The Ogden standard. [volume] (Ogden City, Utah) 1902-1910, 1910-07-16


,rht 1910 b5 the New York Herald Co All rights
NEW YORK, Saturday.
~ NE-TWENTlETH OF all the ten million tele
\ phones in the world in New York city.
\ which Is another way OF saying that the or
ganlzation OF business and social life In and
around this city Is of such close knit fibre as
to demand a telephone service larger than all
the forty-6ve million inhabitants of England have at
their command twice large is possessed in Lon
don six times as large that TO be found In Paris,
four times as large as is to be found in Berlin.
Not only does New York's telephone service pre-
sent these remarkable numerical contrasts TO foreign
systems but it much efficient iu the speed
and smoothness OF Its workings that delegates have
been this country within the last six months
from France, and within recent periods also from
Japan England and other countries to learn Its inner
workings and then to export 1t wholesale to Europe
and Asia as the most efficient system that is TO be
found
These things speak more loudly than any ordinary
statistics possibly could do, and they add force TO
the not generally understood fact that the telephone
industry In America is second only 10 the steel in
dusry in size and Importance. Most miracles are
worked quietly the oak grows This one has
come since 1875
In that day it was unnecessary to consult telephone
directories. One called the name. OF the subscriber
into the single central Office and the number Of tec-
phone users was small that operator had the
least difficulty in remembering which was which 1t
was like the pigeon holes in country post office.
Then little by little the list till in order to avoid
mistakes each subscriber got a number and the list
written out by the operator and hung at her
desk where 1t easily could be referred to. One day
subscriber wanted to know II Mr.. SO and SO had
telephone, and suggested that the list should be
printed for the benefit of telephone users IT ap-
peared later In the for of list Of about two hun
dred and fifty names
That was n little more than thirty years ago To-
day that page of cardboard bearing list the small
OF which would make the average country village
of to-day ashamed of itself. has grown TO bulky
quarterly published to the extent of two million copies
a year, half million copies to each of the four edi-
tlons, using thousand tons of paper to edition.
requiring FIVE hundred men TO deliver 1t, consulted
daily by and half million persons, and keeping
twenty-five persons busy every day in the year In the
work of revising and reprintng. The volumes of an
edition stacked would tower the heavens distance
miles 1t probably is the most generally con-
suited book to be found in New York.
These figures not merely novel and interesting;
they are OF stupendous significance in any estimate
of what the modern telephone system means to New
York today To the uncurous it is sufficient to know
that wherever they may chance to be there Is the
telephone aso but let such when he places the
receiver to his nt eleven o'clock in the morning
reflect that added to his small voice there is
tinGling back and forth and all around him an ih-
credible uproar words, contributed by 10000 per
sons talking 10000 other persous-1Soooo conyer-
sations-whcb begin, close and replaced by others
at the rate of fifty to every second that dies.
Let such n further consider that In the course
of the day there will be 1250o00 of these calls-thnt
number of persons talking TO many other persons
and that this army Is making of $4,000 miles Of
underground telephone wire, that by the year 1923
these figures probably will have been multiplied by
two-thcn let him attempt conceive within his
mind the operation of such q system, iC he can
America Far Aread
America has led in many forms OF industry but
never perhaps so pre-emineutly as in this IT has
OF course, been the result of certain demand which
has been made relentlessly the result OF relent-
less necessity demand which. In New York cspc-
cially, where time is OF unusunI value has been In
many respects unique. Here, above all other places,
the demand has been for spccd-speed that should
work with the lightning accuracy of an automatic
gun. AZ 1rst t was the minutes that counted Then
1t the seconds. and when any new device
IS found whereby single second can be saved In the
obtaining Of given result II is considered o victory
Indeed The demand for such economy Of effort
is steady; the effort to meet 1t corresponds New
York has In that sense evolved her miracle She
has hercely demanded gifts OF the gods uutn they
gave.
The brunt OF the struggle has, of course fallen on
the men the firing line. who have grapplcd with
the problem face to face. At they had to meet a
dlscouragng sceptcism and In 1875 the ipdIffernnt
public labelled the telephone a rich mans toy and
went It's way uncarng. One for this was TINT
the instruments used were crude weak and clumsy
while the expense was SO prohibitve that only few
OF the largest firms could afford the device nj all The
grounded circuit and the iron wire were in use at that
time The Iron made a poor conductor. tho grounded
leircult worse The line Invariably took up all the