s much more effective for longer distances.

Bell returned from Europe to find the affairs of his company in a
sorry plight. Only the courage and generalship of Vail kept it in
the field at all. Bell was penniless, having failed to establish
the telephone abroad, even as Morse before him had failed to secure
foreign revenue from his invention. Bell's health failed him, and as
he lay helpless in the hospital his affairs were indeed at a low
ebb. At this juncture Francis Blake, of Boston, came forward with an
improved transmitter which he offered to the Bell company in exchange
for stock. The instrument proved a success and was gladly adopted,
proving just what was needed to make possible successful competition
with the Western Union.

Prolonged patent litigation followed, and after a bitter legal
struggle the Western Union officials became convinced of two things:
one, that the Bell company, under Vail's leadership, would not
surrender; second, that Bell was the original inventor of the
telephone and that his patent was valid. The Western Union, however,
seemed to have strong basis for its claim that the new transmitter of
the Bell people was an infringement of Edison's patent. A compromise
was arranged between the contestants by which the two companies
divided the business of furnishing communication by wire in the
United States. This agreement proved of the greatest benefit to both
organizations, and did much to make possible the present development
and universal service of both the telephone and telegraph. By the
terms of the agreement the Western Union recognized Bell's patent
and agreed to withdraw from the telephone business. The Bell company
agreed not to engage in the telegraph business and to take over the
Western Union telephone system and apparatus, paying a royalty on all
telephone rentals. Experience has demonstrated that the two businesses
are not competitive, but supplement each other. It is therefore proper
that they should work side by side with mutual understanding.

Success had come at last to the telephone pioneers. Other battles were
still to be fought before their position was to be made secure,
but from the moment when the Western Union admitted defeat the Bell
company was the leader. The stock of the company advanced to a point
where Bell, Hubbard, Sanders, and Watson found themselves in the
possession of wealth as a reward for their pioneering.

The Western Union had no sooner withdrawn as a