The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1899-12-08
TALKING TO LACROSSE.

TALKING. TO LACROSSE.
The Editor Has Thrilling Experiece
With the Long Distance Telephone.
On Wednesday evening we had a
telephone call from lacrosse, Wiscon-
sin. 1t was an old call, we had it the
night before and had waited'near!y an
hour for the line to be cleared for ac-
tion until the handsome, refined and
hello'' girl at Harlan had
call from her best beau and that closed
the wire for the night The man at
aCrosse wanted to talk with the edi-
tor of Denison's leading newspaper
and we felt that he oaght to be accom-
modate1. On Wednesday NIGHT the
second call was sent in We found that
in order to talk to Lacrosse the mes
sage must go from Danlsonto Harlan,
Harlan to Avoca, Avoca to Council
Bluffs, Council Bluffs to Chicago, Chi
.cago TO Rock Island Rock Island to
Lacrosse, After our Denison operator
had scolded while and threatened
dire vengeance on Boone, Jefferson, Ida
Grove and sundry other small fry
towns if they did not ''get off the line, ..
we got connections with Chicago.
From Chicago the telephone works
so perfectly that we distinctly heard
the crystal waters of the Chicago river
tapping against its willowy banks, we
heard the news boys selling Extras on
the street and We thought we could
family catch the murmuring of Baron
Yerkes as he boOdled an alderman.
This may not he true but as they say
an alderman is boodled every seven
minutes in Chicago. that may have
been what we heard. Finally the
OPERATORS voice reached us over the
900 miles of wire The operator said
.'Hello." We thought we detected an
odor of beer about the voice but it was
explained that the operator was per-
fectly sober but that the message had
to come through Davenport. Now
Chicago sounded so plainly that we
answered back in ou. usual, soothing
conversational voice, '.HeIlo'' y 1t was
then we found that telephone does
not alwaS work the same both ways
The man in Chicago said, ''Say that
again. did not understand" We
thought anyone knew that Hello" was
the first thing any man ever 8 id to a
telephone, but we let that pass and
4 tried it again in a clear loud tone.
"What?" said Chicago. Miss Edith
told us to get our mouth in the tele-
phone and yell We yelled sWhat
i did you say?'' said Chicago. That
made us mad we used to lead the col
lege yell years ago and the only time
we ever came near to getting into the
clutches of the law was one time al
Iowa City when we drowned out q
4 democratic brass band by yelling fol
Harrison. We were so mad that wher
we said hello the next time we came
pretty near getting it turned round
We gathered ourselves for the effort
rounded out our manly chest, stuck ou1
face into the telephone and emitted {
Hello" that would have raised tn,
hair on Camanche. If there hat
been any ages standing around it would
have gone laundering down them. A.
it was we could hear the dropping of
half dozen receivers from/the ears of 2
many listening operators At De
Moines they took it for the curfew bel
> and 1T is said that several arrests wer
made on the strength of it. 1t wen
hustling over the priaries of Illinois
; knocking downtelephone poles and W
expected the operator to drop dea
when it reached Chicago, but he didn
do thing but answer back suavel
"Oh yes, hello" After that the cor
a versation ran on smoothly and in fe,
Q minutes we had heard from the man q
Q LA Crosse and had given him the g,
n quisite pleasure of talking with til
Y editor of the leading newspaper {
6 Denison"
!, After all it isa wonderful thing {
II be ablo to speak with person ov,
!. nearly thousand miles of wire and I'll
l. fact that one can doit at all is great
k to the credit of the Telephone compan
g. In short time this enterprising cor
al pany will have a double metallic circu
3 to Denison and all the smaller cities
y Iowa and it will be as easy to talk
r La Crosse as it is to be called for brea
re fast. But as to that Hello effort
Is ours we expec- to hear that it did n
es stop at Chicago but went on in its M
ID career waking up Philadelphia, stal
Al peding another brave regiment
~ ~ British mules, driving Aggie from /
~ mountain fastnesses and finally getti
round to Denison again with moi
like that of the fire alarm.