he had known was gone. The presidency seemed to him not a great accomplishment but a “bleak mountain” that he was obliged to ascend. Sitting down at his desk in a rare moment to himself, he tried to explain in a letter to a friend the strange sense of loss he had felt since the election.
“There is a tone of sadness running through this triumph,” he wrote, “which I can hardly explain.”
PART TWO
WAR
• CHAPTER 6 •
H AND AND S OUL
To a young man who has in himself the magnificent possibilities
of life, it is not fitting that he should be permanently commanded.
He should be a commander.
JAMES A. GARFIELD
A s Garfield tried to accept the new life that lay before him, Alexander Graham Bell, working in a small laboratory in Washington, D.C., struggled to free himself from the overwhelming success of his first invention. Only five years had passed since the Centennial Exhibition, but for Bell, everything had changed. While the telephone had lifted him from poverty, made him famous, and won him the respect of the world’s most accomplished scientists, it had also robbed him of what he valued most: time.
Bell had always believed in the telephone, not just its inventiveness but its usefulness. But even he had not anticipated how quickly and widely it would be embraced. “I did not realize,” he would admit years later, “the overwhelming importance of the invention.” By the summer of 1877, more than a thousand telephones were already operating in Philadelphia, Chicago, and as far west as San Francisco. That same year, President Hayes had one installed in the White House, and Queen Victoria requested a private demonstration at her summer retreat on the Isle of Wight. “A Professor Bell explained the whole process,” she wrote in her diary that night, “which is most extraordinary.”
With astonishing speed, the telephone won over not just presidents and queens but skeptics and Luddites. Even Mark Twain, who complained that “the voice already carries entirely too far as it is,” talked his boss at the Hartford Courant into putting a telephone in the newsroom. Then, still grumbling that “if Bell had invented a muffler or a gag he would have done a real service,” he had two installed in his own home, one downstairs for his family and a second in the third-floor billiard room just for himself.
Requests for public demonstrations poured in, and Bell’s audiences never failed to be amazed and delighted by what they heard. One night, while giving a presentation in Salem, Massachusetts, Bell directed his audience’s attention to the strange, wooden box before them. Suddenly, they heard the voice of Bell’s assistant Thomas Watson coming from the box—thin and tinny but unmistakable and, incredibly, speaking directly to them. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Watson said, “it gives me great pleasure to be able to address you this evening, although I am in Boston, and you in Salem!” The crowd erupted in laughter and applause.
Bell would quickly learn, however, that a successful invention, especially one that held as much financial promise as the telephone, attracts not only admirers but bitter competitors. Had Samuel Morse been alive to witness the birth of the telephone, he could have warned Bell of the legal nightmare that awaited him. After Morse developed his telegraph in 1837, more than sixty other people claimed to have invented it first. Morse, whose long life was marked by a series of painful disappointments, spent nearly a quarter of a century fighting dozens of lawsuits.
As harassed as Morse had been, his troubles paled in comparison to what Bell would endure. The challenges to Bell’s patent began almost immediately, although few of his accusers had anything to support their claims beyond their own fantasies. One man filed suit not only against Bell for the telephone, but against Thomas Edison for the transmitter and David Edward Hughes for the microphone. Another man eagerly hauled his
“There is a tone of sadness running through this triumph,” he wrote, “which I can hardly explain.”
PART TWO
WAR
• CHAPTER 6 •
H AND AND S OUL
To a young man who has in himself the magnificent possibilities
of life, it is not fitting that he should be permanently commanded.
He should be a commander.
JAMES A. GARFIELD
A s Garfield tried to accept the new life that lay before him, Alexander Graham Bell, working in a small laboratory in Washington, D.C., struggled to free himself from the overwhelming success of his first invention. Only five years had passed since the Centennial Exhibition, but for Bell, everything had changed. While the telephone had lifted him from poverty, made him famous, and won him the respect of the world’s most accomplished scientists, it had also robbed him of what he valued most: time.
Bell had always believed in the telephone, not just its inventiveness but its usefulness. But even he had not anticipated how quickly and widely it would be embraced. “I did not realize,” he would admit years later, “the overwhelming importance of the invention.” By the summer of 1877, more than a thousand telephones were already operating in Philadelphia, Chicago, and as far west as San Francisco. That same year, President Hayes had one installed in the White House, and Queen Victoria requested a private demonstration at her summer retreat on the Isle of Wight. “A Professor Bell explained the whole process,” she wrote in her diary that night, “which is most extraordinary.”
With astonishing speed, the telephone won over not just presidents and queens but skeptics and Luddites. Even Mark Twain, who complained that “the voice already carries entirely too far as it is,” talked his boss at the Hartford Courant into putting a telephone in the newsroom. Then, still grumbling that “if Bell had invented a muffler or a gag he would have done a real service,” he had two installed in his own home, one downstairs for his family and a second in the third-floor billiard room just for himself.
Requests for public demonstrations poured in, and Bell’s audiences never failed to be amazed and delighted by what they heard. One night, while giving a presentation in Salem, Massachusetts, Bell directed his audience’s attention to the strange, wooden box before them. Suddenly, they heard the voice of Bell’s assistant Thomas Watson coming from the box—thin and tinny but unmistakable and, incredibly, speaking directly to them. “Ladies and gentlemen,” Watson said, “it gives me great pleasure to be able to address you this evening, although I am in Boston, and you in Salem!” The crowd erupted in laughter and applause.
Bell would quickly learn, however, that a successful invention, especially one that held as much financial promise as the telephone, attracts not only admirers but bitter competitors. Had Samuel Morse been alive to witness the birth of the telephone, he could have warned Bell of the legal nightmare that awaited him. After Morse developed his telegraph in 1837, more than sixty other people claimed to have invented it first. Morse, whose long life was marked by a series of painful disappointments, spent nearly a quarter of a century fighting dozens of lawsuits.
As harassed as Morse had been, his troubles paled in comparison to what Bell would endure. The challenges to Bell’s patent began almost immediately, although few of his accusers had anything to support their claims beyond their own fantasies. One man filed suit not only against Bell for the telephone, but against Thomas Edison for the transmitter and David Edward Hughes for the microphone. Another man eagerly hauled his
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