The Washington herald., 1914-04-06
HISTORY BUILDERS.
A Forgotten Invention of the Late
George Westinghouse.
Written Expressly for The Herald.
By DIR. r. j, EDWARDS,

/ ny I'm E@s de ED " hhDs.
| One of the strangest of the many
strange Incidents associated with Inven-
/ tion is the fact that frequently inventors
are years ahead OF their time said the
late James Laying to me at a time short
/ ly after he had been reading Of a per-
fected invention which would make it
possible to establish in Chicago a gigan-
tic automatic switch for use in the CEN
| trail ONCE OF the telephone company and
also TO establish a like apparatus in
other cities.
Mr.. Laying. who for many years was
one Of the leading railway executives of
the United States, formed an acquaint-
ance in the mid-sixties with the late
George Westinghouse. which ripened into
intimate friendship and close business as
well as personal relations.
II thought the other day when ! was
reading a description OF an automatic
switch for use in the central Office Of
the telephone companies Of something
, that Mr.. Westinghouse did in the early
sos" continued Mr.. Laying. Very
few Of his friends knew what he had
done. but he had. in fact, invented an
automatic telephone switchboard.
There is a very interesting story as
sociated with this invention. Mr.. West
inghouse was one OF the first to install
the telephone apparatus after its COM
mercial practicability had been demon
strated. He was one Of the earliest to
predict that the telephone would ulti-
mateIy go hand-in-hand with the tele-
graph as a means OF swift communica-
tion OF intelligence.
He found. however. that there were
some things about the telephone of those
cary days which were far from satisfac-
tory. What especially annoyed him was
the time which elapsed after he called up
central before connection was made SO
that he could speak TO the person with
whom he wished to communicate. He
stood it about as long as he could and
then one day. having become especially
impatient because \of long delay. he
made up his mind that he could invent an
apparatus which would make il unnec-
essary to employ what are called cen
trails After a little study he was con-
WINGED that he could perfect mechanism
by means of which a call would be auto
matically received and obeyed.
MIR. Westinghouse spent a good deal
Of his spare time in the early SOS per
fecting a mechanism OF this kind. He
put II to pretty thorough test in his own
yard and Offices. and when he was salts
fed that the switchboard would do auto
matically what the central Office byl
means of human agencies did. he patent
ed the apparatus.
Then follow ed something that to my
thinking is very queer. When he sub
mitted his automatic switchboard to the
people who controlled the various tele-
phone companies OF that day they all
turned their backs upon it. They said IL
was inCOnceivabIe that an apparatus
could do automatically what the central
Office of a telephone company does for
that imperatively required human intelli-
Sence.
AT last MIR. Westinghouse gave up the
attempt to persuade the telephone people
of the utility Of his rDparatus. other and
more important matters began to occupy
his attention. His patent was ignored
and then forgotten The patent expired
and was not renewed. and it was not
until some twenty years later that sci
ence began to show the way by which an
automatic switchboard could be con-
struCted and utilized. Yet what science
at this later date demonstrated Mr.
had. years earlier. vislbIy
demonstrated and then forgotten"
Copyright. l9lLj |
Tomorrow DR. Edwards will tell Of
The Speech Which Made COnkIing's |
Reputation -