New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1920-04-17

soldier in the Civil War and professor
Rochester.
Theodore Newton Vail was born Julv
10, ls45, during the temporary resi-.
dence OF his parents in Carrolltcn Cour
ty, Ohio, but the family soon returnd
to the ancestral home at Morristown
N. j., and there he was educated.
In Railway Mail Service
A new chapter was opened in his
career in the spring of 1859. when he
was appointed clerk in the railway
mail service between Omaha and
Ogden. In that capacity his energy
and power of initiative attracted the
attention of the department at Wash
ington, and he was promoted to service
between Chicago and Iowa City and
then made head clerk of the service on
the whole Union Pacific system.
In March, 1878, he was called to
Washington and put in charge Of the
whole scheme of distribution of rail-
road mails throughout the nation. Sue
cessive promotions followed. and in
January, 1875, he was made general
superintendent of the railway mail SER
vice.
In that Office he developed the rail-
way mail service to the remarkable
state of efficiency which it thereafter
enjoyed.
Founder of Telephone System
Alexander Graham Bell had per-
ected the telephone and his father
n-law Gardiner G. Hubbard. was or
anizing the American Bell Telephone
company to put it into practical use.
II the course Of some Investigations of
The methods OF paying railroads for
%,4ox, @of IJ,,t,l rI he 4
come into contact with Mr.. Vail and
invited him to become general man
ager of the company. Mr.. Wallis friends
laughed at him for giving up a good
place under the government to play
with a toy" but he accepted Mr.. Hub
bard's offer and created the greatest
system of the kind in the world.
Having developed local services he
conceived the scheme Of establishing a
long distance service. His friends
scorned this as impracticable, and his
associates in the Bell company strongly
opposed 1T as a waste Of time and
money attempting the impossible. But
he persevered and in time was able to
invite his skeptical friends to con-
verse freely over wires between New
York and San Francisco. and, most mar
velous of all, to stand at Arlington
Va, and through wireless telephony TO
talk simultaneously with friends at
Honolulu. Hawaii, and on the Eiffel
Tower in Paris.
Relations With the Telegraph
In the early years Of his life Mr.
Vail was telegraph operator. Later,
when he was establishing the tele-
phone system, he had TO fight the
Western Union Telegraph Company,
lessor Bells title to the invention.
After years of strife he won a complete
victory, the Western Union Company
conceding to him every point Of i'm
portance. In 1885 he resigned from
the original Bell Telephone Company
and became the first president of the
American Telephone and Telegraph
Company, which at first devoted itself
to long distance communication, but
which later acquired the Bell company
and put local and long distance serv-
ices under a single. management. He
retired from this place and from the
telephone business in 1890, but re-
turned to the presidency Of the COM
pany in 1907, with plans for a gigantic
merger Of telephone and telegraph
lines.
These plans were fulfilled in 1910,
when he became president of the West
ern Union Telegraph Company as we'll
as the American Telephone and Tele-
graph Company and for some years the
two great corporations were under his
single management. The government
objected to this arrangement, how
ever, as a violation Of the antitrust
laws and accordingly, on April Is, 1914,
he resigned the presidency of the stele-
graph company. He retired from the
presidency of the American Telephone
and Telegraph Company in June, 1919,
but became chairman of its board Of
directors and was director Of its
subsidiary companies and of the Bell
Telephone Company Of Canada, to the
end of his life. During his brief pres
idency of the Western Union Telegraph
Company he introduced the day let
err" night letter" and other improve
ments in that service. He also estab-
lished the system of insurance of all
the employees of the company by the
company