The Julesburg grit-advocate., 1915-02-04
Trirnh~s.e Suree>s


af transmitting distinctly the human
soice from coast To coast Conyersa-
aoas were carried Oh between Presi-
dent Wilson of the United States and
President Vail of the company, Presi-
dent Moore of the Panama Pacific EX-
position. and many others between the
Atlantic and Pacific cities Perhaps
every person reading the story of those
conversations will wonder how il was
Aoue No better description nor any
better story of how this remarkable
achievement was accomplished has ev-
sr been written or told than was told by
L n Bethel, senior vice-presidont
81 the American Telephone and Tele-
graph Company, when he reviewed
briefly the history of the telephone sys
TEN in the world to those who were
gathered in the New York office to
hear and enjoy the transcontinental
conversation Among other things. he
aaid
n5sn the first transcontinontal tele-
gaone line, spanning distance Of
= 100 miles. This line forms high way
II speech between the Atlantic and
Pacific coasts; Il telephone network nm
squaled in its comprehensiveness now
ioyers our vast country from sea to
,.it
and firms into what is known as the
Bell Telephone System. When we re-
member that the telephone itself was
lnvented no longer ago than 1875, we
cannot but marvel at the position at
aiued by this wonderful instrument
cs an agency in the conduct of social
aud commercial affairs throughout our
country.
Some idea however, necessarily in
complete and inadequate as to the size
xad Importance of the Bell System as
IL is today, may be conveyed by few
Sgures;
Using round figures, there are in
panies, 100000 telephone stations and
Il, ,000 600 miles OF wire. The plant of
the American Company and its asso-
Grated companies alone represents an
lnvestmen of sS5OoOO,OOO.
The army of men and women en-.
gagged in its operations, exclusive of
-f,, h,-,
les, numbers 100000
''fhe universally of the system is
strikingly shown by the fact that while
III our country there are approximately
$4,000 places reached by the telegraph
10000 railroad stations and a like mum
Der of postofiices, the telephone joins
ties.
The value of that agency as told by
the eytent.te to which 1t is used cannot
be expressed in figures easily compre-
hensible
THE messages transmitted over its
fines number approximately nine bill
10 catch the significance of this figure,
she statisticians say that it is equiva-
ieat to twenty-six million per hour
throughout the twenty-four.
The telephone has attained its larg-
est measure of usefulness in the land
Of its birth. 1t is sufficient to make
tTffn ono .,,.ts J,> l,
we are joining together teiephonically
New York and San Francisco-ther
are 6S5.000 telephone stations. more b
50,000 than the number in London,
Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Brussels, Ans
terdam and Petrogad combined
''rhe population of those European
capitals is more than three times that
Of the two American cities named. The
statistics as to those foreign cities,
may say, relate to conditions before
the commencement of the European
war.
"E1om the beginning, the develop
ment of the art of telephony has been
advanced in America more than in any
other country and more than in all
5ther countries combined American
engineers, inventors and financiers:
American operating, commercial and
accounting forces, through the intro
duction of new ideas and practices,
nave always kept the unit system of
the United States in the foremost po-
sition among the telephone systems of
the world and made it, in all respects,
the universally recognized model
In the period during which the con
struction of another great and impor-
sare undertaking-the Panama canal
has been in progress. more than twice
as much has been spent in improving
and extending the Bell System as has
been spent in constructing the canal.