The printing telegraphs of to-day produce their messages by the direct operation of typewriting machines or mechanisms operating substantially in the same manner as the ordinary typewriting machine. The methods by which the electrical impulses coming over the line are transformed into mechanical operation of the typewriter keys, or what corresponds to the typewriter keys, vary. It would be difficult to describe how this function is performed without entering upon much detail of a highly technical character. Suffice it to say that means have been devised by which each combination of electrical impulses coming over the line wire causes a channel to be opened for the motor operation of the typewriting key-bar operating the corresponding letter upon the typewriter apparatus. These machines write the messages with proper arrangement of the date line, address, text, and signature, operating not only the type, but also the carriage shift and the line spacing as required. A further step in advance has been made by feeding the blanks into the receiving typewriter from a continuous roll, an attendant tearing the messages off as they are completed. The entire operation is automatic from beginning to end and capable of considerable speed.

There remained the problem of devising some means by which a number of automatic units could be operated over the same line at the same time. This is not by any means a new proposition. Here again various solutions have been offered by the scientists both of Europe and of this country, and different systems designed to accomplish the desired object have been placed in operation. One of the most recent, and we believe the most efficient so far developed, is the so-called multiplex printer system, devised by the engineers of the Western Union Telegraph Company and now being extensively used by that company. Perhaps the best picture of what is accomplished by this system can be given by an illustration. Let us assume a single wire between New York and Chicago. At the New York end there are connected with this wire four combined perforators and transmitters, and four receiving machines operating on the typewriter principle. At the Chicago end the wire is connected with a like number of sending and receiving machines. All these machines are in simultaneous operation; that is to say, four messages are being sent from New York to Chicago, and four messages are being sent from Chicago to New York, all at the same time and over a single wire, and the entire process is automatic. The method by which eight messages can be sent over a single wire at the same time without interfering with one another cannot readily be described in simple terms. It may give some comprehension of the underlying principle to say that the heart of the mechanism is in two disks at each end of the line, which are divided into groups of segments insulated from each other, each group being connected to one of the sending or receiving machines, respectively. A rotating contact brush connected to the line wire passes over the disk, so that, as it comes into contact with each segment, the line wire is connected in turn with the channel leading to the corresponding operating unit. The brushes revolve in absolute unison of time and position. To use the same illustration as before, the brush on the Chicago disk and the brush on the New York disk not only move at exactly the same speed, but at any given moment the two brushes are in exactly the same position with regard to the respective group of segments of both disks. If we now conceive of these brushes passing over the successive segments of the disks at a very great rate of speed, it may be understood that the effect is that the electrical impulses are distributed, each receiving machine receiving only those produced by the corresponding sending machine at the other end. In other words, each of the sets of receiving and sending apparatus really gets the use of the line for a fraction of the time during each revolution of the brushes of the distributer or disk mechanism. The multiplex automatic circuits are being extended all over the country and are proving extremely valuable in handling the constantly growing volume of telegraph traffic.

What has thus been achieved in developing the technical side of telegraph operation must be attributed in part to that impulse toward improvement which is constantly at work everywhere and is the most potent factor in the progress of all industries, but in large measure it is the reflex of the growing—and recently very rapidly growing—demands which are made upon the telegraph service. Emphasis is placed on the larger ratio of growth in this demand in recent years because it is peculiarly symptomatic of a noticeably wider realization of the advantages which the telegraph offers as an effective medium for business and social correspondence than has heretofore been in evidence. It means that we have graduated from that state of mind which saw in the telegraph something to be resorted to only under the stress of emergency, which caused many good people to associate a telegram with trouble and bad news and sudden calamity. There are still some dear old ladies who, on receipt of a telegram, make a rapid mental survey of the entire roster of their near and distant relatives and wonder whose death or illness the message may announce before they open the fateful envelope, only to find that up-to-date Cousin Mary, who has learned that the telegraph is as readily used as the mail and many times more rapid and efficient, wants to know whether they can come out for the week-end. When Cousin Mary of to-day wants to know, she wants to know right away—not only that she has her arrangements to make, but also because she just does not propose to wait a day or two to get a simple answer to a simple question.

Therein she embodies the spirit of the times. Our ancestors were content to jog along for days in a stuffy stage-coach; we complain that the train which accomplishes the same distance in a few hours is too slow. We act more quickly; we think more quickly. We have to if we want to keep within earshot of the band.

This speeding up makes itself quite obviously most apparent in our business processes. No body of business men need be told how much keener competition is becoming daily, how much narrower the margin by which success must be won. Familiar phrases, these. But behind them lies a wealth of tragedy. How many have fallen by the way? It is estimated that something less than ten per cent. of those who engage in business on their own account succeed. How terrible the percentage of those who fail! The race has become too swift for them. Driven by the lash of competition, business must perforce move faster and faster. Time is becoming ever more precious. Negotiations must be rapidly conducted, decisions arrived at quickly, transactions closed on the moment. What wonder that all this makes for a vastly increased use of the quickest method of communication?

That is but one of the conditions which accounts for the growing use of the telegraph. Another is to be found in the recognition of the convenience of the night letter and day letter. This has brought about a considerable increase in the volume of family and social correspondence by telegraph, which will grow to very much greater proportions as experience demonstrates its value. In business life the night letter and day letter have likewise established a distinct place for themselves. Here also the present development of this traffic can be regarded as only rudimentary in comparison with the possibilities of its future development, indications of which are already apparent. It has been discovered that the telegram, on account of its peculiar attention-compelling quality, is an effective medium not only for the individual appeal, but for placing business propositions before a number of people at once, the night letters and day letters being particularly adapted to this purpose by reason of the greater scope of expression which they offer.

Again, business men are developing the habit of using the telegram in keeping in touch with their field forces and their salesmen and encouraging their activities, in cultivating closer contact with their customers, in placing their orders, in replenishing their stocks, and in any number of other ways calculated to further the profitable conduct of their enterprises.

All this means that the telegraph is increasingly being utilized as a means of correspondence of every conceivable sort. It means also that with the growing appreciation of its adaptability to the every-day needs of social and business communication a very much larger public demand upon it must be anticipated, and it is to meet this demand with prompt and satisfactory service that the telegraph company has been bending its efforts to the perfection of a highly developed organization and of operating appliances of the most modern and efficient type.



APPENDIX B

Through the courtesy of J.J. Carty, Esq., Chief Engineer of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, there follows the clean-cut survey of the evolution of the telephone presented in his address before the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, May 17, 1916, when he received the gold medal of the Institute.

More than any other, the telephone art is a product of American institutions and reflects the genius of our people. The story of its wonderful development is a story of our own country. It is a story exclusively of American enterprise and American progress, for, although the most powerful governments of Europe have devoted their energies to the development and operation of telephone systems, great contributions to the art have not been made by any of them. With very few exceptions, the best that is used in telephony everywhere in the world to-day has been contributed by workers here in America.

It is of peculiar interest to recall the fact that the first words ever transmitted by the electric telephone were spoken in a building at Boston, not far from where Benjamin Franklin first saw the light. The telephone, as well as Franklin, was born at Boston, and, like Franklin, its first journey into the world brought it to Philadelphia, where it was exhibited by its inventor, Alexander Graham Bell, at the Centennial Exhibition in 1876, held here to commemorate the first hundred years of our existence as a free and independent nation.

It was a fitting contribution to American progress, representing the highest product of American inventive genius, and a worthy continuance of the labors of Franklin, one of the founders of the science of electricity as well as of the Republic.

Nothing could appeal more to the genius of Franklin than the telephone, for not only have his countrymen built upon it an electrical system of communication of transcendent magnitude and usefulness, but they have made it into a powerful agency for the advancement of civilization, eliminating barriers to speech, binding together our people into one nation, and now reaching out to the uttermost limits of the earth, with the grand aim of some day bringing together the people of all the nations of the earth into one common brotherhood.

On the tenth day of March, 1876, the telephone art was born, when, over a wire extending between two rooms on the top floor of a building in Boston, Alexander Graham Bell spoke to his associate, Thomas A. Watson, saying: "Mr. Watson, please come here. I want you." These words, then heard by Mr. Watson in the instrument at his ear, constitute the first sentence ever received by the electric telephone. The instrument into which Doctor Bell spoke was a crude apparatus, and the current which it generated was so feeble that, although the line was about a hundred feet in length, the voice heard in the receiver was so faint as to be audible only to such a trained and sensitive ear as that of the young Mr. Watson, and then only when all surrounding noises were excluded.

Following the instructions given by Doctor Bell, Mr. Watson with his own hands had constructed the first telephone instruments and ran the first telephone wire. At that time all the knowledge of the telephone art was possessed exclusively by those two men. There was no experience to guide and no tradition to follow. The founders of the telephone, with remarkable foresight, recognized that success depended upon the highest scientific knowledge and technical skill, and at once organized an experimental and research department. They also sought the aid of university professors eminent for their scientific attainments, although at that time there was no university giving the degree of Electrical Engineer or teaching electrical engineering.

From this small beginning there has been developed the present engineering, experimental and research department which is under my charge. From only two men in 1876 this staff has, in 1915, grown to more than six hundred engineers and scientists, including former professors, post-graduate students, and scientific investigators, graduates of nearly a hundred American colleges and universities, thus emphasizing in a special way the American character of the art. The above number includes only those devoted to experimental and research work and engineering development and standardization, and does not include the very much larger body of engineers engaged in manufacturing and in practical field work throughout the United States. Not even the largest and most powerful government telephone and telegraph administration of Europe has a staff to be compared with this. It is in our great universities that anything like it is to be found, but even here we find that it exceeds in number the entire teaching staff of even our largest technical institutions.

A good idea may spring up in the mind of man anywhere, but as applied to such a complex entity as a telephone system, the countless parts of which cover a continent, no individual unaided can bring the idea to a successful conclusion. A comprehensive and effective engineering and scientific and development organization such as this is necessary, and years of expensive work are required before the idea can be rendered useful to the public.

But, vital as they are to its success, the, telephone art requires more than engineers and scientists. So we find that in the building and operation and maintenance of that vast continental telephone system which bears the name of Bell, in honor of the great inventor, there are at work each day more than 170,000 employees, of which nearly 20,000 are engaged in the manufacture of telephones, switchboards, cables, and all of the thousands and tens of thousands of parts required for the operation of the telephone system of America.

The remaining 150,000 are distributed throughout all of the States of the Union. About 80,000 of these are women, largely telephone operators; 50,000 are linemen, installers, cable splicers, and the like, engaged in the building and maintaining of the continental plant. There are thousands of other employees in the accounting, legal, commercial and other departments. There are 2,100 engineers located in different parts of the country. The majority of these engineers have received technical training in American technical schools, colleges, and universities. This number does not include by any means all of those in the other departments who have received technical or college training.

In view of the technical and scientific nature of the telephone art, an unusually high-grade personnel is required in all departments, and the amount of unskilled labor employed is relatively very small. No other art calls forth in a higher degree those qualities of initiative, judgment, skill, enterprise, and high character which have in all times distinguished the great achievements of America.

In 1876 the telephone plant of the whole world could be carried away in the arms of one man. It consisted of two crude telephones like the one now before you, connected together by a wire of about one hundred feet in length. A piece cut from this wire by Mr. Watson himself is here in this little glass case.

At this time there was no practical telephone transmitter, no hard-drawn copper wire, no transposed and balanced metallic circuits, no multiple telephone switchboard, or telephone switchboard of any kind, no telephone cable that would work satisfactorily; in fact, there were none of the multitude of parts which now constitute the telephone system.

The first practical telephone line was a copy of the best telegraph line of the day. A line wire was strung on the poles and housetops, using the ground for the return circuit. Electrical disturbances, coming from no one knows where, were picked up by this line. Frequently the disturbances were so loud in the telephone as to destroy conversation. When a second telephone line was strung alongside the first, even though perfectly insulated, another surprise awaited the telephone pioneers. Conversation carried on over one of these wires could plainly be heard on the other. Another strange thing was discovered. Iron wire was not so good a conductor for the telephone current as it was for the telegraph current. The talking distance, therefore, was limited by the imperfect carrying power of the conductor and by the confusing effect of all sorts of disturbing currents from the atmosphere and from neighboring telephone and telegraph wires.

These and a multitude of other difficulties, constituting problems of the most intricate nature, impeded the progress of the telephone art, but American engineers, by persistent study, incessant experimentation, and the expenditure of immense sums of money, have overcome these difficulties. They have created a new art, inventing, developing, and perfecting, making improvements great and small in telephone, transmitter, line, cable, switchboard, and every other piece of apparatus and plant required for the transmission of speech.

As the result of nearly forty years of this unceasing, organized effort, on the 25th of January, 1915, there was dedicated to the service of the American public a transcontinental telephone line, 3,600 miles long, joining the Atlantic and the Pacific, and carrying the human voice instantly and distinctly between San Francisco and New York and Philadelphia and Boston. On that day over this line Doctor Bell again talked to Mr. Watson, who was now 3,400 miles away. It was a day of romantic triumph for these two men and for their associates and their thousands of successors who have built up the great American telephone art.

The 11th of February following was another day of triumph for the telephone art as a product of American institutions, for, in the presence of dignitaries of the city and State here at Philadelphia and at San Francisco, the sound of the Liberty Bell, which had not been heard since it tolled for the death of Chief-Justice Marshall, was transmitted by telephone over the transcontinental line to San Francisco, where it was plainly heard by all those there assembled. Immediately after this the stirring tones of the "Star-spangled Banner" played on the bugle at San Francisco were sent like lightning back across the continent to salute the old bell in Philadelphia.

It had often been pointed out that the words of the tenth verse of the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus, added when the bell was recast in 1753, were peculiarly applicable to the part played by the old bell in 1776. But the words were still more prophetic. The old bell had been silent for nearly eighty years, and it was thought forever, but by the use of the telephone a gentle tap, which could be heard through the air only a few feet away, was enough to transmit the tones of the historic relic all the way across the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Thus, by the aid of the telephone art, the Liberty Bell was enabled literally to fulfil its destiny and "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof."

The two telephone instruments of 1876 had become many millions by 1916, and the first telephone line, a hundred feet long, had grown to one of more than three thousand miles in length. This line is but part of the American telephone system of twenty-one million miles of wire, connecting more than nine million telephone stations located everywhere throughout the United States, and giving telephone service to one hundred million people. Universal telephone service throughout the length and breadth of our land, that grand objective of Theodore N. Vail, has been attained.

While Alexander Graham Bell was the first to transmit the tones of the human voice over a wire by electricity, he was also the first to transmit the tones of the human voice by the wireless telephone, for in 1880 he spoke along a beam of light to a point a considerable distance away. While the method then used is different from that now in vogue, the medium employed for the transmission is the same—the ether, that mysterious, invisible, imponderable wave-conductor which permeates all creation.

While many great advances in the wireless art were made by Marconi and many other scientists in America and elsewhere, it remained for that distinguished group of American scientists and engineers working under my charge to be the first to transmit the tones of the human voice in the form of intelligible speech across the Atlantic Ocean. This great event and those immediately preceding it are so fresh in the public mind that I will make but a brief reference to them here.

On April 4, 1915, we were successful in transmitting speech without the use of wires from our radio station at Montauk Point on Long Island to Wilmington, Delaware.

On May 18th we talked by radio telephone from our station on Long Island to St. Simon Island in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Georgia.

On the 27th of August, with our apparatus installed by permission of the Navy Department at the Arlington, Virginia, radio station, speech was successfully transmitted from that station to the Navy wireless station equipped with our receiving apparatus at the Isthmus of Panama.

On September 29th, speech was successfully transmitted by wire from New York City to the radio station at Arlington, Virginia, and thence by wireless telephone across the continent to the radio station at Mare Island Navy-yard, California, where I heard and understood the words of Mr. Theodore N. Vail speaking to me from the telephone on his desk at New York.

On the next morning at about one o'clock, Washington time, we established wireless telephone communication between Arlington, Virginia, and Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands, where an engineer of our staff, together with United States naval officers, distinctly heard words spoken into the telephone at Arlington, Virginia. On October 22d, from the Arlington tower in Virginia, we successfully transmitted speech across the Atlantic Ocean to the Eiffel Tower at Paris, where two of our engineers, in company with French military officers, heard and understood the words spoken at Arlington.

On the same day when speech was being transmitted by the apparatus at Arlington to our engineers and to the French military officers at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, our telephone engineer at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, together with an officer of the United States Navy, heard the words spoken from Arlington to Paris and recognized the voice of the speaker.

As a result of exhaustive researches, too extensive to describe here, it has been ascertained that the function of the wireless telephone is not to do away with the use of wires, but rather to be employed in situations where wires are not available or practicable, such as between ship and ship, and ship and shore, and across large bodies of water. The ether is a universal conductor for wireless telephone and telegraph impulses and must be used in common by all who wish to employ those agencies of communication. In the case of the wireless telegraph the number of messages which may be sent simultaneously is much restricted. In the case of the wireless telephone, owing to the thousands of separate wave-lengths required for the transmission of speech, the number of telephone conversations which may be carried on at the same time is still further restricted and is so small that all who can employ wires will find it necessary to do so, leaving the ether available for those who have no other means of communication. This quality of the ether which thus restricts its use is really a characteristic of the greatest value to mankind, for it forms a universal party line, so to speak, connecting together all creation, so that anybody anywhere, who connects with it in the proper manner, may be heard by every one else so connected. Thus, a sinking ship or a human being anywhere can send forth a cry for help which may be heard and answered.

No one can tell how far away are the limits of the telephone art, I am certain that they are not to be found here upon the earth, for I firmly believe in the fulfilment of that prophetic aspiration expressed by Theodore N. Vail at a great gathering in Washington, that some day we will build up a world telephone system, making necessary to all peoples the use of a common language or a common understanding of languages which will join all of the people of the earth into one brotherhood. I believe that the time will come when the historic bell which now rests in Independence Hall will again be sounded, and that by means of the telephone art, which to-day has received such distinguished recognition at your hands, it will proclaim liberty once more, but this time throughout the whole world unto all the inhabitants thereof. And, when this world is ready for the message, I believe the telephone art will provide the means for transmitting to all mankind a great voice saying, "Peace on earth, good will toward men."



INDEX

A

Ampere's telegraph, 42. Anglo-American Telegraph Co., 134. Ardois signal system, 30. Atlantic cable projected, 109; attempted, 117, 121, 123, 133; completed, 124, 136. Audion amplifier, 256. Automatic telegraphy, 53, 105, 266.

B

Baltimore-Washington Telegraph Line, 86. Bell, Alexander Graham, parentage, 140; youth, 141; teaches elocution, 146; experiments with speech, 151, 161; meets Henry, 158; invents telephone, 162; at Centennial Exposition, 165; demonstrates telephone, 170; Bell Telephone Association, 178; Bell-Western Union Settlement; Bell and wireless telegraphy, 189; Transcontinental telephone, 248. Bethell, Union N., 241. Blake, Clarence J., 154. Blake, Francis, invents telephone transmitter, 182. Branly coherer, 204. Brett, J.W., 112. Bright, Charles Tiltson, 112, 120, 125, 128.

C

Cable laid across Channel, 108. Carty, J.J., youth, 232; enters telephone field, 234; Carty and the switchboard, 235, 242; uses metallic circuit, 238; in New York City, 241; invents bridging bell, 243; chief engineer, 244; extends long-distance telephone, 246; seeks wireless telephone, 253; talks across continent by wireless, 257. Clepsydra, 18. Code flags at sea, 24. Coherer, 203. Colomb's flashing lights, 25. Congress votes funds for telegraph, 84. Cooke, William P., 49, 52. Cornell, Ezra, 86, 93, 107.

D

Davy's needle telegraph, 44. De Forest, Dr. Lee, 225, 256. Dolbear and telephone, 185; wireless telegraphy, 194. Drawbaugh case, 186. Duplex telegraphy, 104, 265. Dyar, Harrison Gray, 41.

E

Edison, and the telegraph, 104; telephone transmitter 180; wireless telegraphy, 195. Ellsworth, Annie, 85.

F

Field, Cyrus W., plans Transatlantic cable, 110; honors, 125, 136; develops cable, 130, 134.

G

Gale, Professor, 67, 86. Gauss and Weber's telegraph, 43. Gisborne, F.N., 109. Gray, Elisha, 157, 184. Great Eastern, 132, 135, 139. Guns as marine signals, 23.

H

Hammond, John Hays, 229. Heaviside, A.W., 196. Heliograph, 29. Henry, Joseph, 65, 67, 158, 169. Hertz and the Hertzian waves, 197. Hubbard, Gardiner G., 149, 159, 170, 178. Hubbard, Mabel, 148, 166.

I

Indian smoke signals, 20.

J

Jackson, Dr. Charles T., 64, 79.

K

Kelvin, Lord (See Thomson), 138. "Kwaker" captured, 50.

L

Long-distance telephone, 245.

M

Magnetic Telegraph Co., 93. Marconi, boyhood, 199; accomplished wireless telegraphy, 202; demonstration in England, 209; Transatlantic telegraphy, 217; Marconi Telegraph Company, 220. Marine signals on Argonautic expedition, 15. Mirror galvanometer, 127. Mirrors of Pharaoh, 17. Morse at University of New York, 66. Morse, code in signals, 27; parentage, 56; at Yale, 57; art student, 59; artist, 62; conceives the telegraph, 63; exhibits telegraph, 75; offers telegraph to Congress, 76, 91; patents telegraph, 82; submarine cable, 83, 107; erects first line, 86; dies, 104. Multiplex printer telegraph, 274. Mundy, Arthur J., 31.

O

O'Reilly, Henry, 94.

P

Preece, W.H., 196, 209. Printing telegraph, 271. Pupin, Michael I., 247.

Q

Quadruplex telegraphy, 104, 265.

R

Reis's musical telegraph, 157.

S

Sanders, Thomas, 148, 159, 178. Scribner, Charles E., 236. Searchlight telephone, 251. Semaphore signals, 27. Shouting sentinels, 16. Sibley, Hiram, 96, 99. Signal columns, 19. Siphon recorder, 137. Smith, Francis O.J., 76. Stentorophonic tube, 18. Submarine signals, 31.

T

Telegraph, first suggestion, 39; patented, 82; development, 264. Telephone invented and patented, 162; at Centennial, 165; exchange, 177. Thomson, youth, 144; cable adviser, 121; invents mirror galvanometer, 126; knighted, 136; invents siphon recorder, 137; connection with telephone, 169. Transatlantic cable (See Atlantic cable). Transatlantic wireless telegraphy, 216. Transatlantic wireless telephone, 259. Transcontinental telegraph, 96. Transcontinental telephone, 246. Transcontinental wireless telephone, 257. Trowbridge, John, 190. Troy, signaling fall of, 14. Tuning the wireless telegraph, 222.

V

Vail, Alfred, arranges Morse code, joins Morse, 70; makes telephone apparatus, 72; operates first line, 90; improves telegraph, 100. Vail, Theodore, joins telephone forces, 180; puts wires underground, 239; adopts copper circuits, 240; resumes telephone leadership, 244; talks across continent without wires, 257.

W

Watson, aids Bell with telephone, 159; telephone partner, 175; helps demonstrate telephone, 175; telephones across continent, 248. Western Union, organized, 96; enters telephone field, 178. Wheatstone, 1; boyhood, 45; five-needle telegraph, 49; single-needle telegraph, 52; Wheatstone-Cooke controversy, 52; automatic transmitter, 53; bridge, 53; opposes Morse, 78; encourages Bell, 145. Wig-wag system, 26. Wireless telegraphy suggested, 188; invented, 202; on shipboard, 221; in the future, 230. Wireless telephone, conceived, 250; future, 260; in navy, 261.

THE END