Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1898-01-27
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IT WOULD be interesting to know
just what was the beginning of big
quarrel. Almost anyone can recall some
large event on which the leaders of the
two factions disagreed, but the real
thing to be striven for is the far-away
and remote affair which started these
ructions. The seed of the disputations.
The source, the very first germ of dis
cord, from which the present open and
deadly warfare sprung. For great quar-
rels do rise from very small and appar-
emily inconsequential thing slam
ming of door, the borrowing of pen
knife and the failure to return it, the
breaking of an appointment, the pinch
ing of pair of shoes. Napoleon started
out to conquer Europe because at just
the wrong time mosquito bit him and
irritated him and made him.want to get
square with somebody; the decay of the
Roman empire dates from the moment
that mischievous boy threw snow
ball in which he had placed lump of
anthracite coal at Julius Caesar and hit
him on the ear and withdrew his
thoughts from plans of peace.
Small things indeed are these, but
many historian can tell you of quar-
rels which grew out of smaller ones.
Sherwood, for instance, telegraph
operator, recently told of feud which
came into existence because of the loss
of such small thing as telegraphic
dot A good SENDER" can make ten or
more dots in a second, so you can i'm
agine how infinitely small one is. Only
a trained ear is able to distinguish the
difference between a dozen dots and
20 when a batch is rapidly made, and
yet one poor little dot nearly killed one
man and brought the other, overworked
and overweight, into hospital.
Sherwood was at the Chicago end of
a New York wire at the time of the a6-
venture. 1t was not a good wire even
at its best. 1t had a poor battery and
some other ailments. which made re-
ceiving woe. But first-class operators
were expected to do high-grade bust
mess with it, and they usually did if they
worked in harmony and did not get into
quarrels over the responsibility for the
cluttering and mixing of the faulty cir
cult. After two or three men had re-
signed in disgust and had declared that
they would rather wheel gravel to
stone crusher than try to copy from
that line Sherwood was put on at Chi
cago, and some stranger to him was
given the New York end. They seemed
to suit each other immensely well and
pounded away without the least bit of
friction for xuealy Thew raro
enough to take it easy and neither tried
to rush the other. Sometimes between
whites they would have a minute or so
for conversation, and these little spells
made them feel even better disposed
each to the other. One evening Sher-
wood thought business would proceed
with greater satisfaction if he knew
the name of the good fellow over in New
York, so in the course of a rest he asked:
whats your name, old MANI"
Quick as flash and to Sherwood's
utter amazement the other operator
hurled back at him the curt monosyl-
liable:
"Rats!"
Sherwood was thunderstruck and he
was also warm. GAIL right" he said 10
himself. ''Very well, you fresh sucker.
If that's your kind I'll let you alone and
give you a little taste of hot work Just
to make you do some thinking on po-
likeness over a line"
So he turned in and fairly made his
own arm whizz in jerking streaks of
lightning at the New Yorker. He put
on double speed, and with that hazy,
ragged wire to help to make things un-
ineligible he considered that he was
giving his associate very ardent chase
to copy him. He knew that the stuff
must be getting into New York in out
landish shape, but he felt outraged and
didn't care.
The next day the worm turned and
the New Yorker began to give Sherwood
a correct imitation of just how evilly
an angered telegraph operator, assisted
by bad circuit, can send Morse across
the country. The matter came like the
clatter of musketry in battle; like the
jangle of tin roofs torn up by cyclones;
like a nail mill working overtime, but
with very scant similarity to actual
commercial telegraphy. Just once in
long time perfect letter was dis
tinguishable in the rattle of the rub
bish of sound, but Sherwood was
naughty man and refused to "break"
Tor interrupt) the sender to ask what
he was trying to do. He would catch
as much as "He-y-on, -ca-o," and
guessing that to be Henry Wilson,