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In his report Mr. Gifford noted that the Bell system now has 12,720,000 telephones installed. This figure mounts to 16,720,000 when counting the installations of independent companies that connect with the Bell service. Use of automatic telephones increased 50% during 1925, from 969,000 in 1924 to 1,496,000. The automatic seems the only relief for telephone congestion in the great cities. Subscribers dial their wanted numbers. Automatically connection is made, if the called number is also an automatic. Otherwise the caller dials for a "manual" operator who plugs in on her switchboard. Changing over from "manual" to automatic service involves millions of intricacies, intricacies whch the Bell field forces handle with scarcely a pause or inconvenience to users.
The institution of telephone usage was a difficult, slow affair. Alexander Graham Bell had been jiggling with a contraption he was determined he would make carry the human voice when his assistant Thomas A. Watson suddenly, clearly heard: "Mr. Watson, please come here. I want you." To this phrase there was no dignity as that attached to "What God hath wrought!" the first intelligible phrase carried over Samuel F. B. Morse's first telegraph. But the two young men were so jubilant in their cheap Boston lodging house that their landlady threatened to oust them. For money to install his new invention and to give it proper publicity Bell was obliged to go lecturing. In Manhattan he got Charles A. Cheever and Hilborne L. Roosevelt to sink $18,000 there. The Western Union fought them, blocked them from going into hotels and railroad stations, where quick communication has always been wanted, profitable. (This early hostility has long given way to present comity.) The telegraph company got Thomas A. Edison to work out a rival means of telephoning. The two Manhattan men were glad to sell out to the parent Bell company. Young Theodore N. Vail came in as General Manager, got supporting money from his friends, fought to vast success.
In 1877 the company had only one paying subscriber in Manhattan. In 1878 a single card sufficed for a directory, which carried not numbers, but names, of which there were only 252. Last year there were about 1,500,000 telephones in New York City alone. Subscribers make 6,784,844 calls daily through 151 exchanges with 19,000 operators. This is more than in all England.
Patent monopoly of the Bell telephone endured for 17 years. Then independent companies immediately sprang up. The Bell system fought them ruthlessly for years. But local support kept them going, expanding. They formed national organizations, gave a tolerable toll service, far inferior to that of the Bell. Competition stimulated the use of phones. All companies that were fairly efficient made money. In 1912 a sort of peace was worked out between the rivals. The Bell began to give long distance service to Independents. When an Independent was bought out facilities. At present there are 8,200 Independent exchanges still existing in the U. S. They form the U. S. Telephone Assn., with F. B. McKinnon as President.
† Alexander Graham Bell developed the telephone into a practicality in 1876.