Historic Inventions

by Rupert Sargent Holland

The Emperor put down the receiver. Joseph Henry, who had encouraged Bell in Washington, picked it up. He too heard Bell’s own words coming from the disc. He too showed his amazement. “This comes nearer to overthrowing the doctrine of the conservation of energy,” said he, “than anything I ever saw.” After him came Sir William Thomson, later known as Lord Kelvin. He had been the engineer of the first Atlantic Cable. He listened intently. “Yes,” said he at last, “it does speak. It is the most wonderful thing I have seen in America!”

Until ten o’clock that night the judges spoke into the transmitter and listened at the receiver of Bell’s instrument. Next morning it was given a place of honor, and every one begged for a chance to examine it. It became the most wonderful exhibit of the Centennial, and the judges gave Bell their Certificate of Award. Nothing more opportune could possibly have happened for the inventor.

But in spite of this launching at the hands of the most eminent scientists, business men could see little future for the new machine. It was very ingenious, they admitted, but it could only be a toy. And Bell himself was not sufficiently well versed in business affairs to know how to make the most of his invention. Fortunately Mr. Hubbard was much better acquainted with business methods. He determined to promote the telephone, and he did. He talked about it to all his friends until they could think of nothing else. He began a campaign of publicity, with the object of making the name of the new instrument a household word. He had it written up for the newspapers, and advertised public demonstrations of its powers, and arranged that Bell should lecture on it in different cities. Bell was a good lecturer, and his talks became popular. Then news was sent to the Boston Globe by telephone, and people began to wonder if there were not new possibilities in its use.

In May, 1877, a man named Emery called at Hubbard’s office, and leased two telephones for twenty dollars. That encouraged the promoters, and they issued a little circular describing the business. Then another man, who ran a burglar-alarm company, obtained permission to hang up the telephone in a few banks. They proved of use, and the same man started a service among the express companies. Before long several other small exchanges were opened, and by August, 1877, it was estimated that there were 778 telephones in use. Hubbard was very much encouraged, and he, together with Bell, Sanders, and Watson formed the “Bell Telephone Association.”

The Western Union Telegraph Company was a great corporation, controlling the telegraph business of the country. Hubbard hoped that it would purchase the Bell patents, as it had already bought many patents taken out on allied inventions. They offered them to President Orton for $100,000, but he refused to buy them, saying, “What use could this company make of an electrical toy?”

But the Western Union had many little subsidiary companies, supplying customers with printing-telegraphs and dial telegraphs and various other modifications of the usual telegraph, and one day one of these companies reported that some of their customers were preferring to use the new telephone. The Western Union bestirred itself at this sign of competition, and had shortly formed the “American Speaking-Telephone Company,” with a staff of inventors that included Edison. The war was on in earnest, for the new company not only claimed to have the best instrument on the market, but advertised that it had “the only original telephone.”

That war was actually a good thing for Bell, and Hubbard, and Sanders. With the Western Union pushing this new invention, and not only pushing it, but fighting for its claim to it, the public realized that the telephone was neither a toy nor a scientific oddity, but an instrument of great commercial value. Sanders’ relatives came to the aid of the Bell Company, and put money into its treasury, and soon Hubbard was leasing out telephones at the rate of a thousand a month.

But none of these partners was exactly the man to organize and build up such a business as this of the telephone should be, and each of them knew it. Then Hubbard discovered a young man in Washington who impressed him as having remarkable executive ability. Watson met him, and his opinion coincided with that of Hubbard. The upshot of the matter was that the partners offered the post of General Manager at a salary of thirty-five hundred dollars a year to this man, Theodore N. Vail, and Vail accepted the offer. Vail himself knew little about the telephone, but his cousin, Alfred Vail, had been the friend and assistant of Morse when he was working on his first telegraph.

Hubbard had advertised Bell’s telephone, Sanders had financed it, and now Vail pushed it on the market. He faced the powerful Western Union and fought them. He sent copies of Bell’s original patent to each of his agents, with the message, “We have the only original telephone patents, we have organized and introduced the business, and we do not propose to have it taken from us by any corporation.”

His plan was to create a national telephone system, and so he confined each of his agents to one place, and reserved all rights to connect one city with another. He made short-term contracts, and tried in every way to keep control of the whole system in the hands of the parent company. Then the Western Union came out with Edison’s new telephone transmitter, which increased the value of the telephone tenfold, and which in fact made it almost a new instrument. The Bell Company was panic-stricken, for their customers demanded a telephone as good as Edison’s.