice. It could transmit the pitch of +a sound, but not the QUALITY. At its best, it +could carry a tune, but never at any time a +spoken sentence. Reis, in his later years, realized +that his machine could never be used for the +transmission of conversation; and in a letter to a +friend he tells of a code of signals that he has +invented. + +Bell had once, during his three years of +experimenting, made a Reis machine, although at +that time he had not seen one. But he soon +threw it aside, as of no practical value. As a +teacher of acoustics, Bell knew that the one +indispensable requirement of a telephone is that it +shall transmit the WHOLE of a sound, and not +merely the pitch of it. Such scientists as Lord +Kelvin, Joseph Henry, and Edison had seen the +little Reis instrument years before Bell invented +the telephone; but they regarded it as a mere +musical toy. It was "not in any sense a speaking +telephone," said Lord Kelvin. And Edison, +when trying to put the Reis machine in the most +favorable light, admitted humorously that when +he used a Reis transmitter he generally "knew +what was coming; and knowing what was coming, +even a Reis transmitter, pure and simple, +reproduces sounds which seem almost like that +which was being transmitted; but when the man +at the other end did not know what was coming, +it was very seldom that any word was recognized." + +In the course of the Dolbear lawsuit, a Reis +machine was brought into court, and created +much amusement. It was able to squeak, but +not to speak. Experts and professors wrestled +with it in vain. It refused to transmit one intel- +ligible sentence. "It CAN speak, but it WON'T," +explained one of Dolbear's lawyers. It is now +generally known that while a Reis machine, when +clogged and out of order, would transmit a word +or two in an imperfect way, it was built on wrong +lines. It was no more a telephone than a wagon +is a sleigh, even though it is possible to chain the +wheels and make them slide for a foot or two. +Said Judge Lowell, in rendering his famous +decision: + + +"A century of Reis would never have produced a +speaking telephone by mere improvement of construction. +It was left for Bell to discover that the failure +was due not to workmanship but to the principle which +was adopted as the basis of what had to be done. +. . . Bell discovered a new art--that of transmitting +speech by electricity, and his claim is not as broad +as his invention. . . . To follow Reis is to fail; +but to follow Bell is to succeed." + + +After the victory over Dolbear, the Bell stock +went soaring skywards; and the higher it went, +the greater were the number of infringers and +blowers of stock bubbles. To bait the Bell Company +became almost a national sport. Any sort +of claimant, with any sort of wild tale of prior +invention, could find a speculator to support him. +On they came, a motley array, "some in rags, +some on nags, and some in velvet gowns." One +of them claimed to have done wonders with an +iron hoop and a file in 1867; a second had a +marvellous table with glass legs; a third swore +that he had made a telephone in 1860, but did not +know what it was until he saw Bell's patent; and +a fourth told a vivid story of having heard a bullfrog +croak via a telegraph wire which was strung +into a certain cellar in Racine, in 1851. + +This comic opera phase came to a head in the +famous Drawbaugh case, which lasted for nearly +four years, and filled ten thousand pages with +its evidence. Having failed on Reis, the German, +the opponents of Bell now brought forward +an American inventor named Daniel Drawbaugh, +and opened up a noisy newspaper +campaign. To secure public sympathy for +Drawbaugh, it was said that he had invented a +complete telephone and switchboard before 1876, +but was in such "utter and abject poverty" that +he could not get himself a patent. Five hundred +witnesses were examined; and such a +general turmoil was aroused that the Bell lawyers +were compelled to take the attack seriously, and +to fight back with every pound of ammunition +they possessed. + +The fact about Drawbaugh is that he was a +mechanic in a country village near Harrisburg, +Pennsylvania. He was ingenious but not inventive; +and loved to display his mechanical skill +before the farmers and villagers. He was a subscriber +to The Scientific American; and it had +become the fixed habit of his life to copy other +people's inventions and exhibit them as his own. +He was a trailer of inventors. More than forty +instances of this imitative habit were shown at +the trial, and he was severely scored by the judge, +who accused him of "deliberately falsifying the +facts." His ruling passion of imitation, apparently, +was not diminished by the loss of his telephone +claims, as he came to public view again in +1903 as a trailer of Marconi. + +Drawbaugh's defeat sent the Bell stock up +once more, and brought on a Xerxes' army of +opposition which called itself the "Overland +Company." Having learned that no one claim- +ant could beat Bell in the courts, this company +massed the losers together and came forward +with a scrap-basket full of patents. Several +powerful capitalists undertook to pay the +expenses of this adventure. Wires were strung; +stock was sold; and the enterprise looked for a +time so genuine that when the Bell lawyers asked +for an injunction against it, they were refused. +This was as hard a blow as the Bell people +received in their eleven years of litigation; and +the Bell stock tumbled thirty-five points in a few +days. Infringing companies sprang up like +gourds in the night. And all went merrily with +the promoters until the Overland Company was +thrown out of court, as having no evidence, +except "the refuse and dregs of former cases-- +the heel-taps found in the glasses at the end of +the frolic." + +But even after this defeat for the claimants, +the frolic was not wholly ended. They next +planned to get through politics what they could +not get through law; they induced the Government +to bring suit for the annulment of +the Bell patents. It was a bold and desperate +move, and enabled the promoters of paper companies +to sell stock for several years longer. +The whole dispute was re-opened, from Gray to +Drawbaugh. Every battle was re-fought; and +in the end, of course, the Government officials +learned that they were being used to pull telephone +chestnuts out of the fire. The case was +allowed to die a natural death, and was informally +dropped in 1896. + +In all, the Bell Company fought out thirteen +lawsuits that were of national interest, and five +that were carried to the Supreme Court in Washington. +It fought out five hundred and eighty- +seven other lawsuits of various natures; and with +the exception of two trivial contract suits, IT +NEVER LOST A CASE. + +Its experience is an unanswerable indictment +of our system of protecting inventors. No +inventor had ever a clearer title than Bell. The +Patent Office itself, in 1884, made an eighteen- +months' investigation of all telephone patents, +and reported: "It is to Bell that the world owes +the possession of the speaking telephone." Yet +his patent was continuously under fire, and never +at any time secure. Stock companies whose +paper capital totalled more than $500,000,000 +were organized to break it down; and from first +to last the success of the telephone was based +much less upon the monopoly of patents than +upon the building up of a well organized +business. + +Fortunately for Bell and the men who upheld +him, they were defended by two master-lawyers +who have seldom, if ever, had an equal for team +work and efficiency--Chauncy Smith and James +J. Storrow. These two men were marvellously +well mated. Smith was an old-fashioned attorney +of the Websterian sort, dignified, ponderous, +and impressive. By 1878, when he came +in to defend the little Bell Company against +the towering Western Union, Smith had become +the most noted patent lawyer in Boston. +He was a large, thick-set man, a reminder of +Benjamin Franklin, with clean-shaven face, long +hair curling at the ends, frock coat, high collar, +and beaver hat. + +Storrow, on the contrary, was a small man, +quiet in manner, conversational in argument, and +an encyclopedia of definite information. He +was so thorough that, when he became a Bell +lawyer, he first spent an entire summer at his +country home in Petersham, studying the laws +of physics and electricity. He was never in the +slightest degree spectacular. Once only, during +the eleven years of litigation, did he lose control +of his temper. He was attacking the credibility +of a witness whom he had put on the stand, but +who had been tampered with by the opposition +lawyers. "But this man is your own witness," +protested the lawyers. "Yes," shouted the +usually soft-speaking Storrow; "he WAS my witness, +but now he is YOUR LIAR." + +The efficiency of these two men was greatly +increased by a third--Thomas D. Lockwood, +who was chosen by Vail in 1879 to establish a +Patent Department. Two years before, Lockwood +had heard Bell lecture in Chickering Hall, +New York, and was a "doubting Thomas." But +a closer study of the telephone transformed him +into an enthusiast. Having a memory like a +filing system, and a knack for invention, Lockwood +was well fitted to create such a depart- +ment. He was a man born for the place. And +he has seen the number of electrical patents grow +from a few hundred in 1878 to eighty thousand +in 1910. + +These three men were the defenders of the Bell +patents. As Vail built up the young telephone +business, they held it from being torn to shreds +in an orgy of speculative competition. Smith +prepared the comprehensive plan of defence. +By his sagacity and experience he was enabled to +mark out the general principles upon which Bell +had a right to stand. Usually, he closed the +case, and he was immensely effective as he would +declaim, in his deep voice: "I submit, Your +Honor, that the literature of the world does not +afford a passage which states how the human +voice can be electrically transmitted, previous to +the patent of Mr. Bell." His death, like his life, +was dramatic. He was on his feet in the courtroom, +battling against an infringer, when, in the +middle of a sentence, he fell to the floor, overcome +by sickness and the responsibilities he had +carried for twelve years. Storrow, in a different +way, was fully as indispensable as Smith. It +was he who built up the superstructure of the +Bell defence. He was a master of details. His +brain was keen and incisive; and some of his +briefs will be studied as long as the art of +telephony exists. He might fairly have been +compared, in action, to a rapid-firing Gatling gun; +while Smith was a hundred-ton cannon, and +Lockwood was the maker of the ammunition. + +Smith and Storrow had three main arguments +that never were, and never could be, answered. +Fifty or more of the most eminent lawyers of +that day tried to demolish these arguments, and +failed. The first was Bell's clear, straightforward +story of HOW HE DID IT, which rebuked and +confounded the mob of pretenders. The second +was the historical fact that the most eminent +electrical scientists of Europe and America had seen +Bell's telephone at the Centennial and had +declared it to be NEW--"not only new but +marvellous," said Tyndall. And the third was +the very significant fact that no one challenged +Bell's claim to be the original inventor of the +telephone until his patent was seventeen +months old. + +The patent itself, too, was a remarkable document. +It was a Gibraltar of security to the Bell +Company. For eleven years it was attacked +from all sides, and never dented. It covered an +entire art, yet it was sustained during its whole +lifetime. Printed in full, it would make ten +pages of this book; but the core of it is in the last +sentence: "The method of, and apparatus for, +transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically, +by causing electrical undulations, similar in +form to the vibrations of the air accompanying +the said vocal or other sounds." These words +expressed an idea that had never been written +before. It could not be evaded or overcome. +There were only thirty-two words, but in six +years these words represented an investment of a +million dollars apiece. + +Now that the clamor of this great patent war +has died away, it is evident that Bell received no +more credit and no more reward than he +deserved. There was no telephone until he +made one, and since he made one, no one +has found out any other way. Hundreds of +clever men have been trying for more than +thirty years to outrival Bell, and yet every +telephone in the world is still made on the plan +that Bell discovered. + +No inventor who preceded Bell did more, in +the invention of the telephone, than to help Bell +indirectly, in the same way that Fra Mauro and +Toscanelli helped in the discovery of America +by making the map and chart that were used by +Columbus. Bell was helped by his father, who +taught him the laws of acoustics; by Helmholtz, +who taught him the influence of magnets upon +sound vibrations; by Koenig and Leon Scott, +who taught him the infinite variety of these +vibrations; by Dr. Clarence J. Blake, who gave him a +human ear for his experiments; and by Joseph +Henry and Sir Charles Wheatstone, who encouraged +him to persevere. In a still more +indirect way, he was helped by Morse's invention +of the telegraph; by Faraday's discovery of the +phenomena of magnetic induction; by Sturgeon's +first electro-magnet; and by Volta's electric battery. +All that scientists had achieved, from +Galileo and Newton to Franklin and Simon +Newcomb, helped Bell in a general way, by creat- +ing a scientific atmosphere and habit of thought. +But in the actual making of the telephone, there +was no one with Bell nor before him. He +invented it first, and alone. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ART + +Four wire-using businesses were already in +the field when the telephone was born: the +fire-alarm, burglar-alarm, telegraph, and messenger- +boy service; and at first, as might have +been expected, the humble little telephone was +huddled in with these businesses as a sort of poor +relation. To the general public, it was a mere +scientific toy; but there were a few men, not +many, in these wire-stringing trades, who saw a +glimmering chance of creating a telephone business. +They put telephones on the wires that +were then in use. As these became popular, they +added others. Each of their customers wished +to be able to talk to every one else. And so, having +undertaken to give telephone service, they +presently found themselves battling with the most +intricate and baffling engineering problem of +modern times--the construction around the tele- +phone of such a mechanism as would bring it into +universal service. + +The first of these men was Thomas A. Watson, +the young mechanic who had been hired as Bell's +helper. He began a work that to-day requires +an army of twenty-six thousand people. He +was for a couple of years the total engineering +and manufacturing department of the telephone +business, and by 1880 had taken out sixty patents +for his own suggestions. It was Watson +who took the telephone as Bell had made it, really +a toy, with its diaphragm so delicate that a warm +breath would put it out of order, and toughened +it into a more rugged machine. Bell had used a +disc of fragile gold-beaters' skin with a patch of +sheet-iron glued to the centre. He could not believe, +for a time, that a disc of all-iron would vibrate +under the slight influence of a spoken word. +But he and Watson noticed that when the patch +was bigger the talking was better, and presently +they threw away the gold-beaters' skin and used +the iron alone. + +Also, it was Watson who spent months experimenting +with all sorts and sizes of iron discs, +so as to get the one that would best convey the +sound. If the iron was too thick, he discovered, +the voice was shrilled into a Punch-and-Judy +squeal; and if it was too thin, the voice became +a hollow and sepulchral groan, as if the speaker +had his head in a barrel. Other months, too, +were spent in finding out the proper size and +shape for the air cavity in front of the disc. +And so, after the telephone had been perfected, +IN PRINCIPLE, a full year was required to lift +it out of the class of scientific toys, and another +year or two to present it properly to the business +world. + +Until 1878 all Bell telephone apparatus was +made by Watson in Charles Williams's little +shop in Court Street, Boston--a building long +since transformed into a five-cent theatre. But +the business soon grew too big for the shop. +Orders fell five weeks behind. Agents stormed +and fretted. Some action had to be taken +quickly, so licenses were given to four other +manufacturers to make bells, switchboards, and +so forth. By this time the Western Electric +Company of Chicago had begun to make the +infringing Gray-Edison telephones for the Western +Union, so that there were soon six groups +of mechanics puzzling their wits over the new +talk-machinery. + +By 1880 there was plenty of telephonic apparatus +being made, but in too many different +varieties. Not all the summer gowns of that +year presented more styles and fancies. The +next step, if there was to be any degree of +uniformity, was plainly to buy and consolidate these +six companies; and by 1881 Vail had done this. +It was the first merger in telephone history. +It was a step of immense importance. Had it +not been taken, the telephone business would +have been torn into fragments by the civil wars +between rival inventors. + +From this time the Western Electric became +the headquarters of telephonic apparatus. It +was the Big Shop, all roads led to it. No matter +where a new idea was born, sooner or later +it came knocking at the door of the Western +Electric to receive a material body. Here were +the skilled workmen who became the hands of +the telephone business. And here, too, were +many of the ablest inventors and engineers, who +did most to develop the cables and switchboards +of to-day. + +In Boston, Watson had resigned in 1882, and +in his place, a year or two later stood a timely +new arrival named E. T. Gilliland. This really +notable man was a friend in need to the telephone. +He had been a manufacturer of electrical +apparatus in Indianapolis, until Vail's +policy of consolidation drew him into the central +group of pioneers and pathfinders. For five +years Gilliland led the way as a developer of +better and cheaper equipment. He made the +best of a most difficult situation. He was so +handy, so resourceful, that he invariably found +a way to unravel the mechanical tangles that perplexed +the first telephone agents, and this, too, +without compelling them to spend large sums +of capital. He took the ideas and apparatus +that were then in existence, and used them to +carry the telephone business through the most +critical period of its life, when there was little +time or money to risk on experiments. He took +the peg switchboard of the telegraph, for in- +stance, and developed it to its highest point, to +a point that was not even imagined possible by +any one else. It was the most practical and +complete switchboard of its day, and held the +field against all comers until it was superseded +by the modern type of board, vastly more elaborate +and expensive. + +By 1884, gathered around Gilliland in Boston +and the Western Electric in Chicago, there +came to be a group of mechanics and high-school +graduates, very young men, mostly, who had no +reputations to lose; and who, partly for a living +and mainly for a lark, plunged into the difficulties +of this new business that had at that time little +history and less prestige. These young adventurers, +most of whom are still alive, became the +makers of industrial history. They were +unquestionably the founders of the present science +of telephone engineering. + +The problem that they dashed at so lightheartedly +was much larger than any of them imagined. +It was a Gibraltar of impossibilities. +It was on the face of it a fantastic nightmare +of a task--to weave such a web of wires, with in- +terlocking centres, as would put any one telephone +in touch with every other. There was no +help for them in books or colleges. Watson, who +had acquired a little knowledge, had become a +shipbuilder. Electrical engineering, as a profession, +was unborn. And as for their telegraphic +experience, while it certainly helped them +for a time, it started them in the wrong direction +and led them to do many things which had afterwards +to be undone. + +The peculiar electric current that these young +pathfinders had to deal with is perhaps the quickest, +feeblest, and most elusive force in the world. +It is so amazing a thing that any description +of it seems irrational. It is as gentle as a touch +of a baby sunbeam, and as swift as the lightning +flash. It is so small that the electric current +of a single incandescent lamp is greater 500,000,000 +times. Cool a spoonful of hot water just +one degree, and the energy set free by the cooling +will operate a telephone for ten thousand years. +Catch the falling tear-drop of a child, and there +will be sufficient water-power to carry a spoken +message from one city to another. + +Such is the tiny Genie of the Wire that had +to be protected and trained into obedience. It +was the most defenceless of all electric sprites, +and it had so many enemies. Enemies! The +world was populous with its enemies. There +was the lightning, its elder brother, striking at +it with murderous blows. There were the telegraphic +and light-and-power currents, its strong +and malicious cousins, chasing and assaulting it +whenever it ventured too near. There were rain +and sleet and snow and every sort of moisture, +lying in wait to abduct it. There were rivers +and trees and flecks of dust. It seemed as if all +the known and unknown agencies of nature were +in conspiracy to thwart or annihilate this gentle +little messenger who had been conjured into life +by the wizardry of Alexander Graham Bell. + +All that these young men had received from +Bell and Watson was that part of the telephone +that we call the receiver. This was practically +the sum total of Bell's invention, and remains +to-day as he made it. It was then, and is yet, +the most sensitive instrument that has ever been +put to general use in any country. It opened +up a new world of sound. It would echo the +tramp of a fly that walked across a table, or repeat +in New Orleans the prattle of a child in +New York. This was what the young men received, +and this was all. There were no switchboards +of any account, no cables of any value, no +wires that were in any sense adequate, no theory +of tests or signals, no exchanges, NO TELEPHONE +SYSTEM OF ANY SORT WHATEVER. + +As for Bell's first telephone lines, they were +as simple as clothes-lines. Each short little wire +stood by itself, with one instrument at each end. +There were no operators, switchboards, or exchanges. +But there had now come a time when +more than two persons wanted to be in the same +conversational group. This was a larger use of +the telephone; and while Bell himself had foreseen +it, he had not worked out a plan whereby +it could be carried out. Here was the new problem, +and a most stupendous one--how to link +together three telephones, or three hundred, or +three thousand, or three million, so that any two +of them could be joined at a moment's notice. + +And that was not all. These young men had +not only to battle against mystery and "the +powers of the air"; they had not only to protect +their tiny electric messenger, and to create a +system of wire highways along which he could +run up and down safely; they had to do more. +They had to make this system so simple and +fool-proof that every one--every one except the +deaf and dumb--could use it without any previous +experience. They had to educate Bell's +Genie of the Wire so that he would not only obey +his masters, but anybody--anybody who could +speak to him in any language. + +No doubt, if the young men had stopped to +consider their life-work as a whole, some of them +might have turned back. But they had no time +to philosophize. They were like the boy who +learns how to swim by being pushed into deep +water. Once the telephone business was started, +it had to be kept going; and as it grew, there +came one after another a series of congestions. +Two courses were open; either the business had +to be kept down to suit the apparatus, or the +apparatus had to be developed to keep pace with +the business. The telephone men, most of them, +at least, chose development; and the brilliant +inventions that afterwards made some of them +famous were compelled by sheer necessity and +desperation. + +The first notable improvement upon Bell's +invention was the making of the transmitter, +in 1877, by Emile Berliner. This, too, was a +romance. Berliner, as a poor German youth of +nineteen, had landed in Castle Garden in 1870 +to seek his fortune. He got a job as "a sort +of bottle-washer at six dollars a week," he says, +in a chemical shop in New York. At nights he +studied science in the free classes of Cooper +Union. Then a druggist named Engel gave +him a copy of Muller's book on physics, which +was precisely the stimulus needed by his creative +brain. In 1876 he was fascinated by the +telephone, and set out to construct one on a different +plan. Several months later he had succeeded +and was overjoyed to receive his first +patent for a telephone transmitter. He had by +this time climbed up from his bottle-washing to +be a clerk in a drygoods store in Washington; but +he was still poor and as unpractical as most in- +ventors. Joseph Henry, the Sage of the American +scientific world, was his friend, though too +old to give him any help. Consequently, when +Edison, two weeks later, also invented a transmitter, +the prior claim of Berliner was for a +time wholly ignored. Later the Bell Company +bought Berliner's patent and took up his side +of the case. There was a seemingly endless succession +of delays--fourteen years of the most +vexatious delays--until finally the Supreme +Court of the United States ruled that Berliner, +and not Edison, was the original inventor of the +transmitter. + +From first to last, the transmitter has been +the product of several minds. Its basic idea is +the varying of the electric current by varying the +pressure between two points. Bell unquestionably +suggested it in his famous patent, when +he wrote of "increasing and diminishing the resistance." +Berliner was the first actually to construct +one. Edison greatly improved it by +using soft carbon instead of a steel point. A +Kentucky professor, David E. Hughes, started +a new line of development by adapting a Bell +telephone into a "microphone," a fantastic little +instrument that would detect the noise made by +a fly in walking across a table. Francis Blake, +of Boston, changed a microphone into a practical +transmitter. The Rev. Henry Hunnings, +an English clergyman, hit upon the happy idea +of using carbon in the form of small granules. +And one of the Bell experts, named White, improved +the Hunnings transmitter into its present +shape. Both transmitter and receiver seem +now to be as complete an artificial tongue and +ear as human ingenuity can make them. They +have persistently grown more elaborate, until today +a telephone set, as it stands on a desk, contains +as many as one hundred and thirty separate +pieces, as well as a saltspoonful of glistening +granules of carbon. + +Next after the transmitter came the problem +of the MYSTERIOUS NOISES. This was, perhaps, the +most weird and mystifying of all the telephone +problems. The fact was that the telephone had +brought within hearing distance a new wonder- +world of sound. All wires at that time were +single, and ran into the earth at each end, making +what was called a "grounded circuit." And +this connection with the earth, which is really a +big magnet, caused all manner of strange and +uncouth noises on the telephone wires. + +Noises! Such a jangle of meaningless noises +had never been heard by human ears. There +were spluttering and bubbling, jerking and rasping, +whistling and screaming. There were the +rustling of leaves, the croaking of frogs, the hissing +of steam, and the flapping of birds' wings. +There were clicks from telegraph wires, scraps +of talk from other telephones, and curious little +squeals that were unlike any known sound. The +lines running east and west were noisier than the +lines running north and south. The night was +noisier than the day, and at the ghostly hour of +midnight, for what strange reason no one knows, +the babel was at its height. Watson, who had +a fanciful mind, suggested that perhaps these +sounds were signals from the inhabitants of Mars +or some other sociable planet. But the matter- +of-fact young telephonists agreed to lay the +blame on "induction"--a hazy word which usually +meant the natural meddlesomeness of electricity. + +Whatever else the mysterious noises were, they +were a nuisance. The poor little telephone business +was plagued almost out of its senses. It +was like a dog with a tin can tied to its tail. +No matter where it went, it was pursued by this +unearthly clatter. "We were ashamed to +present our bills," said A. A. Adee, one of the +first agents; "for no matter how plainly a man +talked into his telephone, his language was apt to +sound like Choctaw at the other end of the line." + +All manner of devices were solemnly tried to +hush the wires, and each one usually proved to +be as futile as an incantation. What was to be +done? Step by step the telephone men were +driven back. They were beaten. There was no +way to silence these noises. Reluctantly, they +agreed that the only way was to pull up the ends +of each wire from the tainted earth, and join +them by a second wire. This was the "metallic +circuit" idea. It meant an appalling increase +in the use of wire. It would compel the rebuild- +ing of the switchboards and the invention of new +signal systems. But it was inevitable; and in +1883, while the dispute about it was in full blast, +one of the young men quietly slipped it into use +on a new line between Boston and Providence. +The effect was magical. "At last," said the +delighted manager, "we have a perfectly quiet +line." + +This young man, a small, slim youth who was +twenty-two years old and looked younger, was +no other than J. J. Carty, now the first of telephone +engineers and almost the creator of his +profession. Three years earlier he had timidly +asked for a job as operator in the Boston exchange, +at five dollars a week, and had shown +such an aptitude for the work that he was soon +made one of the captains. At thirty years of age +he became a central figure in the development of +the art of telephony. + +What Carty has done is known by telephone +men in all countries; but the story of Carty himself +--who he is, and why--is new. First of all, +he is Irish, pure Irish. His father had left Ireland +as a boy in 1825. During the Civil War +his father made guns in the city of Cambridge, +where young John Joseph was born; and afterwards +he made bells for church steeples. He +was instinctively a mechanic and proud of his +calling. He could tell the weight of a bell from +the sound of it. Moses G. Farmer, the electrical +inventor, and Howe, the creator of the +sewing-machine, were his friends. + +At five years of age, little John J. Carty was +taken by his father to the shop where the bells +were made, and he was profoundly impressed by +the magical strength of a big magnet, that picked +up heavy weights as though they were feathers. +At the high school his favorite study was +physics; and for a time he and another boy +named Rolfe--now a distinguished man of +science--carried on electrical experiments of +their own in the cellar of the Rolfe house. Here +they had a "Tom Thumb" telegraph, a telephone +which they had ventured to improve, and a hopeless +tangle of wires. Whenever they could afford +to buy more wires and batteries, they went +to a near-by store which supplied electrical +apparatus to the professors and students of +Harvard. This store, with its workshop in the +rear, seemed to the two boys a veritable wonderland; +and when Carty, a youth of eighteen, was +compelled to leave school because of his bad +eyesight, he ran at once and secured the glorious +job of being boy-of-all-work in this store of +wonders. So, when he became an operator in +the Boston telephone exchange, a year later, he +had already developed to a remarkable degree +his natural genius for telephony. + +Since then, Carty and the telephone business +have grown up together, he always a little distance +in advance. No other man has touched +the apparatus of telephony at so many points. +He fought down the flimsy, clumsy methods, +which led from one snarl to another. He found +out how to do with wires what Dickens did with +words. "Let us do it right, boys, and then we +won't have any bad dreams"--this has been his +motif. And, as the crown and climax of his +work, he mapped out the profession of telephone +engineering on the widest and most comprehensive +lines. + +In Carty, the engineer evolved into the edu- +cator. His end of the American Telephone and +Telegraph Company became the University of +the Telephone. He was himself a student by +disposition, with a special taste for the writings +of Faraday, the forerunner; Tyndall, the expounder; +and Spencer, the philosopher. And +in 1890, he gathered around him a winnowed +group of college graduates--he has sixty of +them on his staff to-day--so that he might bequeath +to the telephone an engineering corps of +loyal and efficient men. + +The next problem that faced the young men +of the telephone, as soon as they had escaped from +the clamor of the mysterious noises, was the necessity +of taking down the wires in the city streets +and putting them underground. At first, they +had strung the wires on poles and roof-tops. +They had done this, not because it was cheap, +but because it was the only possible way, so +far as any one knew in that kindergarten period. +A telephone wire required the daintiest of handling. +To bury it was to smother it, to make +it dull or perhaps entirely useless. But now +that the number of wires had swollen from hun- +dreds to thousands, the overhead method had +been outgrown. Some streets in the larger cities +had become black with wires. Poles had risen +to fifty feet in height, then sixty--seventy-- +eighty. Finally the highest of all pole lines was +built along West Street, New York--every pole +a towering Norway pine, with its top ninety feet +above the roadway, and carrying thirty cross- +arms and three hundred wires. + +From poles the wires soon overflowed to housetops, +until in New York alone they had overspread +eleven thousand roofs. These roofs had +to be kept in repair, and their chimneys were +the deadly enemies of the iron wires. Many a +wire, in less than two or three years, was withered +to the merest shred of rust. As if these +troubles were not enough, there were the storms +of winter, which might wipe out a year's revenue +in a single day. The sleet storms were the +worst. Wires were weighted down with ice, +often three pounds of ice per foot of wire. And +so, what with sleet, and corrosion, and the cost +of roof-repairing, and the lack of room for more +wires, the telephone men were between the devil +and the deep sea--between the urgent necessity +of burying their wires, and the inexorable fact +that they did not know how to do it. + +Fortunately, by the time that this problem +arrived, the telephone business was fairly well +established. It had outgrown its early days of +ridicule and incredulity. It was paying wages +and salaries and even dividends. Evidently it +had arrived on the scene in the nick of time-- +after the telegraph and before the trolleys and +electric lights. Had it been born ten years later, +it might not have been able to survive. So delicate +a thing as a baby telephone could scarcely +have protected itself against the powerful currents +of electricity that came into general use in +1886, if it had not first found out a way of hiding +safely underground. + +The first declaration in favor of an underground +system was made by the Boston company +in 1880. "It may be expedient to place our entire +system underground," said the sorely perplexed +manager, "whenever a practicable method +is found of accomplishing: it." All manner of +theories were afloat but Theodore N. Vail, who +was usually the man of constructive imagination +in emergencies, began in 1882 a series of actual +experiments at Attleborough, Massachusetts, to +find out exactly what could, and what could not, +be done with wires that were buried in the earth. + +A five-mile trench was dug beside a railway +track. The work was done handily and cheaply +by the labor-saving plan of hitching a locomotive +to a plough. Five ploughs were jerked apart +before the work was finished. Then, into this +trench were laid wires with every known sort +of covering. Most of them, naturally, were +wrapped with rubber or gutta-percha, after the +fashion of a submarine cable. When all were in +place, the willing locomotive was harnessed to a +huge wooden drag, which threw the ploughed +soil back into the trench and covered the wires +a foot deep. It was the most professional cable- +laying that any one at that time could do, and it +succeeded, not brilliantly, but well enough to +encourage the telephone engineers to go ahead. + +Several weeks later, the first two cables for +actual use were laid in Boston and Brooklyn; +and in 1883 Engineer J. P. Davis was set to +grapple with the Herculean labor of putting a +complete underground system in the wire-bound +city of New York. This he did in spite of a +bombardment of explosions from leaky gas- +pipes, and with a woeful lack of experts and +standard materials. All manner of makeshifts +had to be tried in place of tile ducts, which were +not known in 1883. Iron pipe was used at first, +then asphalt, concrete, boxes of sand and creosoted +wood. As for the wires, they were first +wrapped in cotton, and then twisted into cables, +usually of a hundred wires each. And to prevent +the least taint of moisture, which means +sudden death to a telephone current, these cables +were invariably soaked in oil. + +This oil-filled type of cable carried the telephone +business safely through half a dozen years. +But it was not the final type. It was preliminary +only, the best that could be made at that +time. Not one is in use to-day. In 1888 Theodore +Vail set on foot a second series of experiments, +to see if a cable could be made that was +better suited as a highway for the delicate electric +currents of the telephone. A young engineer +named John A. Barrett, who had already made +his mark as an expert, by finding a way to twist +and transpose the wires, was set apart to tackle +this problem. Being an economical Vermonter, +Barrett went to work in a little wooden shed in +the backyard of a Brooklyn foundry. In this +foundry he had seen a unique machine that could +be made to mould hot lead around a rope of +twisted wires. This was a notable discovery. +It meant TIGHT COVERINGS. It meant a victory +over that most troublesome of enemies--moisture. +Also, it meant that cables could henceforth +be made longer, with fewer sleeves and +splices, and without the oil, which had always +been an unmitigated nuisance. + +Next, having made the cable tight, Barrett +set out to produce it more cheaply and by accident +stumbled upon a way to make it immensely +more efficient. All wires were at that +time wrapped with cotton, and his plan was to +find some less costly material that would serve +the same purpose. One of his workmen, a Virginian, +suggested the use of paper twine, which +had been used in the South during the Civil +War, when cotton was scarce and expensive. +Barrett at once searched the South for paper +twine and found it. He bought a barrel of it +from a small factory in Richmond, but after a +trial it proved to be too flimsy. If such paper +could be put on flat, he reasoned, it would be +stronger. Just then he heard of an erratic +genius who had an invention for winding paper +tape on wire for the use of milliners. + +Paper-wound bonnet-wire! Who could imagine +any connection between this and the telephone? +Yet this hint was exactly what Barrett +needed. He experimented until he had devised +a machine that crumpled the paper around the +wire, instead of winding it tightly. This was the +finishing touch. For a time these paper-wound +cables were soaked in oil, but in 1890 Engineer +F. A. Pickernell dared to trust to the tightness +of the lead sheathing, and laid a "dry core" +cable, the first of the modern type, in one of +the streets of Philadelphia. This cable was the +event of the year. It was not only cheaper. It +was the best-talking cable that had ever been +harnessed to a telephone. + +What Barrett had done was soon made clear. +By wrapping the wire with loose paper, he had +in reality cushioned it with AIR, which is the best +possible insulator. Not the paper, but the air +in the paper, had improved the cable. More air +was added by the omission of the oil. And presently +Barrett perceived that he had merely reproduced +in a cable, as far as possible, the +conditions of the overhead wires, which are +separated by nothing but air. + +By 1896 there were two hundred thousand +miles of wire snugly wrapped in paper and lying +in leaden caskets beneath the streets of the cities, +and to-day there are six million miles of it owned +by the affiliated Bell companies. Instead of +blackening the streets, the wire nerves of the +telephone are now out of sight under the roadway, +and twining into the basements of buildings +like a new sort of metallic ivy. Some cables are +so large that a single spool of cable will weigh +twenty-six tons and require a giant truck and a +sixteen-horse team to haul it to its resting-place. +As many as twelve hundred wires are often +bunched into one sheath, and each cable lies +loosely in a little duct of its own. It is reached +by manholes where it runs under the streets and +in little switching-boxes placed at intervals it +is frayed out into separate pairs of wires that +blossom at length into telephones. + +Out in the open country there are still the +open wires, which in point of talking are the +best. In the suburbs of cities there are neat +green posts with a single gray cable hung from +a heavy wire. Usually, a telephone pole is made +from a sixty-year-old tree, a cedar, chestnut, or +juniper. It lasts twelve years only, so that the +one item of poles is still costing the telephone +companies several millions a year. The total +number of poles now in the United States, used +by telephone and telegraph companies, once +covered an area, before they were cut down, as +large as the State of Rhode Island. + +But the highest triumph of wire-laying came +when New York swept into the Skyscraper +Age, and when hundreds of tall buildings, as +high as the fall of the waters of Niagara, grew +up like a range of magical cliffs upon the +precious rock of Manhattan. Here the work of +the telephone engineer has been so well done that +although every room in these cliff-buildings has +its telephone, there is not a pole in sight, not a +cross-arm, not a wire. Nothing but the tip-ends +of an immense system are visible. No sooner +is a new skyscraper walled and roofed, than the +telephones are in place, at once putting the tenants +in touch with the rest of the city and the +greater part of the United States. In a single +one of these monstrous buildings, the Hudson +Terminal, there is a cable that runs from basement +to roof and ravels out to reach three thousand +desks. This mighty geyser of wires is fifty +tons in weight and would, if straightened out +into a single line, connect New York with +Chicago. Yet it is as invisible as the nerves and +muscles of a human body. + +During this evolution of the cable, even the +wire itself was being remade. Vail and others +had noticed that of all the varieties of wire that +were for sale, not one was exactly suitable for +a telephone system. The first telephone wire +was of galvanized iron, which had at least the +primitive virtue of being cheap. Then came +steel wire, stronger but less durable. But these +wires were noisy and not good conductors of +electricity. An ideal telephone wire, they found, +must be made of either silver or copper. Silver +was out of the question, and copper wire was +too soft and weak. It would not carry its own +weight. + +The problem, therefore, was either to make +steel wire a better conductor, or to produce a +copper wire that would be strong enough. Vail +chose the latter, and forthwith gave orders to a +Bridgeport manufacturer to begin experiments. +A young expert named Thomas B. Doolittle was +at once set to work, and presently appeared the +first hard-drawn copper wire, made tough- +skinned by a fairly simple process. Vail bought +thirty pounds of it and scattered it in various +parts of the United States, to note the effect +upon it of different climates. One length of +it may still be seen at the Vail homestead in +Lyndonville, Vermont. Then this hard-drawn +wire was put to a severe test by being strung +between Boston and New York. This line was a +brilliant success, and the new wire was hailed +with great delight as the ideal servant of the +telephone. + +Since then there has been little trouble with +copper wire, except its price. It was four times +as good as iron wire, and four times as expensive. +Every mile of it, doubled, weighed two hundred +pounds and cost thirty dollars. On the long +lines, where it had to be as thick as a lead pencil, +the expense seemed to be ruinously great. +When the first pair of wires was strung between +New York and Chicago, for instance, it was +found to weigh 870,000 pounds--a full load for +a twenty-two-car freight train; and the cost of +the bare metal was $130,000. So enormous has +been the use of copper wire since then by the +telephone companies, that fully one-fourth of all +the capital invested in the telephone has gone to +the owners of the copper mines. + +For several years the brains of the telephone +men were focussed upon this problem--how to +reduce the expenditure on copper. One uncanny +device, which would seem to be a mere +inventor's fantasy if it had not already saved +the telephone companies four million dollars or +more, is known as the "phantom circuit." It +enables three messages to run at the same time, +where only two ran before. A double track of +wires is made to carry three talk-trains running +abreast, a feat made possible by the whimsical +disposition of electricity, and which is utterly +inconceivable in railroading. This invention, +which is the nearest approach as yet to multiple +telephony, was conceived by Jacobs in England +and Carty in the United States. + +But the most copper money has been saved +--literally tens of millions of dollars--by persuading +thin wires to work as efficiently as thick +ones. This has been done by making better +transmitters, by insulating the smaller wires +with enamel instead of silk, and by placing coils +of a certain nature at intervals upon the wires. +The invention of this last device startled the telephone +men like a flash of lightning out of a blue +sky. It came from outside--from the quiet laboratory +of a Columbia professor who had arrived +in the United States as a young Hungarian immigrant +not many years earlier. From this +professor, Michael J. Pupin, came the idea of +"loading" a telephone line, in such a way as to +reinforce the electric current. It enabled a thin +wire to carry as far as a thick one, and thus +saved as much as forty dollars a wire per mile. +As a reward for his cleverness, a shower of gold +fell upon Pupin, and made him in an instant as +rich as one of the grand-dukes of his native land. + +It is now a most highly skilled occupation, +supporting fully fifteen thousand families, to +put the telephone wires in place and protect them +against innumerable dangers. This is the +profession of the wire chiefs and their men, a +corps of human spiders, endlessly spinning +threads under streets and above green fields, on +the beds of rivers and the slopes of mountains, +massing them in cities and fluffing them out +among farms and villages. To tell the doings +of a wire chief, in the course of his ordinary +week's work, would in itself make a lively book +of adventures. Even a washerwoman, with one +lone, non-electrical clothes-line of a hundred +yards to operate, has often enough trouble +with it. But the wire chiefs of the Bell telephone +have charge of as much wire as would +make TWO HUNDRED MILLION CLOTHES-LINES--ten +apiece to every family in the United States; +and these lines are not punctuated with clothespins, +but with the most delicate of electrical +instruments. + +The wire chiefs must detect trouble under a +thousand disguises. Perhaps a small boy has +thrown a snake across the wires or driven a nail +into a cable. Perhaps some self-reliant citizen +has moved his own telephone from one room to another. +Perhaps a sudden rainstorm has splashed +its fatal moisture upon an unwiped joint. Or +perhaps a submarine cable has been sat upon by +the Lusitania and flattened to death. But no +matter what the trouble, a telephone system cannot +be stopped for repairs. It cannot be picked +up and put into a dry-dock. It must be repaired +or improved by a sort of vivisection while it is +working. It is an interlocking unit, a living, +conscious being, half human and half machine; +and an injury in any one place may cause a pain +or sickness to its whole vast body. + +And just as the particles of a human body +change every six or seven years, without disturb- +ing the body, so the particles of our telephone +systems have changed repeatedly without any +interruption of traffic. The constant flood of +new inventions has necessitated several complete +rebuildings. Little or nothing has ever been +allowed to wear out. The New York system +was rebuilt three times in sixteen years; and +many a costly switchboard has gone to the scrap- +heap at three or four years of age. What with +repairs and inventions and new construction, the +various Bell companies have spent at least $425,000,000 +in the first ten years of the twentieth +century, without hindering for a day the ceaseless +torrent of electrical conversation. + +The crowning glory of a telephone system of +to-day is not so much the simple telephone itself, +nor the maze and mileage of its cables, but rather +the wonderful mechanism of the Switchboard. +This is the part that will always remain mysterious +to the public. It is seldom seen, and it remains +as great a mystery to those who have seen +it as to those who have not. Explanations of +it are futile. As well might any one expect to +learn Sanscrit in half an hour as to understand +a switchboard by making a tour of investigation +around it. It is not like anything else that either +man or Nature has ever made. It defies all +metaphors and comparisons. It cannot be +shown by photography, not even in moving-pictures, +because so much of it is concealed inside +its wooden body. And few people, if any, are +initiated into its inner mysteries except those +who belong to its own cortege of inventors and +attendants. + +A telephone switchboard is a pyramid of inventions. +If it is full-grown, it may have two +million parts. It may be lit with fifteen thousand +tiny electric lamps and nerved with as much +wire as would reach from New York to Berlin. +It may cost as much as a thousand pianos or as +much as three square miles of farms in Indiana. +The ten thousand wire hairs of its head are not +only numbered, but enswathed in silk, and +combed out in so marvellous a way that any one +of them can in a flash be linked to any other. +Such hair-dressing! Such puffs and braids and +ringlet relays! Whoever would learn the utmost +that may be done with copper hairs of Titian +red, must study the fantastic coiffure of a telephone +Switchboard. + +If there were no switchboard, there would still +be telephones, but not a telephone system. To +connect five thousand people by telephone requires +five thousand wires when the wires run +to a switchboard; but without a switchboard +there would have to be 12,497,500 wires--4,999 +to every telephone. As well might there be a +nerve-system without a brain, as a telephone +system without a switchboard. If there had been +at first two separate companies, one owning the +telephone and the other the switchboard, neither +could have done the business. + +Several years before the telephone got a +switchboard of its own, it made use of the boards +that had been designed for the telegraph. These +were as simple as wheelbarrows, and became +absurdly inadequate as soon as the telephone business +began to grow. Then there came adaptations +by the dozen. Every telephone manager +became by compulsion an inventor. There was +no source of information and each exchange did +the best it could. Hundreds of patents were +taken out. And by 1884 there had come to be +a fairly definite idea of what a telephone switchboard +ought to be. + +The one man who did most to create the switchboard, +who has been its devotee for more than +thirty years, is a certain modest and little known +inventor, still alive and busy, named Charles E. +Scribner. Of the nine thousand switchboard +patents, Scribner holds six hundred or more. +Ever since 1878, when he devised the first "jackknife +switch," Scribner has been the wizard of +the switchboard. It was he who saw most clearly +its requirements. Hundreds of others have +helped, but Scribner was the one man who persevered, +who never asked for an easier job, and +who in the end became the master of his craft. + +It may go far to explain the peculiar genius +of Scribner to say that he was born in 1858, in +the year of the laying of the Atlantic Cable; and +that his mother was at the time profoundly interested +in the work and anxious for its success. +His father was a judge in Toledo; but young +Scribner showed no aptitude for the tangles of +the law. He preferred the tangles of wire and +system in miniature, which he and several other +boys had built and learned to operate. These boys +had a benefactor in an old bachelor named +Thomas Bond. He had no special interest in +telegraphy. He was a dealer in hides. But he +was attracted by the cleverness of the boys and +gave them money to buy more wires and more +batteries. One day he noticed an invention of +young Scribner's--a telegraph repeater. + +"This may make your fortune," he said, "but +no mechanic in Toledo can make a proper model +of it for you. You must go to Chicago, where +telegraphic apparatus is made." The boy gladly +took his advice and went to the Western Electric +factory in Chicago. Here he accidentally met +Enos M. Barton, the head of the factory. Barton +noted that the boy was a genius and offered +him a job, which he accepted and has held ever +since. Such is the story of the entrance of +Charles E. Scribner into the telephone business, +where he has been well-nigh indispensable. + +His monumental work has been the development +of the MULTIPLE Switchboard, a much more +brain-twisting problem than the building of the +Pyramids or the digging of the Panama Canal. +The earlier types of switchboard had become too +cumbersome by 1885. They were well enough +for five hundred wires but not for five thousand. +In some exchanges as many as half a dozen +operators were necessary to handle a single call; +and the clamor and confusion were becoming +unbearable. Some handier and quieter way had +to be devised, and thus arose the Multiple board. +The first crude idea of such a way had sprung +to life in the brain of a Chicago man named L. +B. Firman, in 1879; but he became a farmer +and forsook his invention in its infancy. + +In the Multiple board, as it grew up under the +hands of Scribner, the outgoing wires are duplicated +so as to be within reach of every operator. +A local call can thus be answered at once by the +operator who receives it; and any operator who is +overwhelmed by a sudden rush of business can +be helped by her companions. Every wire that +comes into the board is tasselled out into many +ends, and by means of a "busy test," invented by +Scribner, only one of these ends can be put +into use at a time. The normal limit of such +a board is ten thousand wires, and will always +remain so, unless a race of long-armed giantesses +should appear, who would be able to reach over +a greater expanse of board. At present, a business +of more than ten thousand lines means a +second exchange. + +The Multiple board was enormously expensive. +It grew more and more elaborate until it +cost one-third of a million dollars. The telephone +men racked their brains to produce something +cheaper to take its place, and they failed. +The Multiple boards swallowed up capital as a +desert swallows water, but THEY SAVED TEN SECONDS +ON EVERY CALL. This was an unanswerable +argument in their favor, and by 1887 twenty- +one of them were in use. + +Since then, the switchboard has had three +or four rebuildings. There has seemed to be no +limit to the demands of the public or the fertility +of Scribner's brain. Persistent changes were +made in the system of signalling. The first signal, +used by Bell and Watson, was a tap on the +diaphragm with the finger-nail. Soon after- +wards came a "buzzer," and then the magneto- +electric bell. In 1887 Joseph O'Connell, of +Chicago, conceived of the use of tiny electric +lights as signals, a brilliant idea, as an electric +light makes no noise and can be seen either by +night or by day. In 1901, J. J. Carty invented +the "bridging bell," a way to put four houses on +a single wire, with a different signal for each +house. This idea made the "party line" practicable, +and at once created a boom in the use of +the telephone by enterprising farmers. + +In 1896 there came a most revolutionary +change in switchboards. All things were made +new. Instead of individual batteries, one at +each telephone, a large common battery was installed +in the exchange itself. This meant better +signalling and better talking. It reduced +the cost of batteries and put them in charge of +experts. It established uniformity. It introduced +the federal idea into the mechanism of a +telephone system. Best of all, it saved FOUR +SECONDS ON EVERY CALL. The first of these centralizing +switchboards was put in place at Philadelphia; +and other cities followed suit as fast as +they could afford the expense of rebuilding. +Since then, there have come some switchboards +that are wholly automatic. Few of these have +been put into use, for the reason that a switchboard, +like a human body, must be semi-automatic +only. To give the most efficient service, there +will always need to be an expert to stand between +it and the public. + +As the final result of all these varying changes +in switchboards and signals and batteries, there +grew up the modern Telephone Exchange. +This is the solar plexus of the telephone body. +It is the vital spot. It is the home of the switchboard. +It is not any one's invention, as the +telephone was. It is a growing mechanism that +is not yet finished, and may never be; but it has +already evolved far enough to be one of the +wonders of the electrical world. There is probably +no other part of an American city's equipment +that is as sensitive and efficient as a +telephone exchange. + +The idea of the exchange is somewhat older +than the idea of the telephone itself. There were +communication exchanges before the invention +of the telephone. Thomas B. Doolittle had one +in Bridgeport, using telegraph instruments +Thomas B. A. David had one in Pittsburg, using +printing-telegraph machines, which required +little skill to operate. And William A. Childs +had a third, for lawyers only, in New York, +which used dials at first and afterwards printing +machines. These little exchanges had set +out to do the work that is done to-day by the +telephone, and they did it after a fashion, in a +most crude and expensive way. They helped +to prepare the way for the telephone, by building +up small constituencies that were ready for the +telephone when it arrived. + +Bell himself was perhaps the first to see the +future of the telephone exchange. In a letter +written to some English capitalists in 1878, he +said: "It is possible to connect every man's +house, office or factory with a central station, so +as to give him direct communication with his +neighbors. . . . It is conceivable that cables +of telephone wires could be laid underground, or +suspended overhead, connecting by branch wires +with private dwellings, shops, etc., and uniting +them through the main cable with a central +office." This remarkable prophecy has now become +stale reading, as stale as Darwin's "Origin +of Species," or Adam Smith's "Wealth of +Nations." But at the time that it was written it +was a most fanciful dream. + +When the first infant exchange for telephone +service was born in Boston, in 1877, it was the +tiny offspring of a burglar-alarm business +operated by E. T. Holmes, a young man whose +father had originated the idea of protecting +property by electric wires in 1858. Holmes was +the first practical man who dared to offer telephone +service for sale. He had obtained two +telephones, numbers six and seven, the first five +having gone to the junk-heap; and he attached +these to a wire in his burglar-alarm office. For +two weeks his business friends played with the +telephones, like boys with a fascinating toy; then +Holmes nailed up a new shelf in his office, and on +this shelf placed six box-telephones in a row. +These could be switched into connection with the +burglar-alarm wires and any two of the six wires +could be joined by a wire cord. Nothing could +have been simpler, but it was the arrival of a +new idea in the business world. + +The Holmes exchange was on the top floor of +a little building, and in almost every other city +the first exchange was as near the roof as possible, +partly to save rent and partly because most +of the wires were strung on roof-tops. As the +telephone itself had been born in a cellar, so the +exchange was born in a garret. Usually, too, +each exchange was an off-shoot of some other +wire-using business. It was a medley of makeshifts. +Almost every part of its outfit had been +made for other uses. In Chicago all calls came +in to one boy, who bawled them up a speaking- +tube to the operators. In another city a boy received +the calls, wrote them on white alleys, and +rolled them to the boys at the switchboard. +There was no number system. Every one was +called by name. Even as late as 1880, when +New York boasted fifteen hundred telephones, +names were still in use. And as the first telephones +were used both as transmitters and receivers, +there was usually posted up a rule that +was highly important: "Don't Talk with your +Ear or Listen with your Mouth." + +To describe one of those early telephone exchanges +in the silence of a printed page is a +wholly impossible thing. Nothing but a language +of noise could convey the proper impression. +An editor who visited the Chicago +exchange in 1879 said of it: "The racket is almost +deafening. Boys are rushing madly hither +and thither, while others are putting in or taking +out pegs from a central framework as if they +were lunatics engaged in a game of fox and +geese." In the same year E. J. Hall wrote +from Buffalo that his exchange with twelve +boys had become "a perfect Bedlam." By the +clumsy methods of those days, from two to six +boys were needed to handle each call. And +as there was usually more or less of a cat-and- +dog squabble between the boys and the public, +with every one yelling at the top of his voice, +it may be imagined that a telephone exchange +was a loud and frantic place. + +Boys, as operators, proved to be most com- +plete and consistent failures. Their sins of +omission and commission would fill a book. +What with whittling the switchboards, swearing +at subscribers, playing tricks with the wires, and +roaring on all occasions like young bulls of +Bashan, the boys in the first exchanges did their +full share in adding to the troubles of the business. +Nothing could be done with them. They +were immune to all schemes of discipline. Like +the MYSTERIOUS NOISES they could not be controlled, +and by general consent they were abolished. +In place of the noisy and obstreperous +boy came the docile, soft-voiced girl. + +If ever the rush of women into the business +world was an unmixed blessing, it was when the +boys of the telephone exchanges were superseded +by girls. Here at its best was shown the +influence of the feminine touch. The quiet +voice, pitched high, the deft fingers, the patient +courtesy and attentiveness--these qualities were +precisely what the gentle telephone required in +its attendants. Girls were easier to train; they +did not waste time in retaliatory conversation; +they were more careful; and they were much +more likely to give "the soft answer that turneth +away wrath." + +A telephone call under the boy regime meant +Bedlam and five minutes; afterwards, under the +girl regime, it meant silence and twenty seconds. +Instead of the incessant tangle and tumult, there +came a new species of exchange--a quiet, tense +place, in which several score of young ladies sit +and answer the language of the switchboard +lights. Now and then, not often, the signal +lamps flash too quickly for these expert phonists. +During the panic of 1907 there was one mad hour +when almost every telephone in Wall Street region +was being rung up by some desperate speculator. +The switchboards were ablaze with lights. +A few girls lost their heads. One fainted and +was carried to the rest-room. But the others +flung the flying shuttles of talk until, in a single +exchange fifteen thousand conversations had +been made possible in sixty minutes. There are +always girls in reserve for such explosive occasions, +and when the hands of any operator are +seen to tremble, and she has a warning red spot +on each cheek, she is taken off and given a recess +until she recovers her poise. + +These telephone girls are the human part of a +great communication machine. They are weaving +a web of talk that changes into a new +pattern every minute. How many possible combinations +there are with the five million telephones +of the Bell System, or what unthinkable +mileage of conversation, no one has ever dared +to guess. But whoever has once seen the long +line of white arms waving back and forth in front +of the switchboard lights must feel that he has +looked upon the very pulse of the city's life. + +In 1902 the New York Telephone Company +started a school, the first of its kind in the world, +for the education of these telephone girls. This +school is hidden amid ranges of skyscrapers, but +seventeen thousand girls discover it in the course +of the year. It is a most particular and exclusive +school. It accepts fewer than two thousand +of these girls, and rejects over fifteen thousand. +Not more than one girl in every eight can measure +up to its standards; and it cheerfully refuses +as many students in a year as would make three +Yales or Harvards. + +This school is unique, too, in the fact that it +charges no fees, pays every student five dollars a +week, and then provides her with a job when she +graduates. But it demands that every girl shall +be in good health, quick-handed, clear-voiced, +and with a certain poise and alertness of manner. +Presence of mind, which, in Herbert Spencer's +opinion, ought to be taught in every university, +is in various ways drilled into the temperament of +the telephone girl. She is also taught the knack +of concentration, so that she may carry the +switchboard situation in her head, as a chess- +player carries in his head the arrangement of the +chess-men. And she is much more welcome at +this strange school if she is young and has never +worked in other trades, where less speed and +vigilance are required. + +No matter how many millions of dollars may +be spent upon cables and switchboards, the quality +of telephone service depends upon the girl at +the exchange end of the wire. It is she who +meets the public at every point. She is the de- +spatcher of all the talk trains; she is the ruler +of the wire highways; and she is expected to give +every passenger-voice an instantaneous express +to its destination. More is demanded from her +than from any other servant of the public. Her +clients refuse to stand in line and quietly wait +their turn, as they are quite willing to do in +stores and theatres and barber shops and railway +stations and everywhere else. They do not see +her at work and they do not know what her work +is. They do not notice that she answers a call in +an average time of three and a half seconds. +They are in a hurry, or they would not be at the +telephone; and each second is a minute long. +Any delay is a direct personal affront that makes +a vivid impression upon their minds. And they +are not apt to remember that most of the delays +and blunders are being made, not by the expert +girls, but by the careless people who persist in +calling wrong numbers and in ignoring the niceties +of telephone etiquette. + +The truth about the American telephone girl +is that she has become so highly efficient that we +now expect her to be a paragon of perfection. +To give the young lady her due, we must +acknowledge that she has done more than any +other person to introduce courtesy into the +business world. She has done most to abolish the +old-time roughness and vulgarity. She has +made big business to run more smoothly than +little business did, half a century ago. She has +shown us how to take the friction out of conversation, +and taught us refinements of politeness +which were rare even among the Beau Brummels +of pre-telephonic days. Who, for instance, until +the arrival of the telephone girl, appreciated the +difference between "Who are you?" and "Who +is this?" Or who else has so impressed upon us +the value of the rising inflection, as a gentler +habit of speech? This propaganda of politeness +has gone so far that to-day the man who is profane +or abusive at the telephone, is cut off from +the use of it. He is cast out as unfit for a telephone- +using community. + +And now, so that there shall be no anticlimax +in this story of telephone development, +we must turn the spot-light upon that immense +aggregation of workshops in which have been +made three-fifths of the telephone apparatus of +the world--the Western Electric. The mother +factory of this globe-trotting business is the biggest +thing in the spacious back-yard of Chicago, +and there are eleven smaller factories--her +children--scattered over the earth from New +York to Tokio. To put its totals into a sentence, +it is an enterprise of 26,000-man-power, and +40,000,000-dollar-power; and the telephonic +goods that it produces in half a day are worth +one hundred thousand dollars--as much, by +the way, as the Western Union REFUSED to pay +for the Bell patents in 1877. + +The Western Electric was born in Chicago, +in the ashes of the big fire of 1871; and it has +grown up to its present greatness quietly, without +celebrating its birthdays. At first it had no +telephones to make. None had been invented, so +it made telegraphic apparatus, burglar-alarms, +electric pens, and other such things. But in 1878, +when the Western Union made its short-lived +attempt to compete with the Bell Company, the +Western Electric agreed to make its telephones. +Three years later, when the brief spasm of +competition was ended, the Western Electric +was taken in hand by the Bell people and has +since then remained the great workshop of the +telephone. + +The main plant in Chicago is not especially +remarkable from a manufacturing point of +view. Here are the inevitable lumber-yards +and foundries and machine-shops. Here is +the mad waltz of the spindles that whirl silk +and cotton threads around the copper wires, +very similar to what may be seen in any braid +factory. Here electric lamps are made, five +thousand of them in a day, in the same manner +as elsewhere, except that here they are so small +and dainty as to seem designed for fairy palaces, + +The things that are done with wire in the +Western Electric factories are too many for +any mere outsider to remember. Some wire +is wrapped with paper tape at a speed of +nine thousand miles a day. Some is fashioned +into fantastic shapes that look like +absurd sea-monsters, but which in reality are +only the nerve systems of switchboards. And +some is twisted into cables by means of a +dozen whirling drums--a dizzying sight, as +each pair of drums revolve in opposite directions. +Because of the fact that a cable's inevitable +enemy is moisture, each cable is wound +on an immense spool and rolled into an oven +until it is as dry as a cinder. Then it is put +into a strait-jacket of lead pipe, sealed at both +ends, and trundled into a waiting freight car. + +No other company uses so much wire and +hard rubber, or so many tons of brass rods, as +the Western Electric. Of platinum, too, which +is more expensive than gold, it uses one thousand +pounds a year in the making of telephone transmitters. +This is imported from the Ural Mountains. +The silk thread comes from Italy and +Japan; the iron for magnets, from Norway; +the paper tape, from Manila; the mahogany, +from South America; and the rubber, from +Brazil and the valley of the Congo. At least +seven countries must cooperate to make a +telephone message possible. + +Perhaps the most extraordinary feature in +the Western Electric factories is the multitude +of its inspectors. No other sort of manufactur- +ing, not even a Government navy-yard, has so +many. Nothing is too small to escape these +sleuths of inspection. They test every tiny disc +of mica, and throw away nine out of ten. They +test every telephone by actual talk, set up every +switchboard, and try out every cable. A single +transmitter, by the time it is completed, has had +to pass three hundred examinations; and a single +coin-box is obliged to count ten thousand nickels +before it graduates into the outer world. Seven +hundred inspectors are on guard in the two main +plants at Chicago and New York. This is a +ruinously large number, from a profit-making +point of view; but the inexorable fact is that in +a telephone system nothing is insignificant. It +is built on such altruistic lines that an injury to +any one part is the concern of all. + +As usual, when we probe into the history of a +business that has grown great and overspread +the earth, we find a Man; and the Western Electric +is no exception to this rule. Its Man, still +fairly hale and busy after forty years of +leadership, is Enos M. Barton. His career is the +typical American story of self-help. He was a +telegraph messenger boy in New York during +the Civil War, then a telegraph operator in +Cleveland. In 1869 his salary was cut down +from one hundred dollars a month to ninety dollars; +whereupon he walked out and founded the +Western Electric in a shabby little machine-shop. +Later he moved to Chicago, took in Elisha Gray +as his partner, and built up a trade in the making +of telegraphic materials. + +When the telephone was invented, Barton was +one of the sceptics. "I well remember my disgust," +he said, "when some one told me it was +possible to send conversation along a wire." +Several months later he saw a telephone and at +once became one of its apostles. By 1882 his +plant had become the official workshop of the +Bell Companies. It was the headquarters of +invention and manufacturing. Here was gathered +a notable group of young men, brilliant and +adventurous, who dared to stake their futures +on the success of the telephone. And always +at their head was Barton, as a sort of human +switchboard, who linked them all together and +kept them busy. + +In appearance, Enos M. Barton closely resembles +ex-President Eliot, of Harvard. He is +slow in speech, simple in manner, and with a +rare sagacity in business affairs. He was not an +organizer, in the modern sense. His policy was +to pick out a man, put him in a responsible place, +and judge him by results. Engineers could become +bookkeepers, and bookkeepers could become +engineers. Such a plan worked well in +the earlier days, when the art of telephony was +in the making, and when there was no source of +authority on telephonic problems. Barton is +the bishop emeritus of the Western Electric +to-day; and the big industry is now being run +by a group of young hustlers, with H. B. Thayer +at the head of the table. Thayer is a Vermonter +who has climbed the ladder of experience from +its lower rungs to the top. He is a typical +Yankee--lean, shrewd, tireless, and with a cold- +blooded sense of justice that fits him for the +leadership of twenty-six thousand people. + +So, as we have seen, the telephone as Bell invented +it, was merely a brilliant beginning in +the development of the art of telephony. It was +an elfin birth--an elusive and delicate sprite +that had to be nurtured into maturity. It was +like a soul, for which a body had to be created; +and no one knew how to make such a body. +Had it been born in some less energetic country, +it might have remained feeble and undeveloped; +but not in the United States. Here in one year +it had become famous, and in three years it had +become rich. Bell's invincible patent was soon +buttressed by hundreds of others. An open- +door policy was adopted for invention. Change +followed change to such a degree that the experts +of 1880 would be lost to-day in the mazes of +a telephone exchange. + +The art of the telephone engineer has in thirty +years grown from the most crude and clumsy +of experiments into an exact and comprehensive +profession. As Carty has aptly said, "At first +we invariably approached every problem from +the wrong end. If we had been told to load a +herd of cattle on a steamer, our method would +have been to hire a Hagenbeck to train the cattle +for a couple of years, so that they would know +enough to walk aboard of the ship when he gave +the signal; but to-day, if we had to ship cattle, +we would know enough to make a greased chute +and slide them on board in a jiffy." + +The telephone world has now its own standards +and ideals. It has a language of its own, a telephonese +that is quite unintelligible to outsiders. +It has as many separate branches of study as +medicine or law. There are few men, half a +dozen at most, who can now be said to have a +general knowledge of telephony. And no matter +how wise a telephone expert may be, he can +never reach perfection, because of the amazing +variety of things that touch or concern his +profession. + +"No one man knows all the details now," said +Theodore Vail. "Several days ago I was walking +through a telephone exchange and I saw +something new. I asked Mr. Carty to explain +it. He is our chief engineer; but he did not +understand it. We called the manager. He +did n't know, and called his assistant. He did n't +know, and called the local engineer, who was able +to tell us what it was." + +To sum up this development of the art of tele- +phony--to present a bird's-eye view--it may be +divided into four periods: + +1. Experiment. 1876 to 1886. This was the +period of invention, in which there were no experts +and no authorities. Telephonic apparatus +consisted of makeshifts and adaptations. It was +the period of iron wire, imperfect transmitters, +grounded circuits, boy operators, peg switchboards, +local batteries, and overhead lines. + +2. Development. 1886 to 1896. In this +period amateurs became engineers. The proper +type of apparatus was discovered, and was +improved to a high point of efficiency. In this +period came the multiple switchboard, copper +wire, girl operators, underground cables, metallic +circuit, common battery, and the long-distance +lines. + +3. Expansion. 1896 to 1906. This was the +era of big business. It was an autumn period, +in which the telephone men and the public began +to reap the fruits of twenty years of investment +and hard work. It was the period of the message +rate, the pay station, the farm line, and the +private branch exchange. + +4. Organization. 1906--. With the success +of the Pupin coil, there came a larger life +for the telephone. It became less local and more +national. It began to link together its scattered +parts. It discouraged the waste and anarchy +of duplication. It taught its older, but smaller +brother, the telegraph, to cooperate. It put +itself more closely in touch with the will of the +public. And it is now pushing ahead, along the +two roads of standardization and efficiency, +toward its ideal of one universal telephone +system for the whole nation. The key-word of +the telephone development of to-day is this-- +organization. + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE EXPANSION OF THE BUSINESS + +The telephone business did not really begin +to grow big and overspread the earth until +1896, but the keynote of expansion was first +sounded by Theodore Vail in the earliest days, +when as yet the telephone was a babe in arms. +In 1879 Vail said, in a letter written to one of his +captains: + +"Tell our agents that we have a proposition +on foot to connect the different cities for the purpose +of personal communication, and in other +ways to organize a GRAND TELEPHONIC SYSTEM." + +This was brave talk at that time, when there +were not in the whole world as many telephones +as there are to-day in Cincinnati. It was brave +talk in those days of iron wire, peg switchboards, +and noisy diaphragms. Most telephone men +regarded it as nothing more than talk. They did +not see any business future for the telephone ex- +cept in short-distance service. But Vail was in +earnest. His previous experience as the head of +the railway mail service had lifted him up to a +higher point of view. He knew the need of a +national system of communication that would be +quicker and more direct than either the telegraph +or the post office. + +"I saw that if the telephone could talk one +mile to-day," he said, "it would be talking a +hundred miles to-morrow." And he persisted, in +spite of a considerable deal of ridicule, in +maintaining that the telephone was destined to +connect cities and nations as well as individuals. + +Four months after he had prophesied the +"grand telephonic system," he encouraged +Charles J. Glidden, of world-tour fame, to build +a telephone line between Boston and Lowell. +This was the first inter-city line. It was well +placed, as the owners of the Lowell mills lived in +Boston, and it made a small profit from the +start. This success cheered Vail on to a master- +effort. He resolved to build a line from Boston +to Providence, and was so stubbornly bent upon +doing this that when the Bell Company refused +to act, he picked up the risk and set off with it +alone. He organized a company of well- +known Rhode Islanders--nicknamed the +"Governors' Company"--and built the line. It was +a failure at first, and went by the name of "Vail's +Folly." But Engineer Carty, by a happy +thought, DOUBLED THE WIRE, and thus in a moment +established two new factors in the telephone +business--the Metallic Circuit and the Long +Distance line. + +At once the Bell Company came over to Vail's +point of view, bought his new line, and launched +out upon what seemed to be the foolhardy enterprise +of stringing a double wire from Boston to +New York. This was to be not only the longest +of all telephone lines, strung on ten thousand +poles; it was to be a line de luxe, built of glistening +red copper, not iron. Its cost was to be +seventy thousand dollars, which was an enormous +sum in those hardscrabble days. There +was much opposition to such extravagance, and +much ridicule. "I would n't take that line as +a gift," said one of the Bell Company's officials. + +But when the last coil of wire was stretched +into place, and the first "Hello" leaped from +Boston to New York, the new line was a victorious +success. It carried messages from the +first day; and more, it raised the whole telephone +business to a higher level. It swept away the +prejudice that telephone service could become +nothing more than a neighborhood affair. "It +was the salvation of the business," said Edward +J. Hill. It marked a turning-point in the history +of the telephone, when the day of small +things was ended and the day of great things was +begun. No one man, no hundred men, had +created it. It was the final result of ten years of +invention and improvement. + +While this epoch-making line was being +strung, Vail was pushing his "grand telephonic +system" policy by organizing The American +Telephone and Telegraph Company. This, too, +was a master-stroke. It was the introduction of +the staff-and-line method of organization into +business. It was doing for the forty or fifty +Bell Companies what Von Moltke did for the +German army prior to the Franco-Prussian +War. It was the creation of a central company +that should link all local companies together, +and itself own and operate the means by which +these companies are united. This central company +was to grapple with all national problems, +to own all telephones and long-distance lines, to +protect all patents, and to be the headquarters of +invention, information, capital, and legal protection +for the entire federation of Bell Companies. + +Seldom has a company been started with so +small a capital and so vast a purpose. It had +no more than $100,000 of capital stock, in 1885; +but its declared object was nothing less than to +establish a system of wire communication for +the human race. Here are, in its own words, +the marching orders of this Company: "To +connect one or more points in each and every +city, town, or place an the State of New York, +with one or more points in each and every other +city, town, or place in said State, and in each +and every other of the United States, and in +Canada, and Mexico; and each and every of said +cities, towns, and places is to be connected with +each and every other city, town, or place in said +States and countries, and also by cable and other +appropriate means with the rest of the known +world." + +So ran Vail's dream, and for nine years he +worked mightily to make it come true. He remained +until the various parts of the business had +grown together, and until his plan for a "grand +telephonic system" was under way and fairly +well understood. Then he went out, into a +series of picturesque enterprises, until he had +built up a four-square fortune; and recently, in +1907, he came back to be the head of the telephone +business, and to complete the work of organization +that he started thirty years before. + +When Vail said auf wiedersehen to the telephone +business, it had passed from infancy to +childhood. It was well shaped but not fully +grown. Its pioneering days were over. It was +self-supporting and had a little money in the +bank. But it could not then have carried the +load of traffic that it carries to-day. It had still +too many problems to solve and too much general +inertia to overcome. It needed to be conserved, +drilled, educated, popularized. And the man +who was finally chosen to replace Vail was in +many respects the appropriate leader for such a +preparatory period. + +Hudson--John Elbridge Hudson--was the +name of the new head of the telephone people. +He was a man of middle age, born in Lynn and +bred in Boston; a long-pedigreed New Englander, +whose ancestors had smelted iron ore in +Lynn when Charles the First was King. He +was a lawyer by profession and a university professor +by temperament. His specialty, as a man +of affairs, had been marine law; and his hobby +was the collection of rare books and old English +engravings. He was a master of the Greek language, +and very fond of using it. On all possible +occasions he used the language of Pericles in +his conversation; and even carried this preference +so far as to write his business memoranda in +Greek. He was above all else a scholar, then a +lawyer, and somewhat incidentally the central +figure in the telephone world. + +But it was of tremendous value to the telephone +business at that time to have at its head a +man of Hudson's intellectual and moral calibre. + +He gave it tone and prestige. He built up its +credit. He kept it clean and clear above all +suspicion of wrong-doing. He held fast whatever +had been gained. And he prepared the way +for the period of expansion by borrowing fifty +millions for improvements, and by adding greatly +to the strength and influence of the American +Telephone and Telegraph Company. + +Hudson remained at the head of the telephone +table until his death, in 1900, and thus lived to +see the dawn of the era of big business. Under +his regime great things were done in the development +of the art. The business was pushed ahead +at every point by its captains. Every man in +his place, trying to give a little better service +than yesterday--that was the keynote of the +Hudson period. There was no one preeminent +genius. Each important step forward was the +result of the cooperation of many minds, and the +prodding necessities of a growing traffic. + +By 1896, when the Common Battery system +created a new era, the telephone engineer had +pretty well mastered his simpler troubles. He +was able to handle his wires, no matter how many. +By this time, too, the public was ready for the +telephone. A new generation had grown up, +without the prejudices of its fathers. People +had grown away from the telegraphic habit of +thought, which was that wire communications +were expensive luxuries for the few. The telephone +was, in fact, a new social nerve, so new and +so novel that very nearly twenty years went by +before it had fully grown into place, and before +the social body developed the instinct of using it. + +Not that the difficulties of the telephone +engineers were over, for they were not. They +have seemed to grow more numerous and complex +every year. But by 1896 enough had been +done to warrant a forward movement. For the +next ten-year period the keynote of telephone +history was EXPANSION. Under the prevailing +flat-rate plan of payment, all customers paid the +same yearly price and then used their telephones +as often as they pleased. This was a simple +method, and the most satisfactory for small towns +and farming regions. But in a great city such +a plan grew to be suicidal. In New York, for +instance, the price had to be raised to $240, +which lifted the telephone as high above the mass +of the citizens as though it were a piano or a +diamond sunburst. Such a plan was strangling +the business. It was shutting out the small +users. It was clogging the wires with deadhead +calls. It was giving some people too little +service and others too much. It was a very +unsatisfactory situation. + +How to extend the service and at the same time +cheapen it to small users--that was the Gordian +knot; and the man who unquestionably did most +to untie it was Edward J. Hall. Mr. Hall +founded the telephone business in Buffalo in +1878, and seven years afterwards became the +chief of the long-distance traffic. He was then, +and is to-day, one of the statesmen of the telephone. +For more than thirty years he has been +the "candid friend" of the business, incessantly +suggesting, probing, and criticising. Keen and +dispassionate, with a genius for mercilessly cutting +to the marrow of a proposition, Hall has +at the same time been a zealot for the improvement +and extension of telephone service. It was +he who set the agents free from the ball-and- +chain of royalties, allowing them to pay instead a +percentage of gross receipts. And it was he +who "broke the jam," as a lumberman would +say, by suggesting the MESSAGE RATE system. + +By this plan, which U. N. Bethell developed +to its highest point in New York, a user of the +telephone pays a fixed minimum price for a +certain number of messages per year, and extra +for all messages over this number. The large +user pays more, and the little user pays less. It +opened up the way to such an expansion of telephone +business as Bell, in his rosiest dreams, had +never imagined. In three years, after 1896, +there were twice as many users; in six years there +were four times as many; in ten years there were +eight to one. What with the message rate and +the pay station, the telephone was now on its way +to be universal. It was adapted to all kinds and +conditions of men. A great corporation, nerved +at every point with telephone wires, may now pay +fifty thousand dollars to the Bell Company, while +at the same time a young Irish immigrant boy, +just arrived in New York City, may offer five +coppers and find at his disposal a fifty million +dollar telephone system. + +When the message rate was fairly well established, +Hudson died--fell suddenly to the +ground as he was about to step into a railway +carriage. In his place came Frederick P. Fish, +also a lawyer and a Bostonian. Fish was a popular, +optimistic man, with a "full-speed-ahead" +temperament. He pushed the policy of expansion +until he broke all the records. He borrowed +money in stupendous amounts--$150,000,000 at +one time--and flung it into a campaign of red- +hot development. More business he demanded, +and more, and more, until his captains, like a +thirty-horse team of galloping horses, became +very nearly uncontrollable. + +It was a fast and furious period. The whole +country was ablaze with a passion of prosperity. +After generations of conflict, the men with large +ideas had at last put to rout the men of small +ideas. The waste and folly of competition had +everywhere driven men to the policy of cooperation. +Mills were linked to mills and factories to +factories, in a vast mutualism of industry such +as no other age, perhaps, has ever known. And +as the telephone is essentially the instrument of +co-working and interdependent people, it found +itself suddenly welcomed as the most popular and +indispensable of all the agencies that put men in +touch with each other. + +To describe this growth in a single sentence, +we might say that the Bell telephone secured its +first million of capital in 1879; its first million of +earnings in 1882; its first million of dividends in +1884; its first million of surplus in 1885. It had +paid out its first million for legal expenses by +1886; began first to send a million messages a +day in 1888; had strung its first million miles of +wire in 1900; and had installed its first million +telephones in 1898. By 1897 it had spun as +many cobwebs of wire as the mighty Western +Union itself; by 1900 it had twice as many miles +of wire as the Western Union, and in 1905 FIVE +TIMES as many. Such was the plunging progress +of the Bell Companies in this period of expansion, +that by 1905 they had swept past all +European countries combined, not only in the +quality of the service but in the actual number of +telephones in use. This, too, without a cent of +public money, or the protection of a tariff, or the +prestige of a governmental bureau. + +By 1892 Boston and New York were talking +to Chicago, Milwaukee, Pittsburg, and Washington. +One-half of the people of the United +States were within talking distance of each other. +The THOUSAND-MILE TALK had ceased to be a fairy +tale. Several years later the western end of the +line was pushed over the plains to Nebraska, +enabling the spoken word in Boston to be heard +in Omaha. Slowly and with much effort the +public were taught to substitute the telephone for +travel. A special long-distance salon was fitted +up in New York City to entice people into the +habit of talking to other cities. Cabs were sent +for customers; and when one arrived, he was +escorted over Oriental rugs to a gilded booth, +draped with silken curtains. This was the +famous "Room Nine." By such and many other +allurements a larger idea of telephone service was +given to the public mind; until in 1909 at least +eighteen thousand New York-Chicago conversa- +tions were held, and the revenue from strictly +long-distance messages was twenty-two thousand +dollars a day. + +By 1906 even the Rocky Mountain Bell Company +had grown to be a ten-million-dollar enterprise. +It began at Salt Lake City with a +hundred telephones, in 1880. Then it reached +out to master an area of four hundred and +thirteen thousand square miles--a great Lone +Land of undeveloped resources. Its linemen +groped through dense forests where their poles +looked like toothpicks beside the towering pines +and cedars. They girdled the mountains and +basted the prairies with wire, until the lonely +places were brought together and made sociable. +They drove off the Indians, who wanted the +bright wire for ear-rings and bracelets; and the +bears, which mistook the humming of the wires +for the buzzing of bees, and persisted in gnawing +the poles down. With the most heroic +optimism, this Rocky Mountain Company persevered +until, in 1906, it had created a seventy- +thousand-mile nerve-system for the far West. + +Chicago, in this year, had two hundred thou- +sand telephones in use, in her two hundred +square miles of area. The business had been +built up by General Anson Stager, who was +himself wealthy, and able to attract the support +of such men as John Crerar, H. H. Porter, and +Robert T. Lincoln. Since 1882 it has paid +dividends, and in one glorious year its stock +soared to four hundred dollars a share. The old- +timers--the men who clambered over roof-tops +in 1878 and tacked iron wires wherever they could +without being chased off--are still for the most +part in control of the Chicago company. + +But as might have been expected, it was New +York City that was the record-breaker when the +era of telephone expansion arrived. Here the +flood of big business struck with the force of a +tidal wave. The number of users leaped from +56,000 in 1900 up to 810,000 in 1908. In a +single year of sweating and breathless activity, +65,000 new telephones were put on desks or hung +on walls--an average of one new user for every +two minutes of the business day. + +Literally tons, and hundreds of tons, of +telephones were hauled in drays from the factory +and put in place in New York's homes and +offices. More and more were demanded, until +to-day there are more telephones in New York +than there are in the four countries, France, +Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland combined. +As a user of telephones New York has risen to be +unapproachable. Mass together all the telephones +of London, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, +Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffleld, Bristol, +and Belfast, and there will even then be barely as +many as are carrying the conversations of this +one American city. + +In 1879 the New York telephone directory was +a small card, showing two hundred and fifty-two +names; but now it has grown to be an eight-hundred-page +quarterly, with a circulation of half a +million, and requiring twenty drays, forty horses, +and four hundred men to do the work of distribution. +There was one shabby little exchange +thirty years ago; but now there are fifty-two +exchanges, as the nerve-centres of a vast fifty- +million-dollar system. Incredible as it may seem +to foreigners, it is literally true that in a single +building in New York, the Hudson Terminal, +there are more telephones than in Odessa or +Madrid, more than in the two kingdoms of +Greece and Bulgaria combined. + +Merely to operate this system requires an army +of more than five thousand girls. Merely to keep +their records requires two hundred and thirty-five +million sheets of paper a year. Merely to do the +writing of these records wears away five hundred +and sixty thousand lead pencils. And merely to +give these girls a cup of tea or coffee at noon, +compels the Bell Company to buy yearly six +thousand pounds of tea, seventeen thousand +pounds of coffee, forty-eight thousand cans of +condensed milk, and one hundred and forty +barrels of sugar. + +The myriad wires of this New York system +are tingling with talk every minute of the day +and night. They are most at rest between three +and four o'clock in the morning, although even +then there are usually ten calls a minute. Between +five and six o'clock, two thousand New +Yorkers are awake and at the telephone. Half +an hour later there are twice as many. Between +seven and eight twenty-five thousand people +have called up twenty-five thousand other people, +so that there are as many people talking by +wire as there were in the whole city of New York +in the Revolutionary period. Even this is only +the dawn of the day's business. By half-past +eight it is doubled; by nine it is trebled; by ten it +is multiplied sixfold; and by eleven the roar has +become an incredible babel of one hundred and +eighty thousand conversations an hour, with +fifty new voices clamoring at the exchanges every +second. + +This is "the peak of the load." It is the topmost +pinnacle of talk. It is the utmost degree of +service that the telephone has been required to +give in any city. And it is as much a world's +wonder, to men and women of imagination, as +the steel mills of Homestead or the turbine +leviathans that curve across the Atlantic Ocean +in four and a half days. + +As to the men who built it up: Charles F. +Cutler died in 1907, but most of the others are +still alive and busy. Union N. Bethell, now in +Cutler's place at the head of the New York +Company, has been the operating chief for +eighteen years. He is a man of shrewdness and +sympathy, with a rare sagacity in solving knotty +problems, a president of the new type, who +regards his work as a sort of obligation he owes to +the public. And just as foreigners go to Pittsburg +to see the steel business at its best; just as +they go to Iowa and Kansas to see the New +Farmer, so they make pilgrimages to Bethell's +office to learn the profession of telephony. + +This unparalleled telephone system of New +York grew up without having at any time the +rivalry of competition. But in many other cities +and especially in the Middle West, there sprang +up in 1895 a medley of independent companies. +The time of the original patents had expired, and +the Bell Companies found themselves freed from +the expense of litigation only to be snarled up in +a tangle of duplication. In a few years there +were six thousand of these little Robinson Crusoe +companies. And by 1901 they had put in use +more than a million telephones and were professing +to have a capital of a hundred millions. + +Most of these companies were necessary and +did much to expand the telephone business into +new territory. They were in fact small mutual +associations of a dozen or a hundred farmers, +whose aim was to get telephone service at cost. +But there were other companies, probably a thousand +or more, which were organized by promoters +who built their hopes on the fact that the Bell +Companies were unpopular, and on the myth that +they were fabulously rich. Instead of legitimately +extending telephone lines into communities +that had none, these promoters proceeded to +inflict the messy snarl of an overlapping system +upon whatever cities would give them permission +to do so. + +In this way, masked as competition, the +nuisance and waste of duplication began in most +American cities. The telephone business was +still so young, it was so little appreciated even by +the telephone officials and engineers, that the +public regarded a second or a third telephone +system in one city as quite a possible and desirable +innovation. "We have two ears," said one +promoter; "why not therefore have two telephones?" + +This duplication went merrily on for years +before it was generally discovered that the telephone +is not an ear, but a nerve system; and that +such an experiment as a duplicate nerve system +has never been attempted by Nature, even in her +most frivolous moods. Most people fancied that +a telephone system was practically the same as a +gas or electric light system, which can often be +duplicated with the result of cheaper rates and +better service. They did not for years discover +that two telephone companies in one city means +either half service or double cost, just as two fire +departments or two post offices would. + +Some of these duplicate companies built up a +complete plant, and gave good local service, +while others proved to be mere stock bubbles. +Most of them were over-capitalized, depending +upon public sympathy to atone for deficiencies in +equipment. One which had printed fifty million +dollars of stock for sale was sold at auction in +1909 for four hundred thousand dollars. All +told, there were twenty-three of these bubbles +that burst in 1905, twenty-one in 1906, and twelve +in 1907. So high has been the death-rate among +these isolated companies that at a recent conven- +tion of telephone agents, the chairman's gavel +was made of thirty-five pieces of wood, taken +from thirty-five switchboards of thirty-five +extinct companies. + +A study of twelve single-system cities and +twenty-seven double-system cities shows that +there are about eleven per cent more telephones +under the double-system, and that where the +second system is put in, every fifth user is +obliged to pay for two telephones. The rates +are alike, whether a city has one or two systems. +Duplicating companies raised their rates in +sixteen cities out of the twenty-seven, and +reduced them in one city. Taking the United +States as a whole, there are to-day fully two +hundred and fifty thousand people who are paying +for two telephones instead of one, an +economic waste of at least ten million dollars a +year. + +A fair-minded survey of the entire independent +telephone movement would probably show that +it was at first a stimulant, followed, as stimulants +usually are, by a reaction. It was unquestionably +for several years a spur to the Bell Com- +panies. But it did not fulfil its promises of +cheap rates, better service, and high dividends; +it did little or nothing to improve telephonic +apparatus, producing nothing new except the +automatic switchboard--a brilliant invention, +which is now in its experimental period. In the +main, perhaps, it has been a reactionary and +troublesome movement in the cities, and a progressive +movement among the farmers. + +By 1907 it was a wave that had spent its force. +It was no longer rolling along easily on the broad +ocean of hope, but broken and turned aside by the +rocks of actual conditions. One by one the telephone +promoters learned the limitations of an +isolated company, and asked to be included as +members of the Bell family. In 1907 four +hundred and fifty-eight thousand independent +telephones were linked by wire to the nearest Bell +Company; and in 1908 these were followed by +three hundred and fifty thousand more. After +this landslide to the policy of consolidation, there +still remained a fairly large assortment of +independent companies; but they had lost their +dreams and their illusions. + +As might have been expected, the independent +movement produced a number of competent local +leaders, but none of national importance. The +Bell Companies, on the other hand, were officered +by men who had for a quarter of a century been +surveying telephone problems from a national +point of view. At their head, from 1907 onwards, +was Theodore N. Vail, who had returned +dramatically, at the precise moment when he +was needed, to finish the work that he had begun +in 1878. He had been absent for twenty years, +developing water-power and building street- +railways in South America. In the first act of +the telephone drama, it was he who put the enterprise +upon a business basis, and laid down the +first principles of its policy. In the second and +third acts he had no place; but when the curtain +rose upon the fourth act, Vail was once more the +central figure, standing white-haired among his +captains, and pushing forward the completion +of the "grand telephonic system" that he had +dreamed of when the telephone was three +years old. + +Thus it came about that the telephone business +was created by Vail, conserved by Hudson, +expanded by Fish, and is now in process of being +consolidated by Vail. It is being knit together +into a stupendous Bell System--a federation of +self-governing companies, united by a central +company that is the busiest of them all. It is no +longer protected by any patent monopoly. +Whoever is rich enough and rash enough may +enter the field. But it has all the immeasurable +advantages that come from long experience, +immense bulk, the most highly skilled specialists, +and an abundance of capital. "The Bell System +is strong," says Vail, "because we are all tied +up together; and the success of one is therefore +the concern of all." + +The Bell System! Here we have the motif +of American telephone development. Here is +the most comprehensive idea that has entered any +telephone engineer's brain. Already this Bell +System has grown to be so vast, so nearly akin +to a national nerve system, that there is nothing +else to which we can compare it. It is so wide- +spread that few are aware of its greatness. It +is strung out over fifty thousand cities and +communities. + +If it were all gathered together into one place, +this Bell System, it would make a city of +Telephonia as large as Baltimore. It would +contain half of the telephone property of the +world. Its actual wealth would be fully $760,000,000, +and its revenue would be greater than +the revenue of the city of New York. + +Part of the property of the city of Telephonia +consists of ten million poles, as many as would +make a fence from New York to California, or +put a stockade around Texas. If the Telephonians +wished to use these poles at home, they might +drive them in as piles along their water-front, +and have a twenty-five thousand-acre dock; or if +their city were a hundred square miles in extent, +they might set up a seven-ply wall around it with +these poles. + +Wire, too! Eleven million miles of it! This +city of Telephonia would be the capital of an +empire of wire. Not all the men in New York +State could shoulder this burden of wire and +carry it. Throw all the people of Illinois in +one end of the scale, and put on the other side the +wire-wealth of Telephonia, and long before the +last coil was in place, the Illinoisans would be in +the air. + +What would this city do for a living? It +would make two-thirds of the telephones, cables, +and switchboards of all countries. Nearly one- +quarter of its citizens would work in factories, +while the others would be busy in six thousand +exchanges, making it possible for the people of +the United States to talk to one another at the +rate of SEVEN THOUSAND MILLION CONVERSATIONS A YEAR. + +The pay-envelope army that moves to work +every morning in Telephonia would be a host of +one hundred and ten thousand men and girls, +mostly girls,--as many girls as would fill Vassar +College a hundred times and more, or double the +population of Nevada. Put these men and girls +in line, march them ten abreast, and six hours +would pass before the last company would arrive +at the reviewing stand. In single file this throng +of Telephonians would make a living wall from +New York to New Haven. + +Such is the extraordinary city of which Alexander +Graham Bell was the only resident in 1875. +It has been built up without the backing of any +great bank or multi-millionaire. There have +been no Vanderbilts in it, no Astors, Rockefellers, +Rothschilds, Harrimans. There are even +now only four men who own as many as ten +thousand shares of the stock of the central company. +This Bell System stands as the life-work +of unprivileged men, who are for the most part +still alive and busy. With very few and trivial +exceptions, every part of it was made in the +United States. No other industrial organism of +equal size owes foreign countries so little. Alike +in its origin, its development, and its highest +point of efficiency and expansion, the telephone is +as essentially American as the Declaration of +Independence or the monument on Bunker Hill. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +NOTABLE USERS OF THE TELEPHONE + +What we might call the telephonization of +city life, for lack of a simpler word, has +remarkably altered our manner of living from +what it was in the days of Abraham Lincoln. It +has enabled us to be more social and cooperative. +It has literally abolished the isolation of separate +families, and has made us members of one great +family. It has become so truly an organ of the +social body that by telephone we now enter into +contracts, give evidence, try lawsuits, make +speeches, propose marriage, confer degrees, +appeal to voters, and do almost everything else +that is a matter of speech. + +In stores and hotels this wire traffic has grown +to an almost bewildering extent, as these are the +places where many interests meet. The hundred +largest hotels in New York City have twenty-one +thousand telephones--nearly as many as the +continent of Africa and more than the kingdom +of Spain. In an average year they send six +million messages. The Waldorf-Astoria alone +tops all residential buildings with eleven hundred +and twenty telephones and five hundred thousand +calls a year; while merely the Christmas +Eve orders that flash into Marshall Field's store, +or John Wanamaker's, have risen as high as the +three thousand mark. + +Whether the telephone does most to concentrate +population, or to scatter it, is a question +that has not yet been examined. It is certainly +true that it has made the skyscraper possible, +and thus helped to create an absolutely new type +of city, such as was never imagined even in the +fairy tales of ancient nations. The skyscraper +is ten years younger than the telephone. It is +now generally seen to be the ideal building for +business offices. It is one of the few types of +architecture that may fairly be called American. +And its efficiency is largely, if not mainly, due to +the fact that its inhabitants may run errands by +telephone as well as by elevator. + +There seems to be no sort of activity which is +not being made more convenient by the telephone. +It is used to call the duck-shooters in +Western Canada when a flock of birds has +arrived; and to direct the movements of the +Dragon in Wagner's grand opera "Siegfried." +At the last Yale-Harvard football game, it conveyed +almost instantaneous news to fifty thousand +people in various parts of New England. +At the Vanderbilt Cup Race its wires girdled the +track and reported every gain or mishap of the +racing autos. And at such expensive pageants +as that of the Quebec Tercentenary in 1908, +where four thousand actors came and went upon +a ten-acre stage, every order was given by +telephone. + +Public officials, even in the United States, have +been slow to change from the old-fashioned and +more dignified use of written documents and uniformed +messengers; but in the last ten years there +has been a sweeping revolution in this respect. +Government by telephone! This is a new idea +that has already arrived in the more efficient +departments of the Federal service. And as for +the present Congress, that body has gone so far +as to plan for a special system of its own, in both +Houses, so that all official announcements may +be heard by wire. + +Garfield was the first among American Presidents +to possess a telephone. An exhibition +instrument was placed in his house, without cost, +in 1878, while he was still a member of Congress. +Neither Cleveland nor Harrison, for temperamental +reasons, used the magic wire very often. +Under their regime, there was one lonely idle +telephone in the White House, used by the +servants several times a week. But with McKinley +came a new order of things. To him a +telephone was more than a necessity. It was a +pastime, an exhilarating sport. He was the one +President who really revelled in the comforts of +telephony. In 1895 he sat in his Canton home +and heard the cheers of the Chicago Convention. +Later he sat there and ran the first presidential +telephone campaign; talked to his managers in +thirty-eight States. Thus he came to regard the +telephone with a higher degree of appreciation +than any of his predecessors had done, and +eulogized it on many public occasions. "It is +bringing us all closer together," was his favorite +phrase. + +To Roosevelt the telephone was mainly for +emergencies. He used it to the full during the +Chicago Convention of 1907 and the Peace +Conference at Portsmouth. But with Taft the +telephone became again the common avenue of +conversation. He has introduced at least one +new telephonic custom a long-distance talk +with his family every evening, when he is away +from home. Instead of the solitary telephone of +Cleveland-Harrison days, the White House has +now a branch exchange of its own--Main 6-- +with a sheaf of wires that branch out into every +room as well as to the nearest central. + +Next to public officials, bankers were perhaps +the last to accept the facilities of the telephone. +They were slow to abandon the fallacy that no +business can be done without a written record. +James Stillman, of New York, was first among +bankers to foresee the telephone era. As early +as 1875, while Bell was teaching his infant +telephone to talk, Stillman risked two thousand +dollars in a scheme to establish a crude dial +system of wire communication, which later grew +into New York's first telephone exchange. At +the present time, the banker who works closest to +his telephone is probably George W. Perkins, of +the J. P. Morgan group of bankers. "He is the +only man," says Morgan, "who can raise twenty +millions in twenty minutes." The Perkins plan +of rapid transit telephony is to prepare a list of +names, from ten to thirty, and to flash from one +to another as fast as the operator can ring them +up. Recently one of the other members of the +Morgan bank proposed to enlarge its telephone +equipment. "What will we gain by more wires?" +asked the operator. "If we were to put in a six- +hundred pair cable, Mr. Perkins would keep it +busy." + +The most brilliant feat of the telephone in the +financial world was done during the panic of +1907. At the height of the storm, on a Saturday +evening, the New York bankers met in an almost +desperate conference. They decided, as an +emergency measure of self-protection, not to ship +cash to Western banks. At midnight they telephoned +this decision to the bankers of Chicago +and St. Louis. These men, in turn, conferred by +telephone, and on Sunday afternoon called up the +bankers of neighboring States. And so the news +went from 'phone to 'phone, until by Monday +morning all bankers and chief depositors were +aware of the situation, and prepared for the +team-play that prevented any general disaster. + +As for stockbrokers of the Wall Street species, +they transact practically all their business by +telephone. In their stock exchange stand six +hundred and forty one booths, each one the terminus +of a private wire. A firm of brokers will +count it an ordinary year's talking to send fifty +thousand messages; and there is one firm which +last year sent twice as many. Of all brokers, +the one who finally accomplished most by telephony +was unquestionably E. H. Harriman. In +the mansion that he built at Arden, there were +a hundred telephones, sixty of them linked to +the long-distance lines. What the brush is to +the artist, what the chisel is to the sculptor, the +telephone was to Harriman. He built his fortune +with it. It was in his library, his bathroom, +his private car, his camp in the Oregon wilder- +ness. No transaction was too large or too involved +to be settled over its wires. He saved +the credit of the Erie by telephone--lent it five +million dollars as he lay at home on a sickbed. +"He is a slave to the telephone," wrote a magazine +writer. "Nonsense," replied Harriman, +"it is a slave to me." + +The telephone arrived in time to prevent big +corporations from being unwieldy and aristocratic. +The foreman of a Pittsburg coal company +may now stand in his subterranean office +and talk to the president of the Steel Trust, who +sits on the twenty-first floor of a New York +skyscraper. The long-distance talks, especially, +have grown to be indispensable to the corporations +whose plants are scattered and geographically +misplaced--to the mills of New England, +for instance, that use the cotton of the South and +sell so much of their product to the Middle West. +To the companies that sell perishable commodities, +an instantaneous conversation with a +buyer in a distant city has often saved a carload +or a cargo. Such caterers as the meat-packers, +who were among the first to realize what Bell had +made possible, have greatly accelerated the +wheels of their business by inter-city conversations. +For ten years or longer the Cudahys have +talked every business morning between Omaha +and Boston, via fifteen hundred and seventy +miles of wire. + +In the refining of oil, the Standard Oil +Company alone, at its New York office, sends +two hundred and thirty thousand messages +a year. In the making of steel, a chemical +analysis is made of each caldron of molten +pig-iron, when it starts on its way to be refined, +and this analysis is sent by telephone +to the steelmaker, so that he will know exactly +how each potful is to be handled. In the floating +of logs down rivers, instead of having relays of +shouters to prevent the logs from jamming, there +is now a wire along the bank, with a telephone +linked on at every point of danger. In the rearing +of skyscrapers, it is now usual to have a +temporary wire strung vertically, so that the +architect may stand on the ground and confer +with a foreman who sits astride of a naked girder +three hundred feet up in the air. And in the +electric light business, the current is distributed +wholly by telephoned orders. To give New +York the seven million electric lights that have +abolished night in that city requires twelve +private exchanges and five hundred and twelve +telephones. All the power that creates this artificial +daylight is generated at a single station, and +let flow to twenty-five storage centres. Minute +by minute, its flow is guided by an expert, who +sits at a telephone exchange as though he were a +pilot at the wheel of an ocean liner. + +The first steamship line to take notice of the +telephone was the Clyde, which had a wire from +dock to office in 1877; and the first railway was +the Pennsylvania, which two years later was +persuaded by Professor Bell himself to give it a +trial in Altoona. Since then, this railroad has +become the chief beneficiary of the art of telephony. +It has one hundred and seventy-five exchanges, +four hundred operators, thirteen thousand +telephones, and twenty thousand miles of +wire--a more ample system than the city of +New York had in 1896. + +To-day the telephone goes to sea in the pas- +senger steamer and the warship. Its wires +are waiting at the dock and the depot, so that a +tourist may sit in his stateroom and talk with +a friend in some distant office. It is one of the +most incredible miracles of telephony that a +passenger at New York, who is about to start for +Chicago on a fast express, may telephone to +Chicago from the drawing-room of a Pullman. +He himself, on the swiftest of all trains, will not +arrive in Chicago for eighteen hours; but the +flying words can make the journey, and RETURN, +while his train is waiting for the signal to start. + +In the operation of trains, the railroads have +waited thirty years before they dared to trust the +telephone, just as they waited fifteen years before +they dared to trust the telegraph. In 1883 a few +railways used the telephone in a small way, but +in 1907, when a law was passed that made telegraphers +highly expensive, there was a general +swing to the telephone. Several dozen roads +have now put it in use, some employing it as an +associate of the Morse method and others as a +complete substitute. It has already been found +to be the quickest way of despatching trains. It +will do in five minutes what the telegraph did in +ten. And it has enabled railroads to hire more +suitable men for the smaller offices. + +In news-gathering, too, much more than in +railroading, the day of the telephone has arrived. +The Boston Globe was the first paper to receive +news by telephone. Later came The Washington +Star, which had a wire strung to the Capitol, +and thereby gained an hour over its competitors. +To-day the evening papers receive most of their +news over the wire a la Bell instead of a la Morse. +This has resulted in a specialization of reporters +--one man runs for the news and another man +writes it. Some of the runners never come to +the office. They receive their assignments by +telephone, and their salaries by mail. There +are even a few who are allowed to telephone +their news directly to a swift linotype operator, +who clicks it into type on his machine, without +the scratch of a pencil. This, of course, is the +ideal method of news-gathering, which is rarely +possible. + +A paper of the first class, such as The New +York World, has now an outfit of twenty trunk +lines and eighty telephones. Its outgoing calls +are two hundred thousand a year and its incoming +calls three hundred thousand, which means +that for every morning, evening, or Sunday +edition, there has been an average of seven hundred +and fifty messages. The ordinary newspaper +in a small town cannot afford such a service, +but recently the United Press has originated +a cooperative method. It telephones the news +over one wire to ten or twelve newspapers at one +time. In ten minutes a thousand words can in +this way be flung out to a dozen towns, as quickly +as by telegraph and much cheaper. + +But it is in a dangerous crisis, when safety +seems to hang upon a second, that the telephone +is at its best. It is the instrument of emergencies, +a sort of ubiquitous watchman. When +the girl operator in the exchange hears a cry for +help--"Quick! The hospital!" "The fire department!" +"The police!" she seldom waits to +hear the number. She knows it. She is trained +to save half-seconds. And it is at such moments, +if ever, that the users of a telephone can appreciate +its insurance value. No doubt, if a King +Richard III were worsted on a modern battlefield, +his instinctive cry would be, "My Kingdom +for a telephone!" + +When instant action is needed in the city of +New York, a General Alarm can in five minutes +be sent by the police wires over its whole vast +area of three hundred square miles. When, +recently, a gas main broke in Brooklyn, sixty girls +were at once called to the centrals in that part +of the city to warn the ten thousand families who +had been placed in danger. When the ill-fated +General Slocum caught fire, a mechanic in a +factory on the water-front saw the blaze, and had +the presence of mind to telephone the newspapers, +the hospitals, and the police. When a +small child is lost, or a convict has escaped from +prison, or the forest is on fire, or some menace +from the weather is at hand, the telephone bells +clang out the news, just as the nerves jangle the +bells of pain when the body is in danger. In one +tragic case, the operator in Folsom, New Mexico, +refused to quit her post until she had warned her +people of a flood that had broken loose in the +hills above the village. Because of her courage, +nearly all were saved, though she herself was +drowned at the switchboard. Her name--Mrs. +S. J. Rooke--deserves to be remembered. + +If a disaster cannot be prevented, it is the +telephone, usually, that brings first aid to the +injured. After the destruction of San Francisco, +Governor Guild, of Massachusetts, sent an +appeal for the stricken city to the three hundred +and fifty-four mayors of his State; and by the +courtesy of the Bell Company, which carried the +messages free, they were delivered to the last +and furthermost mayors in less than five hours. +After the destruction of Messina, an order for +enough lumber to build ten thousand new houses +was cabled to New York and telephoned to +Western lumbermen. So quickly was this order +filled that on the twelfth day after the arrival +of the cablegram, the ships were on their way +to Messina with the lumber. After the Kansas +City flood of 1903, when the drenched city was +without railways or street-cars or electric lights, +it was the telephone that held the city together +and brought help to the danger-spots. And +after the Baltimore fire, the telephone exchange +was the last force to quit and the first to recover. +Its girls sat on their stools at the switchboard +until the window-panes were broken by the heat. +Then they pulled the covers over the board and +walked out. Two hours later the building was +in ashes. Three hours later another building +was rented on the unburned rim of the city, and +the wire chiefs were at work. In one day there +was a system of wires for the use of the city +officials. In two days these were linked to long- +distance wires; and in eleven days a two-thousand- +line switchboard was in full working trim. +This feat still stands as the record in rebuilding. + +In the supreme emergency of war, the telephone +is as indispensable, very nearly, as the +cannon. This, at least, is the belief of the +Japanese, who handled their armies by telephone +when they drove back the Russians. Each body +of Japanese troops moved forward like a silkworm, +leaving behind it a glistening strand of +red copper wire. At the decisive battle of +Mukden, the silk-worm army, with a million +legs, crept against the Russian hosts in a vast +crescent, a hundred miles from end to end. By +means of this glistening red wire, the various +batteries and regiments were organized into +fifteen divisions. Each group of three divisions +was wired to a general, and the five generals +were wired to the great Oyama himself, who +sat ten miles back of the firing-line and sent +his orders. Whenever a regiment lunged forward, +one of the soldiers carried a telephone set. +If they held their position, two other soldiers ran +forward with a spool of wire. In this way and +under fire of the Russian cannon, one hundred +and fifty miles of wire were strung across the +battlefield. As the Japanese said, it was this +"flying telephone" that enabled Oyama to manipulate +his forces as handily as though he were +playing a game of chess. It was in this war, too, +that the Mikado's soldiers strung the costliest of +all telephone lines, at 203 Metre Hill. When +the wire had been basted up this hill to the summit, +the fortress of Port Arthur lay at their +mercy. But the climb had cost them twenty- +four thousand lives. + +Of the seven million telephones in the United +States, about two million are now in farmhouses. +Every fourth American farmer is in telephone +touch with his neighbors and the market. Iowa +leads, among the farming States. In Iowa, not +to have a telephone is to belong to what a Londoner +would call the "submerged tenth" of the +population. Second in line comes Illinois, with +Kansas, Nebraska, and Indiana following closely +behind; and at the foot of the list, in the matter of +farm telephones, are Connecticut and Louisiana. + +The first farmer who discovered the value of +the telephone was the market gardener. Next +came the bonanza farmer of the Red River +Valley--such a man, for instance, as Oliver +Dalrymple, of North Dakota, who found that by +the aid of the telephone he could plant and +harvest thirty thousand acres of wheat in a single +season. Then, not more than half a dozen years +ago, there arose a veritable Telephone Crusade +among the farmers of the Middle West. Cheap +telephones, yet fairly good, had by this time been +made possible by the improvements of the Bell +engineers; and stories of what could be done by +telephone became the favorite gossip of the day. +One farmer had kept his barn from being burned +down by telephoning for his neighbors; another +had cleared five hundred dollars extra profit on +the sale of his cattle, by telephoning to the best +market; a third had rescued a flock of sheep by +sending quick news of an approaching blizzard; +a fourth had saved his son's life by getting an +instantaneous message to the doctor; and so on. + +How the telephone saved a three million dollar +fruit crop in Colorado, in 1909, is the story that +is oftenest told in the West. Until that year, the +frosts in the Spring nipped the buds. No farmer +could be sure of his harvest. But in 1909, the +fruit-growers bought smudge-pots--three hundred +thousand or more. These were placed in +the orchards, ready to be lit at a moment's notice. +Next, an alliance was made with the United +States Weather Bureau so that whenever the +Frost King came down from the north, a warning +could be telephoned to the farmers. Just +when Colorado was pink with apple blossoms, the +first warning came. "Get ready to light up your +smudge-pots in half an hour." Then the farmers +telephoned to the nearest towns: "Frost is +coming; come and help us in the orchards." +Hundreds of men rushed out into the country on +horseback and in wagons. In half an hour the +last warning came: "Light up; the thermometer +registers twenty-nine." The smudge-pot artillery +was set ablaze, and kept blazing until the +news came that the icy forces had retreated. +And in this way every Colorado farmer who +had a telephone saved his fruit. + +In some farming States, the enthusiasm for the +telephone is running so high that mass meetings +are held, with lavish oratory on the general theme +of "Good Roads and Telephones." And as a +result of this Telephone Crusade, there are now +nearly twenty thousand groups of farmers, each +one with a mutual telephone system, and one-half +of them with sufficient enterprise to link their +little webs of wires to the vast Bell system, so that +at least a million farmers have been brought as +close to the great cities as they are to their own +barns. + +What telephones have done to bring in the +present era of big crops, is an interesting story +in itself. To compress it into a sentence, we +might say that the telephone has completed +the labor-saving movement which started with +the McCormick reaper in 1831. It has lifted the +farmer above the wastefulness of being his own +errand-boy. The average length of haul from +barn to market in the United States is nine and a +half miles, so that every trip saved means an +extra day's work for a man and team. Instead +of travelling back and forth, often to no purpose, +the farmer may now stay at home and attend to +his stock and his crops. + +As yet, few farmers have learned to appreciate +the value of quality in telephone service, as they +have in other lines. The same man who will pay +six prices for the best seed-corn, and who will +allow nothing but high-grade cattle in his barn, +will at the same time be content with the shabbiest +and flimsiest telephone service, without offering +any other excuse than that it is cheap. But +this is a transient phase of farm telephony. The +cost of an efficient farm system is now so little-- +not more than two dollars a month, that the +present trashy lines are certain sooner or later to +go to the junk-heap with the sickle and the flail +and all the other cheap and unprofitable things. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE TELEPHONE AND NATIONAL EFFICIENCY + +The larger significance of the telephone is +that it completes the work of eliminating +the hermit and gypsy elements of civilization. +In an almost ideal way, it has made +intercommunication possible without travel. It has +enabled a man to settle permanently in one place, +and yet keep in personal touch with his fellows. + +Until the last few centuries, much of the world +was probably what Morocco is to-day--a region +without wheeled vehicles or even roads of any +sort. There is a mythical story of a wonderful +speaking-trumpet possessed by Alexander the +Great, by which he could call a soldier who was +ten miles distant; but there was probably no +substitute for the human voice except flags and +beacon-fires, or any faster method of travel than +the gait of a horse or a camel across ungraded +plains. The first sensation of rapid transit +doubtless came with the sailing vessel; but it was +the play-toy of the winds, and unreliable. When +Columbus dared to set out on his famous voyage, +he was five weeks in crossing from Spain to the +West Indies, his best day's record two hundred +miles. The swift steamship travel of to-day +did not begin until 1838, when the Great +Western raced over the Atlantic in fifteen days. + +As for organized systems of intercommunication, +they were unknown even under the rule of +a Pericles or a Caesar. There was no post office +in Great Britain until 1656--a generation after +America had begun to be colonized. There was +no English mail-coach until 1784; and when Benjamin +Franklin was Postmaster General at Philadelphia, +an answer by mail from Boston, when +all went well, required not less than three weeks. +There was not even a hard-surface road in the +thirteen United States until 1794; nor even a +postage stamp until 1847, the year in which +Alexander Graham Bell was born. In this same +year Henry Clay delivered his memorable speech +on the Mexican War, at Lexington, Kentucky, +and it was telegraphed to The New York Herald +at a cost of five hundred dollars, thus breaking +all previous records for news-gathering enterprise. +Eleven years later the first cable established +an instantaneous sign-language between +Americans and Europeans; and in 1876 there +came the perfect distance-talking of the telephone. + +No invention has been more timely than the +telephone. It arrived at the exact period when +it was needed for the organization of great cities +and the unification of nations. The new ideas +and energies of science, commerce, and cooperation +were beginning to win victories in all parts +of the earth. The first railroad had just arrived +in China; the first parliament in Japan; the first +constitution in Spain. Stanley was moving like +a tiny point of light through the heart of the +Dark Continent. The Universal Postal Union +had been organized in a little hall in Berne. The +Red Cross movement was twelve years old. An +International Congress of Hygiene was being +held at Brussells, and an International Congress +of Medicine at Philadelphia. De Lesseps had +finished the Suez Canal and was examining +Panama. Italy and Germany had recently been +built into nations; France had finally swept aside +the Empire and the Commune and established the +Republic. And what with the new agencies of +railroads, steamships, cheap newspapers, cables, +and telegraphs, the civilized races of mankind had +begun to be knit together into a practical consolidation. + +To the United States, especially, the telephone +came as a friend in need. After a hundred years +of growth, the Republic was still a loose confederation +of separate States, rather than one great +united nation. It had recently fallen apart for +four years, with a wide gulf of blood between; +and with two flags, two Presidents, and two +armies. In 1876 it was hesitating halfway +between doubt and confidence, between the old +political issues of North and South, and the new +industrial issues of foreign trade and the development +of material resources. The West was +being thrown open. The Indians and buffaloes +were being driven back. There was a line of +railway from ocean to ocean. The population +was gaining at the rate of a million a year. Col- +orado had just been baptized as a new State. +And it was still an unsolved problem whether or +not the United States could be kept united, +whether or not it could be built into an organic +nation without losing the spirit of self-help and +democracy. + +It is not easy for us to realize to-day how +young and primitive was the United States of +1876. Yet the fact is that we have twice the +population that we had when the telephone was +invented. We have twice the wheat crop and +twice as much money in circulation. We have +three times the railways, banks, libraries, +newspapers, exports, farm values, and national +wealth. We have ten million farmers who make +four times as much money as seven million +farmers made in 1876. We spend four times as +much on our public schools, and we put four +times as much in the savings bank. We have +five times as many students in the colleges. +And we have so revolutionized our methods of +production that we now produce seven times as +much coal, fourteen times as much oil and pig- +iron, twenty-two times as much copper, and +forty-three times as much steel. + +There were no skyscrapers in 1876, no +trolleys, no electric lights, no gasoline engines, +no self-binders, no bicycles, no automobiles. +There was no Oklahoma, and the combined +population of Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and +Arizona was about equal to that of Des Moines. +It was in this year that General Custer was killed +by the Sioux; that the flimsy iron railway bridge +fell at Ashtabula; that the "Molly Maguires" +terrorized Pennsylvania; that the first wire of +the Brooklyn Bridge was strung; and that Boss +Tweed and Hell Gate were both put out of the +way in New York. + +The Great Elm, under which the Revolutionary +patriots had met, was still standing on +Boston Common. Daniel Drew, the New York +financier, who was born before the American +Constitution was adopted, was still alive; so +were Commodore Vanderbilt, Joseph Henry, A. +T. Stewart, Thurlow Weed, Peter Cooper, +Cyrus McCormick, Lucretia Mott, Bryant, +Longfellow, and Emerson. Most old people +could remember the running of the first railway +train; people of middle age could remember the +sending of the first telegraph message; and +the children in the high schools remembered the +laying of the first Atlantic Cable. + +The grandfathers of 1876 were fond of telling +how Webster opposed taking Texas and Oregon +into the Union; how George Washington +advised against including the Mississippi River; +and how Monroe warned Congress that a +country that reached from the Atlantic to the +Middle West was "too extensive to be governed +but by a despotic monarchy." They told how +Abraham Lincoln, when he was postmaster of +New Salem, used to carry the letters in his coon- +skin cap and deliver them at sight; how in 1822 +the mails were carried on horseback and not in +stages, so as to have the quickest possible service; +and how the news of Madison's election was three +weeks in reaching the people of Kentucky. +When the telegraph was mentioned, they told +how in Revolutionary days the patriots used a +system of signalling called "Washington's Tele- +graph," consisting of a pole, a flag, a basket, and +a barrel. + +So, the young Republic was still within +hearing distance of its childhood, in 1876. Both +in sentiment and in methods of work it was +living close to the log-cabin period. Many of +the old slow ways survived, the ways that were +fast enough in the days of the stage-coach and +the tinder-box. There were seventy-seven thousand +miles of railway, but poorly built and in +short lengths. There were manufacturing industries +that employed two million, four hundred +thousand people, but every trade was +broken up into a chaos of small competitive +units, each at war with all the others. There +were energy and enterprise in the highest degree, +but not efficiency or organization. Little as we +knew it, in 1876 we were mainly gathering together +the plans and the raw materials for the +building up of the modern business world, with +its quick, tense life and its national structure of +immense coordinated industries. + +In 1876 the age of specialization and community +of interest was in its dawn. The cobbler +had given place to the elaborate factory, in which +seventy men cooperated to make one shoe. The +merchant who had hitherto lived over his store +now ventured to have a home in the suburbs. +No man was any longer a self-sufficient Robinson +Crusoe. He was a fraction, a single part of +a social mechanism, who must necessarily keep +in the closest touch with many others. + +A new interdependent form of civilization was +about to be developed, and the telephone arrived +in the nick of time to make this new civilization +workable and convenient. It was the unfolding +of a new organ. Just as the eye had become the +telescope, and the hand had become machinery, +and the feet had become railways, so the voice +became the telephone. It was a new ideal +method of communication that had been made +indispensable by new conditions. The prophecy +of Carlyle had come true, when he said that "men +cannot now be bound to men by brass collars; +you will have to bind them by other far nobler +and cunninger methods." + +Railways and steamships had begun this work +of binding man to man by "nobler and cunninger +methods." The telegraph and cable had gone +still farther and put all civilized people within +sight of each other, so that they could communicate +by a sort of deaf and dumb alphabet. And +then came the telephone, giving direct instantaneous +communication and putting the people +of each nation within hearing distance of each +other. It was the completion of a long series of +inventions. It was the keystone of the arch. It +was the one last improvement that enabled +interdependent nations to handle themselves and to +hold together. + +To make railways and steamboats carry letters +was much, in the evolution of the means of +communication. To make the electric wire carry +signals was more, because of the instantaneous +transmission of important news. But to make +the electric wire carry speech was MOST, because +it put all fellow-citizens face to face, and +made both message and answer instantaneous. +The invention of the telephone taught the Genie +of Electricity to do better than to carry mes- +sages in the sign language of the dumb. It +taught him to speak. As Emerson has finely +said: + + +"We had letters to send. Couriers could not go fast +enough, nor far enough; broke their wagons, foundered +their horses; bad roads in Spring, snowdrifts in Winter, +heat in Summer--could not get their horses out of a +walk. But we found that the air and the earth were +full of electricity, and always going our way, just the +way we wanted to send. WOULD HE TAKE A MESSAGE, +Just as lief as not; had nothing else to do; would carry +it in no time." + + +As to the exact value of the telephone to the +United States in dollars and cents, no one can +tell. One statistician has given us a total of +three million dollars a day as the amount saved +by using telephones. This sum may be far too +high, or too low. It can be no more than a +guess. The only adequate way to arrive at the +value of the telephone is to consider the nation as +a whole, to take it all in all as a going concern, +and to note that such a nation would be absolutely +impossible without its telephone service. +Some sort of a slower and lower grade republic +we might have, with small industrial units, long +hours of labor, lower wages, and clumsier ways. +The money loss would be enormous, but more +serious still would be the loss in the QUALITY OF +THE NATIONAL LIFE. Inevitably, an untelephoned +nation is less social, less unified, less progressive, +and less efficient. It belongs to an inferior +species. + +How to make a civilization that is organized +and quick, instead of a barbarism that was +chaotic and slow--that is the universal human +problem, not wholly solved to-day. And how to +develop a science of intercommunication, which +commenced when the wild animals began to +travel in herds and to protect themselves from +their enemies by a language of danger-signals, +and to democratize this science until the entire +nation becomes self-conscious and able to act as +one living being--that is the part of this universal +problem which finally necessitated the invention +of the telephone. + +With the use of the telephone has come a new +habit of mind. The slow and sluggish mood has +been sloughed off. The old to-morrow habit has +been superseded by "Do It To-day"; and life +has become more tense, alert, vivid. The brain +has been relieved of the suspense of waiting for +an answer, which is a psychological gain of great +importance. It receives its reply at once and is +set free to consider other matters. There is less +burden upon the memory and the WHOLE MIND can +be given to each new proposition. + +A new instinct of speed has been developed, +much more fully in the United States than +elsewhere. "No American goes slow," said Ian +Maclaren, "if he has the chance of going fast; +he does not stop to talk if he can talk walking; +and he does not walk if he can ride." He is as +pleased as a child with a new toy when some +speed record is broken, when a pair of shoes is +made in eleven minutes, when a man lays twelve +hundred bricks in an hour, or when a ship crosses +the Atlantic in four and a half days. Even seconds +are now counted and split up into fractions. +The average time, for instance, taken to reply +to a telephone call by a New York operator, is +now three and two-fifth seconds; and even this +tiny atom of time is being strenuously worn +down. + +As a witty Frenchman has said, one of our +most lively regrets is that while we are at the +telephone we cannot do business with our feet. +We regard it as a victory over the hostility of +nature when we do an hour's work in a minute +or a minute's work in a second. Instead of saying, +as the Spanish do, "Life is too short; what +can one person do?" an American is more apt to +say, "Life is too short; therefore I must do to- +day's work to-day." To pack a lifetime with +energy--that is the American plan, and so to +economize that energy as to get the largest results. +To get a question asked and answered in +five minutes by means of an electric wire, instead +of in two hours by the slow trudging of a messenger +boy--that is the method that best suits +our passion for instantaneous service. + +It is one of the few social laws of which we are +fairly sure, that a nation organizes in proportion +to its velocity. We know that a four-mile-an- +hour nation must remain a huge inert mass of +peasants and villagers; or if, after centuries of +slow toil, it should pile up a great city, the city +will sooner or later fall to pieces of its own +weight. In such a way Babylon rose and fell, +and Nineveh, and Thebes, and Carthage, and +Rome. Mere bulk, unorganized, becomes its +own destroyer. It dies of clogging and +congestion. But when Stephenson's Rocket ran +twenty-nine miles an hour, and Morse's telegraph +clicked its signals from Washington to +Baltimore, and Bell's telephone flashed the +vibrations of speech between Boston and Salem, +a new era began. In came the era of speed and +the finely organized nations. In came cities of +unprecedented bulk, but held together so closely +by a web-work of steel rails and copper wires +that they have become more alert and cooperative +than any tiny hamlet of mud huts on the +banks of the Congo. + +That the telephone is now doing most of all, +in this binding together of all manner of men, +is perhaps not too much to claim, when we remember +that there are now in the United States +seventy thousand holders of Bell telephone stock +and ten million users of telephone service. +There are two hundred and sixty-four wires +crossing the Mississippi, in the Bell system; and +five hundred and forty-four crossing Mason and +Dixon's Line. It is the telephone which does +most to link together cottage and skyscraper +and mansion and factory and farm. It is not +limited to experts or college graduates. It +reaches the man with a nickel as well as the man +with a million. It speaks all languages and +serves all trades. It helps to prevent sectionalism +and race feuds. It gives a common meeting +place to capitalists and wage-workers. It +is so essentially the instrument of all the people, +in fact, that we might almost point to it as a +national emblem, as the trade-mark of democracy +and the American spirit. + +In a country like ours, where there are eighty +nationalities in the public schools, the telephone +has a peculiar value as a part of the national +digestive apparatus. It prevents the growth of +dialects and helps on the process of assimilation. +Such is the push of American life, that the humble +immigrants from Southern Europe, before +they have been here half a dozen years, have +acquired the telephone habit and have linked on +their small shops to the great wire network of +intercommunication. In the one community of +Brownsville, for example, settled several years +ago by an overflow of Russian Jews from the +East Side of New York, there are now as many +telephones as in the kingdom of Greece. And +in the swarming East Side itself, there is a single +exchange in Orchard Street which has more +wires than there are in all the exchanges of +Egypt. + +There can be few higher ideals of practical +democracy than that which comes to us from the +telephone engineer. His purpose is much more +comprehensive than the supplying of telephones +to those who want them. It is rather to make +the telephone as universal as the water faucet, +to bring within speaking distance every economic +unit, to connect to the social organism every person +who may at any time be needed. Just as the +click of the reaper means bread, and the purr +of the sewing-machine means clothes, and the +roar of the Bessemer converter means steel, and +the rattle of the press means education, so the +ring of the telephone bell has come to mean unity +and organization. + +Already, by cable, telegraph, and telephone, +no two towns in the civilized world are more +than one hour apart. We have even girdled the +earth with a cablegram in twelve minutes. We +have made it possible for any man in New York +City to enter into conversation with any other +New Yorker in twenty-one seconds. We have +not been satisfied with establishing such a system +of transportation that we can start any day for +anywhere from anywhere else; neither have we +been satisfied with establishing such a system +of communication that news and gossip are the +common property of all nations. We have gone +farther. We have established in every large +region of population a system of voice-nerves +that puts every man at every other man's ear, +and which so magically eliminates the factor of +distance that the United States becomes three +thousand miles of neighbors, side by side. + +This effort to conquer Time and Space is +above all else the instinct of material progress. +To shrivel up the miles and to stretch out the +minutes--this has been one of the master passions +of the human race. And thus the larger +truth about the telephone is that it is vastly more +than a mere convenience. It is not to be classed +with safety razors and piano players and fountain +pens. It is nothing less than the high-speed +tool of civilization, gearing up the whole mechanism +to more effective social service. It is the +symbol of national efficiency and coperation. + +All this the telephone is doing, at a total cost +to the nation of probably $200,000,000 a year-- +no more than American farmers earn in ten days. +We pay the same price for it as we do for the +potatoes, or for one-third of the hay crop, or for +one-eighth of the corn. Out of every nickel +spent for electrical service, one cent goes to the +telephone. We could settle our telephone bill, +and have several millions left over, if we cut off +every fourth glass of liquor and smoke of tobacco. +Whoever rents a typewriting machine, +or uses a street car twice a day, or has his shoes +polished once a day, may for the same expense +have a very good telephone service. Merely to +shovel away the snow of a single storm in 1910 +cost the city government of New York as much +as it will pay for five or six years of telephoning. + +This almost incredible cheapness of telephony +is still far from being generally perceived, mainly +for psychological reasons. A telephone is not +impressive. It has no bulk. It is not like the +Singer Building or the Lusitania. Its wires and +switchboards and batteries are scattered and +hidden, and few have sufficient imagination to +picture them in all their complexity. If only it +were possible to assemble the hundred or more +telephone buildings of New York in one vast +plaza, and if the two thousand clerks and three +thousand maintenance men and six thousand +girl operators were to march to work each morning +with bands and banners, then, perhaps, there +might be the necessary quality of impressiveness +by which any large idea must always be imparted +to the public mind. + +For lack of a seven and one-half cent coin, +there is now five-cent telephony even in the +largest American cities. For five cents whoever +wishes has an entire wire-system at his service, +a system that is kept waiting by day and night, +so that it will be ready the instant he needs it. +This system may have cost from twenty to fifty +millions, yet it may be hired for one-eighth the +cost of renting an automobile. Even in long- +distance telephony, the expense of a message +dwindles when it is compared with the price of a +return railway ticket. A talk from New York +to Philadelphia, for instance, costs seventy-five +cents, while the railway fare would be four dollars. +From New York to Chicago a talk costs +five dollars as against seventy dollars by rail. +As Harriman once said, "I can't get from my +home to the depot for the price of a talk to +Omaha." + +To say what the net profits have been, to the +entire body of people who have invested money +in the telephone, will always be more or less of +a guess. The general belief that immense fortunes +were made by the lucky holders of Bell +stock, is an exaggeration that has been kept alive +by the promoters of wildcat companies. No +such fortunes were made. "I do not believe," +says Theodore Vail, "that any one man ever +made a clear million out of the telephone." +There are not apt to be any get-rich-quick for- +tunes made in corporations that issue no watered +stock and do not capitalize their franchises. On +the contrary, up to 1897, the holders of stock in +the Bell Companies had paid in four million, +seven hundred thousand dollars more than the +par value; and in the recent consolidation of +Eastern companies, under the presidency of +Union N. Bethell, the new stock was actually +eight millions less than the stock that was retired. + +Few telephone companies paid any profits at +first. They had undervalued the cost of building +and maintenance. Denver expected the cost to +be two thousand, five hundred dollars and spent +sixty thousand dollars. Buffalo expected to pay +three thousand dollars and had to pay one hundred +and fifty thousand dollars. Also, they made +the unwelcome discovery that an exchange of +two hundred costs more than twice as much as +an exchange of one hundred, because of the +greater amount of traffic. Usually a dollar that +is paid to a telephone company is divided as follows: + +Rent ............ 4c +Taxes ........... 4c +Interest ........ 6c +Surplus ......... 8c +Maintenance .... 16c +Dividends ...... 18c +Labor .......... 44c + ---- + $1.00 + + +Most of the rate troubles (and their name has +been legion) have arisen because the telephone +business was not understood. In fact, until recently, +it did not understand itself. It persisted +in holding to a local and individualistic view of +its business. It was slow to put telephones in +unprofitable places. It expected every instrument +to pay its way. In many States, both the +telephone men and the public overlooked the +most vital fact in the case, which is that the +members of a telephone system are above all else +INTERDEPENDENT. + +One telephone by itself has no value. It is +as useless as a reed cut out of an organ or a +finger that is severed from a hand. It is not +even ornamental or adaptable to any other pur- +pose. It is not at all like a piano or a talking- +machine, which has a separate existence. It is +useful only in proportion to the number of other +telephones it reaches. AND EVERY TELEPHONE ANYWHERE +ADDS VALUE TO EVERY OTHER TELEPHONE ON THE +SAME SYSTEM OF WIRES. That, in a sentence, is +the keynote of equitable rates. + +Many a telephone, for the general good, must +be put where it does not earn its own living. +At any time some sudden emergency may arise +that will make it for the moment priceless. Especially +since the advent of the automobile, there +is no nook or corner from which it may not be +supremely necessary, now and then, to send a +message. This principle was acted upon recently +in a most practical way by the Pennsylvania +Railroad, which at its own expense +installed five hundred and twenty-five telephones +in the homes of its workmen in Altoona. In +the same way, it is clearly the social duty of the +telephone company to widen out its system until +every point is covered, and then to distribute its +gross charges as fairly as it can. The whole +must carry the whole--that is the philosophy +of rates which must finally be recognized by +legislatures and telephone companies alike. It +can never, of course, be reduced to a system or +formula. It will always be a matter of opinion +and compromise, requiring much skill and much +patience. But there will seldom be any serious +trouble when once its basic principles are +understood. + +Like all time-saving inventions, like the railroad, +the reaper, and the Bessemer converter, +the telephone, in the last analysis, COSTS NOTHING; +IT IS THE LACK OF IT THAT COSTS. THE NATION THAT +MOST IS THE NATION WITHOUT IT. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE TELEPHONE IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES + +The telephone was nearly a year old before +Europe was aware of its existence. It +received no public notice of any kind whatever +until March 3, 1877, when the London Athenaeum +mentioned it in a few careful sentences. +It was not welcomed, except by those who wished +an evening's entertainment. And to the entire +commercial world it was for four or five years +a sort of scientific Billiken, that never could be +of any service to serious people. + +One after another, several American enthusiasts +rushed posthaste to Europe, with dreams +of eager nations clamoring for telephone systems, +and one after another they failed. Frederick +A. Gower was the first of these. He was +an adventurous chevalier of business who gave +up an agent's contract in return for a right to +become a roving propagandist. Later he met +a prima donna, fell in love with and married her, +forsook telephony for ballooning, and lost his +life in attempting to fly across the English +Channel. + +Next went William H. Reynolds, of Providence, +who had bought five-eights of the British +patent for five thousand dollars, and half the +right to Russia, Spain, Portugal, and Italy for +two thousand, five hundred dollars. How he was +received may be seen from a letter of his which +has been preserved. "I have been working in +London for four months," he writes; "I have +been to the Bank of England and elsewhere; and +I have not found one man who will put one shilling +into the telephone." + +Bell himself hurried to England and Scotland +on his wedding tour in 1878, with great expectations +of having his invention appreciated in +his native land. But from a business point of +view, his mission was a total failure. He received +dinners a-plenty, but no contracts; and +came back to the United States an impoverished +and disheartened man. Then the optimistic +Gardiner G. Hubbard, Bell's father-in-law, +threw himself against the European inertia and +organized the International and Oriental Telephone +Companies, which came to nothing of any +importance. In the same year even Enos M. +Barton, the sagacious founder of the Western +Electric, went to France and England to establish +an export trade in telephones, and failed. + +These able men found their plans thwarted +by the indifference of the public, and often by +open hostility. "The telephone is little better +than a toy," said the Saturday Review; "it +amazes ignorant people for a moment, but it is +inferior to the well-established system of air- +tubes." "What will become of the privacy of +life?" asked another London editor. "What +will become of the sanctity of the domestic +hearth?" Writers vied with each other in +inventing methods of pooh-poohing Bell and his +invention. "It is ridiculously simple," said one. +"It is only an electrical speaking-tube," said +another. "It is a complicated form of speaking- +trumpet," said a third. No British editor could +at first conceive of any use for the telephone, +except for divers and coal miners. The price, +too, created a general outcry. Floods of toy +telephones were being sold on the streets at a +shilling apiece; and although the Government +was charging sixty dollars a year for the use of +its printing-telegraphs, people protested loudly +against paying half as much for telephones. +As late as 1882, Herbert Spencer writes: "The +telephone is scarcely used at all in London, and +is unknown in the other English cities." + +The first man of consequence to befriend +the telephone was Lord Kelvin, then an untitled +young scientist. He had seen the original telephones +at the Centennial in Philadelphia, and +was so fascinated with them that the impulsive +Bell had thrust them into his hands as a gift. +At the next meeting of the British Association +for the Advancement of Science, Lord Kelvin +exhibited these. He did more. He became the +champion of the telephone. He staked his reputation +upon it. He told the story of the tests +made at the Centennial, and assured the sceptical +scientists that he had not been deceived. "All +this my own ears heard," he said, "spoken to +me with unmistakable distinctness by this circular +disc of iron." + +The scientists and electrical experts were, for +the most part, split up into two camps. Some +of them said the telephone was impossible, while +others said that "nothing could be simpler." +Almost all were agreed that what Bell had done +was a humorous trifle. But Lord Kelvin persisted. +He hammered the truth home that the +telephone was "one of the most interesting +inventions that has ever been made in the history +of science." He gave a demonstration with one +end of the wire in a coal mine. He stood side +by side with Bell at a public meeting in Glasgow, +and declared: + +"The things that were called telephones before +Bell were as different from Bell's telephone as a +series of hand-claps are different from the human +voice. They were in fact electrical claps; while +Bell conceived the idea--THE WHOLLY ORIGINAL AND +NOVEL IDEA--of giving continuity to the shocks, +so as to perfectly reproduce the human voice." + +One by one the scientists were forced to take +the telephone seriously. At a public test there +was one noted professor who still stood in the +ranks of the doubters. He was asked to send +a message. He went to the instrument with a +grin of incredulity, and thinking the whole +exhibition a joke, shouted into the mouthpiece: +"Hi diddle diddle--follow up that." Then he +listened for an answer. The look on his face +changed to one of the utmost amazement. "It +says--`The cat and the fiddle,'" he gasped, and +forthwith he became a convert to telephony. By +such tests the men of science were won over, and +by the middle of 1877 Bell received a "vociferous +welcome" when he addressed them at their annual +convention at Plymouth. + +Soon afterwards, The London Times surrendered. +It whirled right-about-face and praised +the telephone to the skies. "Suddenly and +quietly the whole human race is brought within +speaking and hearing distance," it exclaimed; +"scarcely anything was more desired and more +impossible." The next paper to quit the mob +of scoffers was the Tatler, which said in an +editorial peroration, "We cannot but feel im- +pressed by the picture of a human child commanding +the subtlest and strongest force in Nature +to carry, like a slave, some whisper around +the world." + +Closely after the scientists and editors came +the nobility. The Earl of Caithness led the +way. He declared in public that "the telephone +is the most extraordinary thing I ever saw in +my life." And one wintry morning in 1878 +Queen Victoria drove to the house of Sir Thomas +Biddulph, in London, and for an hour talked +and listened by telephone to Kate Field, who sat +in a Downing Street office. Miss Field sang +"Kathleen Mavourneen," and the Queen thanked +her by telephone, saying she was "immensely +pleased." She congratulated Bell himself, who +was present, and asked if she might be permitted +to buy the two telephones; whereupon Bell presented +her with a pair done in ivory. + +This incident, as may be imagined, did much +to establish the reputation of telephony in Great +Britain. A wire was at once strung to Windsor +Castle. Others were ordered by the Daily +News, the Persian Ambassador, and five or six +lords and baronets. Then came an order which +raised the hopes of the telephone men to the +highest heaven, from the banking house of J. +S. Morgan & Co. It was the first recognition +from the "seats of the mighty" in the business +and financial world. A tiny exchange, +with ten wires, was promptly started in London; +and on April 2d, 1879, Theodore Vail, the +young manager of the Bell Company, sent an order +to the factory in Boston, "Please make one +hundred hand telephones for export trade as early +as possible." The foreign trade had begun. + +Then there came a thunderbolt out of a blue +sky, a wholly unforeseen disaster. Just as a few +energetic companies were sprouting up, the +Postmaster General suddenly proclaimed that +the telephone was a species of telegraph. According +to a British law the telegraph was required +to be a Government monopoly. This law +had been passed six years before the telephone +was born, but no matter. The telephone men +protested and argued. Tyndall and Lord Kelvin +warned the Government that it was making +an indefensible mistake. But nothing could +be done. Just as the first railways had been +called toll-roads, so the telephone was solemnly +declared to be a telegraph. Also, to add to the +absurd humor of the situation, Judge Stephen, +of the High Court of Justice, spoke the final +word that compelled the telephone legally to be +a telegraph, and sustained his opinion by a +quotation from Webster's Dictionary, which was +published twenty years before the telephone was +invented. + +Having captured this new rival, what next? +The Postmaster General did not know. He +had, of course, no experience in telephony, and +neither had any of his officials in the telegraph +department. There was no book and no college +to instruct him. His telegraph was then, as it +is to-day, a business failure. It was not earning +its keep. Therefore he did not dare to shoulder +the risk of constructing a second system of wires, +and at last consented to give licenses to private +companies. + +But the muddle continued. In order to compel +competition, according to the academic +theories of the day, licenses were given to thir- +teen private companies. As might have been +expected, the ablest company quickly swallowed +the other twelve. If it had been let alone, this +company might have given good service, but it +was hobbled and fenced in by jealous regulations. +It was compelled to pay one-tenth of its +gross earnings to the Post Office. It was to hold +itself ready to sell out at six months' notice. +And as soon as it had strung a long-distance +system of wires, the Postmaster General pounced +down upon it and took it away. + +Then, in 1900, the Post Office tossed aside all +obligations to the licensed company, and threw +open the door to a free-for-all competition. It +undertook to start a second system in London, +and in two years discovered its blunder and proposed +to cooperate. It granted licenses to five +cities that demanded municipal ownership. +These cities set out bravely, with loud beating of +drums, plunged from one mishap to another, and +finally quit. Even Glasgow, the premier city +of municipal ownership, met its Waterloo in the +telephone. It spent one million, eight hundred +thousand dollars on a plant that was obsolete +when it was new, ran it for a time at a loss, and +then sold it to the Post Office in 1906 for one +million, five hundred and twenty-five thousand +dollars. + +So, from first to last, the story of the telephone +in Great Britain has been a "comedy of errors." +There are now, in the two islands, not six hundred +thousand telephones in use. London, with +its six hundred and forty square miles of houses, +has one-quarter of these, and is gaining at the +rate of ten thousand a year. No large +improvements are under way, as the Post Office +has given notice that it will take over and operate +all private companies on New Year's Day, 1912. +The bureaucratic muddle, so it seems, is to continue +indefinitely. + +In Germany there has been the same burden +of bureaucracy, but less backing and filling. +There is a complete government monopoly. +Whoever commits the crime of leasing telephone +service to his neighbors may be sent to jail for +six months. Here, too, the Postmaster General +has been supreme. He has forced the telephone +business into a postal mould. The man in a +small city must pay as high a rate for a small +service, as the man in a large city pays for a +large service. There is a fair degree of +efficiency, but no high speed or record-breaking. +The German engineers have not kept in close +touch with the progress of telephony in the +United States. They have preferred to devise +methods of their own, and so have created a +miscellaneous assortment of systems, good, bad, and +indifferent. All told, there is probably an +investment of seventy-five million dollars and a +total of nine hundred thousand telephones. + +Telephony has always been in high favor with +the Kaiser. It is his custom, when planning a +hunting party, to have a special wire strung to +the forest headquarters, so that he can converse +every morning with his Cabinet. He has conferred +degrees and honors by telephone. Even +his former Chancellor, Von Buelow, received his +title of Count in this informal way. But the +first friend of the telephone in Germany was +Bismarck. The old Unifier saw instantly its +value in holding a nation together, and ordered +a line between his palace in Berlin and his farm +at Varzin, which lay two hundred and thirty +miles apart. This was as early as the Fall of +1877, and was thus the first long-distance line in +Europe. + +In France, as in England, the Government +seized upon the telephone business as soon as the +pioneer work had been done by private citizens. +In 1889 it practically confiscated the Paris system, +and after nine years of litigation paid five +million francs to its owners. With this reckless +beginning, it floundered from bad to worse. +It assembled the most complete assortment of +other nations' mistakes, and invented several of +its own. Almost every known evil of bureaucracy +was developed. The system of rates was +turned upside down; the flat rate, which can be +profitably permitted in small cities only, was +put in force in the large cities, and the message +rate, which is applicable only to large cities, was +put in force in small places. The girl operators +were entangled in a maze of civil service rules. +They were not allowed to marry without the +permission of the Postmaster General; and on +no account might they dare to marry a mayor, +a policeman, a cashier, or a foreigner, lest they +betray the secrets of the switchboard. + +There was no national plan, no standardization, +no staff of inventors and improvers. Every +user was required to buy his own telephone. As +George Ade has said, "Anything attached to +a wall is liable to be a telephone in Paris." And +so, what with poor equipment and red tape, the +French system became what it remains to-day, +the most conspicuous example of what NOT to do +in telephony. + +There are barely as many telephones in the +whole of France as ought normally to be in the +city of Paris. There are not as many as are +now in use in Chicago. The exasperated Parisians +have protested. They have presented a +petition with thirty-two thousand names. They +have even organized a "Kickers' League"--the +only body of its kind in any country--to demand +good service at a fair price. The daily +loss from bureaucratic telephony has become +enormous. "One blundering girl in a telephone +exchange cost me five thousand dollars on the +day of the panic in 1907," said George Kessler. +But the Government clears a net profit of three +million dollars a year from its telephone monopoly; +and until 1910, when a committee of betterment +was appointed, it showed no concern at +the discomfort of the public. + +There was one striking lesson in telephone +efficiency which Paris received in 1908, when its +main exchange was totally destroyed by fire. +"To build a new switchboard," said European +manufacturers, "will require four or five months." +A hustling young Chicagoan appeared on the +scene. "We 'll put in a new switchboard in sixty +days," he said; "and agree to forfeit six hundred +dollars a day for delay." Such quick work had +never been known. But it was Chicago's chance +to show what she could do. Paris and Chicago +are four thousand, five hundred miles apart, a +twelve days' journey. The switchboard was to +be a hundred and eighty feet in length, with +ten thousand wires. Yet the Western Electric +finished it in three weeks. It was rushed on six +freight-cars to New York, loaded on the French +steamer La Provence, and deposited at Paris in +thirty-six days; so that by the time the sixty days +had expired, it was running full speed with a +staff of ninety operators. + +Russia and Austria-Hungary have now about +one hundred and twenty-five thousand telephones +apiece. They are neck and neck in a race that +has not at any time been a fast one. In each +country the Government has been a neglectful +stepmother to the telephone. It has starved the +business with a lack of capital and used no +enterprise in expanding it. Outside of Vienna, +Budapest, St. Petersburg, and Moscow there are +no wire-systems of any consequence. The political +deadlock between Austria and Hungary +shuts out any immediate hope of a happier life +for the telephone in those countries; but in Russia +there has recently been a change in policy +that may open up a new era. Permits are now +being offered to one private company in each +city, in return for three per cent of the revenue. +By this step Russia has unexpectedly swept to +the front and is now, to telephone men, the freest +country in Europe. + +In tiny Switzerland there has been government +ownership from the first, but with less +detriment to the business than elsewhere. Here +the officials have actually jilted the telegraph for +the telephone. They have seen the value of the +talking wire to hold their valley villages together; +and so have cries-crossed the Alps with a cheap +and somewhat flimsy system of telephony that +carries sixty million conversations a year. Even +the monks of St. Bernard, who rescue snowbound +travellers, have now equipped their mountain +with a series of telephone booths. + +The highest telephone in the world is on the +peak of Monte Rosa, in the Italian Alps, very +nearly three miles above the level of the sea. It +is linked to a line that runs to Rome, in order +that a queen may talk to a professor. In this +case the Queen is Margherita of Italy and the +professor is Signor Mosso, the astronomer, who +studies the heavens from an observatory on +Monte Rosa. At her own expense, the Queen +had this wire strung by a crew of linemen, who +slipped and floundered on the mountain for six +years before they had it pegged in place. The +general situation in Italy is like that in Great +Britain. The Government has always monop- +olized the long-distance lines, and is now about +to buy out all private companies. There are +only fifty-five thousand telephones to thirty-two +million people--as many as in Norway and less +than in Denmark. And in many of the southern +and Sicilian provinces the jingle of the telephone +bell is still an unfamiliar sound. + +The main peculiarity in Holland is that there +is no national plan, but rather a patchwork, that +resembles Joseph's coat of many colors. Each +city engineer has designed his own type of apparatus +and had it made to order. Also, each +company is fenced in by law within a six-mile +circle, so that Holland is dotted with thumb-nail +systems, no two of which are alike. In Belgium +there has been a government system since 1893, +hence there is unity, but no enterprise. The +plant is old-fashioned and too small. Spain has +private companies, which give fairly good service +to twenty thousand people. Roumania has +half as many. Portugal has two small companies +in Lisbon and Oporto. Greece, Servia, +and Bulgaria have a scanty two thousand apiece. +The frozen little isle of Iceland has one-quarter +as many; and even into Turkey, which was a forbidden +land under the regime of the old Sultan, +the Young Turks are importing boxes of telephones +and coils of copper wire. + +There is one European country, and only one, +which has caught the telephone spirit--Sweden. +Here telephony had a free swinging start. It +was let alone by the Post Office; and better still, +it had a Man, a business-builder of remarkable +force and ability, named Henry Cedergren. +Had this man been made the Telephone-Master +of Europe, there would have been a different +story to tell. By his insistent enterprise he made +Stockholm the best telephoned city outside of +the United States. He pushed his country forward +until, having one hundred and sixty-five +thousand telephones, it stood fourth among the +European nations. Since his death the Government +has entered the field with a duplicate system, +and a war has been begun which grows +yearly more costly and absurd. + +Asia, as yet, with her eight hundred and fifty +million people, has fewer telephones than Philadelphia, +and three-fourths of them are in the +tiny island of Japan. The Japanese were enthusiastic +telephonists from the first. They had +a busy exchange in Tokio in 1883. This has +now grown to have twenty-five thousand users, +and might have more, if it had not been stunted +by the peculiar policy of the Government. The +public officials who operate the system are able +men. They charge a fair price and make ten +per cent profit for the State. But they do not +keep pace with the demand. It is one of the +oddest vagaries of public ownership that there +is now in Tokio a WAITING LIST of eight thousand +citizens, who are offering to pay for telephones +and cannot get them. And when a Tokian dies, +his franchise to a telephone, if he has one, is +usually itemized in his will as a four-hundred- +dollar property. + +India, which is second on the Asiatic list, has +no more than nine thousand telephones--one to +every thirty-three thousand of her population! +Not quite so many, in fact, as there are in five +of the skyscrapers of New York. The Dutch +East Indies and China have only seven thousand +apiece, but in China there has recently +come a forward movement. A fund of twenty +million dollars is to be spent in constructing a +national system of telephone and telegraph. +Peking is now pointing with wonder and delight +to a new exchange, spick and span, with +a couple of ten-thousand-wire switchboards. +Others are being built in Canton, Hankow, and +Tien-Tsin. Ultimately, the telephone will flourish +in China, as it has done in the Chinese quarter +in San Francisco. The Empress of China, after +the siege of Peking, commanded that a telephone +should be hung in her palace, within reach of her +dragon throne; and she was very friendly with +any representative of the "Speaking Lightning +Sounds" business, as the Chinese term telephony. + +In Persia the telephone made its entry recently +in true comic-opera fashion. A new Shah, in an +outburst of confidence, set up a wire between +his palace and the market-place in Teheran, and +invited his people to talk to him whenever they +had grievances. And they talked! They talked +so freely and used such language, that the Shah +ordered out his soldiers and attacked them. He +fired upon the new Parliament, and was at once +chased out of Persia by the enraged people. +From this it would appear that the telephone +ought to be popular in Persia, although at present +there are not more than twenty in use. + +South America, outside of Buenos Ayres, has +few telephones, probably not more than thirty +thousand. Dom Pedro of Brazil, who befriended +Bell at the Centennial, introduced telephony +into his country in 1881; but it has not +in thirty years been able to obtain ten thousand +users. Canada has exactly the same number as +Sweden--one hundred and sixty-five thousand. +Mexico has perhaps ten thousand; New Zealand +twenty-six thousand; and Australia fifty- +five thousand. + +Far down in the list of continents stands +Africa. Egypt and Algeria have twelve thousand +at the north; British South Africa has as +many at the south; and in the vast stretches +between there are barely a thousand more. +Whoever pushes into Central Africa will still +hear the beat of the wooden drum, which is the +clattering sign-language of the natives. One +strand of copper wire there is, through the Congo +region, placed there by order of the late King +of Belgium. To string it was probably the most +adventurous piece of work in the history of +telephone linemen. There was one seven hundred +and fifty mile stretch of the central jungle. +There were white ants that ate the wooden poles, +and wild elephants that pulled up the iron poles. +There were monkeys that played tag on the +lines, and savages that stole the wire for arrow- +heads. But the line was carried through, and +to-day is alive with conversations concerning +rubber and ivory. + +So, we may almost say of the telephone that +"there is no speech nor language where its voice +is not heard." There are even a thousand miles +of its wire in Abyssinia and one hundred and +fifty miles in the Fiji Islands. Roughly speaking, +there are now ten million telephones in all +countries, employing two hundred and fifty thousand +people, requiring twenty-one million miles +of wire, representing a cost of fifteen hundred +million dollars, and carrying fourteen thousand +million conversations a year. All this, and yet +the men who heard the first feeble cry of the in- +fant telephone are still alive, and not by any +means old. + +No foreign country has reached the high +American level of telephony. The United +States has eight telephones per hundred of +population, while no other country has one-half as +many. Canada stands second, with almost four +per hundred; and Sweden is third. Germany +has as many telephones as the State of New +York; and Great Britain as many as Ohio. +Chicago has more than London; and Boston +twice as many as Paris. In the whole of +Europe, with her twenty nations, there are one- +third as many telephones as in the United States. +In proportion to her population, Europe has only +one-thirteenth as many. + +The United States writes half as many letters +as Europe, sends one-third as many telegrams, +and talks twice as much at the telephone. The +average European family sends three telegrams +a year, and three letters and one telephone message +a week; while the average American family +sends five telegrams a year, and seven letters and +eleven telephone messages a week. This one na- +tion, which owns six per cent of the earth and is +five per cent of the human race, has SEVENTY +per cent of the telephones. And fifty per cent, +or one-half, of the telephony of the world, is now +comprised in the Bell System of this country. + +There are only six nations in Europe that make +a fair showing--the Germans, British, Swedish, +Danes, Norwegians, and Swiss. The others have +less than one telephone per hundred. Little +Denmark has more than Austria. Little Finland has +better service than France. The Belgian telephones +have cost the most--two hundred and +seventy-three dollars apiece; and the Finnish +telephones the least--eighty-one dollars. But a +telephone in Belgium earns three times as much +as one in Norway. In general, the lesson in +Europe is this, that the telephone is what a nation +makes it. Its usefulness depends upon the sense +and enterprise with which it is handled. It may +be either an invaluable asset or a nuisance. + +Too much government! That has been the +basic reason for failure in most countries. Before +the telephone was invented, the telegraph +had been made a State monopoly; and the tele- +phone was regarded as a species of telegraph. +The public officials did not see that a telephone +system is a highly complex and technical problem, +much more like a piano factory or a steel- +mill. And so, wherever a group of citizens +established a telephone service, the government +officials looked upon it with jealous eyes, and +usually snatched it away. The telephone thus +became a part of the telegraph, which is a part +of the post office, which is a part of the government. +It is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction +--a mere twig of bureaucracy. Under such +conditions the telephone could not prosper. The +wonder is that it survived. + +Handled on the American plan, the telephone +abroad may be raised to American levels. There +is no racial reason for failure. The slow service +and the bungling are the natural results of treating +the telephone as though it were a road or a +fire department; and any nation that rises to a +proper conception of the telephone, that dares to +put it into competent hands and to strengthen +it with enough capital, can secure as alert and +brisk a service as heart can wish. Some nations +are already on the way. China, Japan, and +France have sent delegations to New York City +--"the Mecca of telephone men," to learn the +art of telephony in its highest development. +Even Russia has rescued the telephone from her +bureaucrats and is now offering it freely to men +of enterprise. + +In most foreign countries telephone service is +being steadily geared up to a faster pace. The +craze for "cheap and nasty" telephony is passing; +and the idea that the telephone is above all else +a SPEED instrument, is gaining ground. A faster +long-distance service, at double rates, is being +well patronized. Slow-moving races are learning +the value of time, which is the first lesson in +telephony. Our reapers and mowers now go to +seventy-five nations. Our street cars run in all +great cities. Morocco is importing our dollar +watches; Korea is learning the waste of allowing +nine men to dig with one spade. And all this +means telephones. + +In thirty years, the Western Electric has sold +sixty-seven million dollars' worth of telephonic +apparatus to foreign countries. But this is no +more than a fair beginning. To put one telephone +in China to every hundred people will +mean an outlay of three hundred million dollars. +To give Europe as fit an equipment as the +United States now has, will mean thirty million +telephones, with proper wire and switchboards +to match. And while telephony for the masses +is not yet a live question in many countries, +sooner or later, in the relentless push of civilization, +it must come. + +Possibly, in that far future of peace and goodwill +among nations, when each country does for +all the others what it can do best, the United +States may be generally recognized as the source +of skill and authority on telephony. It may be +called in to rebuild or operate the telephone +systems of other countries, in the same way that +it is now supplying oil and steel rails and +farm machinery. Just as the wise buyer of +to-day asks France for champagne, Germany +for toys, England for cottons, and the Orient +for rugs, so he will learn to look upon the United +States as the natural home and headquarters of +the telephone. + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE FUTURE OF THE TELEPHONE + +In the Spring of 1907 Theodore N. Vail, a +rugged, ruddy, white-haired man, was superintending +the building of a big barn in northern +Vermont. His house stood near-by, on a balcony +of rolling land that overlooked the town of +Lyndon and far beyond, across evergreen forests +to the massive bulk of Burke Mountain. His +farm, very nearly ten square miles in area, lay +back of the house in a great oval of field and +woodland, with several dozen cottages in the +clearings. His Welsh ponies and Swiss cattle +were grazing on the May grass, and the men +were busy with the ploughs and harrows and +seeders. It was almost thirty years since he +had been called in to create the business structure +of telephony, and to shape the general plan +of its development. Since then he had done +many other things. The one city of Buenos +Ayres had paid him more, merely for giving it a +system of trolleys and electric lights, than the +United States had paid him for putting the +telephone on a business basis. He was now rich +and retired, free to enjoy his play-work of the +farm and to forget the troubles of the city and +the telephone + +But, as he stood among his barn-builders, there +arrived from Boston and New York a delegation +of telephone directors. Most of them belonged +to the "Old Guard" of telephony. They had +fought under Vail in the pioneer days; and now +they had come to ask him to return to the telephone +business, after twenty years of absence. +Vail laughed at the suggestion. + +"Nonsense," he said, "I'm too old. I'm sixty- +two years of age." The directors persisted. +They spoke of the approaching storm-cloud of +panic and the need of another strong hand at the +wheel until the crisis was over, but Vail still refused. +They spoke of old times and old memories, +but he shook his head. "All my life," he +said, "I have wanted to be a farmer." + +Then they drew a picture of the telephone +situation. They showed him that the "grand +telephonic system" which he had planned was +unfinished. He was its architect, and it was undone. +The telephone business was energetic and +prosperous. Under the brilliant leadership of +Frederick P. Fish, it had grown by leaps and +bounds. But it was still far from being the +SYSTEM that Vail had dreamed of in his younger +days; and so, when the directors put before him +his unfinished plan, he surrendered. The instinct +for completeness, which is one of the +dominating characteristics of his mind, compelled +him to consent. It was the call of the +telephone. + +Since that May morning, 1907, great things +have been done by the men of the telephone and +telegraph world. The Bell System was brought +through the panic without a scratch. When the +doubt and confusion were at their worst, Vail +wrote an open letter to his stock-holders, in his +practical, farmer-like way. He said: + +"Our net earnings for the last ten months were +$13,715,000, as against $11,579,000 for the same +period in 1906. We have now in the banks over +$18,000,000; and we will not need to borrow any +money for two years." + +Soon afterwards, the work of consolidation +began. Companies that overlapped were united. +Small local wire-clusters, several thousands of +them, were linked to the national lines. A policy +of publicity superseded the secrecy which had +naturally grown to be a habit in the days of +patent litigation. Visitors and reporters found +an open door. Educational advertisements were +published in the most popular magazines. The +corps of inventors was spurred up to conquer +the long-distance problems. And in return for +a thirty million check, the control of the historic +Western Union was transferred from the +children of Jay Gould to the thirty thousand +stock-holders of the American Telephone and +Telegraph Company. + +From what has been done, therefore, we may +venture a guess as to the future of the telephone. +This "grand telephonic system" which had no +existence thirty years ago, except in the imagination +of Vail, seems to be at hand. The very +newsboys in the streets are crying it. And while +there is, of course, no exact blueprint of a best +possible telephone system, we can now see the +general outlines of Vail's plan. + +There is nothing mysterious or ominous in this +plan. It has nothing to do with the pools and +conspiracies of Wall Street. No one will be +squeezed out except the promoters of paper +companies. The simple fact is that Vail is +organizing a complete Bell System for the same +reason that he built one big comfortable barn for +his Swiss cattle and his Welsh ponies, instead of +half a dozen small uncomfortable sheds. He has +never been a "high financier" to juggle profits +out of other men's losses. He is merely applying +to the telephone business the same hard sense +that any farmer uses in the management of his +farm. He is building a Big Barn, metaphorically, +for the telephone and telegraph. + +Plainly, the telephone system of the future +will be national, so that any two people in the +same country will be able to talk to one another. +It will not be competitive, for the reason that no +farmer would think for a moment of running his +farm on competitive lines. It will have a staff- +and-line organization, to use a military phrase. +Each local company will continue to handle its +own local affairs, and exercise to the full the +basic virtue of self-help. But there will also be, +as now, a central body of experts to handle the +larger affairs that are common to all companies. +No separateness or secession on the one side, nor +bureaucracy on the other--that is the typically +American idea that underlies the ideal telephone +system. + +The line of authority, in such a system, will +begin with the local manager. From him it will +rise to the directors of the State company; then +higher still to the directors of the national company; +and finally, above all corporate leaders to +the Federal Government itself. The failure +of government ownership of the telephone in so +many foreign countries does not mean that the +private companies will have absolute power. +Quite the reverse. The lesson of thirty years' +experience shows that a private telephone company +is apt to be much more obedient to the will +of the people than if it were a Government de- +partment. But it is an axiom of democracy that +no company, however well conducted, will be +permitted to control a public convenience without +being held strictly responsible for its own acts. +As politics becomes less of a game and more of +a responsibility, the telephone of the future will +doubtless be supervised by some sort of public +committee, which will have power to pass upon +complaints, and to prevent the nuisance of +duplication and the swindle of watering stock. + +As this Federal supervision becomes more and +more efficient, the present fear of monopoly will +decrease, just as it did in the case of the railways. +It is a fact, although now generally forgotten, +that the first railways of the United States were +run for ten years or more on an anti-monopoly +plan. The tracks were free to all. Any one +who owned a cart with flanged wheels could drive +it on the rails and compete with the locomotives. +There was a happy-go-lucky jumble of trains +and wagons, all held back by the slowest team; +and this continued on some railways until as late +as 1857. By that time the people saw that com- +petition on a railway track was absurd. They +allowed each track to be monopolized by one +company, and the era of expansion began. + +No one, certainly, at the present time, regrets +the passing of the independent teamster. He +was much more arbitrary and expensive than +any railroad has ever dared to be; and as the +country grew, he became impossible. He was +not the fittest to survive. For the general good, +he was held back from competing with the railroad, +and taught to cooperate with it by hauling +freight to and from the depots. This, to his surprise, +he found much more profitable and pleasant. +He had been squeezed out of a bad job +into a good one. And by a similar process of +evolution, the United States is rapidly outgrowing +the small independent telephone companies. +These will eventually, one by one, rise as the +teamster did to a higher social value, by clasping +wires with the main system of telephony. + +Until 1881 the Bell System was in the hands +of a family group. It was a strictly private +enterprise. The public had been asked to help +in its launching, and had refused. But after +1881 it passed into the control of the small +stock-holders, and has remained there without a +break. It is now one of our most democratized +businesses, scattering either wages or dividends +into more than a hundred thousand homes. +It has at times been exclusive, but never sordid. +It has never been dollar-mad, nor frenzied by the +virus of stock-gambling. There has always been +a vein of sentiment in it that kept it in touch with +human nature. Even at the present time, each +check of the American Telephone and Telegraph +Company carries on it a picture of a pretty +Cupid, sitting on a chair upon which he has +placed a thick book, and gayly prattling into a +telephone. + +Several sweeping changes may be expected in +the near future, now that there is team-play +between the Bell System and the Western Union. +Already, by a stroke of the pen, five million +users of telephones have been put on the credit +books of the Western Union; and every Bell +telephone office is now a telegraph office. Three +telephone messages and eight telegrams may be +sent AT THE SAME TIME over two pairs of wires: +that is one of the recent miracles of science, and +is now to be tried out upon a gigantic scale. +Most of the long-distance telephone wires, fully +two million miles, can be used for telegraphic +purposes; and a third of the Western Union +wires, five hundred thousand miles, may with a +few changes be used for talking. + +The Western Union is paying rent for twenty- +two thousand, five hundred offices, all of which +helps to make telegraphy a luxury of the few. +It is employing as large a force of messenger- +boys as the army that marched with General +Sherman from Atlanta to the sea. Both of +these items of expense will dwindle when a Bell +wire and a Morse wire can be brought to a +common terminal; and when a telegram can be +received or delivered by telephone. There will +also be a gain, perhaps the largest of all, in +removing the trudging little messenger-boy from +the streets and sending him either to school or +to learn some useful trade. + +The fact is that the United States is the first +country that has succeeded in putting both telephone +and telegraph upon the proper basis. + +Elsewhere either the two are widely apart, or the +telephone is a mere adjunct of a telegraphic +department. According to the new American +plan, the two are not competitive, but complementary. +The one is a supplement to the other. +The post office sends a package; the telegraph +sends the contents of the package; but the +telephone sends nothing. It is an apparatus that +makes conversation possible between two separated +people. Each of the three has a distinct +field of its own, so that there has never been any +cause for jealousy among them. + +To make the telephone an annex of the post +office or the telegraph has become absurd. +There are now in the whole world very nearly +as many messages sent by telephone as by letter; +and there are THIRT-TWO TIMES as many telephone +calls as telegrams. In the United States, the +telephone has grown to be the big brother of the +telegraph. It has six times the net earnings and +eight times the wire. And it transmits as many +messages as the combined total of telegrams, +letters, and railroad passengers. + +This universal trend toward consolidation has +introduced a variety of problems that will engage +the ablest brains in the telephone world for many +years to come. How to get the benefits of +organization without its losses, to become strong +without losing quickness, to become systematic +without losing the dash and dare of earlier days, +to develop the working force into an army of +high-speed specialists without losing the bird's- +eye view of the whole situation,--these are the +riddles of the new type, for which the telephonists +of the next generation must find the +answers. They illustrate the nature of the big +jobs that the telephone has to offer to an ambitious +and gifted young man of to-day. + +"The problems never were as large or as complex +as they are right now," says J. J. Carty, the +chief of the telephone engineers. The eternal +struggle remains between the large and little +ideas--between the men who see what might be +and the men who only see what IS. There is +still the race to break records. Already the girl +at the switchboard can find the person wanted +in thirty seconds. This is one-tenth of the time +that was taken in the early centrals; but it is +still too long. It is one-half of a valuable minute. +It must be cut to twenty-five seconds, or +twenty or fifteen. + +There is still the inventors' battle to gain +miles. The distance over which conversations +can be held has been increased from twenty miles +to twenty-five hundred. But this is not far +enough. There are some civilized human beings +who are twelve thousand miles apart, and who +have interests in common. During the Boxer +Rebellion in China, for instance, there were +Americans in Peking who would gladly have +given half of their fortune for the use of a pair +of wires to New York. + +In the earliest days of the telephone, Bell was +fond of prophesying that "the time will come +when we will talk across the Atlantic Ocean"; +but this was regarded as a poetical fancy until +Pupin invented his method of automatically +propelling the electric current. Since then the +most conservative engineer will discuss the problem +of transatlantic telephony. And as for the +poets, they are now dreaming of the time when +a man may speak and hear his own voice come +back to him around the world. + +The immediate long-distance problem is, of +course, to talk from New York to the Pacific. +The two oceans are now only three and a half +days apart by rail. Seattle is clamoring for a +wire to the East. San Diego wants one in time +for her Panama Canal Exposition in 1915. +The wires are already strung to San Francisco, +but cannot be used in the present stage of the art. +And Vail's captains are working now with almost +breathless haste to give him a birthday present of +a talk across the continent from his farm in +Vermont. + +"I can see a universal system of telephony for +the United States in the very near future," says +Carty. "There is a statue of Seward standing +in one of the streets of Seattle. The inscription +upon it is, `To a United Country.' But as +an Easterner stands there, he feels the isolation +of that Far Western State, and he will always +feel it, until he can talk from one side of the +United States to the other. For my part," con- +tinues Carty, "I believe we will talk across +continents and across oceans. Why not? Are +there not more cells in one human body than there +are people in the whole earth?" + +Some future Carty may solve the abandoned +problem of the single wire, and cut the copper +bill in two by restoring the grounded circuit. +He may transmit vision as well as speech. He +may perfect a third-rail system for use on +moving trains. He may conceive of an ideal insulating +material to supersede glass, mica, paper, +and enamel. He may establish a universal code, +so that all persons of importance in the United +States shall have call-numbers by which they may +instantly be located, as books are in a library. + +Some other young man may create a commercial +department on wide lines, a work which +telephone men have as yet been too specialized to +do. Whoever does this will be a man of comprehensive +brain. He will be as closely in touch +with the average man as with the art of telephony. +He will know the gossip of the street, +the demands of the labor unions, and the +policies of governors and presidents. The psy- +chology of the Western farmer will concern him, +and the tone of the daily press, and the methods +of department stores. It will be his aim to +know the subtle chemistry of public opinion, and +to adapt the telephone service to the shifting +moods and necessities of the times. HE WILL FIT +TELEPHONY LIKE A GARMENT AROUND THE HABITS OF THE +PEOPLE. + +Also, now that the telephone business has +become strong, its next anxiety must be to develop +the virtues, and not the defects, of strength. +Its motto must be "Ich dien"--I serve; and it +will be the work of the future statesmen of the +telephone to illustrate this motto in all its +practical variations. They will cater and explain, +and explain and cater. They will educate and +educate, until they have created an expert public. +They will teach by pictures and lectures +and exhibitions. They will have charts and diagrams +hung in the telephone booths, so that the +person who is waiting for a call may learn a little +and pass the time more pleasantly. They will, +in a word, attend to those innumerable trifles that +make the perfection of public service. + +Already the Bell System has gone far in +this direction by organizing what might fairly +be called a foresight department. Here is +where the fortune-tellers of the business sit. +When new lines or exchanges are to be built, +these men study the situation with an eye to +the future. They prepare a "fundamental +plan," outlining what may reasonably be +expected to happen in fifteen or twenty years. +Invariably they are optimists. They make provision +for growth, but none at all for shrinkage. +By their advice, there is now twenty-five million +dollars' worth of reserve plant in the various +Bell Companies, waiting for the country +to grow up to it. Even in the city of New +York, one-half of the cable ducts are empty, +in expectation of the greater city of eight million +population which is scheduled to arrive in 1928. +There are perhaps few more impressive evidences +of practical optimism and confidence than a new +telephone exchange, with two-thirds of its wires +waiting for the business of the future. + +Eventually, this foresight department will +expand. It may, if a leader of genius appear, +become the first real corps of practical sociologists, +which will substitute facts for the present +hotch-potch of theories. It will prepare a +"fundamental plan" of the whole United States, +showing the centre of each industry and the +main runways of traffic. It will act upon the +basic fact that WHEREVER THERE IS INTERDEPENDENCE, +THERE IS BOUND TO BE TELEPHONY; and it will therefore +prepare maps of interdependence, showing +the widely scattered groups of industry and +finance, and the lines that weave them into a +pattern of national cooperation. + +As yet, no nation, not even our own, has seen +the full value of the long-distance telephone. +Few have the imagination to see what has been +made possible, and to realize that an actual face- +to-face conversation may take place, even though +there be a thousand miles between. Neither can +it seem credible that a man in a distant city may +be located as readily as though he were close at +hand. It is too amazing to be true, and possibly +a new generation will have to arrive before +it will be taken for granted and acted upon +freely. Ultimately, there can be no doubt that +long-distance telephony will be regarded as a +national asset of the highest value, for the reason +that it can prevent so much of the enormous +economic waste of travel. + +Nothing that science can say will ever decrease +the marvel of a long-distance conversation, and +there may come in the future an Interpreter +who will put it before our eyes in the form of a +moving-picture. He will enable us to follow the +flying words in a talk from Boston to Denver. +We will flash first to Worcester, cross the Hudson +on the high bridge at Poughkeepsie, swing +southwest through a dozen coal towns to the outskirts +of Philadelphia, leap across the Susquehanna, +zigzag up and down the Alleghenies into +the murk of Pittsburg, cross the Ohio at Wheeling, +glance past Columbus and Indianapolis, +over the Wabash at Terre Haute, into St. Louis +by the Eads bridge, through Kansas City, across +the Missouri, along the corn-fields of Kansas, +and then on--on--on with the Sante Fe +Railway, across vast plains and past the brink of +the Grand Canyon, to Pueblo and the lofty city +of Denver. Twenty-five hundred miles along +a thousand tons of copper wire! From Bunker +Hill to Pike's Peak IN A SECOND! + +Herbert Spencer, in his autobiography, alludes +to the impressive fact that while the eye +is reading a single line of type, the earth has +travelled thirty miles through space. But this, +in telephony, would be slow travelling. It is +simple everyday truth to say that while your eye +is reading this dash,--, a telephone sound can be +carried from New York to Chicago. + +There are many reasons to believe that for the +practical idealists of the future, the supreme +study will be the force that makes such miracles +possible. Six thousand million dollars--one- +twentieth of our national wealth--is at the present +time invested in electrical development. The +Electrical Age has not yet arrived; but it is at +hand; and no one can tell how brilliant the result +may be, when the creative minds of a nation are +focussed upon the subdual of this mysterious +force, which has more power and more delicacy +than any other force that man has been able to +harness. + +As a tame and tractable energy, Electricity is +new. It has no past and no pedigree. It is +younger than many people who are now alive. +Among the wise men of Greece and Rome, few +knew its existence, and none put it to any +practical use. The wisest knew that a piece of +amber, when rubbed, will attract feathery substances. +But they regarded this as poetry rather +than science. There was a pretty legend among +the Phoenicians that the pieces of amber were the +petrified tears of maidens who had thrown themselves +into the sea because of unrequited love, +and each bead of amber was highly prized. It +was worn as an amulet and a symbol of purity. +Not for two thousand years did any one dream +that within its golden heart lay hidden the secret +of a new electrical civilization. + +Not even in 1752, when Benjamin Franklin +flew his famous kite on the banks of the Schuylkill +River, and captured the first CANNED LIGHTNING, +was there any definite knowledge of electrical +energy. His lightning-rod was regarded +as an insult to the deity of Heaven. It was +blamed for the earthquake of 1755. And not +until the telegraph of Morse came into general +use, did men dare to think of the thunder-bolt of +Jove as a possible servant of the human race. + +Thus it happened that when Bell invented the +telephone, he surprised the world with a new +idea. He had to make the thought as well as +the thing. No Jules Verne or H. G. Wells had +foreseen it. The author of the Arabian Nights +fantasies had conceived of a flying carpet, but +neither he nor any one else had conceived of +flying conversation. In all the literature of +ancient days, there is not a line that will apply +to the telephone, except possibly that expressive +phrase in the Bible, "And there came a voice." +In these more privileged days, the telephone has +come to be regarded as a commonplace fact of +everyday life; and we are apt to forget that the +wonder of it has become greater and not less; +and that there are still honor and profit, plenty +of both, to be won by the inventor and the +scientist. + +The flood of electrical patents was never higher +than now. There are literally more in a single +month than the total number issued by the Patent +Office up to 1859. The Bell System has three +hundred experts who are paid to do nothing else +but try out all new ideas and inventions; and +before these words can pass into the printed +book, new uses and new methods will have +been discovered. There is therefore no immediate +danger that the art of telephony will be +less fascinating in the future than it has been in +the past. It will still be the most alluring and +elusive sprite that ever led the way through a +Dark Continent of mysterious phenomena. + +There still remains for some future scientist +the task of showing us in detail exactly what the +telephone current does. Such a man will study +vibrations as Darwin studied the differentiation +of species. He will investigate how a child's +voice, speaking from Boston to Omaha, can +vibrate more than a million pounds of copper +wire; and he will invent a finer system of time to +fit the telephone, which can do as many different +things in a second as a man can do in a day, +transmitting with every tick of the clock from twenty- +five to eighty thousand vibrations. He will deal +with the various vibrations of nerves and wires +and wireless air, that are necessary in conveying +thought between two separated minds. He will +make clear how a thought, originating in the +brain, passes along the nerve-wires to the vocal +chords, and then in wireless vibration of air to +the disc of the transmitter. At the other end +of the line the second disc re-creates these +vibrations, which impinge upon the nerve-wires of an +ear, and are thus carried to the consciousness of +another brain. + +And so, notwithstanding all that has been done +since Bell opened up the way, the telephone remains +the acme of electrical marvels. No other +thing does so much with so little energy. No +other thing is more enswathed in the unknown. +Not even the gray-haired pioneers who have lived +with the telephone since its birth, can understand +their protege. As to the why and the how, there +is as yet no answer. It is as true of telephony +to-day as it was in 1876, that a child can use +what the wisest sages cannot comprehend. + +Here is a tiny disc of sheet-iron. I speak--it +shudders. It has a different shudder for every +sound. It has thousands of millions of different +shudders. There is a second disc many miles +away, perhaps twenty-five hundred miles away. +Between the two discs runs a copper wire. As +I speak, a thrill of electricity flits along the wire. +This thrill is moulded by the shudder of the disc. +It makes the second disc shudder. And the +shudder of the second disc reproduces my voice. +That is what happens. But how--not all the +scientists of the world can tell. + +The telephone current is a phenomenon of the +ether, say the theorists. But what is ether? No +one knows. Sir Oliver Lodge has guessed that +it is "perhaps the only substantial thing in the +material universe"; but no one knows. There +is nothing to guide us in that unknown country +except a sign-post that points upwards and bears +the one word--"Perhaps." The ether of space! +Here is an Eldorado for the scientists of the +future, and whoever can first map it out will go +far toward discovering the secret of telephony. + +Some day--who knows?--there may come +the poetry and grand opera of the telephone. +Artists may come who will portray the marvel +of the wires that quiver with electrified words, +and the romance of the switchboards that trem- +ble with the secrets of a great city. Already +Puvis de Chavannes, by one of his superb panels +in the Boston Library, has admitted the telephone +and the telegraph to the world of art. +He has embodied them as two flying figures, +poised above the electric wires, and with the +following inscription underneath: "By the +wondrous agency of electricity, speech dashes +through space and swift as lightning bears +tidings of good and evil." + +But these random guesses as to the future of +the telephone may fall far short of what the +reality will be. In these dazzling days it is idle +to predict. The inventor has everywhere put +the prophet out of business. Fact has outrun +Fancy. When Morse, for instance, was tacking +up his first little line of wire around the Speedwell +Iron Works, who could have foreseen two +hundred and fifty thousand miles of submarine +cables, by which the very oceans are all aquiver +with the news of the world? When Fulton's +tiny tea-kettle of a boat steamed up the Hudson +to Albany in two days, who could have foreseen +the steel leviathans, one-sixth of a mile in length, +that can in the same time cut the Atlantic Ocean +in halves? And when Bell stood in a dingy +workshop in Boston and heard the clang of a +clock-spring come over an electric wire, who +could have foreseen the massive structure of the +Bell System, built up by half the telephones of +the world, and by the investment of more actual +capital than has gone to the making of any other +industrial association? Who could have foreseen +what the telephone bells have done to ring +out the old ways and to ring in the new; to ring +out delay, and isolation and to ring in the efficiency +and the friendliness of a truly united people? + + + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The History of the Telephone + diff --git a/old/thott10.zip b/old/thott10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c521105 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/thott10.zip |