The Value Of Edison's Inventions To The World - 3

The Value Of Edison's Inventions To The World - 3

 Turning our attention now to the telephone, we again meet a condition that calls for

thoughtful consideration before we can properly appreciate how much the growth of this

industry owes to Edison's inventive genius. In another place there has already been told

the story of the telephone, from which we have seen that to Alexander Graham Bell is

due the broad idea of transmission of speech by means of an electrical circuit; also that he

invented appropriate instruments and devices through which he accomplished this result,

although not to that extent which gave promise of any great commercial practicability for

the telephone as it then existed. While the art was in this inefficient condition, Edison

went to work on the subject, and in due time, as we have already learned, invented and

brought out the carbon transmitter, which is universally acknowledged to have been the

needed device that gave to the telephone the element of commercial practicability, and

has since led to its phenomenally rapid adoption and world-wide use. It matters not that

others were working in the same direction, Edison was legally adjudicated to have been

the first to succeed in point of time, and his inventions were put into actual use, and may

be found in principle in every one of the 7,000,000 telephones which are estimated to be

employed in the country at the present day. Basing the statements upon facts shown by

the Census reports of 1902 and 1907, and adding thereto the growth of the industry since

that time, we find on a conservative estimate that at this writing the investment has been

not less than $800,000,000 in now existing telephone systems, while no fewer than

10,500,000,000 talks went over the lines during the year 1908. These figures relate only

to telephone systems, and do not include any details regarding the great manufacturing

establishments engaged in the construction of telephone apparatus, of which there is a

production amounting to at least $15,000,000 per annum.

Leaving the telephone, let us now turn our attention to the telegraph, and endeavor to

show as best we can some idea of the measure to which it has been affected by Edison's

inventions. Although, as we have seen in a previous part of this book, his earliest fame

arose from his great practical work in telegraphic inventions and improvements, there is

no way in which any definite computation can be made of the value of his contributions

in the art except, perhaps, in the case of his quadruplex, through which alone it is

estimated that there has been saved from $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 in the cost of line

construction in this country. If this were the only thing that he had ever accomplished, it

would entitle him to consideration as an inventor of note. The quadruplex, however, has

other material advantages, but how far they and the natural growth of the business have

contributed to the investment and earnings of the telegraph companies, is beyond

practicable computation.

It would, perhaps, be interesting to speculate upon what might have been the growth of

the telegraph and the resultant benefit to the community had Edison's automatic telegraph

inventions been allowed to take their legitimate place in the art, but we shall not allow

ourselves to indulge in flights of fancy, as the value of this chapter rests not upon

conjecture, but only upon actual fact. Nor shall we attempt to offer any statistics

regarding Edison's numerous inventions relating to telegraphs and kindred devices, such

as stock tickers, relays, magnets, rheotomes, repeaters, printing telegraphs, messenger

calls, etc., on which he was so busily occupied as an inventor and manufacturer during

the ten years that began with January, 1869. The principles of many of these devices are

still used in the arts, but have become so incorporated in other devices as to be

inseparable, and cannot now be dealt with separately. To show what they mean, however,

it might be noted that New York City alone has 3000 stock "tickers," consuming 50,000

miles of record tape every year.

Turning now to other important arts and industries which have been created by Edison's

inventions, and in which he is at this time taking an active personal interest, let us visit

Orange, New Jersey. When his present laboratory was nearing completion in 1887, he

wrote to Mr. J. Hood Wright, a partner in the firm of Drexel, Morgan & Co.: "My

ambition is to build up a great industrial works in the Orange Valley, starting in a small

way and gradually working up."