Arizona republican., 1906-12-29
TELEPHONE SYSTEM
 ON A BATTTLESHIP
Telephone Switchboard Buried in the Depths of Monster Fighting Machine Young BIueiackets Take the place of Girls.

i graph office, for the arrangements made | by the Navy Department to provide
 the squadron now at Charlestown with
 long distance telephone facilities have
 been completed and each of the big
 men-of-war has its own public pay
 station for the use of the captain and the members of his stan.
 1 The pay station is located aft, near
 the officers quarters. and all the lieu ] tenant O. the ensign need do is drop in
 to the booth and call up central-which
 in this case is the New England Tele-
 phone and Telegraph Company's ex- change in CharlestOn-and ask for i New York, Chicago or St. Louis. or any
 other of the thousands of points in the | Bell system east of the Mississippi. This arrangement is purely for the convenience of the visiting officers, as they may be called, the officers at tached to the ships stationed tempo rarily at the yard. and 1t goes to show | how indispensable the telephone has been even to men accustomed to spend great share of their time afioat. | In a way this arrangement is the re- suit of the increasing business of the yard. The scene at the mouth of the ! Charles is particularly picturesque at | the present time. In addition to the ! impressive display of towering white battlements and bun colOred crows nests built to carry rapid fire guns. ! there is the element of constant activ- | ity. Truly there is something doing at the old yard, a good deal more than has been doing there for many years past. Every pier and dry dock has its imposing cruiser or battleship anu every shop is working under high pres sure.
 Five of the battleships now in com mission are at the yard. the Georgia, Missouri Indiana. Rhode Island and Illinois, a powerful fleet by themselves and typical of the new navy" Besides these there are the new cruisers New York. Nashville and Detroit and the torpedo training ship Vesuvius. These last four are out of commission for the present.
 Things are done faster, and probably better, than they were in the old days. Here IS an example of this. Until the flood tide of business struck the Char lestown yard the telephone was looked upon as a limited convenience, while now it has taken its place among the indispensable things and become an all most unlimited convenience. There were plenty of telephones for yard use formerly. about 150 altogether, but when the commandent or the head of department wanted to call up Wash ington or New York he had to go to one of the yard pay stations or else to some station outside the yard alto- gether
 Finally these busy men realized that such an arrangement would never meet the requirement. of the press of busi- ness following the completion of the mammoth dry dock. It would be more like the twentieth century to have direct outside connection, they felt; and with the approval of the Navy De- partment the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company took out the 8 telephones used by the chief officers and department heads and put in new telephones and an extra switchboard with trunk lines running to the Char lestown exchange. Since then a call to Boston, across the Charles. or to any other point outside the yard, has gone til4ouSu III udiL lllS tlile IL AoiiA'iis took.
 The operators at the navy yard cent ral are enlisted men chosen from the Marine Corps. Two of them attend the switchboards during the day and an other is on call all night. They do their work well. notwithstanding they have not the advantage of training in one of the Bell schools for operators. Number" coming from them lacks that sweet and encouraging quality which has made the regular operator noted throughout the land. but it is efficient withal. It has all the brevity. for one thing of the response of other centrals-the time-saving. business like breYity that appeals to every criu- cal telephone user Number" IS in shortness and expressive ness. The naval officer. when on duty. at least, wastes no words. Nor does central On this common ground these two extremes. the bluff man of war and the sweet voiced girl at the tele- phone exchange. meet.
 The New England company finished | the improvements at the navy yard d 1 short time ago. and since then the men | fin charge of the work of preparing the 1 ships for sea have been able to make | better headway than ever. owing, in | part. to the time saved by having at | hand so many telephones with outside ! through the new switch | board. It is the shorter work. and on the whole much more satisfactory, to telephone than to telegraph, and as for | etter writing, that is reserved for for nal communications. When an officer | wants a thing done in a hurry nowa- lays. whether on land or on sea, he telephones.
 This is one of the things impressed II Ipon the visitor when he goes aboard Ine of the new battleships in the yard, Il 'or point of interest not to be missed Inder any circumstances is the ships telephone exchange. a medium of com that serves not only ordi- nary uses but the exigencies of mimic Il warfare. and should serve as well in ctual battle.
 The telephone exchange on the bat leship Rhode Island. one of the first lass vessels put in commission within he past year. is situated like other ital spots well inside the most thickly rmored part of the craft below the