Arduous Years In The Central West - 5

Arduous Years In The Central West - 5

Some reminiscences of Mr. Edison are of interest as bearing not only upon the

"demoralized" telegraph service, but the conditions from which the New South had to

emerge while working out its salvation. "The telegraph was still under military control,

not having been turned over to the original owners, the Southern Telegraph Company. In

addition to the regular force, there was an extra force of two or three operators, and some

stranded ones, who were a burden to us, for board was high. One of these derelicts was a

great source of worry to me, personally. He would come in at all hours and either throw

ink around or make a lot of noise. One night he built a fire in the grate and started to

throw pistol cartridges into the flames. These would explode, and I was twice hit by the

bullets, which left a black-and- blue mark. Another night he came in and got from some

part of the building a lot of stationery with `Confederate States' printed at the head. He

was a fine operator, and wrote a beautiful hand. He would take a sheet of this paper, write

capital `A, and then take another sheet and make the `A' differently; and so on through

the alphabet; each time crumpling the paper up in his hand and throwing it on the floor.

He would keep this up until the room was filled nearly flush with the table. Then he

would quit.

"Everything at that time was `wide open.' Disorganization reigned supreme. There was no

head to anything. At night myself and a companion would go over to a gorgeously

furnished faro-bank and get our midnight lunch. Everything was free. There were over

twenty keno-rooms running. One of them that I visited was in a Baptist church, the man

with the wheel being in the pulpit, and the gamblers in the pews.

"While there the manager of the telegraph office was arrested for something I never

understood, and incarcerated in a military prison about half a mile from the office. The

building was in plain sight from the office, and four stories high. He was kept strictly

incommunicado. One day, thinking he might be confined in a room facing the office, I

put my arm out of the window and kept signalling dots and dashes by the movement of

the arm. I tried this several times for two days. Finally he noticed it, and putting his arm

through the bars of the window he established communication with me. He thus sent

several messages to his friends, and was afterward set free."

Another curious story told by Edison concerns a fellow-operator on night duty at

Chattanooga Junction, at the time he was at Memphis: "When it was reported that Hood

was marching on Nashville, one night a Jew came into the office about 11 o'clock in great

excitement, having heard the Hood rumor. He, being a large sutler, wanted to send a

message to save his goods. The operator said it was impossible--that orders had been

given to send no private messages. Then the Jew wanted to bribe my friend, who

steadfastly refused for the reason, as he told the Jew, that he might be court-martialled

and shot. Finally the Jew got up to $800. The operator swore him to secrecy and sent the

message. Now there was no such order about private messages, and the Jew, finding it

out, complained to Captain Van Duzer, chief of telegraphs, who investigated the matter,

and while he would not discharge the operator, laid him off indefinitely. Van Duzer was

so lenient that if an operator were discharged, all the operator had to do was to wait three

days and then go and sit on the stoop of Van Duzer's office all day, and he would be

taken back. But Van Duzer swore he would never give in in this case. He said that if the

operator had taken $800 and sent the message at the regular rate, which was twenty-five

cents, it would have been all right, as the Jew would be punished for trying to bribe a

military operator; but when the operator took the $800 and then sent the message

deadhead, he couldn't stand it, and he would never relent."