The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-04-17
THEODORE VAIL
 MAN OF VISION
Had Belief In Phone When Others Called It
 Plaything

largest telephone system in the world. He was not only it's nominal head, but he was from the first the genius that promoted the popular use of the tele- phone, the first man to establish long distance communication by telephone, and, when past 70 years of age, he was still the initiative head of a sys- tenn that numbered 9,0O0,0o0 teIe- phone subscribers and represented an investment of a billion and a half dol lars.
 MT. Vail was 51 years old when Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, and, notwithstanding his age, he was filling the responsible post of General Superintendent of the Railway Mail Service. Still earlier, however, he had been telegraph op- orator, and, interested in the possi- bilities of electrical communication, he had visions that Bells ''toy'' would soc day be a great fator in Ammeri- can life. Bell and his associates had equal faith in MT. VaiTs organizing genius, for he had already made a name for himself as an organizer in the promotion of the Railway Mail Service, and he was readily induced to resign his government post to become the general manager, in 1878, of the first American Bell Telephone Con- pany.
 Even the most optimistic packers of the telephone then thought that the invention would serve only for local communication, but MT. Vail had vision of its distance use. It was he who inaugurated successive steps of inter-city communication The first line from Boston to Provi- dence was ridicuIed as '"VaiPs Side show,' but some of the persons who indulged in the ridicule at that time lived to see MT. Vail telephone not only from Boston to Providence, but from New York to San Francisco, in 1915, 35 years later. Further, in Oc- tober in that year. they found that it was possible to send the human voice more than half way around the world, as was done by wireless telephone from the government station at Ar 1ngton, Va, the words being recorded simultaneously at Honolulu, in the mid-Pacific, and the Eiffel Tower, in Paris.
 MT Vail was known as ''the biggest telephone man in the worId,'' not only in tribute to his genius for both me chanicaI and financial organization, but from the fact that he was per sonally man of remarkable physique. He was six feet two inches tall, and weighed about 2SO pounds. With this great physique he had an infinite capacity for hard work, and genial disposition.
 He was born in Carroll county. O., July 16, 1S45, of Quaker ancestry. His father, Davis Vail, removed from Ohio to Morristown, N. J., when the son was four years old, and became associated with a brother, Stephen Vail, who had founded the SpeedweIl Iron Works, near Morristown, where they built much of the machinery for the first transatlantic steamship. AL fred Vail, another brother, was one of those associated with Samuel Morse in the invention and promotion of the telegraph. Theodore Vail was edu- cated at the old Academy at Morris town, and for time studied medi- cine, but becoming interested in the telegraph, he learned to operate the key and went West in 1868 as an op- orator for the Union Pacific Railroad at Pine Bluffs, Wyo. Pine Bluffs was at that time the principal supply point for wood for the Union Pacific. which had not yet been completed Through
 
 M. Dodge, chief engineer of the Union Pacific, Vail, in the next year. was appointed a clerk in the Railway Mail Service, and here his ability to sys- tematize and organize was soon felt. At that time the Railway Mail Ser vice was in an undeveloped stage, and Vail prepared special studies on the question of distribution and dispatch ing of the mail. which brought him quick recognition from the authori- ties at Washington. It was just after he had been promoted to the General Superintendency of the Railway Mail Service that he acted against the ad- vice of his friends, and accepted the position of General Manager of the American Bell Telephone Company.
 MT. Vail set for himself the task of making the telephone a universal con- venience, and it was on his initiative that every possible improvement was seized upon for the perfection of the service. In 1885 he resigned from the original company and became the first president of the newly formed American Telephone and Telegraph Company, which at first made a speciality of only 1ong-distance com munication, but which. in 1900, ac-
  Bell Telephone Company and also ne- gotiated combinations with the prin- cipa1 competing telephone companies throughout the country, so that the whole service came largely under a single central administration,
 In the meantime, in 1890, Mir. Vail retired from the telephone business for many years. He purchased a large farm at LyndonvilIe, Vt, and interested himself in agriculture. In 1893 he made a trip to South America and, with his customary foresight, saw the possibilities of the Argentine Republic. He obtained from the gov- ernment a concession near Cordoba. built an electric power station there, purchased a horse car line in Ruenos Aires, converted it into a trolley line, formed a company and equipped t with the best cars from the United States, bought out all competing lines and gave the city a complete modern service. The company was composed 1 largely of British capitalists, and for some time MT. Vail had his head quarters in London. When he retir- ed from these activities in 1904, he returned to Vermont, but three years i later he was again called upon to l ~7 n