Los Angeles herald., 1906-08-22

'1'll tell you how happened to get
into telesraphing first" said Thomas
Edison to a representa- tive Of Pearson's
Magazine. When the battle Of Pitts
burg Landing was fought the first re-
port which reached Detroit announced
that there were $4,000 killed and
wounded.
Il was train newsboy then. and I
told the telegraph operator at the De-
troit station that if he would wire the
main facts of the battle along tie line
so that announcements could be put up
on the station bulletin boards / would
give Harper's Weekly to him for six
months free of cost.
II used to sell about forty newspapers
on the trip. This time I made up my
mind that I ought to take 10O0 but
when I counted up my money found
had only enough to buy 700.
Then II occurred to me that "
could get to Wilbur F. Storey, the pro-
prietor OF the Detroit Free Press, I
might be able to work out of my diff
fculty. 7 climbed up the stairs to his
office and said
"'Mr. Storey, have only got money
enough to buy 400 papers and | want
600 more. 1 thought might get trusted
for them. I'm a newsboy.' I got my
1000 papers all right.
That was a great day for me. At
the first station the crowd was so big
that | thought it was an excursion
crowd. But. no; when the people caught
sight of me they began TO yell for
papers, I Just doubled the price on the
spot and charged 10 cents instead Of
cents copy
when l got to the last station I
jumped the price up to 25 cents copy
and sold all had left. I made SIS or
$100 in that one trip, and / tell you ]
felt mighty good.
That called my attention to what a
telegraph operator could do. I thought
to myself that telegraphing was simply
great. and l made up my mind to be-
come an operator as soon as possible.
THE first serious thing / invented
was a machine which would count the
votes in congress in a very few mo-
ments. 1t was good machine, too, but
when 1 took it to Washington they said
to me:
young man, that's the last thing
we want here! Filibustering and the
delay in counting the vote are the only
means we have Of defeating bad legis-
lation.'
quadruplex telegraph. 1 started in to
work it on the Atlantic and Pacific tele-
graph line between Rochester and
New York, but there was a chump at
the other end of the wire, and the
demonstration ended in a fizzle. 1t was
years before the quadruplex was
adopted.
THAT landed me in New York with
out a cent in my pocket. l went to an
operator and managed to borrow 81. I
lived on that for week, but had to
park it, little. Oh, 1 didn't mind it
and 1 never did care much about eat
ing, anyhow.
"Then 1 hustled for something to do.
1 could have got job as operator at
$50 q month, but l wanted a chance to
do something better. ] happened one
day into the Office of a gold ticker
company which had about so sub
scribers.
II was standing beside the apparatus
when it gave terrific rip roar and sud-
denly stopp0ed. In a few minutes hun
dreds of messenger boys blocked up the
doorway and yelled for some one to fix
the tickers in their office. The man in
charge of the place was simply fiabber-
gasted, so 1 stepped up to him and said:
"'I think i know what's the matter
''I simply had to remove a loose con-
tact spring which had fallen between
the wheels. The result was that was
employed to take charge of the service
at $500 a month. I almost tainted when
1 heard how much salary was to get.
"Then 1 jointed hands with man
named Callahan and we got up several
improved types of Ttock tickers. These
were a success.
When the day of settlement for my
inventions approached 1 began to
wonder how much money I would get.
1 was pretty raw and knew nothing
about business, but 1 hoped that I
might get $4,000.
IT dreamed of what ] could do with
big money like that, of the tools and
other things I could buy to work out
inventions; but I knew Wall street to
be a pretty bad place, and had a gen
eral suspicion that a man was apt to