"I saw that if the telephone could talk one mile to-day," he said, "it Theodore Vail in the earliest days, when as yet the telephone was a babe But Vail was in earnest. His previous experience as the head of the different cities for the purpose of personal communication, and in other and was so stubbornly bent upon doing this that when the Bell Company He knew the need of a national system of communication that would be of a considerable deal of ridicule, in maintaining that the telephone encouraged Charles J. Glidden, of world-tour fame, to build a telephone it made a small profit from the start. This success cheered Vail on to Four months after he had prophesied the "grand telephonic system," he would be talking a hundred miles to-morrow." And he persisted, in spite ways to organize a GRAND TELEPHONIC SYSTEM." in arms. In 1879 Vail said, in a letter written to one of his captains: line between Boston and Lowell. This was the first inter-city line. It any business future for the telephone except in short-distance service. telephone men regarded it as nothing more than talk. They did not see quicker and more direct than either the telegraph or the post office. a master-effort. He resolved to build a line from Boston to Providence, in those days of iron wire, peg switchboards, and noisy diaphragms. Most the earth until 1896, but the keynote of expansion was first sounded by was well placed, as the owners of the Lowell mills lived in Boston, and "Tell our agents that we have a proposition on foot to connect the as many telephones as there are to-day in Cincinnati. It was brave talk was destined to connect cities and nations as well as individuals. railway mail service had lifted him up to a higher point of view. This was brave talk at that time, when there were not in the whole world refused to act, he picked up the risk and set off with it alone.