Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1915-01-29
THEODORE N. VAIL
President American
Telephone Co.
TRANS Sentimental
TELEPHONE SERVICE
OPENED
New York and San Francisco Talk
Over a Line 340O Miles Long
DR.. Bell, the Inventor, and Thomas
A. Watson the First to Use
the New Line

a. WotSOA tAC G4ASb ~ 0oS
the New Line
NEW YORK, January 25.-In a little
room off Broadway in lower New York
there was enacted his afternoon a scene
which will go down in history as one
of the most important events in the
closer union of this country-the bind
Ing of the east and west with a opp
talk canal. The formal opening of
ocean-to-ocean telephone service, the
spanning of the continent by this 340O
miles of line is the greatest triumph
of telephone engineers.
In the office of the President of the
American Telephone & Telegraph Co.,
a group of one hundred or so persons
surrounded DR.. Bell, the inventor of the
telephone, and the first to use the ocean
to-oeean line. They included Mayor
Mitchell. of New York. other city OFF,
Gals and prominent persons; ]. j. Carly,
chief engineer of the Bell System.
under whose direction the line was built;
b.. Gherardi, another telephone engineer;
Thomas b.. Doolittle, who developed
hard-drawn copper wire, so important
in the building of this new line. and
others.
All We're much affected when DR.. Bell,
a tall, white-haired mar. with a full
white beard and dark eyes that still
have in them all the fire of youth, picked
up the little wizard and sent
the first word vibrating from ocean to
ocean
The instrument which he used was
the same crude little telephone which
had served that day. close to forty years
ago. when sound first travelled over a
wire. An added touch of sentiment was
given by the fact that a small piece of
the wire first used in long-distance tele-
phoning in those days, many years ago,
was also spliced to the line.
"Ahoyl Alloy! Can you hear me?"
asked DR.. Bell, and instantly there was
a murmur in the receiver audible to
everyone in the room. Out in a Fran
cisco in the offices of the Pacific Tele-
phone & Telegraph Company. Thomas A.
Watson had heard the voice of his old
time associate signalling in the manner
they had employed in their earliest ex-
periments, and had answered: II can
hear perfectly"
The man to whom DR.. Bell talked in
San Francisco was his former assistant,
who, in 1875, was thesfrst man to listen
W WOEdS lldl ndu lldNeltu dIIO5S a
wire. MIR. Watson, surrounded by a
small group of Pacific Coast people in
the offices of The Pacific Telephone &
Telegraph o. heard DR.. Bells message
quite distinctly and replied to it. Prac-
tically all of the other persons in both
cities were given an opportunity to talk
and listen over the new line.
The President of the American Tele-
phone & Telegraph Company, T. n. Vail,
was unable to be present. However,
another feat was accomplished when, by
special arrangement his stopping place
at Jekyll Island, off the coast of Florida.
was connected to the line. 1t was fitting,
indeed, that these three men, one-the
inventor of the telephone, the other-the
man who first heard speech over a wire,
and the third-the man who has done
more than any other person in the con
ception and practical management which
has brought about the wonderful de-
velopment of the telephone within a
mans lifetime, should be among those
present, although hundreds of miles
INTERVIEWED between each of them at the
formal opening of this epoch-making
line.
At the White HOUSE President Wilson
spoke into the mouthpiece of his tele-
phone and his voice was whirled across
thirteen States to the shores of the
Pacific.
No more graphic illustration of the
development of the telephone in the
forty years of its life could be given
than this event, which occurred to-day.
The qu~eer-looking first telephone was in
plain view and it only served to en-
phasize the improvements which have
been made in the art of telephony since
he first made a wire talk. The evolu-
tion of the telephone instrument itself
to that standard instrument with which
we are familiar has come through many
stages of development. OF the trans
mitter alone 73 different types have been
used, and SO different types of receivers
have seen their day.
AN incident which served to empha-
size that the difference in time between
the two cities is approximately three
hours occurred when one of the persons
in New York asked a man in San Fran
cisco what was the time" He was sur
prised to hear him say "a little after /
o'clock" Then he realized that the sun
which was lengthening the shadow of
the skyscrapers in New York had still
several hours TO go before it would set
over the Golden Gate of San Francisco.
While the service at the formal cele-
bration was pronounced excellent by
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