ct in the case, which is that the members of
a telephone system are above all else INTERDEPENDENT.

One telephone by itself has no value. It is as useless as a reed cut
out of an organ or a finger that is severed from a hand. It is not even
ornamental or adaptable to any other pur-pose. It is not at all like a
piano or a talking-machine, which has a separate existence. It is useful
only in proportion to the number of other telephones it reaches. AND
EVERY TELEPHONE ANYWHERE ADDS VALUE TO EVERY OTHER TELEPHONE ON THE SAME
SYSTEM OF WIRES. That, in a sentence, is the keynote of equitable rates.

Many a telephone, for the general good, must be put where it does not
earn its own living. At any time some sudden emergency may arise that
will make it for the moment priceless. Especially since the advent of
the automobile, there is no nook or corner from which it may not be
supremely necessary, now and then, to send a message. This principle
was acted upon recently in a most practical way by the Pennsylvania
Railroad, which at its own expense installed five hundred and
twenty-five telephones in the homes of its workmen in Altoona. In the
same way, it is clearly the social duty of the telephone company
to widen out its system until every point is covered, and then to
distribute its gross charges as fairly as it can. The whole must
carry the whole--that is the philosophy of rates which must finally be
recognized by legislatures and telephone companies alike. It can never,
of course, be reduced to a system or formula. It will always be a matter
of opinion and compromise, requiring much skill and much patience. But
there will seldom be any serious trouble when once its basic principles
are understood.

Like all time-saving inventions, like the railroad, the reaper, and the
Bessemer converter, the telephone, in the last analysis, COSTS NOTHING;
IT IS THE LACK OF IT THAT COSTS. THE NATION THAT MOST IS THE NATION
WITHOUT IT.

CHAPTER VIII. THE TELEPHONE IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES

The telephone was nearly a year old before Europe was aware of its
existence. It received no public notice of any kind whatever until
March 3, 1877, when the London Athenaeum mentioned it in a few careful
sentences. It was not welcomed, except by those who wished an evening's
entertainment. And to the entire commercial world it was for four or
five years a sort of scientific Billiken, that never could be of any
service to serious people.

One after anot