The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-12-25
The
Standards
Patents
Brought into
Question
From the
New York World of
November, 10. 1895

Telephone Company in appointing COM
mittee to investigate its parent, the Stand
ard Telephone Company, is of wide inter-
est because the parent company has
organized local branches in nearly every
State in the Union.
The parent company has its general
offices at 295 Broadway, but it is incorpo-
rated under the laws of Arizona. Its plan
! is to sell for cash to stock companies IN
various States and Territories the right to
use its telephones, retaining for itself q
controlling number of shares of stock in
each company.
| 1t agrees to establish trunk lines to the
big cities throughout the United States,
! Canada and Mexico, and to furnish long
distance telephone, protected by its own
patents, which shall be superior to the
Bell telephone.
The Jersey company, consisting OF
twenty prominent capitalists who have
paid. it is alleged $4,000 for the Standards
rights in New Jersey and Delaware, COM
| plain that as yet there are no trunk lines
and no telephones, and, furthermore, no
apparent effort on the part of the Standard
Company to furnish them. At last ac-
counts the directors of the Jersey company
1 ndU uOt even Sttn tuc pdbcubo WhlOh bh0
| Standard claims.
Is THE PHONE AN INFRINGEMENT?
| Some electrical experts who have seen
samples of the Standard telephone are
said to declare that it is nothing but re-
production of the Bell telephone. If so
| the Bell Company would Immediately con-
| test its introduction.
| The Standard recently sent two instru-
ments to Elizabeth, n. j., to be submitted,
! together with telephones of other makes,
to committee of experts. These experts,
| it is said did not select the Standard. One
of the experts told World reporter that
| there was no doubt that the instrument
exhibited by the Standard was fac
| smile of the Bell.
In Richmond, Va, the Standard made
application for franchise in competition
with local company. G. S. Maxwell,
| Bell expert, examined with others the
| telephones submitted as samples.
| "Imagine my surprise" he says, "when
the instrument was presented to me, to
! find one of the regular long-distance,
! solid back transmitters, arranged i'll desk
| form. such as are used throughout the
country by the American Bell Telephone
Company. This instrument is constructed
! without a single point of difference. 1t
| has the solid back transmItter with micre
retaining diaphragm; it has piston cleo
trode attached to the main diaphragm; it
operates with the Roosevelt gravity
switch, which patent does not expire until
9th of next May-in fact, it is the Bell in
strument throughout"
SAID TO HAVE DECLINED TESTS.
Mr.. Maxwell proposed to go before
committee of the Common Council in
Richmond with Bell and a Standard
| telephone and dissect both to show their
similarity but he says that the Standards
representative declined to agree to this.
After the committee had made it's report
| Mr.. Maxwell published card in the local
! papers of Richmond offering 500 provided
! he could not prove to any committee of
| disinterested experts that the so-called
| Standard telephone sis either Bell long
distance telephone or rank infringement
of the Watson, Rooseveldt and other
patents controlled by the Bell Telephone
! Company" He offered $40 reward for the
number of any patent owned by the Stand
ard Company and $40 reward for proof
that the Standard Company have tele-
| phone exchange in operation anywhere in
| the world. The Standards agent, Mr..
Maxwell says, did not respond to this
proposition.
The journal, Electricity has published q
! fac-simile of the letter addressed by the
Standard Company to 1.-The boys who are
| in the real pot" This is the letter which
suggests "the greasing of Common Coun-
! ellis" and called down upon the presents
! company the condemnation of the di-'
rectors of the Jersey company. The pat
ticularly Objectionable clause was:
TO GREASE COMMON COUNCILS
$50 that the promoters of a local tele-
phone company, under the Standard Tele-
phone Company's license, have 500 in cash
net profits on each phone to play with ;,
and stock interest in every telephone Of
1874, to grease Common Councils, to sell to
local third floor, sub-cellar investors, etc.
Yet the boys who are in the real pot, if
they play their cards right, will have the
control of every local telephone company -
plant
President Thurlow Weed Barnes of the
| Standard Telephone Company says that
he never authorized the issuing of the cir
cular referred to- and those who know him
! believe this to be trne, but the World has
! found one man who says that he received
| one of the circulars from the hands of a
i Standard agent. and that the circular was
signed with the name of Allen T. Nye,
general manager of the company.
1t is charged now that the same Mr.. Nye
was one of the active promoters of the
Overland Telephone Company, which went
TO smash few years ago after collecting
money from capitalists and prominent
/ men all over the country. 1t is said that
Samuel J. Tilden sunk $4,000 in the
/ scheme and that others interested were
such men as K. G. Dun, J. W. Barrow. ].
N Ewell, Charles P. Crosby, r. D. Bu-
chanan, S. R. Beckwith, +. w. Lockwood
and Erastus Wiman.
LIKE THE OVERLAND COMPANY.
The Overland Company was organized
in 1888, and its prospectus was very much
like that of the Standard Company. Like
the Standard its scheme was to break the
Bell monopoly and furnish telephones at
such reduced rate that the ordinary
householder in cities could afford one, and
+bot no forp,or xyn,,1d no cor, Sidpred nm n