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CHAPTER V







ARDUOUS YEARS IN THE CENTRAL WEST







IN 1903, when accepting the position of honorary



electrician to the International Exposition held in



St. Louis in 1904, to commemorate the centenary of



the Louisiana Purchase, Mr. Edison spoke in his



letter of the Central West as a "region where as a



young telegraph operator I spent many arduous years



before moving East." The term of probation thus



referred to did not end until 1868, and while it lasted



Edison's wanderings carried him from Detroit to New



Orleans, and took him, among other cities, to Indianapolis,



Cincinnati, Louisville, and Memphis, some of



which he visited twice in his peregrinations to secure



work. From Canada, after the episodes noted in the



last chapter, he went to Adrian, Michigan, and of



what happened there Edison tells a story typical of



his wanderings for several years to come. "After



leaving my first job at Stratford Junction, I got a



position as operator on the Lake Shore & Michigan



Southern at Adrian, Michigan, in the division superintendent's



office. As usual, I took the `night trick,'



which most operators disliked, but which I preferred,



as it gave me more leisure to experiment. I had obtained



from the station agent a small room, and had



established a little shop of my own. One day the day



operator wanted to get off, and I was on duty. About



9 o'clock the superintendent handed me a despatch



which he said was very important, and which I must



get off at once. The wire at the time was very busy,



and I asked if I should break in. I got orders to do



so, and acting under those orders of the superintendent,



I broke in and tried to send the despatch; but



the other operator would not permit it, and the struggle



continued for ten minutes. Finally I got possession



of the wire and sent the message. The superintendent



of telegraph, who then lived in Adrian and



went to his office in Toledo every day, happened that



day to be in the Western Union office up-town--and



it was the superintendent I was really struggling



with! In about twenty minutes he arrived livid with



rage, and I was discharged on the spot. I informed



him that the general superintendent had told me to



break in and send the despatch, but the general



superintendent then and there repudiated the whole



thing. Their families were socially close, so I was



sacrificed. My faith in human nature got a slight



jar."







Edison then went to Toledo and secured a position



at Fort Wayne, on the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne &



Chicago Railroad, now leased to the Pennsylvania



system. This was a "day job," and he did not like



it. He drifted two months later to Indianapolis,



arriving there in the fall of 1864, when he was at first



assigned to duty at the Union Station at a salary



of $75 a month for the Western Union Telegraph



Company, whose service he now entered, and with



which he has been destined to maintain highly im-



portent and close relationships throughout a large



part of his life. Superintendent Wallick appears to



have treated him generously and to have loaned him



instruments, a kindness that was greatly appreciated,



for twenty years later the inventor called on his old



employer, and together they visited the scene where



the borrowed apparatus had been mounted on a



rough board in the depot. Edison did not stay long



in Indianapolis, however, resigning in February, 1865,



and proceeding to Cincinnati. The transfer was possibly



due to trouble caused by one of his early inventions



embodying what has been characterized by



an expert as "probably the most simple and ingenious



arrangement of connections for a repeater."



His ambition was to take "press report," but finding,



even after considerable practice, that he "broke"



frequently, he adjusted two embossing Morse registers



--one to receive the press matter, and the other to repeat



the dots and dashes at a lower speed, so that the



message could be copied leisurely. Hence he could



not be rushed or "broken" in receiving, while he



could turn out "copy" that was a marvel of neatness



and clearness. All was well so long as ordinary conditions



prevailed, but when an unusual pressure occurred



the little system fell behind, and the newspapers complained



of the slowness with which reports were delivered



to them. It is easy to understand that with



matter received at a rate of forty words per minute



and worked off at twenty-five words per minute a



serious congestion or delay would result, and the



newspapers were more anxious for the news than they



were for fine penmanship.







Of this device Mr. Edison remarks: "Together we



took press for several nights, my companion keeping



the apparatus in adjustment and I copying. The



regular press operator would go to the theatre or



take a nap, only finishing the report after 1 A.M. One



of the newspapers complained of bad copy toward



the end of the report--that, is from 1 to 3 A.M., and



requested that the operator taking the report up to



1 A.M.--which was ourselves--take it all, as the copy



then was perfectly unobjectionable. This led to an



investigation by the manager, and the scheme was



forbidden.







"This instrument, many years afterward, was applied



by me for transferring messages from one wire to



any other wire simultaneously, or after any interval



of time. It consisted of a disk of paper, the indentations



being formed in a volute spiral, exactly as in



the disk phonograph to-day. It was this instrument



which gave me the idea of the phonograph while working



on the telephone."







Arrived in Cincinnati, where he got employment in



the Western Union commercial telegraph department



at a wage of $60 per month, Edison made the



acquaintance of Milton F. Adams, already referred to



as facile princeps the typical telegrapher in all his



more sociable and brilliant aspects. Speaking of that



time, Mr. Adams says: "I can well recall when Edison



drifted in to take a job. He was a youth of about



eighteen years, decidedly unprepossessing in dress and



rather uncouth in manner. I was twenty-one, and



very dudish. He was quite thin in those days, and



his nose was very prominent, giving a Napoleonic



look to his face, although the curious resemblance did



not strike me at the time. The boys did not take to



him cheerfully, and he was lonesome. I sympathized



with him, and we became close companions. As an



operator he had no superiors and very few equals.



Most of the time he was monkeying with the batteries



and circuits, and devising things to make the work of



telegraphy less irksome. He also relieved the monotony



of office-work by fitting up the battery circuits



to play jokes on his fellow-operators, and to deal with



the vermin that infested the premises. He arranged



in the cellar what he called his `rat paralyzer,' a very



simple contrivance consisting of two plates insulated



from each other and connected with the main battery.



They were so placed that when a rat passed over



them the fore feet on the one plate and the hind feet



on the other completed the circuit and the rat departed



this life, electrocuted."







Shortly after Edison's arrival at Cincinnati came



the close of the Civil War and the assassination of



President Lincoln. It was natural that telegraphers



should take an intense interest in the general struggle,



for not only did they handle all the news relating to



it, but many of them were at one time or another personal



participants. For example, one of the operators



in the Cincinnati office was George Ellsworth,



who was telegrapher for Morgan, the famous Southern



Guerrilla, and was with him when he made his raid



into Ohio and was captured near the Pennsylvania



line. Ellsworth himself made a narrow escape by



swimming the Ohio River with the aid of an army



mule. Yet we can well appreciate the unimpression-



able way in which some of the men did their work,



from an anecdote that Mr. Edison tells of that awful



night of Friday, April 14, 1865: "I noticed," he says,



"an immense crowd gathering in the street outside



a newspaper office. I called the attention of the



other operators to the crowd, and we sent a messenger



boy to find the cause of the excitement. He returned



in a few minutes and shouted `Lincoln's shot.' Instinctively



the operators looked from one face to another



to see which man had received the news. All



the faces were blank, and every man said he had not



taken a word about the shooting. `Look over your



files,' said the boss to the man handling the press



stuff. For a few moments we waited in suspense,



and then the man held up a sheet of paper containing



a short account of the shooting of the President. The



operator had worked so mechanically that he had



handled the news without the slightest knowledge of



its significance." Mr. Adams says that at the time



the city was en fete on account of the close of the



war, the name of the assassin was received by telegraph,



and it was noted with a thrill of horror that it



was that of a brother of Edwin Booth and of Junius



Brutus Booth--the latter of whom was then playing



at the old National Theatre. Booth was hurried



away into seclusion, and the next morning the city...