The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1910-08-13
Walls EARLY
STRUGGLES
His Arrival at the Critical
Moment Saved
BELL AND HIS INVENTION
-
The Tale Of the Telephone--The Pres
ent Billion-dollar Business Had
Hard Scratching at
First.
BELL AND HIS INVENTION

ey TO pay Hets room rent ana 70 Duy
,he tools and supplies he needed, tried
in every way to impress on tbs business
world the fact that the telephone was a
commercial faotor
Only when tie Western Union Tele.
graph company found that few nun
6Feds Of It's machines had bien replaced
by telephone and announced thar i was
going into tie telephone business did
tie pubie appreciate the commercial
significance OF the new invention The
nnanciers awoke, business brains became
interested in tic telephone and in 1879
the man who IS to-day tae head Il
the telephone company came out Of The
government railway service 70 act as
rs general manager
This arrival Of Theodore n, Vail at
the critical moment, says system, EN-
phasizcd the fact that Bell was one Of
the most fortunate inventors He was
not robbed Of his invention, a. might
easily have happened. One by one there
arrived 70 help him number Of able
men with al the various abilities that
the changing situation required.
Young Theodore yaa learned tie dra-
matte story Of Morse at bis mothers
knee As a boy he played around tho
first telegraph line and learned to put
messages on the wire. His favoriie toy
was small telegraph that he made for
himself. At p, he went Wet to try
farming, but soon swung back to teleg-
raphy.
In few years he found hiineelf in
tie government mail service at WISHING
ion. BY 1876 he was at the head Of his
department, which he reorrnized BY
virtue Of this position he was the one
man in the country who had a compre-
hensiye view Of all railways and tele-
graphs.
He Immediately mapped out policy
system. He swept away an schemes
for selling out He persuaded some Of
his post Office friends TO buy stock and
ia less than two months organized the
first Bell Telephone company with $3.50.
coo capital and service Of 1900 tele-
phones.
Walls first step naturally was to stiff
fen up the backbone Of this little com
pany and to prevent the Western Union
from frightening II into surrender.
re Immediately sent copy Of Bell's
patent to every agent, with orders to
hold the fort against ali opposition.
Having encouraged his agents, Vail
proceeded to build up definite business
policy. He stifened up the contracts
and continued each agent to one place
and reserved all rights to connect one
city with another.
He established department. to col.
leet ard protect any new invention that
concerned the telephone. He agreed to
take part Of the royalties in stock when
any local company preferred to pay It's
debts in this way. And he took steps
toward standardizing all telephone APP
paratus BY controlling the factories that
made it.
These various measures were part Of
Wallis plan to create national tele-
phone system. His central idea, from
the first, was not the mere leasing Of
telephones, but rather 10 create fed
eral company tiat would be 4 permanent
partner in the entire telephone bus
mess Even in that day Of small things
and amid the confusion and rough and
tumble % pioneering, he worked out the
ioroad policy Of to.eay It goes far
to explain the fact that there are morf
telephones in the United States than in
all other countries eoinbined.
Vail was scarcely seated ir the mana
geriai chair before the Western Union
threw all the Bell forces into confusion
BY launching the Edison transnitter
It was beyond all argument better thar
anything owned by the Bell company
and subscribers clamored for something
just al good. This couldn't be had ii
| a jay and the ensuing five months were
the darkest days Of the telephones early
history.
Especially in the largest cities TIL
lives Of the telephone pioneers were
packed with hardships and adventures
IN Philadelphia, for instance, resolute
young man named Thomas q, Cornis'
was attacked as though he had sudden
II become an enemy. when he set out e
establish tie first telephone service
No Official would grant him permit
10 string wires. Ills worlmen were q.
rested. Tie printing telegraph met
warned him that he must either gust
&c driven out. When he hal asked cap
isalists for money they replied taat L
might as wei he expected to lease jews
aafps as telephones.
Finally he was compelled to resof
to strategy where argument had fai!e
&c had secured an order from Col. Thor
as Scott, who wanted wire betwe
his house and his Office Col. Scot
was the president Of the Pennsyivania