Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/60

 ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL 41 quent years in the bitter contests in the courts this sentence became the citadel of the defense of the Bell patent, and great lawyers in the attacking force admitted that it could not be broken down. The early history of the telephone is marked by an obstinate distrust by men in a situation to have become valuable promo- ters. Fortunately, their lack of faith and satirical comments, while depriving them of a golden opportunity for a rare in- vestment, did not handicap the persistent inventor. His in- strument was dubiously admitted to the Centennial Exhibi- tion in 1876. It was regarded as a toy and not the germ of a great utility. A few observers, among them Dom Pedro, Em- peror of Brazil, appreciated the instrument as interesting, but no one could see its possibilities. No capitalist approached the inventor with a proffer to finance its manufacture and in- troduction. Doubtless in subsequent years many men of means have been wont to say: **I might have been a millionaire many times over had I appreciated the Bell Telephone ! ' ' One of the first friends and co-workers with Professor Bell was Thomas A. Watson, who after a fine career as a telephone pro- moter became a great ship-builder in East Boston. In the Scientific American Supplement for April 5, 1913, in an arti- cle by Mr. Watson entitled, * * Pioneers in Telephone Engineer- ing,*' he says: **At that time, 1877, there was a tremendous need for cash. We had just been bitterly disappointed, we four who composed the telephone business, Mr. Hubbard, Mr. Sanders, Dr. Bell, and a boy by the name of Watson. We had just received a terrible blow. The Western Union Tele- graph Company had refused our offer to sell all the Bell pat- ents for $100,000, and we were very much depressed over it. Just about that time Dr. Bell needed money, more, I think than he ever before needed money in his life. He wanted to get married. The need for money was so great that some of the ladies prominently connected with the original four, insisted that telephones be made and sold by the thousands, and as quickly as possible. This would have meant the flooding of the coimtry with very imperfect telephones and also would