Automatic, Duplex, And Quadruplex Telegraphy - 5

Automatic, Duplex, And Quadruplex Telegraphy - 5

Nor was Mr. Gould less appreciative of the value of Edison's automatic system. Referring
to matters that will be taken up later in the narrative, Edison says: "After this Gould
wanted me to help install the automatic system in the Atlantic & Pacific company, of
which General Eckert had been elected president, the company having bought the
Automatic Telegraph Company. I did a lot of work for this company making automatic
apparatus in my shop at Newark. About this time I invented a district messenger call- box
system, and organized a company called the Domestic Telegraph Company, and started
in to install the system in New York. I had great difficulty in getting subscribers, having
tried several canvassers, who, one after the other, failed to get sub- scribers. When I was
about to give it up, a test operator named Brown, who was on the Automatic Telegraph
wire between New York and Washington, which passed through my Newark shop, asked
permission to let him try and see if he couldn't get subscribers. I had very little faith in his
ability to get any, but I thought I would give him a chance, as he felt certain of his ability
to succeed. He started in, and the results were surprising. Within a month he had procured
two hundred subscribers, and the company was a success. I have never quite understood
why six men should fail absolutely, while the seventh man should succeed. Perhaps
hypnotism would account for it. This company was sold out to the Atlantic & Pacific
company." As far back as 1872, Edison had applied for a patent on district messenger
signal boxes, but it was not issued until January, 1874, another patent being granted in
September of the same year. In this field of telegraph application, as in others, Edison
was a very early comer, his only predecessor being the fertile and ingenious Callahan, of
stock-ticker fame. The first president of the Gold & Stock Telegraph Company, Elisha
W. Andrews, had resigned in 1870 in order to go to England to introduce the stock ticker
in London. He lived in Englewood, New Jersey, and the very night he had packed his
trunk the house was burglarized. Calling on his nearest friend the next morning for even a
pair of suspenders, Mr. Andrews was met with regrets of inability, because the burglars
had also been there. A third and fourth friend in the vicinity was appealed to with the
same dishearten- ing reply of a story of wholesale spoliation. Mr. Callahan began
immediately to devise a system of protection for Englewood; but at that juncture a
servant-girl who had been for many years with a family on the Heights in Brooklyn went
mad suddenly and held an aged widow and her daughter as helpless prisoners for twentyfour
hours without food or water. This incident led to an extension of the protective idea,
and very soon a system was installed in Brooklyn with one hundred subscribers. Out of
this grew in turn the district messenger system, for it was just as easy to call a messenger
as to sound a fire-alarm or summon the police. To-day no large city in America is without
a service of this character, but its function was sharply limited by the introduction of the
telephone.
Returning to the automatic telegraph it is interesting to note that so long as Edison was
associated with it as a supervising providence it did splendid work, which renders the
later neglect of automatic or "rapid telegraphy" the more remarkable. Reid's standard
Telegraph in America bears astonishing testimony on this point in 1880, as follows: "The
Atlantic & Pacific Telegraph Company had twenty-two automatic stations. These
included the chief cities on the seaboard, Buffalo, Chicago, and Omaha. The through
business during nearly two years was largely transmitted in this way. Between New York
and Boston two thousand words a minute have been sent. The perforated paper was
prepared at the rate of twenty words per minute. Whatever its demerits this system
enabled the Atlantic & Pacific company to handle a much larger business during 1875
and 1876 than it could otherwise have done with its limited number of wires in their then
condition." Mr. Reid also notes as a very thorough test of the perfect practicability of the
system, that it handled the President's message, December 3, 1876, of 12,600 words with
complete success. This long message was filed at Washington at 1.05 and delivered in
New York at 2.07. The first 9000 words were transmitted in forty-five minutes. The
perforated strips were prepared in thirty minutes by ten persons, and duplicated by nine
copyists. But to-day, nearly thirty- five years later, telegraphy in America is still
practically on a basis of hand transmission!
Of this period and his association with Jay Gould, some very interesting glimpses are
given by Edison. "While engaged in putting in the automatic system, I saw a great deal of
Gould, and frequently went uptown to his office to give information. Gould had no sense
of humor. I tried several times to get off what seemed to me a funny story, but he failed
to see any humor in them. I was very fond of stories, and had a choice lot, always kept
fresh, with which I could usually throw a man into convulsions. One afternoon Gould
started in to explain the great future of the Union Pacific Railroad, which he then
controlled. He got a map, and had an immense amount of statistics. He kept at it for over
four hours, and got very enthusiastic. Why he should explain to me, a mere inventor, with
no capital or standing, I couldn't make out. He had a peculiar eye, and I made up my
mind that there was a strain of insanity some- where. This idea was strengthened shortly
afterward when the Western Union raised the monthly rental of the stock tickers. Gould
had one in his house office, which he watched constantly. This he had removed, to his
great inconvenience, because the price had been advanced a few dollars! He railed over
it. This struck me as abnormal. I think Gould's success was due to abnormal
development. He certainly had one trait that all men must have who want to succeed. He
collected every kind of information and statistics about his schemes, and had all the data.
His connection with men prominent in official life, of which I was aware, was surprising
to me. His conscience seemed to be atrophied, but that may be due to the fact that he was
contending with men who never had any to be atrophied. He worked incessantly until 12
or 1 o'clock at night. He took no pride in building up an enterprise. He was after money,
and money only. Whether the company was a success or a failure mattered not to him.
After he had hammered the Western Union through his opposition company and had tired
out Mr. Vanderbilt, the latter retired from control, and Gould went in and consolidated
his company and controlled the Western Union. He then repudiated the contract with the
Automatic Telegraph people, and they never received a cent for their wires or patents,
and I lost three years of very hard labor. But I never had any grudge against him, because
he was so able in his line, and as long as my part was successful the money with me was
a secondary consideration. When Gould got the Western Union I knew no further
progress in telegraphy was possible, and I went into other lines." The truth is that General
Eckert was a conservative --even a reactionary--and being prejudiced like many other
American telegraph managers against "machine telegraphy," threw out all such
improvements.