The Monticellonian., 1915-02-04

I
prominent individuals and telephone
officials. President Wilson was then
connected and he talked to the San
Francisco office and Mayor Currley
was later switched on the line and he
extended to Mayor Rolph the best
wishes for his city.
The engineers of the American
Telegraph and Telephone Co., disap-
pointed at the inability of President
| Vail to be at the office today and UNI
daunted by the tasks set before them
connected President Vail at Jekyle
| Island 1000 miles down the Atlantic
| Sea Board of the coast of Florida
| with the Trans Continental Line and
| Mr.. Vail spoke 400 miles in his talk
to San Francisco.
All the conversation was express
ions of good wishes for the success
of Exposition at San Francisco. Mr..
Vail said at the Continental EXPOSE
| ton at Philadelphia the exhibit of
the Bell System consisted of two tel
| ephones capable of talking across the
| room from one part to another.
Faint as the transmitted speech then
was it became at once the marvel of
all the world, causing scientists as
we'll as laymen to exelaim the wonder.
Starting with these feeble instru-
ments only the Bell System by per-
sistent study and incessant expert
menting and expenditures of immense
amounts of money, created an entire
new art. 1nventing, developing, per-
fecting improvements, great and
small in transmitters, lines, cables
and switch boards and every other
piece of apparatus and plant requir-
ed for the transmission of speech.
The first message over a tele-
phone was transmitted in Boston
in March, 1876 when DR.. Bell,
In calling his assistant, Thomas
Watson, in an attic on Court
street, Boston, unaware that the
instrument was carrying his
voice, sent over the line used in
experiment the message, "Mr.
Watson, come here, want you"
Since the crude instruments of
the experimenters in Boston first
carried message, the American
Telephone and Telegraph Com
pany has spent vast sums of
money in research work making
Improvements, great and small,
according to the annual reports of
that company, which prophesied
two years age that its engineers
would overcome the difficulties
that would have to be met in af-
fording transcontinental tele-
phone communication.
sit was not concrete problem
that confronted our engineers, u
said Manager O. w. McClintock
of the Southwestern 7. & Z. Co.,,
to-day.
sit was not a problem for the
inventor working in the attic.
1t was literally problem to be
attacked all along the lines.
Without the expenditure of mil
lion of dollars and concentration
of effort the telephone as it ex
lists could not have been devel
oped. We, operating here in the
Southwest, enjoy the benefits
that come from this vast expend
iture of money, this large study
by so many experts at mini
mum cost. No one telephone
company in this country could
have stood the expense of carry.
ing on this work. 1t was a task
that required the Bell System.
"The apparatus, the method,
the system-an entire new art
had to be created, as Mr.. Vail
has said recently. "When the
telephone was born nothing ana
logous to telephone service as we
know it existed. There was no
tradition to guide, no experience
to follow. The art of electrical
engineering did not exist"
"The Bell pioneers, recogniz-
ing that success depended upon
the highest engineering and
technical skill at once organized
an experimental and research
department, which is now direct
ed by a staff of over five
hundred and fifty engineers and
scientific investigators-the
graduates of over one hundred
and forty universities.
"Of the twelve million tele-
phone receivers and transmitters
owned by the Bell Company
January 1914 none were in