The Washington times., 1922-06-15
One-ThOusa1,dth of an
Inch BetuUeen Sue
cess and Failure

WE hear often that Bell, the great and useful
wv scientist, invented" the telephone
Everybody knows what the telephone has
done, is doing and will do
The magic skin was supposed to carry a man
instantly from one place to another no matter how
far.
The magic telephone actually does carry the voice
instantly thousand miles or more. And, inasmuch
the voice carries the thought and the thought
is THE MAN, the telephone actually carries man
thousand miles in an instant. .'
The man of today, sitting at his desk in New
York city, can work and HE CAN BE WITH HIS
BRAIN IN BOSTON, IN CHICAGO, IN BALTI-
MORE, PHILADELPHIA, A HUNDRED CITIES,
IN THE COURSE OF A SINGLE MORNING.
The telephone frees mems minds, allows the
thinking spirit to leave the body and travel thou
sands of miles in endless directions.
Nothing has done so much to free men from liml-
tations of time and space as the telephone.
AND THE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS THAT
THE TELEPHONE HAS EARNED AND THE
MILLIONS OF TELEPHONE MESSAGES SENT
IN THIS COUNTRY LAST YEAR are all due to
the fact that Bell the inventor, turned little screw
thousandth part of an inch in certain drec-
tion.
1t was the turning of the screw that made Bell
the great and deservedly popular man that he is.
But long before the days of Bell Refs, the Ger
man schoolmaster, was actually using telephone
of his own invention
That old telephone, although it would seem queer
to you and looks like no telephone at ALL actually
was to all intents and purposes the telephone of
this day, with its transmitter and receiver.
Refs could whistle and transmit other interesting
noises through his telephone. But it was impossible
to SPEAK through it. The voice could not be sent
from the transmtter to the receiver at the other
end
Refs idea was that the telephone must be
ranged in such a way that the electrodes did not
quite touch He wanted them as possible,
but he did not quite let them touch each other. He
was sure that he right and therefore the little
screw connecting the two electrodes kept them
about one -thousandth of an inch apart
Bells idea, which gave him millions, which has
enriched the human race by thousands of millions in
saving time and labor that the electrodes MUST
touch but very family.
He turned that screw onethousandth of an inch
and there was at once the telephone of today.
That turning of a screw one -thousandth of an
nch that faint distinction between success and fail
ure between narticulate whistling and useful, dis
tinct, clearly heard speech, that turning of one
thousandth part of an inch this way or that, is
something that happens in the lives Of nearly all
Of US.
There are thousands of human beings in this
world, millions Of them, with important messages
for other human beings, with emotions, moral
sense and character that need expression. But
something is the matter with the screw that puts
the mind in touch wit hthe outside world And the
message is never carried distinctly, it never
REACHES.
The German scboomaster who worked and strug
gled in vain to make his telephone anything more
than toy little thought that baby three years of
age might accidentally have touched that screw
and made of his toy the most useful scientific in
strument in the whole Of the worlds history.
r, oil ~ no tboro omathip0 at oht nj opv