The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1910-11-27
b. JAMES B. MoRRow.

a decade later the graphophone or
monograph. meaning a machine that
talked. again amused an interested but
skeptical public.
The strange romance OF the telephone
has been told in the courts. Alexander
Graham Bell. who had been a teacher of
dear and dumb children in Boston. found
that he could send the human voice over
wire with the help of electricity.
Elisha Gray. of Chicago. a blacksmith
and a carpenter in his youth, and after
ward a scientific man. made the same
discovery.
The applications 70. patent from Bell
ana Gray were received IN Washington
on S. Valentines Day, 1876. 1t was a
remarkable coincidence. Bells thick,
official-looking letter beat Grays by an
hour or two. as il was officially stated.
There were other inventors afterward
and suits Of interference, but Bell was
given his patent.
Time. measured by scant minutes, il
nothing else. made Bell a millionaire and
cut his name in the granite foundation OF
science. Gray. battling hard. was beaten.
He Is scarcely known to-day, except 10
Lacking I'm Organization.
But the telephone, although patented
as necessary now, it almost seems. as
bread and water-failed 10 gain the seri-
Gus interest OF important men OF BUSH
ness. Bell, a Scotchman by birth. was
lacking in organizing genius. His future
father-in-law, Gardiner Green Hubbard,
was a Boston lawyer. Bell had taught
his little daughter. and from teacher had
turned lover. Thomas Saunders. Of Mas
sachusetts. imaginative and adventurous,
put his personal fortune In hazard by
cash advances that amounted TO $4,000.
But the telephone was still a toy, in
popular opinion-a plaything for wizards
and electricians For two years Il hung
uncertain upon the border line that sepa-
rates the desert Of failure from the happy
continent of profit.
Then Theodore Newton Vail came into
the business He has been in the business
ever since, although, in a sense, inter
mittently. Occasionally he retires 10 his
5,0O0-acre farm in Vermont, where he
raises horses. ponies and pigs. but when
there are telephone perplexities or prob
lens In finance he always comes back by
request Recently he welded GOuld's tele-
graph 10 the Bell telephone system, and
p
out of the invention by which the nu-
man voice was transmitted from place 10
place. came the talking machine by which
the human voice was engraved on wax
and reproduced whenever wanted. Vail
organized and nationalized an idea" to
use his own language. as he used il to
me when ] interviewed him in Boston |
What he did for the telephone CONNER |
clally a wide-visioned and daring stenog- |
rapher by the name OF Edward -Denison
Easton did for the graphOpflone or phunO- /
graph. And Bell was in both inventions
Discovered by Hubbard.
To Hubbard. the lawyer. belongs the I
credit of discovering Vail. the business .
manager Easton discovered himself. Vail /
was an officer IN the PogE-ofice Depart /
ment at Washington. Hubbard. cross
examining him In a lawsuit and learning I
his quality, hired him to popularize /
plaything and to develop an electrical /
curiosity into an apparatus OF world wide /
utility Telephone shares sold at $40 /
apiece in 1873 Vail multiplied each share /
eight times In eight years, so that $40 in 4
1873 was equal In selling value TO $l,zJ /
in 1886
Meanwhile Bell brought $4,000 home |
from Europe. He had won the Volta 1
prize OF the French Academy for his /
startling electrical achievement. With /
the money thus obtained he established !
laboratory. Out of the laboratory came .
the graphophone. The telephone and the /
graphophone. therefore. are blood rela-
tives
The telephone and talking machine |
we're exploited from Washington, instead /
from a commercial or industrial city
oil II. Il
government shorthand writer Wallis 1
share owners were mostly New England 4
men. Easton sold some OF his stock 10 /
James G. Blaine and 10 Senator's and I
Representatives in Congress. To-day he !
Is president Of the most important talk
ing machine company in the world He is
the real creator, in fact, OF the talking
machine business.
Doubtless he is a multimiliOnaire At
all events, he owns park OF 300 acres in
New Jersey, where there are groves and
rows OF trees, lakes and ponds, a Meth
odist church, a new but ancient looking
mill as "A scenic accessory, and d group
OF cottages for himself and his married Il
relations. Moreover, he is IN banks and |
has other desirable connections.
No man. | was surprised 10 hear Mr. |
Vail say, land / include Bell himself /
made so much as $1,500,000 out Of the tele-
phone invention and its subsequent ex-
pansion."
The statement. to me. was rather amaz-
ing.
Enriched His Associates.
Coming ten years later, the country
being full of eager investors and OF
mourners who had drawn money out OF
banks for telephone shares, but had hur-
rediy put it back after thinking the
matter over. Easton. also with a toy, il
was supposed. has kept his stockholders
together. pushed his business to the ends
Of the earth, and enriched his associates
II is well enough 20 say in passing, !
that Mr.. Easton was born at Gloucester.
Mass, in 1856. AS boy he lived in New |
Jersey. AT the age OF eighteen he was /
assistant editor OF the Haekensack Re
publican. Thence he went to Washing !
ton as a stenographer. Afterward he was
graduated in law from Georgetown Uni
versity
My first service in Washington" he
told me. was with the lighthouse board,
of which George Dewey nov Admiral of
the Navy was chairman. / worked hard
10 make myself a competent shorthand
writer and was employed IN many impOr-
tant government cases and In several
historical Investigations by Congress. I
was one OF the stenOgraphers for the
electoral commission that decided the dis
puted election OF 1876 and gave the Pres
idency To Rutherford B. Hayes We
thought AT first that Tilden would be
seated and that all of US would lose our
jobs.
Likewise. / helped 10 report the trial
Of Guiteau, While ! am not a medical
expert. / dare &c say that had Guiteau
shot a private citizen instead OF the