The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-12-15

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 tions in those early days of telephone de- velopment and he had long before put all
 os his money into tho business. As re-
 suit he is where he is today, while the 1 conservative old Back Bay gentlemen
 well. they are still at Back Say.
 ! Since 1907, when Vail was made presi- dent of the American Telephone and Tel | egraph company, it has been the usual
 thing to refer to him as the biggest tele-
 phone man in the world.'' This is true 1 in all ways-physieally as well as intellec-
 tually and financially. He stands six feet
 one or two inches, and weighs about 2s0 pounds-a man of great breadth, depth. | and girth; a strong body surmounted by | a stur6ily set head of leonine outline, | keen eyes, white hai-, and ruddy com pexion. As a friend of many years | standing said to him-one of New Yorks
 foremost lawyers:
 A Big" Man Every Way
 Vail is big in body, big in mind, big
 in broad human sympathy big in his judgment of men, big in all his business
 methods
 Mr. Vail recently entertained Hobby | club at his estate near Lyndonville. Vt; 1 and when he rose to deliver an address | on "The Intercommunication of lntelli- ] gence,' every one of those present-su- | preme court justices, university profes- | sors, lawyers, literati, f1nanciers and
 others. who comprise the membership of | the club--fet that he was the one man
 living best qualified to speak on this sub ] ject, from the scientific, philosophc and l broadly practical modern business-like standpoints. For Mr Vail was born with | special qualifications. His father Davis | R. Vail was a friend of Samuel F. B.
 Morse, inventor of the telegraph, and his | aF,d | financial packer of that great benefactor
 of mankind. And Theodore N. Vail. him
 self, is no less important as a pioneer
 in the development of the science of in l tercommunication for he formed friend
 ship and alliance with Alexander Graham | Bell in the days of the early struggles of
 the inventor of the telephone, and 1t is
 the '70s that the telephone systems of
 the country grew until they form the gi-
 santic enterprise of today,
 | Mr. Vail now speaks of those former
 years with-a twinkle in his eye, and tells ] a story which illustrates the general | opinion of the public toward the budding l telephone business. A skeptical old Yer
 monter was given a contract to dig se- ] res of postholes for the company, his
 pay to be two shares of stock for each
 hole. Before long the work became too strenuous, and he went on strike and sent in a complaint to the officials of the company
 You're gvin' me the worst of this' | he said. I've made up my mind, and
 hereafter I ant goin to take but one
 share O stock for each holeW
 There has been mechanical genius in nearly every generation of Nail's family 1 from the founder of the American branch | old John Vail, the Quaker preacher who | settled in New Jersey in 1710. Lewis Vail grandfather of the present head of the | family. was a civil engineer, and in early
 days in Ohio became prominent as a l builder of canals and highways. Stephen | Vail, grand-uncle of Theodore N. Vail built the engines for the Savannah the | first steam vessel that crossed the Allan l tic, e.at the Speedwell Iron Works. near l Morristown, N J., which he founded. It
 was this same Stephen Vail and his sons who recognized the greatness of Morse's | invention aHd helped him with money and 1 their own knowledge and experience in mechanics.
 At Morristown. at the Speedwel plant.
 Morse perfected and first successfully op-
 erated the magnetic telegraph, and Alfred | Vail contributed the maehinery for the instrument and devised the dot-and- dash
 alphabet, known thereafter as the Morse
 alphabet. So young Theodore Newton | he was born in Carroll county, Ohio. July l ID, lo4J, Dul filDNtu NiiN Ills ljditillS dl age of years back to the old home at
 Morristown. N. twas heir, prenatally. l so to speak, to the. science of intereom- munication. for the first telegraph line.
 three mile circuit. had been erected on | his family's land just seven years before l his birth.
 Mechanical Taste Inherited 1 It was this indefatigable mechanical in- | stinet-hereditX. one might call it-that | faI NofI ef | elan. After he was graduated from the old Academy al Morristown, he read med | icine with his uncle, Dr. William Vail. | for two years, but during the same period
 he learned telegraphy. and realizing there l would be quicker returns from work in
 this field, he went west and became an
 agent and telegraph operator of the Union 1 Ps.ific railroad at a small station until,
 in the spring of 1869. he was~appolnted to
 a clerkship in the railway mail service ! then in very crude state of organiza- | ton.
 .vail's mechanical interest was imme-
 diately stirred by the problems he rec ognized in this incomplete system, and after one or two improvements of his
 suggesting were adopted. he was called | to Washington and appointed assistant
 superintendent of the railway mail serv- | ice. In 1876 he was made general super- | intendent. and he practically reorganlzed
 the railway mail service and placed 1t on
 the working basis where 1t operates to- | day l T~o years later. in iS7S, Vail met Gardi-
 her c. Hubbard, the partner of AleSander
 Graham Bell and from that time Vail began to make telephone history Bell
 Invented the telephone. Thomas Sanders financed 1t, and Gardiner c. Hubbard ad- vertsed it-but Theodore Newton Vail es-
 tablished 1t on a practical business basis.
 The early struggles of those pioneers in the telephone business are known--how
 Vail. as general manager of the Bell Tel cphone company, with an office in a shab- by back room In Reade street. furnished only with a kitchen table and q couple Of old wooden chairs. was obliged to take his salary of 5000 a year in stock: how the Western Union Telegraph company employed the inventors, Edison, Gray and Dolbear. to construct a talking machine that could utilize the telegraph wires and how that corporation fought the Bell company until a compromise was effected how. by 1884. Vail had established the business on q sound basis. and secured national reco2nition for the telephone: how he organized local compares In all the principal cities. and was president of the Bell company from 1885 to is9J and after years of attention to other business