telegraph business. Had this case been decided against the Bell
Company it is almost certain that the telephone would have been
smothered in the interest of the telegraph and its development
delayed for many years.

Soon after the settlement of the Western Union suit, the original
group which had created the telephone withdrew from the scene.
Bell went back to teaching deaf-mutes. He has since busied
himself with the study of airplanes and wireless, and has
invented an instrument for transmitting sound by light. The new
telephone company offered him $10,000 a year as chief inventor,
but he replied that he could not invent to order. Thomas Sanders
received somewhat less than $1,000,000 and lost most of it
exploiting a Colorado gold mine. Gardiner Hubbard withdrew from
business and devoted the last years of his life to the National
Geographic Society. Thomas Watson, after retiring from the
telephone business, bought a ship-building yard near Boston,
which has been successful.

In making this settlement with the Western Union, the Bell
interests not only eliminated a competitor but gained great
material advantages. They took over about 56,000 telephone
stations located in 55 cities and towns. They also soon acquired
the Western Electric Manufacturing Company, which under the
control of the Western Union had developed into an important
concern for the manufacture of telephone supplies. Under the
management of the Bell Company this corporation, which now has
extensive factories in Hawthorne, Ill., produces two-thirds of
the world's telephone apparatus. With the Western Electric Vail
has realized the fundamental conception underlying his ideal