The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-09-17
GROWING SPEAKING WIRE"
ADVENTURE IN THE LIVES OF TEL
EPHONE BUILDERS.

of 10000 People Employed by the
TeIephOne Companies in the Unit
ed states. 1000 Are construction
NIen',-Natchfng for Breakages.
How the Gangs Go From Place to
place Carrying Their COmmissary
pepartment with Them-Dfscip-
line Among Them Stricter Than
That Enforced in Armies.
New York. Sept 15.-Including all hands,
from pretty girl operators" to brawny
"sroundmen," it takes 10000 persons 10
keep the telephone business of the Unteo
States moving. Twenty-eight thousand
are employed in the operation and main
tenance of the completed lines; the other
1000 are hustling constantly in the stretch
ing of new lines. There is much of the
humdrum and the monotOnous in the life
Of the 2S,OO0, for their duties, mostly of
routine nature, are gone through with
week after week and year after year, with
out much variation of method or change
of scene Monotony is an unknown guam
tity among the 1000 they are continually
on the move, for telephone extension IS
going on in nearly every state of the
union and they encounter new combina-
tions and novel problems almost daily.
The laying out and building of line of
speaking wire requires the services Of in
dividuaIs following many different Occur
pations-men of profound scientific and
technical knowledge, shrewd professional
men with political aptitudes, men trained
10 a dozen different trades and common
laboTers-not counting those who draw the
wire for the line or those who make the
instruments and the numerous minor es-
sentials 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, cover
ing the territory to be crossed, spread out
before 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 follow the highways, be-
cause the telegraph, being earlier on the
ground, had pre-empted most of the rail-
road lines before ever a telephone wire
was strung. 1t is the duty of the man
who lays out the line-hs title is engi-
neer of construction-to determine what
roads shall be followed in order to get the
shortest route and Professionally to indi-
cate its exact location in vivid red Ink
lines on the map of every city and county
between terminal points.
Advance COuriers.
A thousand men are preparing the mate
rails for construction, meanwhile, but the
nplr nEN-f in .p7a lncrffsa oil is hat ff
those advance couriers of the telephone,
the 'right-of-way men," Their first task
IS the securing 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 ilI-disposed. to the great In
convenience of the public as well as the
telephone folk. 1t is in doing right-Of-way
work that the professional men with politt-
cal aptitudes are employed. They are gem
eraled by man who has had much pre-
vious right-of-way experience in various
parts of the country, but local characters,
possessed of pull" with councilmen, town
boards and other home authorities. are nee
essarily taken on, from one end of the
route to the other. Besides franchises,
they also secure permission for the placing
of the poles from the farmers and other
property owners in front of whose premi-
ses the line is TO pass. This must be very
carefully and thoroughly done, hence law
yers are employed, mostly, and well paid
for their services. The title OF every piece
of property involved must be looked up and
when there Is a mortgage the mortgages
consent, as well as the owners must be
obtained otherwise, in case of foreclosure
and sale, the new owner might cut down
the poles, thus gripping the line serious
w and stfll he within the law
Naturally the right of way men operate
in harmony with the surveying party.
The surveyors are as important in laying
out telephone line as in laying out a
railroad. AS fast as franchises and per-
mits are got the poles are located and
their hight determined. There is varia-
ton in hight only when the country is
broken; then poles of extra length are
employed to overcome irregularities of the
ground Telephone men term this grad
ing" At curves in the line the strain on
the poles is equalized by guying. A stake
is driven by the surveying party to show
the exact location of every pole instruc-
tons as to It's length, whether it is to
be guyed or not, etc, being written in
delibly upon the top of the stake which
has been smoothed off for that purpose.
Dynamite and 'Deadmen."
The construction party follows the sur
Veyiug party as rapidly as may be- It
takes a party of about eighty men to
build a line of ten wires through a well
settled region. Including all the extras,
100 men at least are needed for construc-
ton across a stretch of new country. They
are placed under discipline, almost mill
tary in its severity, the party as a whole
being in charge of a construction super
intendent and each division being con-
trolled by a foreman.
The ground men come first after the
locators Ground men dig holes, of course
and are armed with crowbars, picks, shov-
els, augurs and dynamite. Formerly dy-
Mantle was not used save when rock was
found near the surface; nova days holes
are dug only a little way down with pick
and shovel, even in the softest soil, after
which boring is made with a two-inch
augur as deep as the pole is to be set
half a stick of dynamite is inserted and
the hole is blown out" The use of dy-
Mantle has increased the rapidity of tele-
phone construction vastly and il has also
tended 70 make construction gangs I'M
popular in some places. Thus in a GER
tain New Jersey town the blowing out of