Arduous Years In The Central West - 6

Arduous Years In The Central West - 6

A third typical story of this period deals with a cipher message for Thomas. Mr. Edison

narrates it as follows: "When I was an operator in Cincinnati working the Louisville wire

nights for a time, one night a man over on the Pittsburg wire yelled out: `D. I. cipher,'

which meant that there was a cipher message from the War Department at Washington

and that it was coming--and he yelled out `Louisville.' I started immediately to call up

that place. It was just at the change of shift in the office. I could not get Louisville, and

the cipher message began to come. It was taken by the operator on the other table direct

from the War Department. It was for General Thomas, at Nashville. I called for about

twenty minutes and notified them that I could not get Louisville. I kept at it for about

fifteen minutes longer, and notified them that there was still no answer from Louisville.

They then notified the War Department that they could not get Louisville. Then we tried

to get it by all kinds of roundabout ways, but in no case could anybody get them at that

office. Soon a message came from the War Department to send immediately for the

manager of the Cincinnati office. He was brought to the office and several messages were

exchanged, the contents of which, of course, I did not know, but the matter appeared to

be very serious, as they were afraid of General Hood, of the Confederate Army, who was

then attempting to march on Nashville; and it was very important that this cipher of about

twelve hundred words or so should be got through immediately to General Thomas. I

kept on calling up to 12 or 1 o'clock, but no Louisville. About 1 o'clock the operator at

the Indianapolis office got hold of an operator on a wire which ran from Indianapolis to

Louisville along the railroad, who happened to come into his office. He arranged with

this operator to get a relay of horses, and the message was sent through Indianapolis to

this operator who had engaged horses to carry the despatches to Louisville and find out

the trouble, and get the despatches through without delay to General Thomas. In those

days the telegraph fraternity was rather demoralized, and the discipline was very lax. It

was found out a couple of days afterward that there were three night operators at

Louisville. One of them had gone over to Jeffersonville and had fallen off a horse and

broken his leg, and was in a hospital. By a remarkable coincidence another of the men

had been stabbed in a keno-room, and was also in hospital while the third operator had

gone to Cynthiana to see a man hanged and had got left by the train."

I think the most important line of investigation is the production of Electricity direct from

carbon.

Edison

Young Edison remained in Louisville for about two years, quite a long stay for one with

such nomadic instincts. It was there that he perfected the peculiar vertical style of writing

which, beginning with him in telegraphy, later became so much of a fad with teachers of

penmanship and in the schools. He says of this form of writing, a current example of

which is given above: "I developed this style in Louisville while taking press reports. My

wire was connected to the `blind' side of a repeater at Cincinnati, so that if I missed a

word or sentence, or if the wire worked badly, I could not break in and get the last words,

because the Cincinnati man had no instrument by which he could hear me. I had to take

what came. When I got the job, the cable across the Ohio River at Covington, connecting

with the line to Louisville, had a variable leak in it, which caused the strength of the

signalling current to make violent fluctuations. I obviated this by using several relays,

each with a different adjustment, working several sounders all connected with one

sounding-plate. The clatter was bad, but I could read it with fair ease. When, in addition

to this infernal leak, the wires north to Cleveland worked badly, it required a large

amount of imagination to get the sense of what was being sent. An imagination requires

an appreciable time for its exercise, and as the stuff was coming at the rate of thirty-five

to forty words a minute, it was very difficult to write down what was coming and imagine

what wasn't coming. Hence it was necessary to become a very rapid writer, so I started to

find the fastest style. I found that the vertical style, with each letter separate and without

any flourishes, was the most rapid, and that the smaller the letter the greater the rapidity.

As I took on an average from eight to fifteen columns of news report every day, it did not

take long to perfect this method." Mr. Edison has adhered to this characteristic style of

penmanship down to the present time.