peace and pleasantness. But as this is history, and not fancy, there must be set down the very surprising fact that the young newcomer received no welcome and no notice from the great business worl

telescope into a steel-mill or to

as the latest American humbug, and gave many profound reasons why speech could not be sent over a wire, because of the intermittent nature of the electric current. Almost all electricians-the men who were supposed to k

e first sewing-machine was smashed by a Boston mob; with McCormick, whose first reaper was called "a cross between an Astley chariot, a wheelbarrow, and a flying-machine"; with Morse, whom ten Congresses rega

was incomprehensible. It was too freakish, too bizarre, to be used outside of the laboratory and the museum. No one, literally, could understand how it work

ver of convenience there might be in this new contrivance was far outweighed by the loss of personal dignity; and very few men had sufficient imagination to picture the telephone as a part of the machinery of their daily

is hard to resist the notion that the powers of darkness are somehow in league with it." And The Boston Times said, in an editorial of bantering ridicule: "A fellow can now court his girl in China as well a

a State contract. And neither did any legislature, or city council, come forward to the task of giving the people a cheap and efficient telephone service. As for Bell himself, he was not a man of affairs. In all practical b

o a hostile public. His father had been a judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Court; and he himself was a lawyer whose practice had been mainly in matters of legislation. He was, in 1876, a man of venerable appearance, with white hair, worn long, and a patriarchal beard. He was a fam

at drew Bell to Boston in 1871. And he had been for years a most restless agitator for improvements in telegraphy and the post office. So, as a promoter of schemes for the public good, Hubbard was by no means a novice. His first step toward capturing the attention of an indifferent nation was to beat the big drum of publicity. He saw that this new idea of telephoning

Bell sent a tune over the two-hundred-and-fifty-mile line. "Can you hear?" he asked the operator at the New York end. "Elegantly," responded the operator. "What tune?" asked Bell. "Yankee Doodle," came the answer. Shortly afterwards, while Bell was visiting at hi

hese doubters, Bell and Watson planned a most severe test of the telephone. They borrowed the telegraph line between Boston and the Cambridge Observatory, and attached a telephone to each end. Then they maintained, for three hours or longer, the FIRST SUSTAINED

dience of five hundred people, and with Mrs. Sand-ers, the motherly old lady who had sheltered Bell in the days of his experiment, sitting proudly in one of the front seats. A pole was set up at the front of the hall, supporting the end of a telegraph wire

esence of twenty people, who have thus been witnesses to a feat never before at

one for seventy-five days after Bell received his patent. Not one of the swarm of reporters who thronged the Philadelphia Centennial had regarded the telephone as a matter of any public interest. But when a column of news was sent by telephone to The B

he telephone. At a second lecture a band played "The Star-Spangled Banner," in Boston, and was heard by an audience of two thousand people in Providence. At a third, Signor Ferranti, who was in Providence, sang a selection from "The Marriage of Figaro" to an audience in Boston. A

office from the near-by city of Charlestown, and leased two telephones for twenty actual dollars-the first money ever paid for a telephone. This was the first feeble sign that such a novelty

elephone business. It is an oddly simple little document to-day, but to the 1877 brain it was

direct communication may be had by speech

of words transmitted in a minute by the Morse sounder being

r repair. It needs no battery and has no complicated ma

ck to seize this opportunity, and at once lent Holmes a dozen telephones. Without asking permission, Holmes went into six banks and nailed up a telephone in each. Five bankers made no protest, but the sixth indignantly ordered "that playtoy" to be taken out. The other five telephones could be connected by a switch in Holmes's office, and thus was born the first tiny and crude Telephone Exchange. Here it ran

rk, and Philadelphia. Also, a man from Michigan had arrived, with the hardihood to ask for a State agency-George W. Balch, of Detroit. He was so welcome that Hubbard joyfully gave him everything he asked-a perpetual right to the whole State of M

ess, so he created a simple agreement which he called the "Bell Telephone Association." This agreement gave Bell, Hubbard and Sanders a three-tenths interest apiece in the patents, and Watson one

id this not mainly for business reasons. Both he and Hubbard were attached to Bell primarily by sentiment, a

d Bell's room-rent, and Watson's wages, and Williams's expenses, and the cost of the exhibit at the Centennial. The first five thousand telephones, and more, were made with his money. And so many long, expensive months dragged by before any relief came to Sanders, that he was compelled, much against his will and his business judgment, to stretch his

urposes by ordinary people. Capitalists treated it exactly as they treated the Atlantic Cable project when Cyrus Field visited Boston in 1862. They admired and marvelled; but not a man subscribed a dollar. Also, Sanders very soon learned that it was a most unpropitiou

one, somewhere, would be willing to buy. Until this good genie should arrive, they could do no more than flounder ahead, and take whatever business was the nearest and the cheapest. So while Bell, in eloquent rhapsodies, painted

osiest hope that shone in front of Sanders and Hubbard was that the Western Union might conclude to buy the Bell patents, just as it had already bought many others. In one moment of discouragemen

hich could transmit sixty words a minute. These accurate instruments, it believed, could never be displaced by such a scientific oddity as the telephone. And

Edison, Gray, and Dolbear, on its staff. With all the bulk of its great wealth and prestige, it swept down upon Bell and his little bodyguard. It trampled upon Bell's patent with as little concern as an elephant can have when he tramples upon an ant'

ndard Oil Company were to commence the manufacture of aeroplanes. In a flash, the telephone ceased to be a "scientific toy," and became an article of commerce. It began for the first t

with Colonel William H. Forbes, who came in as a friend of the Bradleys, were the first capitalists who, for purely business reasons, invested money in the Bell patents. Two months aft

in a dozen or more cities. There was a spirit of confidence and enterprise; and the next step, clearly, was to create a business organization. None of the partners were competent to undertake such a work. Hubbard had little aptitude as an organizer; Bell ha

l Manager, at a salary of thirty-five hundred dollars a year. "We rely," Hubbard said, "upon your executive ability, your fidelity, and unremitting zeal." The young man replied, in one of those dignified letters more usual in the nineteenth than in the twentieth century. "My faith in the success of the enterprise is such that I am wi

ties that the changing situation required. There was such a focussing of factors that the whole matter appeared to have been previously rehearsed. No sooner had Bell appeared on the stage than his supporting players, each in his turn, received his cue and took part in t

s for four or five generations. His grand-uncle Stephen had built the engines for the Savannah, the first American steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean; and his cousin Alfred was the friend and co-worker of Morse, the inventor of the telegraph. Morse had lived for several years at the V

went West, in the vague hope of possessing a bonanza farm; then he swung back into telegraphy, and in a few years found himself in the Government Mail Service at Washington. By 1876, he was at the head of this Department, which he completely reorganized. He introduced the bag system

er, on trains and in hotels; and as Hubbard invariably had a pair of telephones in his valise, the two men soon became co-enthusiasts. Vail found himself painting brain-pictures of the future of the telephone, and

of a system that covered every inhabited portion of the country. Consequently, he had a quality of experience that was immensely valuable in straightening out the tangled affairs of the telephone. Line by line, he mapped out a method, a policy, a system. He introduced a larger view of th

tely sent a copy of Bell's patent to every agent, with orders to hold the fort against all opposition. "We have the only original telephone patents," he wrote; "we ha

knowledge that you cannot compete with his influence when you make it your special business, is hardly the thing. There may be a dozen concerns that will all go to the Western Union, but they will not take with them all their friends. I would a

gent to one place, and reserved all rights to connect one city with another. He established a department to collect and protect any new inventions that concerned the telephone. He agreed to take par

a Federal company that would be a permanent partner in the entire telephone business. Even in that day of small things, and amidst the confusion and rough-and-tumble of pioneering, he work

threw the entire Bell army into confusion by launching the Edison transmitter. Edison, who was at that time fairly started in his career of wizardry, had made an instrument of marvellous alertness. It was beyond all argument superior to the telephon

rs, hotels, railroads, and rights of way-that was the immediate problem that confronted the new General Manager. Every inch of progress had to be fought for. Several of his cap

fficials and politicians. In St. Louis, one of the few cities that charged a sufficient price, nine-tenths of the merchants refused to become subscribers. In Boston, the first pay-station ran three months before it earned a dollar. Even as late as 1880, when the first National Telephone Convention was held at Niagara Falls, on

rested. The printing-telegraph men warned him that he must either quit or be driven out. When he asked capitalists for money, they replied that he might as well expect to lease jew's-harps as telephones. Finally, he was compelled to resort to strategy where argument had failed. He had received an order from Colonel Thomas Scott, who wanted a wire between his house and his office. Colonel Scott was the President of the

y into the treasury of the parent company; and the letters writ

he queries put to Hubbard

in a second letter, "but as to where it is coming from I am not so clear. Bradley is awfully blue and discouraged. Williams is tormenting me for money and my personal credit will not stand everything. I have advanced the Company two

lotson, of 15 Dey Street, New York, the merchant replied that the goods were ready, and so was the bill, which was seven dollars. B

little group was beset by taunts and temptations. Watson was offered ten thousand dollars for his one-tenth interest, and hesitated three days before refusing it. Railroad companies offered Vail a salary that was higher and sure, if he would superintend their mail business. And as for Sanders, his folly was the talk of Haverhill. One Haverhill capitalist, E. J. M. Hale, stopped him on the street and asked, "Have n't you got a good leather business, Mr. Sanders?" "Y

nce to pay his urgent debts. He was thoroughly discouraged and sick. As he lay in the Massachusetts General Hospital, he wrote a cry for help to the embattled little company that was making its desperate fight to protect his patents. "Thousands of telephones are now in operation

ut the Bell Company on an even footing with the Western Union, in the matter of apparatus. It encouraged the few capitalists who had invested money, and it stirred others to come forward. The general business situation had by this time become more settled, and in four months the company had twenty-two thousand telephones in use, and had reorganized into the National Bell Telephone Comp

g friends in the financial world. It was being attacked by the Western Union and by rival inventors who were jealous of Bell's achievement. It was being half-starved by cheap rates and crippled by clumsy app