The Twin Falls times. [volume] (Twin Falls, Idaho) 1905-1916, 1915-02-05
TELEPHONES ACROSS CONTINENT
Bell System Company Performs Won.
deriul Feat.

/ When an individual or corporation
accomplishes a wonderful feat, the
idea naturally arises, how was it ac-
complished? The other day the Bell
Telephone System accomplished the
| feat OF transmitting distinctly the hui
| man voice from coast TO coast. CONVEX
sations were carried on between Pres
ident 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
it was done. No better description
nor any better story of how this re-
markable achievement was accomp-
lished has ever been written or told
than was told by U. N. Bethel senior
vice president of the American Tele-
phone and Telegraph company, when
he reviewed briefly the history of the
telephone System in the world TOT
those who were gathered in the New
York office to hear and enjoy the
transcontinental conversations. Among
other things he said:
| This afternoon we shall formally
open the first transcontinental tele-I
phone line, spanning a distance of
3,4OO miles. This line forms highway
of speech btween the Atlantic and Pa
cific coasts; a telephone network I'M
equaled in its comprehensiveness now
covers our vast country from sea to
sea, connecting cities, towns, villages
and firms into what is known as the
Bell Telephone System. When we re-
member that the telephone itself was
linVpntn1
cannot but marvel at the position at
tanned by this wonderful instrument
as an agency in the conduct of social
and commercial affairs throughout our
country.
Some idea, however, necessarily in
complete and inadequate as to the size
and Importance of the Bell System as
1t Is today may be conveyed by a few
figures.
Using round numbers, there are in
the system, including connecting COM
pan1es, 100000 telephone stations and
$1,000, 600 miles of wire. The plant of
the American Company and it's asso-
ciated companies alone represents an
investment of $S50,OO0,O 900.
THE army of men and women en-
gagged in its operations, exclusive OF
those employed by connecting COM
! panies numbers 10000.
THE universally of the system is
strikingly shown by the fact that while
in our country there are approximate
ly $4,000 places reached by the tele-
graph, 10000 railroad stations and a
like number of postoffices, the tele-
phone joins together no less than TO-
900 communities.
THE value Of that agency as told by
the extent to which it is used cannot
be expressed in figures easily COM
prehensible.
"Th messages transmitted over its
lines number approximately nine bill
lion year. To aid us in our attempt
to catch the significance of this figure
the statisticians say that it is equiva-
lent to twenty-six million messages a
day, or more than one 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
but one comparison. In the two cities
We are joining together telephonically
New York and Sam Francisco-there
are 6S5,000 telephone stations, more by
10000 than the number In London,
Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Brussels, ANS
terdam and Petrograd combined
"The population of those European
capitals is more than three times that
of the two American cities named, /
may say as to those foreign cities that
those conditions related to them be-
fore the commencement of the Euro
pean war.
From the beginning, the develop
ment of the art of telephony has been
advanced in America more than in any
other country and more than all 9TH
er countries combined. American en-
gineers, inventors and financiers;
, American operating, commercial and
accounting forces through the intro
duction of new ideas and practices,
have 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.
I'm the period during which the con-
etruction of another great and impor-
tant interchangeable Panama Canal
has been in progress, more than
twice as much has been spent in i'm
proving and extending the Bell System
as has been spent in constructing the
canal. The Panama canal and this
transcOntinental line will each, in its
,, way, bring the West and the East into
closer relationship The nations soli-
; darity, as well as its prosperity, de-
, Ponds upon it's communication. The
telephone, In its conquest of space and
. time Is rendering a distinct and unique
/; national service by affording an easy
means for the exchange of ideas and
experiences, by bringing widely separ-
ated peoples and communities into
: close personal touch it Is aiding in
the removal Of sectional prejudice and
welding our vast country into one
homogeneous unit"