The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-01-26
FIRST TELEPHONE
 ACROSS CONTINENT
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 of your long labors and remarkable You are justified in feeling a great pride in what has been done. This is a memorable day and I convey to you my warm congratulations.'
 The President said that he could near MT. Moore in San Francisco distinctly.
 Beats Sound Waves
 It was o'clock when pr. Bell sent his "Ahoy" across the continent and one of the first of the guests to speak after him asked the time in San Fran cisco. Everyone looked at their watch as the answer came back: "One o'clock" This started a furry of figur ing. Those who know sound waves and the rate they travel said that it would take four hours for a mans voice un- aided, granted the possibility of such titanic lungs, to travel to San Fran cisco through the air. On the wire it takes less than one-fifteenth of sec ond Electricity was driving Dr. Bells "ahoy" at the rate of 56,000 miles per second. Sound, unabetted, limps along in comparison, making only 1160 feet per second.
 So if there was pride in the faces of the engineers who clustered round pr. Bell as he talked to "Friend Vat son" today there was some reason for it. Up to now the longest telephone line in the world was between New York and Denver, but the engineers have gone their previous record 1900 miles better and once again they nave given to this country the longest line in the world. From Boston to Provi- dence, back in the eighties, and hnally from New York to Denver and on to the coast, the engineers have coaxed copper wires into carrying the hu- man voice.
 The work of constructing the trans continental line took two years, but the history of the work of making the poles and wires, set and strung by the construction crews who do their duty runs back over the space of many years. It brings one into experiment. stations and testing rooms and lab oratories. It covers innumerable eXper- iments and Improvements. Every step forward in the development of tele- phony has been over a gigantic scrap heap. Bells original transmitter has 73 descendants. Fifty-thre types and styles of receivers have been intro duced since 1877. Within 10 years the Bell system spent for construction and reconstruction an amount more than
 
 the entire plant.
 Vast Improvements Made
 And what is true of transmitters and receivers is even truer of all that lies between the terminals of the trans. continental line, for it Is in this field that the engineers had their real prob lems. To fill in the gap between Dem yer and the coast with wires and poles was comparatively simple. he task they confronted was to begin at New York and working all along the line make the multitudinous improve ments necessary for a 3400-mi1e talk. Transmitters, switchboards, metallic circuits, hard drawn copper wire and loading coils all had to be attuned to the transcontinental keynote. There is a hint of the real achievement cele- brated today in what the engineers did with the loading coil. When the load ing coil left the hands of its inventor it was as large as a keg and the nne iron wires inside it cost a mint to make. Today the loading coll is a few inches in size and in the New York-San Francisco line there 13,000 miles of that wire whose cost of manufacture is comparatively low.
 But proud as telephone engineers are of what they have accomplished today, they say that this transconti- ntutdl IS DN no means the last NOru in the telephones development in this country. The new line is the backbone of network of 21,000,000 miles of wire woven around 9,000,000 telephone sta tions of the Bell system. The comple- tion of this line is a mighty step for ward toward that ideal of universal service preached by President Vail and his associates back in the seven ties. As they interpreted universal SarVipe where could speak to anyone any where in this country by taking his tele- phone receiver off the hook The line Is still in the hands of the engineers There is an amount of field work to be done before it is opened to the pub lie for commercial use, but when it is opened it will mean that a New York business man can talk to his San Fran cisco associates without leaving his desk. And the time will not be long, say the engineers before he can send his voice not only to San Francisco, but where he will up and down the Pacific seaboard It is easy now 70 look forward to the day when a man can send his voice ranging these United States-north, south, east and finally west. Yet when that is done there still remains problems for this and succeed ing generations of telephone men whose solving will be fully as diff cult as the one presented by a trans continental line.
 The telephone pioneers who 1irst talked about universal service and q line across the continent were received with derision. Most of them took part in the various celebrations today. They could prophecy with such certainty be- cause they had lain down a plan in the seventies that was comprehensive of the growth of today. They look ed through big glasses at the telephone. From the start they saw that 1t vas of service only as it was made avail able to the most people. So the fele- phone in the Usited States has always set the pace for the rest of the world. It has made in the U. s." stamped on it's very soul. Invented in this coun try. every appreciable advance in the art of the telephone has been made here where the telephone has enjoyed d larger freedom than it has ever known abroad. As q result no other country in the world can boast of q telephone development that appron che S America's.
 Here are some figures in connection