ng of any value. In his final report to
the Western Union, Mr. Pope announced that there was no way to make
a telephone except Bell's way, and advised the purchase of the Bell
patents. "I am entirely unable to discover any apparatus or method
anticipating the invention of Bell as a whole," he said; "and I conclude
that his patent is valid." But the officials of the great corporation
refused to take this report seriously. They threw it aside and employed
Edison, Gray, and Dolbear to devise a telephone that could be put into
competition with Bell's.

As we have seen in the previous chapter, there now came a period
of violent competition which is remembered as the Dark Ages of the
telephone business. The Western Union bought out several of the Bell
exchanges and opened up a lively war on the others. As befitting its
size, it claimed everything. It introduced Gray as the original inventor
of the telephone, and ordered its lawyers to take action at once against
the Bell Company for infringement of the Gray patent. This high-handed
action, it hoped, would most quickly bring the little Bell group into
a humble and submissive frame of mind. Every morning the Western Union
looked to see the white flag flying over the Bell headquarters. But
no white flag appeared. On the contrary, the news came that the Bell
Company had secured two eminent lawyers and were ready to give battle.

The case began in the Autumn of 1878 and lasted for a year. Then it
came to a sudden and most unexpected ending. The lawyer-in-chief of
the Western Union was George Gifford, who was perhaps the ablest patent
attorney of his day. He was versed in patent lore from Alpha to Omega;
and as the trial proceeded, he became convinced that the Bell patent was
valid. He notified the Western Union confidentially, of course, that its
case could not be proven, and that "Bell was the original inventor of
the telephone." The best policy, he suggested, was to withdraw their
claims and make a settlement. This wise advice was accepted, and the
next day the white flag was hauled up, not by the little group of Bell
fighters, who were huddled together in a tiny, two-room office, but by
the mighty Western Union itself, which had been so arrogant when the
encounter began.

A committee of three from each side was appointed, and after months of
disputation, a treaty of peace was drawn up and signed. By the terms of
this treaty the Western Union agreed--

(1) To admit that Bell