In 1851 there were seven Bain lines in operation in the United States, having over 2,000 miles of wire; eight House lines, having about 300 miles of wire; and sixty-seven Morse lines, having 20,000 miles of wire. In the autumn of this year, the Morse and Bain lines between New York and Washington were consolidated; and in the succeeding spring the Morse and Bain lines between New York and Boston were united under one company. The union of these lines was followed by that of the New York and Buffalo Morse and Bain lines, and subsequently by those of the House lines between these points.
EVILS ARISING FROM SEPARATE ORGANIZATIONS.
The consolidation of these lines was a step in the right direction, as it increased the receipts and lessened the expenses of the companies, while it enabled them to do the business better, by possessing greater facilities. Still, the great number of separate organizations remaining throughout the country prevented that unity and despatch in the conduct of the business so essential to its success. Under these circumstances, the public failed to realize the brilliant thought of instant communication between distant points.
A Boston house, doing business with Chicago, was obliged to be content with responses received on the second or third day. On Boston despatches for Chicago four tariffs were charged; and a message had to be copied off and handed over to other companies for transmission at New York, Buffalo, and Detroit, before it reached its destination.
All this process required time, and yet the loss of time was the least of the evils connected with such a state of things. The message, as it left the writer’s hands in Boston, was not unfrequently a very different document when it reached the Western parties, owing to errors caused by its numerous retransmissions, and thus the necessity became urgent to unite these separate companies into one living, vigorous organization, by which not only repetition and error might be avoided, but the messages followed to their destination under a single direction, and undivided responsibility.
THE UNIFICATION OF THE TELEGRAPH ACCOMPLISHED.
It was at this period, when segregated lines were feeling their weakness, and their revenues were unequal to even a current vigorous support, that a few clear-sighted men in the West conceived the project of buying up the groups of feeble organizations, and making them direct leaders between the large Western cities. The stock was comparatively valueless, and easily and cheaply bought. The needs of commercial intercourse were pressing. The project had in it the true elements of success, and it was accomplished.
For seven years thereafter the purchasers went on improving the lines thus acquired, and rendering their connections more certain. During all these years no dividends were paid. Time and money and all the earnings of the line were devoted to that series of combinations which, from a mass of weak and perishing organizations, culminated in the Western Union Telegraph Company.
This combination of lines saved the system from disgrace, and made it available to commerce and to public wants. No increase of rates followed any of these movements; and none would ever have been made, had not war come to change values, and rendered it necessary.
At the East, the American Telegraph Company, organized in 1855, followed a similar course, and ultimately controlled lines extending throughout the Atlantic seaboard and Mississippi Valley. These two companies, working in connection and harmony, covered the entire area of the United States, and performed the business of telegraphing better than it had ever been done before.