Arduous Years In The Central West - 7

Arduous Years In The Central West - 7

As a matter of fact, the conditions at Louisville at that time were not much better than

they had been at Memphis. The telegraph operating-room was in a deplorable condition.

It was on the second story of a dilapidated building on the principal street of the city, with

the battery-room in the rear; behind which was the office of the agent of the Associated

Press. The plastering was about one-third gone from the ceiling. A small stove, used

occasionally in the winter, was connected to the chimney by a tortuous pipe. The office

was never cleaned. The switchboard for manipulating the wires was about thirty- four

inches square. The brass connections on it were black with age and with the arcing effects

of lightning, which, to young Edison, seemed particularly partial to Louisville. "It would

strike on the wires," he says, "with an explosion like a cannon-shot, making that office no

place for an operator with heart-disease." Around the dingy walls were a dozen tables, the

ends next to the wall. They were about the size of those seen in old-fashioned country

hotels for holding the wash-bowl and pitcher. The copper wires connecting the

instruments to the switchboard were small, crystallized, and rotten. The battery-room was

filled with old record-books and message bundles, and one hundred cells of nitric-acid

battery, arranged on a stand in the centre of the room. This stand, as well as the floor, was

almost eaten through by the destructive action of the powerful acid. Grim and

uncompromising as the description reads, it was typical of the equipment in those remote

days of the telegraph at the close of the war.

Illustrative of the length to which telegraphers could go at a time when they were so

much in de- mand, Edison tells the following story: "When I took the position there was a

great shortage of operators. One night at 2 A.M. another operator and I were on duty. I

was taking press report, and the other man was working the New York wire. We heard a

heavy tramp, tramp, tramp on the rickety stairs. Suddenly the door was thrown open with

great violence, dislodging it from one of the hinges. There appeared in the doorway one

of the best operators we had, who worked daytime, and who was of a very quiet

disposition except when intoxicated. He was a great friend of the manager of the office.

His eyes were bloodshot and wild, and one sleeve had been torn away from his coat.

Without noticing either of us he went up to the stove and kicked it over. The stove-pipe

fell, dislocated at every joint. It was half full of exceedingly fine soot, which floated out

and filled the room completely. This produced a momentary respite to his labors. When

the atmosphere had cleared sufficiently to see, he went around and pulled every table

away from the wall, piling them on top of the stove in the middle of the room. Then he

proceeded to pull the switchboard away from the wall. It was held tightly by screws. He

succeeded, finally, and when it gave way he fell with the board, and striking on a table

cut himself so that he soon became covered with blood. He then went to the battery-room

and knocked all the batteries off on the floor. The nitric acid soon began to combine with

the plaster in the room below, which was the public receiving-room for messengers and

bookkeepers. The excess acid poured through and ate up the account-books. After having

finished everything to his satisfaction, he left. I told the other operator to do nothing. We

would leave things just as they were, and wait until the manager came. In the mean time,

as I knew all the wires coming through to the switchboard, I rigged up a temporary set of

instruments so that the New York business could be cleared up, and we also got the

remainder of the press matter. At 7 o'clock the day men began to appear. They were told

to go down-stairs and wait the coming of the manager. At 8 o'clock he appeared, walked

around, went into the battery-room, and then came to me, saying: `Edison, who did this?'

I told him that Billy L. had come in full of soda-water and invented the ruin before him.

He walked backward and forward, about a minute, then coming up to my table put his fist

down, and said: `If Billy L. ever does that again, I will discharge him.' It was needless to

say that there were other operators who took advantage of that kind of discipline, and I

had many calls at night after that, but none with such destructive effects."