Page:Famous Living Americans, with Portraits.djvu/64

 ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL 45 togrsphy" over a telephone line four hundred and fifty miles. This showing verifies the claim made at the beginning of this sketch that no other inventor has lived to witness the amazing growth and popularity of the invention bearing his name. It is not claimed that all of this achievement has come by the work of one man. If snch conld be the case the inven- tion would be a small a£fair. A chief part of its glory is that it has attracted more than ten thousand students, discoverers, and designers to its improvement. The greatest scientists of the age have pored over its problems. The promoters in the line of investors, stockholders, engineers, and superin- tendents, may be numbered as many more thousands. The op- erators, mechanics, and laborers must be numbered by the million. It is not surprising that in an industry so vast, the legiti- macy of the inventor's claim should be questioned. Contest- ants have gathered like an invading army. ^^In all, the Bell Company fought out thirteen law suits that were of national interest, and five that were carried to the Supreme Court in Washington. It fought out five hundred and eighty-seven law suits of various natures and with the exception of two trivial contract suits, it never lost a case.^^ At first sight this contest is an uncanny scene, but, while a dark cloud on the American escutcheon, it is a bright halo over the brow of Bell. The historian whom we have repeatedly quoted closes his chapter on the litigation with these emphatic words : * * But in the actual making of the telephone there was no one with Bell nor before him. He invented it first and alone. * * The undesigned but beneficent result of all this controversy in the courts and elsewhere has established for all time the fact that justice has been done in giving the chief honor of the inven- tion of this wonderful instrument with all its collateral appli- ances to the student and teacher of public speaking, Alexander Graham Bell. BIBLIOGRAPHY BOOKS Historic Inyentions, p. 215. By B. S. Holland. History of the Telephone. (McGlurg.) By Herbert N. Gasson.