Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 71.djvu/146

140. The title of the organization was the Bell Telephone Association; it was not incorporated and had no capital stock, but on August 1, 1877, beneficiary certificates were issued as follows:

The active career of the association dates from August 1; Mr. Hubbard served as trustee, Mr. Sanders as treasurer, Mr. Watson as electrician, and an office was opened in room 13 in the Sears building in Boston.

Two days after the patents and property had been assigned to Mr. Hubbard as trustee, that is on Wednesday, July 11, 1877, Graham Bell and Mabel Hubbard were united in marriage at the home of her parents in Cambridge, and his wedding gift to his beautiful bride was his entire three tenths interest in the telephone patents. Thus it was to Mrs. Bell that the certificates of the association and the shares of the parent company's stock were issued when those incorporated bodies were organized and when they gave stock certificates in exchange for certificates previously issued.

Shortly after the wedding the bridal couple left for England and a tour on the Continent and did not return to this country until August, 1878. In London on October 31, 1877, Graham Bell delivered his often-quoted lecture before the Society of Telegraph Engineers, in which he detailed the researches made by himself and many others in the effort to solve the problem of telephonic transmission of sounds and speech, beginning with those of Dr. Page in 1837.

From the date of his departure to England, Graham Bell was in no way connected with the exploiting or the financing or the management of the telephone in the United States. He was the consulting electrician of the early companies, and earnestly strove to solve the technical problems brought to his notice. But while he held very liberal views on the question of local organization, he did not believe in cheap construction, nor in the use of temporary expedients that could only bring the system into disrepute and hamper and delay the introduction of good telephone service.

As already stated, following the organization of the Bell Telephone Association, the exploitation of the telephone was systematically pushed throughout the United States. This involved far greater labor and outlay than would now seem necessary to introduce so valuable a public utility. For the openly expressed skepticism of capital had to be overcome, the groundwork of a new industry had to be laid, plans for the