< Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 71.djvu
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THE DEVELOPMENT OF TELEPHONE SERVICE

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by which speech can be transmitted by electricity, that fact does not lessen the merit of his invention, or the protection which the law will give to it. . . . Whatever name may be given to the property, or the manifestation, of the electricity in the defendant's receiver, the facts remain that they avail themselves of Bell's discovery that undulatory vibrations of electricity can intelligibly and accurately transmit articulate speech, as well as of the process which Bell invented, and by which he reduced his discovery to practical use; that they also copy the mode and apparatus by which he creates and transmits the undulatory electrical vibrations, corresponding to those of the air.

On August 25, 1883, the opinion of Judge Lowell on final hearing was delivered in part as follows:

I decided in American Bell Telephone Co. v. Spencer, 8 Fed. Rep. 509, that Reis had not described a telephone which anticipated Bell's invention. The same point has since been decided in the same way in England. United Telephone Co. V. Harrison, 21 Ch. D. 120. It is admitted in the present case that the Reis instrument, if used as he intended to use it, can never serve as a speaking telephone, because the current of electricity is constantly broken; and it is essential for the transmission of speech that the current should not be broken. The defendant (Dolbear) now testifies that the Reis instrument can be made to transmit speech, under some circumstances, if operated in the way which Bell has shown to be necessary. In 1877, he several times expressed the opinion that Bell made the invention, and that Reis did not make it. The experiment made in the presence of counsel, which was intended to prove the correctness of the defendant's present opinion, was an utter failure. . . . .At the former hearing in this case before Mr. Justice Gray and me, we decided that the defendant (Dolbear), whatever the merits of his telephone may be, employs in it a part, at least, of Bell's process. No additional evidence has been given at the final hearing, unless a further explanation of that already given may be called additional; and I remain of the opinion expressed by the presiding justice at that time.

Telephone men were not alone in their realization that self-preservation lay in concentration. For financiers were beginning to perceive the wisdom in the original plan of one great company, to also realize how dependent the future growth and development of the industry was on a centralized policy, and to foresee that the product of unity in purpose, in method, in management, would be serviceable to users and profitable to investors. It was already evident that telephone service had come to stay, that it was an important aid in the transaction of business in every line of industry, and that it was certain to have a revolutionizing effect on many phases of industrial, commercial, professional and social life.

In its annual report for the fiscal year ending February 28, 1883, the parent Bell company said:

From the local companies throughout the country the reports are encouraging. Most of them are now earning and paying dividends, and extending their business with energy. An important feature has been the consolidation of local telephone interests into large companies, covering many counties, and even in several instances the whole or the greater part of entire states. This policy has
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