telephone, in all its present development, had been laid. When
the New York and San Francisco line was opened in January, 1915,
Alexander Graham Bell spoke these same words to his old
associate, Thomas Watson, located in San Francisco, both men
using the same instruments that had served so well on that
historic occasion forty years before.

Though Bell's first invention comprehended the great basic idea
that made it a success, the instrument itself bore few external
resemblances to that which has become so commonplace today. If
one could transport himself back to this early period and undergo
the torture of using this primitive telephone, he would
appreciate somewhat the labor, the patience, the inventive skill,
and the business organization that have produced the modern
telephone. In the first place you would have no separate
transmitter and receiver. You would talk into a funnel-shaped
contrivance and then place it against your ear to get the
returning message. In order to make yourself heard, you would
have to shout like a Gloucester sea captain at the height of a
storm. More than the speakers' voices would come over the wire.
It seemed to have become the playground of a million devils;
moanings, shriekings, mutterings, and noises of all kinds would
constantly interrupt the flow of speech. To call up your "party"
you would not merely lift the receiver as today; you would tap
with a lead pencil, or some other appliance, upon the diaphragm
of your transmitter. There were no separate telephone wires. The
talking at first was done over the telegraph lines. The earliest
"centrals" reminded most persons of madhouses, for the day of the
polite, soft-spoken telephone girl had not arrived. Instead, boys
were rushing around with the ends of wires which they were