Los Angeles herald., 1907-06-30

alone gives 1t its full Value-took up
the business, there were in operation
some g., 900 transmitting and receiving
telephones. Meantime the central Of
fees had multiplied wonderfully and
by March, 1881, there were in the
United States only nine cities OF more
than 10000 inhabitants and only one
of more than $4,000 without telephone
exchange.
Nearly All Live Now
The shortness of the time in which,
from these small beginnings with crude
appliances, has been developed the pres
ent vast Bell system with it's marvel
Gus physical plant is most strikingly
emphasized, perhaps, by the fact that
there are still living nearly all of the
pioneers In every branch of the busi-
ness, and nearly all of them, except
Alexander Graham Bell, who has since
turned his attention to other fields or
investigation, have had an active snare
In the great work. All four of the
members of the original Bell Telephone
association are still active. Mr.. Doolit-
tie, who, after he made his switchboard,
discovered the process of hardening
copper so that it could be drawn into
wire for all electrical uses, and who
devised the earliest form of several of
the attachments of telephony, Is one
Bell system; Theodore N. Vail, first
general manager of the American Bell
Telephone company, has within few
weeks become the head of the Ameri-
can Telephone and Telegraph company,
the successor of the parent organiza-
ton. And the group of experts whose
brains and hands have wrought out
practically every improvement made In
telephony in these thirty years has
changed but little as it's work pro-
gressed except to add new members to
its number.
The early switchboards were curious
contraptions beside the modern type
of apparatus. They took several forms
before the multiple board" used by the
companies for nearly twenty years now
was worked out. AT first they had
signal bells of different tones, one at
the end of each subscribers circuit, the
distinctive tone indicating which line
was ringing up" Then numbered
drops were adopted, each line having
a metallic shutter in the front of the
board which, when the subscriber
turned the generator crank at the sldc
of his telephone instrument, fell so as
to display the number of his line. Ana
finally came the common battery
s. -itchboard now in use in all large
cities and being adapted to smaller ex-
changes, in which the operators signal
is given by a tiny incandescent cleo
trio lamp. The one place in the tele-
phone system where a bell never rings
is now the central office
Some of the early switchboards were
big frames set along the side or the
operating room, he connections pelng
made by boys who ran from one point
to another as the calls came in. Others
were like elongated tables, the switch
sockets being set into the fiat top and
the cords for connecting them being |
suspended from the eilirg. Apparatus
of this sort was clumsy and slow 10
operate, besides being limited in the
number of lines 1t could provide for.
1t was abandoned in the United States
quarter of a century ago. but 1t is
curious commentary on the lack of pro-
gressiveness in some directions that it
IL still in use in some of the govern
ment operated exchanges of Europe
No doubt their backwardness in adopt
ing improvements accounts for the
small development of European tele-
phone systems as compared with the
development in this country
The rate at which facilities for ver-
bal communication by wire have ex-
banded. till now the Bell system alone
has in use one instrument for every %
men, women and children in the United
States. and the enormous cost of this
growth are probably the most impress
sive things in American industrial his
tory They are suggested in the cold
figures of the census report already re-
ferred to when it says: "The total value
of telephonic apparatus manufactured. |
as reported in the census of 19C had
value of $15,S63, ,69S, as compared with
$40, ,512, ,412 for the census of 1900. These
figures do not reveal all the facts, for
during the period covered no greater
activity was shown in any department
of electrical application than in tele-
phony.
'"The value returned for the 1888 CEN
trail switchboards was $5,154.447 to
which should be added 1917 private ex-
change boards of a value of $564,795, |
making a total of $5,719,242. To this
should be added large proportion of
the value of $2,071, 1896 reported for tele-
phonic parts and supplies. The sub
scribers apparatus used in connection
with these exchange boards and smaller
equipments was reported as having a
value of $S,003,735. of which $6,4S3, ,41S
was represented by complete sets of
transmitters and receivers"
And this is just the apparatus and
equipment for central offices and sub
scribers' stations, taking no account of