Omaha daily bee., 1899-09-17
LIFE AMONG WIRE-PULLERS
Incidents that Break the Monotony of Tele
phone Line Building.
STRANGE TOOL WITH A STRANGE NAME
How the Gangs Go from Place to
Place Carrying Their Commissary
Department with Them
Watching for Breakages.

Including all hands, from pretty girl
operators" to brawny "groundmen" 1T
sakes 10000 persons to keep the telephone
business of the United States moving.
Twenty-eight thousand are employed in the
operation. and maintenance OF the COM
pleted lines, the other 1000 are hustling
constantly in the stretching of new lines.
There is much Of the humdrum and the
monotonous in the life of the $4,000. for
their duties, mostly Of a routine nature,
are gone through with week after week and
year after year, without much variation OF
method or change or scene. Monotony is an
unknown quantity among the 1000; they are
continually on the move, for telephone extern
sion Is going on in nearly every state in
the union, and they encounter new COM
binations and novel problems almost daily.
The laying out and building Of a line
OF speaking wire requires the services of
individuals following many different occu-
pations-men of profound scientific and
technical knowledge, shrewd professional
men with political aptitudes, men trained
TO a dozen different trades and common
laborers-not counting those who draw the
wire for the line or those who make the
instruments and the numerous minor essen
tails of construction.
1t would not be easy to say along which
line OF activity the energies of the tele-
phone men are first exerted In actual con-
struction, but. logically, the man who lays
out the line makes the start, with a great
number OF county and city maps, covering
the territory to be crossed, spread out be-
fore him. When the line is several hundred
miles in length his examination OF these
maps is long and tedious, Both telegraph
and telephone wires are almost invariably
strung along either railroads or highways
that repairing linemen may reach them
readily. Railroads offer the shorter routes,
as a rule, but telephone lines generally fol-
low the highways, because the telegraph,
being earlier on the ground, had p~re-empted
most OF the railroad lines before ever a
telephone wire was strung. 1t Is the duty
of the man who lays out the line-his title
Is engineer of constructi5n-to determine
what roads shall be followed in order to get
the shortest route and Professionally to indl-
cate its exact location In vivid red ink lines
on the map OF every city and county be-
tween terminal points.
Advance COuriers.
A thousand men are preparing the material
for construction, meanwhile, but the work
next in order, logically, Is that of those ad-
vance couriers Of the telephone, the right
of-way men" Their first task is the secur-
ang OF franchises or other legal permits from
all the local authorities to go ahead. These
were often overlooked in the early days OF
telephone construction. but never are now
lack Of formal permits having been taken
advantage OF in some places by the ill-dis-
posed, to the great inconvenience Of the
public as we'll as the telephone folk. II il
in doing right OF way work that the profes
sional men with political aptitudes are EN-
ployed. They are generated by a man who
has had much previous right of way expert
ence in various parts Of the country. but
local characters, possessed Of pull" with
couneilmen. town boards and other home au-
liberties. are necessarily taken on. from ons