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NORTHEASTERN 

UNIVERSITY 

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GIVEN  BY 


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EMILE   BEELINER 


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EMILE   BERLINER 

(iJl^Caker  of  the  <J)(Cicrophone 
Frederic  William  Wile 

<iAuthor  tf 

Men  Around  the  Kaiser 
The  Aliault,  Explaining  the  Britishers,  Etc. 


ILLUSTRATED 


INDIANAPOLIS 

THE  BOBBS-MERRILL  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


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U     I  COPTBIOHT,    1926 

By  Ta£  Bobbs-Mbbbill  Coufant 


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Printed  in  tht  United  States  of  America 


PBrNTtO   ANO    SOUND 

BV    BRAUNWORTH    &    CO.,    IHO. 

BROOKLYN,    NEW  YORK 


To 

THE   YOUTH   OF   AMERICA 

**  whether  their  ancestors  came  over  in 
the  Mayflower  three  centuries  ago,  or 
in  the  steerage  three  years  ago"  .    .    . 

— Calvin  Coolidge,  at  Omaha,  October  6,  1925 


7V75^ 


ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

To  Clara  Louise  Leslie,  whose  researches  in  the 
storehouse  of  Emile  Berliner's  papers,  books  and 
memories  paved  the  way  to  the  construction  of  this 
narrative,  the  author's  acknowledgments  are  here 
rendered.  Her  enthusiasm  and  zeal  were  incessant 
sources  of  helpfulness^.  F.  W.  W. 


PREFACE 

Me^  Wile's  book  is  one  of  those  wonder  stories  of 
perennial  fascination,  the  story  of  the  life  of  an  in- 
ventive genius,  with  its  struggles,  its  devotion  and 
persistence,  and  its  ultimate  success.  To  make  this 
story  even  more  interesting,  its  hero,  still  alive  and 
active,  has  crowned  his  material  success  by  the  cap- 
stone of  a  wise  and  notable  philanthrophy.  And  he 
illustrates  in  his  life,  as  does  that  great  scientist 
Michael  Pupin,  the  Serbian  "immigrant  to  inven- 
tor," in  his,  the  successful  taking  advantage  of 
America's  proverbial  opportunity  for  any  youth  of 
brains  and  industry,  from  anywhere  in  the  world, 
to  rise  to  greatness.  The  German  immigrant  boy, 
Emile  Berliner,  has  become  one  of  America's  most 
useful  citizens. 

But  Berliner's  contributions  to  science  are  not 
restricted  in  their  beneficence  or  in  their  origin  to 
America  alone.  There  are  no  national  boundaries 
to  science.  Every  nation  in  the  world  has  contrib- 
uted to  the  notable  advance  of  scientific  invention, 
which  is  the  basis  of  modern  civilization.  So  much  is 
the  development  of  those  ideas  the  handiwork  of  the 
men  of  every  nation,  that  it  is  almost  impossible  to 
assign  to  any  particular  nation  the  whole  credit  for 
any  one  of  our  great  industrial  tools  or  for  any  one 


PREFACE 


of  the  great  scientific  hypotlieses  by  which  we  con- 
duct so  much  of  our  historical  life. 

Great  minds  have  arisen  in  every  nation  who 
have  grasped  the  work  of  the  past  and  made  it 
contribute  to  the  progress  of  the  present.  These 
great  discoveries,  these  great  inventions,  and  these 
great  tools  which  humanity  now  has  at  its  command 
have  come  to  us  from  a  thousand  sources.  They  are 
the  cumulated  result  of  constant  improvement  upon 
the  work  of  those  who  have  gone  before. 

The  vast  populations  which  the  world  supports 
to-day,  the  high  standards  of  living  and  comfort 
with  which  we  are  surrounded,  are  directly  due  to 
scientific  discovery.  It  was  science  that  prevented 
the  disaster  Malthus  predicted  as  the  result  of  the 
pressure  of  the  population  upon  subsistence,  for  it 
is  science  that  has  increased  the  productivity  of 
man.  A  score  of  men  can  live  in  comfort  now  where 
only  one  lived  in  poverty  a  hundred  years  ago. 

Discoveries  in  science  are  rarely  news.  There 
is  usually  but  little  about  them  that  is  sensational, 
and  they  are  often  intricate  and  difficult  to  compre- 
hend. But  the  public  should  understand  that  if  we 
would  maintain  the  continued  advance  of  our  mate- 
rial, and  to  a  considerable  degree  our  spiritual  life, 
we  must  recognize  and  support  scientific  research. 
Such  research  has  great  material  values,  but  it  also 
has,  and  even  more  importantly,  values  of  high 
moral  and  spiritual  character.  The  unfolding  of 
beauty,  the  aspiration  to  knowledge,  the  ever  widen- 


PEEFACE 


ing  penetration  into  the  unknown,  the  discovery  of 
truth,  and,  finally,  as  Huxley  says,  ''the  inculcation 
of  veracity  of  thought,"  are  all  of  them  ample  rea- 
sons why  all  good  citizens  should  be  interested  in 
the  progress  of  science — and  in  the  careers  of  men 
like  Emile  Berliner. 


/^j^  u.'^y^^w'^^^^*^ 


FOREWORD 

Fbom  the  melting-pot  which  is  the  modern 
United  States  there  has  emerged  an  amalgam  which 
is  peculiarly  American — an  aristocracy  of  inventive 
genius.  Its  members  have  illumined  the  progress  of 
mankind  for  as  many  years  as  the  Republic  has  life. 
Their  achievements,  indeed,  are  the  milestones 
which  mark  America's  advance  toward  her  present 
eminence  in  the  domains  of  culture,  science  and  the 
economic  arts. 

In  the  veins  of  American  inventors  the  bloods 
of  many  races  have  been  fused.  Some  of  them,  like 
Franklin,  Fulton,  Morse,  Howe,  Edison,  McCormick, 
Westinghouse  and  the  Wrights,  were  products  of 
our  OA^Ti  soil,  though  many  were  the  direct  offspring 
of  Transatlantic  progenitors.  From  that  same 
Old- World  stock  has  come  to  us  a  contingent  of 
European  native-born,  which,  nurtured  in  the 
pioneering  atmosphere  of  the  New  World,  has  made 
rich  contributions  to  the  development  not  only  of 
American  civilization,  but  of  the  human  race.  From 
Scotland  came  Alexander  Graham  Bell,  inventor  of 
the  telephone.  Germany  sent  us  Charles  Proteus 
Steinmetz,  electrician.  From  Greek  loins  sprang 
another  gifted  electrician,  Nikola  Tesla.    Hungary 


FOREWOED 


bequeathed  America  a  Serbian  cattleherd,  Michael 
Idvorsky  Pupin,  who  is  to-day  a  luminary  in  the 
firmament  of  physics  and  electro-magnetics.  To 
John  Ericsson,  of  Sweden,  builder  of  the  Monitor, 
America  has  just  reared  a  monument  on  the  banks 
of  the  Potomac. 

A  contemporary  peer  both  of  many  of  these 
American-born  and  European-bom  arbiters  of  the 
modern  universe  is  the  man  around  whose  career 
of  scientific  accomplishment  and  philanthropic  zeal 
this  biographical  narrative  revolves. 

It  is  the  story  of  Emile  Berliner,  servant  of 
civilization. 

It  is  the  story  of  an  immigrant  boy  who  became 
a  man  with  a  billion  contacts  throughout  the  world. 

It  is  the  story  of  the  telephone,  the  microphone 
and  the  gramophone. 

It  is  the  story  of  one  who  wrought  so  wondrously 
that  civilized  mankind,  defying  space,  spans  con- 
tinents and  oceans  by  word  of  mouth. 

It  is  the  story  of  a  dreamer  whose  crude  toyings 
with  a  soap-box  eventuated  in  a  mechanism  that  en- 
ables the  President  of  the  United  States  at  will  to 
commune  through  the  air  with  tens  of  millions  of  his 
fellow-citizens. 

It  is  the  story  of  him  who  etched  the  human 
voice  and  taught  the  plowboy  to  whistle  grand 
opera. 

It  is  the  story  of  a  practical  idealist  who  is  mak- 
ing child  life  safer,  surer  and  sweeter. 


FOREWOED 


It  is  above  all  the  story  of  the  illimitable  possi- 
bilities of  America  for  the  youth  in  whom  the  divine 
spark  flickers,  no  matter  how  lowly  or  how  alien  his 
origin. 

Emile  Berliner's  story  is  the  story  of  the  micro- 
phone, without  which  neither  modern  telephony  nor 
its  companion  in  magic,  radio  broadcasting,  would 
have  been  possible.  It  is  the  story  of  the  indestruc- 
tible "lateral  cut"  disk  record  which  brings  Caruso 
and  GaUi-Curci,  and  John  McCormack  and  phil- 
harmonic orchestras,  into  the  humblest  home.  It 
is  the  story  of  the  movement  which  led  to  the  general 
pasteurization  of  milk  through  the  adoption  of 
government  standards. 

It  is  the  story  of  a  restlessly  active  spirit  in  the 
endless  kingdom  of  the  unexplored,  a  spirit  whom 
age  seems  powerless  to  curb,  for,  at  seventy-five, 
Emile  Berliner  is  still  discovering  and  inventing. 
The  diamond  jubilee  of  his  fruitful  life  "witnessed  the 
addition  of  "acoustic  tiles"  to  the  scroll  of  his  con- 
structive works.  His  extraordinary  vision  and 
unusual  aural  sense  are  unimpaired;  his  physical 
powers  and  genial  nature,  of  pristine  buoyancy.  It 
would  be  a  rash  prophet  who  would  predict  that 
Emile  Berliner  is  an  extinct  volcano.  From  that 
Vesu\'ius  the  world  is  entitled  to  expect  yet  other 
eruptions. 

This  "Life"  is  essentially  the  chronicle  of  a 
hero  of  peace  unsung  and  unheralded.  That  the 
story  of  Emile  Berliner  is  a  closed  book  to  the 


FOREWORD 


large  majority  of  his  fellow- Americans  is  evi- 
dence that  self-effacement  is  not  altogether  a  lost 
art  in  our  Age  of  Advertisement. 

The  year  1926  marks  the  Fiftieth  Anniversary 
of  Bell's  invention  of  the  telephone.  It  is  appropri- 
ate that  the  golden  jubilee  of  that  boon  to  human 
progress  should  see  tardy  justice  done  to  the  one 
who  contributed  effectively  to  its  perfection. 

F.  W.  W, 
Washington,  B.  C, 
July  1,  1926. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I    Boyhood  in  Germany 1 

II    To  THE  Land  of  Dreams 13 

III  The   Making  of  an   American     ...     20 

IV  A    Rolling    Stone 31 

V    The  Spirit  of  1876 42 

VI  Conception  of  the  Telephone     ...     51 

VII  Birth    op    the    Telephone      ....     58 

VIII    Berliner  Sets  to  Work 67 

IX  From   Soap-Box   to  Microphone     ...  79 
X  Berliner  Files  His  Caveat     ....     88 
XI  The   Continuous   Current  Transformer    94 
/^  XII  Berliner  Joins  the  Bell  Company     .     .  102 
-^  XIII  Berliner   Completes  the   Telephone     .  118 
XIV  The  Telephone  Fights  for  Its  Life     .  133 
XV  The  United  States  Versus  Emilb  Ber- 
liner        140 

XVI  The  Vindication  of  Emile  Berliner     .  148 

XVII  Berliner    Takes    the    Transmitter    to 

Europe      .       .       .       .....  155 

XVIII  Holding  Communion  With  Immortality  168 

XIX  Birth  of  the  Talking  Machine     .     .     .  175 

XX  Berliner    Invents    the    Gramophone     .  183 

XXI  Etching  the  Human  Voice     ....  193 

XXII  Germany  Welcomes  the  Gramophone     .  202 

XXIII  The  World  Set  to  Music 217 

XXIV  Berliner's      Contribution      to      Public 

Health 234 

XXV    Berliner    and    Radio 251 

XXVI  Emile    Berliner    To-day    ,     ....  272 


CONTENTS— CowcWg^ 

CHAPTEE  PAGE 

XXVII    An  Inventor's  Human  Side     ....  287 
XXVIII    Berlinee  Peers  into  the  Future     .     .  297 


APPENDICES 

I    Berliner's  Caveat  Describing  the  Micro- 
phone       309 

II    Final  Development  of  the  Blake  Trans- 
mitter            .     »     .  314 

III  A  Tribute  to   Emile  Berliner     .     .     .  320 

IV  A    Specimen    of    Berliner's    **  Health 

Education"   Bulletins  .  «  .  .  323 

V    The  Scientific  Side  of  Music  .  »  .  .  328 

yi    Wonders      v       «       «     .     r  «  v  -r  *  333 

Index      <     ^     y.     e    -•    >:  s  ^^  x  •  339 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIOXS 

Emile  Berliner Frontispiece 

Facing  page 
Berliner's  Playground  When  a  Boy  in  Hanover  14 
Mr.  Berliner's  Mother  and  Father  ...  15 
Telegram  Sent  on  Emile  Berliner's  Arrival  in 

the  United  States 38 

Mr.  Berliner  in  1872 38 

Store    in    Washington    ^Tiere    Mr.    Berliner 

Clerked 39 

First  Bell  Telephone,  June,  1875  ....  70 
BeU's  Magneto  System,  1876  ....  70 
Bell's  Magneto  Telephone,  1877  ....  71 
Bell's  Magneto  Telephone  System  in  1877  .       .     71 

Microphone  of  March  4, 1877 98 

Microphone  of  Berliner's  Caveat,  April  14, 1877    98 

Bell-Berliner  System 99 

Berliner's  Battery  System 99 

Letter  from  Telephone  Company  of  New  York 
Introducing   Emile   Berliner   to   the   Bell 

Group 126 

Letter  from  Mr.  Hubbard  .  .  •.,  :.  .  127 
Gardiner  Greene  Hubbard  in  1876  .  .  .  127 
Letter  from  Theodore  N.  Vail        ....  156 

Theodore  N.  Vail 156 

James  J.  Storrow,  Gugliemo  Marconi,  Alex- 
ander Graham  Bell,  Major-General  George 
0.  Squire 157 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTEATIONS 


Facing  Page 
First  Disk  Talking  Machine  (Gramophone)       .  180 
Gramophone  Sound  Tracings,  Gramophone  Re- 
producer, Gramophone  Recorder  .       .       .  181 
Laboratory  Force  of  Emile  Berliner  in  1888      .  210 

1485  Columbia  Road 211 

Professor  Hermann  Ludwig  Ferdinand  von 
Helmholtz,  Doctor  Ernest  C.  Schroeder, 
Henrich    Hertz,    Honorable    Herbert     C. 

Hoover 242 

Letter  from  Hermann  von  Helmholtz  .       .       .   243 
Radio   Central   of   the   Radio   Corporation  of 

America  on  Long  Island 268 

Elliott  Cresson  Gold  Medal 269 

Mr.  Berliner  in  Front  of  Microphone  at  WRC 

Broadcasting  Station 290 

Mr.  Berliner  among  Children  of  Public  Health 
Class 291 


EMILE   BERLINER 


EMILE    BERLINER 

CHAPTER  I 

BOYHOOD  IlSr  GERMANY 

IMTO  that  Germany  which  gave  Emile  Berliner 
birth  on  May  20,  1851,  the  cult  of  militarism  had 
come,  but  not  conquered.  Men  were  goose-stepped, 
but  the  Mailed  Fist  was  not  enthroned.  Germany 
for  the  most  part  was  what  Lord  Palmerston  called 
*'that  damned  land  of  professors." 

Liberalism  and  learning  were  in  the  air.  The 
revolution  of  1848  had  just  been  w^aged.  The  Ger- 
man people  were  taking  to  heart  the  admonition  of 
Fichte,  the  philosopher,  who,  in  his  Addresses  to 
the  Nation  following  the  Napoleonic  humiliation, 
admonished  his  countrjTnen  to  "replace  what  they 
had  lost  in  physical  resources  by  moral  strength." 
The  University  of  Berlin,  founded  by  Fichte,  vou 
Humboldt  and  Schleiermacher  in  1813,  was  in  the 
heyday  of  its  consecrated  mission — the  inculcation 
of  the  doctrine  that  public  education  is  the  true  basis 
of  national  greatness. 

The  flower  of  German  industrial  might  was  bud- 

1 


EMILE  BERLINER 


ding.  It  "vvas  in  1S51 — the  year  of  Emile  Berliner's 
birth — that  Alfred  Knipp,  an  obscure  Rhenish  steel- 
maker of  Essen,  electrified  the  manufacturing  uni- 
verse by  exhibiting  at  the  great  Crystal  Palace  Ex- 
hibition in  London  an  ingot  of  steel  weighing  two 
and  one-half  tons.  Germany  stood  on  the  threshold 
of  a  new  birth,  destined  within  a  generation  to  be 
perverted  to  the  purposes  of  an  insensate  imperial- 
ism. 

In  the  west  of  Germany  nestled  the  independent 
and  peaceful  little  Kingdom  of  Hanover,  pawn  of 
Prussian,  French  and  English  dynasties  throughout 
an  embattled  century.  Successively  an  electorate 
and  a  kingdom,  and  chiefly  composed  of  territories 
which  once  belonged  to  the  dukes  of  Brunswick, 
Hanover  was  finally  erected  into  a  sovereign  realm 
in  181-i,  after  "VTaterloo.  George  V,  son  of  Ernest 
Augustus,  Duke  of  Cumberland,  ascended  the  throne 
as  King  of  Hanover  during  the  year  in  which  Emile 
Berliner  was  bom. 

The  capital  city  bore  the  Kingdom's  own  name. 
The  Hanover  in  which  Emile  first  glimpsed  the  light 
was  a  placid  community  of  winding  streets,  grim 
castles,  quaint  buildings,  and  Gemi'dliliclikeit,  It 
had  its  court,  its  garrison,  its  Anglicized  aristoc- 
racy, its  rather  exclusive  culture,  which  included 
an  especially  pure  t^'pe  of  German  speech  for  which 
Hanover  is  famous  to  this  day,  and  an  Institute  of 
Technology  that  was  a  center  of  German  engineer- 
ing progress. 


BOYHOOD  IN  GEE^IAXY 


Sir  "William  Herschel,  ''who  pierced  the  barriers 
of  Heaven"  with  his  telescopes,  was  a  native  son  of 
Hanover.  Three  or  four  years  before  Emile  Ber- 
liner was  bom  there,  another  Hannoveraner  came  to 
earth,  who  was  doomed  to  strike  terror  to  the  hearts 
of  men  as  Berliner  was  destined  to  gladden  them. 
His  name  was  Paul  von  Hindenburg.  How  vastly 
different  became  the  chosen  paths  of  these  two  boys 
of  Hanover,  both  still  alive,  and  on  active  service, 
though  septuagenarians!  Hindenburg  selected  the 
field  of  Mars  as  his  life  avocation  and  strewed  it, 
before  he  quit  it,  baffled  and  broken,  with  more  of 
human  misery  and  devastation  than  war  had  ever 
caused  before.  Berliner  was  marked  for  better 
things.  That  Divinity  which  shapes  our  ends  or- 
dained that  man-ennobling,  not  man-killing,  works 
should  tax  his  ingenious  energies. 

To  Samuel  Berliner,  a  small  Hanover  merchant, 
and  his  good  wife,  Sarah  Fridman  Berliner,  there 
was  born  a  t^-pically  large  German  family  of  eleven 
children.  They  inhabited  a  floor  of  a  humble  four- 
story  stone  building,  of  which  Hanover's  bended 
streets  contained  many  equally  inconspicuous. 
Emile  was  the  fourth  child.  From  his  father,  a 
Talmudic  scholar  of  deeply  religious  fervor,  Emile 
inherited  a  sense  of  logic  and  a  respect  for  biblical 
teaching.  From  his  mother,  a  daughter  of  Cux- 
haven,  where  the  Elbe  empties  into  the  sea,  the  boy 
subconsciously  imbibed  a  wistful  longing  for  the 
fuller  life  that  beckoned  from  across  the  Atlantic^ 


4 EMILE  BERLINER 

Through  the  city  of  Hanover  the  River  Leine  threads 
its  lazy  course.  On  one  of  its  bridges  Emile  Ber- 
liner often  would  stand  in  soliloquy,  watching  the 
softly  rippling  current  as  if  crystal-gazing  into  a 
beyond  he  hoped  some  day  to  encounter  at  close 
range. 

The  province  of  Hanover  had  far  too  stirring 
a  military  history  to  be  devoid  of  martial  pride. 
The  older  generation  of  its  menfolk,  in  Emile  Ber- 
liner's youth,  consisted  of  those  whose  fathers  had 
marched  with  Bliicher  to  overwhelm  Napoleon. 
Theirs  were  memories  and  traditions  not  easily 
forsaken.  One  of  Emile 's  school-teachers,  a  hot- 
blooded  patriot,  celebrated  his  own  birthday  each 
year  by  dispensing  with  class  work  and  devoting  the 
day  to  a  perfer\id  glorification  of  the  Battle  of 
Waterloo.  "Look  at  those  Hanoverians!"  ex- 
claimed Bonaparte,  observing  their  irresistible  ad- 
vance, as  the  schoolmaster  of  Hanover  depicted  it. 
*'You  must  grow  up  to  be  like  those  soldiers!"  the 
teacher  would  thunder  at  his  awe-struck  class. 

For  one  whole  week  of  every  year  Hanover  gave 
itself  over  to  the  dehghts  and  glories  of  the  Schiit- 
zenfest  (sharpshooters'  festival),  a  survival  of  me- 
dieval glory.  The  city  donned  gala  attire.  At  sun- 
up, before  the  door  of  every  burgher  who  was  a 
member  of  the  Scluitzenverein,  there  would  be  a  rat- 
tle of  drums  to  waken  him.  Soon  after  da^^i  Hanover 
was  alive  "\\'ith  riflemen,  hilariously  ready  for  the 
great  event  of  each  day — a  parade  to  the  shooting 


BOYHOOD  IN  GERMANY 


range  in  the  meadows  on  the  fringe  of  the  city. 
There  all  day  long  and  into  the  night  the  populace 
would  sing  and  romp  and  eat  and  drink,  turning  a 
nominally  military  affair  into  what  it  really  was — a 
merrymaking  carnival.  At  the  end  of  the  week,  fol- 
lowing daily  contests  in  markmanship,  the  cham- 
pion sharpshooters  was  crowned  sch'dtzenlidnig 
(king  of  sharpshooters),  and  he  remained  hero  of 
Hanover  till  a  rival  robbed  him  of  his  laurels  a  year 
later. 

King  George  of  Hanover  was  blind,  but  insisted 
upon  all  the  spectacular  honors  that  were  his  royal 
prerogative,  though  he  could  only  hear,  and  not  see, 
them.  He  and  his  Queen  were  greatly  beloved  by 
the  Hanoverian  people.  The  road  to  their  Schloss 
was  a  noble  highway  along  which,  for  the  length  of 
a  mile,  four  giant  rows  of  linden  trees  separated  the 
thoroughfare  into  different  divisions  of  travel.  On 
"King's  birthday"  there  was  general  holiday  and 
a  great  to-do  in  Hanover.  Shops  and  houses  were 
gaily  illuminated.  There  was  much  eating  and  even 
more  drinking.  The  troops  turned  out  in  gala  ac- 
couterments.  Emile  Berliner,  like  the  other  young- 
sters of  Hanover,  was  unfailingly  impressed  by  the 
gorgeous  mounted  band,  that  was  uniformed  in  shin- 
ing silver  armor  and  led  the  King's  bodyguard  of 
prancing  cavalry.  Hanover  was  famed  for  its  fine 
horses.  The  pick  of  its  breeds  was  always  pre- 
served for  the  King's  bandsmen  and  guard.  All 
Hanoverians  swelled  with  pride  whenever  they  told 


EMILE  BERLINER 


that  the  six  tawny-colored  horses  that  drew  Queen 
Victoria's  royal  carriage  on  state  occasions  in  Lon- 
don were  Hanover-bred. 

The  blind  King 's  affliction  was  a  boon  to  the  peo- 
ple, in  that  it  developed  in  him  a  great  fondness  for 
music,  of  which  the  Hanoverians  became  the  bene- 
ficiaries. Each  year  the  King  contributed  a  gener- 
ous sum  from  his  personal  fortune  so  that  the  citi- 
zens of  Hanover  might  enjoy  the  best  music  at  the 
Royal  Opera  for  almost  next  to  nothing. 

Since  time  immemorial  German  towns  and  cities, 
even  small  communities,  have  prided  themselves 
upon  their  fine  city  or  state  theaters  and  opera- 
houses.  In  the  case  of  Residenzstadt  (royal  capi- 
tal) like  Hanover,  these  buildings  are  veiy  beautiful. 
Emile  Berliner's  youthful  mind  was  vastly  im- 
pressed by  the  architectural  splendor  of  the  Han- 
over Opernliaus,  and  particularly  by  its  gorgeous 
frescoed  curtain  depicting  the  Sun  God,  Apollo, 
mounting  his  chariot  for  the  sunrise. 

When  Napoleon  humbled  Prussia  after  the  battle 
of  Jena,  he  looted  the  country  of  many  of  its  choice 
works  of  art.  Among  the  things  he  carted  off  to  the 
Louvre  in  Paris  was  the  Hanover  opera-house  cur- 
tain. After  Waterloo,  the  French  were  despoiled 
of  their  ill-gotten  gains,  and  Apollo  was  restored 
to  his  original  place  in  Hanover.  There  he  still 
hangs. 

One  of  those  who  availed  herself  liberally  and 
regularly  of  the  opportunities  afforded  by  the  Han- 


BOYHOOD  IN  GERMANY 


over  royal  opera  was  Sarah.  Berliner,  mother  of 
Emile.  As  that  child  of  the  Elbe  passed  on  to  her 
son  a  longing  for  life  oversea,  so  she  instilled  in  him 
a  love  for  music.  Asked  to-day  to  name  his  boyhood 
hobby,  Emile  Berliner  invariably  responds:  ''A 
craze  for  music. "  It  must  have  been  the  mainspring 
of  his  inspiration  to  invent  the  gramophone.  At 
boarding  school,  Emile  used  to  eavesdrop  outside 
the  rooms  of  wealthier  boys  who  could  afford  piano 
lessons  and  hum  the  pieces  they  practised.  A  fond- 
ness for  classical  music  abides  with  him. 

Hanover  pursued  the  even  tenor  of  its  way,  a 
prosperous  province  of  nearly  two  million  souls, 
but  as  Emile  Berliner  entered  upon  his  'teens  the 
rumble  of  battle  echoed  menacingly  across  the  fron- 
tier from  Prussia.  Bismarck  was  embarking  upon 
his  trilogy  of  wars  that  were  to  unify  Germany  into 
a  military  empire  and  launch  her  upon  the  aggres- 
sive career  of  a  Weltmacht.  In  1864  Denmark  was 
assaulted  and  humbled,  and  her  fair  provinces  of 
Schleswig  and  Holstein  annexed  to  Prussia.  In 
1866,  Austria  was  earmarked  for  attack.  King 
George  of  Hanover  decided  to  align  his  fortunes 
with  Austria,  whereupon  the  Prussians  entered  and 
occupied  Hanover.  The  Hanoverians  fought 
bravely,  as  their  forebears  did  at  Waterloo,  and  de- 
feated the  Prussians  at  Langensalza,  but  two  daj's 
later  the  tide  of  battle  turned  against  them  and 
King  George's  men  were  compelled  to  surrender. 
That  was  on  June  29,  1866.     Three  months  after- 


8 EMILE  BERLINER 

ward  Bismarck  annexed  Hanover  to  Prussia  over 
the  futile  protest  the  blind  King  addressed  to 
Europe.  Thenceforward  George  V  and  his  house 
were  exiles  on  the  hospitable  soil  of  Austria. 

Emile  Berliner  had  finished  a  four-year  course 
at  a  boarding-chool  in  Wolfenbiittel,  a  town  about 
two  hours  from  Hanover  by  rail,  a  year  before  these 
fateful  events  transpired.  The  Prussian  invasion 
photographed  itself  indelibly  upon  his  young  mind. 
It  recalled  itself  vividly  in  1914  when,  in  common 
with  many  Americans  of  German  origin,  Berliner 
was  horrified  by  the  invasion  of  Belgium,  though 
the  Prussians  of  1866  had  not  hacked  their  way 
through  Hanover. 

Emile  was  clerking  in  a  dry  goods  store  when  the 
Uhlans  came  to  his  native  city.  First  there  were 
but  three  of  them,  mounted  and  carrying  a  flag  of 
truce.  They  were  the  advance  guard  sent  to  ask 
the  burgomaster  of  Hanover  whether  there  would 
be  resistance  to  the  Prussian  troops  standing  in 
force  on  the  outskirts  of  the  capital.  Berliner  saw 
the  Uhlans  clattering  through  the  street,  each  brand- 
ishing a  pistol,  for  they  evidently  feared  attack. 

Hanover  was  in  no  position  to  defend  itself,  so 
the  Uhlans  took  back  word  fo  their  commander  that 
the  city  could  be  occupied  without  danger  of  a  fight. 
Then  the  Prussians  poured  in.  Troops  were  quar- 
tered in  the  building  where  Emile  worked.  It  was 
a  peaceful  occupation.  But  it  sowed  the  seeds  of  a 
hatred  that  endures  in  the  older  generation  of  Han- 


BOYHOOD  IN  GERMANY 


overian  breasts  to  this  day.  It  was  not  until  forty- 
seven  years  later,  in  consequence  of  one  of  those 
strokes  of  matrimonial  statecraft  by  which  kings 
and  queens  patch  up  international  differences,  that 
the  old  house  of  Hanover,  the  Cumberlands,  con- 
sented to  have  anything  to  do  with  the  Hohenzol- 
lerns.  On  May  24,  1913,  the  young  Duke  Ernest 
August  of  Brunswick,  *'heir  to  the  Hanoverian 
throne,"  was  married  to  Princess  Victoria  Louise 
of  Prussia,  only  daughter  of  the  haughty  German 
Emperor.  There  was  love-feasting  and  burying  of 
the  hatchet  at  the  Royal  Castle  of  Berlin — the 
author  of  this  book  was  present — but  the  Hanover- 
ians will  never  forget  that  it  was  overbearing  Prus- 
sia ^hat  humiliated  and  dethroned  their  beloved 
blind  king  and  his  gracious  consort  and  on  Septem- 
ber 20,  1866,  of  painful  memory,  snuffed  out  the 
old  kingdom  of  Hanover  and  incorporated  it  within 
the  territory  of  Prussia.  If  departed  monarchs  ever 
turn  in  their  royal  graves  for  joy,  the  old  blind  King 
of  Hanover  must  have  had  his  moment  of  vengeful 
rejoicing  when  William  II,  last  of  the  Hohen- 
zoUerns,  ignominiously  fled  his  throne  and  his  coun- 
try in  the  ides  of  November,  1918. 

Emile  Berliner  was  one  of  thirty-five  boy  stu- 
dents at  the  Samsonschule  in  Wolfenbiittel.  He  was 
graduated  in  1865  at  the  age  of  fourteen  and  has 
never  been  to  school  since.  The  grounding  he  re- 
ceived there,  as  was  the  invariable  rule  in  German 
primary  schools,  was  exceedingly  thorough, 


10 EMILE  BERLINER 

He  was  a  good,  though  not  a  particularly  bril- 
liant pupil.  His  Ahgangs-Zeugniss  (final  report), 
reveals  that  he  received  * '  excellents "  for  de- 
portment, industry,  application,  orderliness  and 
Bible  history,  but  only  "very  goods,"  the  second 
highest  marks,  for  history,  geography,  reading,  Ger- 
man, French,  singing  and  gymnastics.  Evidently 
Emile  had  either  small  talent  for  or  slight  interest 
in  natural  history  or  English,  for  he  scored  only 
** goods"  in  those  branches  after  four  years  under 
Herr  Schuldirektor  Doctor  Ehrenberg  at  Wolfen- 
biittel. 

In  two  classes  young  Berliner  was  highly  pro- 
ficient— drawing  and  penmanship.  He  was  by  far 
the  best  draftsman  in  the  Samsonschule.  His  free- 
hand copies  of  drawings  were  almost  lithographic. 
His  handwriting  is  still  of  the  ornate  Spencerian 
type  that  was  considered  a  great  accomplishment 
in  those  days.  On  the  occasion  of  Emile 's  annual 
visits  to  his  home  in  Hanover,  during  his  four  years 
at  Wolfenbiittel,  he  would  exhibit  with  deep  pride 
a  set  of  uncommonly  neat  copy-books.  They  are 
still  preserved  by  him  and  are  proofs  of  an  indus- 
trious, if  not  an  illustrious,  school  career. 

Emile  Berliner's  life  as  a  breadwinner  was  now 
upon  him.  His  parents  were  hard  put  to  it  to 
provide  adequately  for  their  extensive  brood  of 
youngsters.  Emile,  it  was  decided,  must  shift  for 
himself.  He  found  work  as  a  printer's  devil  in  a 
job-printing  establishment.    It  required  him  to  be 


BOYHOOD  IN  GERMANY 11 

up  and  doing  winter  mornings  before  daylight  and 
to  break  the  ice  in  the  basin  before  he  could  wash 
his  face  and  hands.  By  seven  o'clock,  following 
a  crust  and  coffee,  he  had  swept  out  the  printery, 
and  tidied  up  the  type-fonts  and  hand-presses  for 
a  new  day's  grind.  At  nine  o'clock  he  was  sent  out 
to  buy  the  workmen's  ziveites  Fruhstuch  (second 
breakfast)  of  beer,  cheese  and  rye  bread.  Ten 
months  as  a  printer's  devil  without  pay  except  ex- 
perience were  to  Emile  's  credit  when  he  determined 
that  the  printing  trade  was  not  to  his  liking.  He 
had  learned  some  t5T)esetting,  but  was  tired  of  work- 
ing for  nothing,  and  found  himself  a  job  as  clerk 
in  a  dry-goods  store. 

Now  a  lad  of  sixteen,  Berliner's  mind  for  the 
first  time  turned  to  the  inventive.  It  was  the  day- 
by-day  handling  of  bolts  of  colored  fabric  that  first 
brought  it  out.  He  became  interested  in  the  methods 
by  which  textiles  might  be  woven.  In  his  free  hours 
at  home  he  evolved  a  weaving  machine.  It  was,  of 
course,  not  an  original  idea.  But  as  far  as  Emile 
was  concerned,  it  was  an  invention.  Experts  pro- 
nounced its  principle  technically  correct  and  ex- 
pressed astonishment  that  an  adolescent  youth,  un- 
aided and  without  technical  equipment,  could  have 
devised  so  practical  a  mechanism.  They  told  Sam- 
uel and  Sarah  Berliner  that  their  boy  Emile  was 
ein  genialer  Kerl — a  clever  fellow. 

Young  Berliner  plodded  on,  an  industrious,  seri- 
ous-minded, receptive,  observant  and  rather  reticent 


12  EMILE  BERLINER 

youth.  German  lads  did  not  go  in  for  sports  in  the 
'sixties.  G>TQnastics  represented  the  first  and  last 
word  in  games.  Emile  derived  his  chief  pleasure 
from  reading.  Night-time,  snuggled  down  into  his 
feather  bed  beneath  a  red  and  black  patchwork  quilt 
and  by  the  light  of  a  kerosene  lamp,  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  devour  Robinson  Crusoe  and  The  Last  of 
the  Mohicans.  The  wind  whipping  across  the  attic 
roof  immediately  above  him  gave  frequent  reality 
to  the  romantic  tales  which  have  fired  the  imagi- 
nations of  boys  in  so  many  lands.  Of  those 
two  stories  of  adventure  Emile  seemed  never  to 
tire.  He  read  them  dozens  of  times,  and  knew  whole 
passages  by  heart.  Probably  without  his  realizing 
it,  Defoe  and  Fenimore  Cooper  between  them 
played  a  subtly  vital  part,  with  their  classic  nar- 
ratives of  self-reliance  in  new  lands,  in  preparing 
Emile  Berliner  for  the  eventful  life  about  to  open 
up  for  him,  in  a  distant  climei 


CHAPTER  n 


TO   THE   LAND   OF  DREAMS 


FROM  the  moment  the  ''Forty-Eighters,"  the 
militant  Germans  of  whom  Carl  Schurz  is  the 
most  famous,  began  their  great  exodus  to  the  United 
States  after  the  revolution  against  Prussian  autoc- 
racy, the  eyes  of  young  Germany  turned  with  ever 
increasing  longing  toward  the  New  World.  Be- 
tween 1860  and  1870  there  poured  in  from  the 
Fatherland,  a  stream  of  immigrants  that  was  limited 
only  by  the  capacity  of  steamships  to  bring  them 
across  the  Atlantic.  Sturdy  Germans,  whose 
progenitors  were  pioneers  on  American  soil  along 
vnth  English,  Scottish,  Irish  and  Dutch  settlers  as 
long  ago  as  the  seventeenth  century,  leavened  our 
citizenship  everywhere. 

By  1861  they  were  already  so  large  in  number 
and  so  impregnated  with  American  ideals  that  whole 
"German  regiments"  were  formed  for  service  in  the 
Union  Army  during  the  Civil  War.  General  Franjz 
Sigel  commanded  a  brigade  of  men  who  were  al- 
most exclusively  of  Teutonic  birth.  Carl  Schurz 
was  one  of  Sigel 's  leaders.  Missouri,  in  the  tragic 
hours  of  secession,  wavered  for  a  while  between 

13 


14 EMILE  BERLINER 

loyalty  to  the  Union  and  sympathy  with  the  Confed- 
eracy. It  was  due  in  no  small  degree  to  its  numer- 
ous German- American  element  that  the  great  bor- 
der state  was  saved  for  the  cause  that  Abraham 
Lincoln  espoused.  Carl  Schurz  lived  in  Missouri 
and  afterward  represented  his  state  in  the  United 
States  Senate  from  1869  to  1875. 

Thoughts  and  dreams  of  America — das  Land  der 
unhegrensten  Moglichheiten  (the  land  of  unlimited 
possibilities),  as  it  came  to  be  called  in  more  modem 
times — now  were  flitting  through  Emile  Berliner's 
head.  Like  all  young  Hanoverians,  he  loathed 
Prussian  militarism,  under  whose  boot-heel  the 
independence  .of  his  native  land  lay  crushed.  Den- 
mark had  been  bullied,  beaten  and  despoiled  of  her 
fairest  provinces.  Imperial  Austria,  as  the  price 
of  annihilating  defeat  at  Koniggratz,  was  cowed 
into  the  ignominy  of  a  Prussian  vassal.  The  Ger- 
man Confederation  having  been  annulled,  the  North 
German  Confederation  had  been  set  up  under  the 
spurred  and  helmeted  supremacy  of  Prussia.  Han- 
over, Hesse-Cassel,  Nassau,  Frankfort  and  other 
provinces  were  deprived  of  their  sovereignty  and 
herded  like  sheep  into  the  Prussian  realm.  Bis- 
marck ruled  at  Berlin,  drunk  with  power  and  suc- 
cessive triumphs  in  the  fields  of  war  and  statecraft. 
Such  was  the  depressing  vision  that  loomed  be- 
fore the  eyes  of  upgrowing  Germans  in  the  years 
of  Emile  Berliner's  budding  manhood.  It  was  not 
a  vista  to  stir  the  imagination  of  a  lad  in  whom  the 


Berliner  's  I'lavurouxd  AVhex   a  Boy  in  Haxovek 


w 


TO  THE  LAND  OF  DREAMS  15 


fires  of  constructive  achievement  were,  subcon- 
sciously, aglow  and  so  soon  to  be  kindled  into  a 
flame. 

The  alumnus  of  Wolfenbiittel,  now  in  his  nine- 
teenth year  and  eking  out  a  drab  existence  as  a 
dry-goods  clerk,  first  had  his  day-dreaming 
turned  concretely  toward  the  Golden  West  by 
the  return  to  Hanover  of  an  old  family  friend.  Na- 
than Gotthelf  had  emigrated  to  the  United  States 
many  years  before  and  was  now  a  small,  though 
prosperous,  merchant  in  Washington,  D.  C.  Gott- 
helf  came  back  to  Germany  in  1869,  to  visit  his  na- 
tive haunts  and  spread  the  gospel  of  the  El  Dorado 
that  awaited  exploration  and  conquest  everywhere 
in  ''free  America." 

His  story  fascinated  Emile  Berliner.  The  youth 
determined  that  if  parental  consent  could  be  ob- 
tained, he  would  cross  the  Atlantic  at  the  earliest 
possible  moment.  It  was  not  long  afterward  that  in 
one  of  the  humble  homes  of  Hanover  a  group  of 
wide-eyed  youths,  consumed  with  envy  of  the  good 
fortune  about  to  overtake  their  most  enterprising 
comrade,  gathered  around  a  table  laden  all  over  its 
checkered  cloth  with  potato-pancakes,  rye  bread, 
Swiss  cheese  and  beer.  In  the  midst  of  his  com- 
panions sat  Emile  Berliner,  hero  of  the  occasion. 
It  was  an  Ahschiedsfeier  (farewell  party)  in  his 
honor.  He  was  about  to  take  the  long,  long  leap 
and  seek  his  fortune  overseas. 

Nathan  Gotthelf  promised  to  give  Emile  work  in 


16  EMILE  BERLINER  

the  little  dry-goods  store  on  Seventh  Street,  Wash- 
ington, immediately  upon  the  lad's  arrival  in  Amer- 
ica. It  would  be  a  modest  beginning,  but  it  was  an 
assured  one,  and  amid  friends.  The  Berliner  fam- 
ily council  had  consented,  and  now  Emile  was  to 
join  the  adventuring  throng  that  was  turning  its 
back  on  militarized  Germany.  It  would  be  an  in- 
structive thing  if  some  day  it  could  be  ascertained, 
in  measurable  terms,  what  nineteenth-century  Ger- 
many might  have  become  if  so  many  of  her  intrepid 
young  spirits  had  not  been  driven  away  by  the  de- 
pressing influence  of  the  Prussian  goose-step. 

Emile  Berliner  was  of  military  age  when  he 
elected  to  become  an  Amerikaner.  Bismarck,  Molt- 
ke,  Roon  and  the  puppet  King  of  Prussia,  soon  to 
be  the  self -consecrated  Kaiser  Wilhelm  ''the 
Great,"  were  busily  making  their  battle  toilet  for 
Prussia's  next  war  of  conquest — the  contest  with 
France.  Young  Berliner  had  passed  with  flying 
colors  the  examination  for  the  Einjdhrige-Freiwill- 
ige  (one-year  volunteer)  term  in  the  Prussian 
Army.  Under  this  system,  in  vogue  until  the  out- 
break of  the  World  War,  a  young  German  was  ab- 
solved from  the  onerous  obligations  of  three,  later 
two,  consecutive  years  of  service  in  barracks  dur- 
ing early  manhood.  All  lads  of  adequate  mental 
equipment  and  of  even  moderately  well-to-do  fam- 
ily took  the  Einjdhrige-Freiwillige  examination.  It 
was  a  certificate  of  exceptional  culture. 

Although  the  authorities  were  keeping  minute 


TO  THE  LAND  OF  DREAMS  17 

tab  on  every  ounce  of  Prussian  military  resources, 
for  the  war  with  France  was  to  break  forth  in  all 
its  fury  within  a  few  months,  April  27,  1870,  found 
Emile  Berliner  unmolestedly  preparing  to  shake  the 
dust  of  Germany  from  his  feet.  He  was  now  on  the 
threshold  of  his  nineteenth  birthday.  It  was  a  tear- 
ful farewell  he  took  of  his  parents,  brothers,  sisters 
and  cronies.  His  father  he  was  never  to  see  again. 
Upon  his  head  the  devoted  mother,  Sarah  Berliner, 
laid  a  hand  that  betokened  unuttered  prayers  for 
Emile 's  spiritual  salvation  and  material  welfare  in 
the  land  of  his  impending  adoption.  The  lad's  heart 
was  heavier  than  he  cared  to  show  before  kith  and 
kin.  He  was  face  to  face  with  an  incalculable  future. 
Emotion  subdued  all  inclination  to  elation,  though 
inwardly  Emile  thirsted  for  the  new  experiences 
that  were  beckoning  to  him  in  the  great  republic 
across  three  thousand  miles  of  salt  water. 

A  depressing  mist  was  falling  as  Emile  stepped, 
baggage  laden,  from  the  old-fashioned  train  that 
brought  him  from  Hanover  to  Hamburg.  The  famous 
Elbe  port  had  not  become  the  mighty  world  harbor 
into  which  the  genius  of  Albert  Ballin  was  destined 
to  convert  it,  but  the  argosies  of  the  Hamburg- 
Amerikanische  Paketfahrt-Aktien-Gesellschaft  al- 
ready traversed  the  seven  seas,  and  from  the  same 
far-flung  waters  came  to  Hamburg  the  ships  of  all 
the  nations.  "My  Field  is  the  "World"  has  been  the 
*'Hapag's"  official  motto  since  the  Hamburg- Amer- 
ican line's  foundation.    That  might  have  been  the 


18 EMILE  BERLINER 

slogan  on  Emile's  coat-of-arms,  too,  had  the  Ber- 
liners  boasted  a  family  crest,  for  the  intrepid  young 
Hanoverian  who  was  setting  out  for  new  land  that 
day  in  April,  1870,  was  himself  destined  to  girdle 
the  globe,  though  in  other  ways  than  Hamburg's 
ships. 

Emile,  who  had  never  seen  ocean  ships  or 
sniffed  the  air  of  the  sea,  was  deeply  impressed 
by  the  forest  of  masts  that  always  dominates  the 
perspective  in  Hamburg.  He  speedily  found  his 
bearings.  He  was  electrified  by  the  consciousness 
that  with  every  step  America  was  growing  nearer. 
The  realization  made  his  crude  baggage  seem  lighter 
as  he  trudged  for  endless  cobblestoned  blocks  har- 
borward  and  to  the  water's  edge. 

At  the  Hamburg-American  line  wharves  an  im- 
mense hustle  and  bustle  raged.  Great  hulks  of 
longshoremen,  men  reared  to  the  hardy  trade  of  the 
sea — Germans,  Frisians,  Helgolanders,  Dutchmen, 
Danes,  Swedes,  Norwegians — worked  like  beavers 
loading  and  unloading  cargo  from  vessels  moored 
to  the  docks  in  a  line  longer  than  the  eye  could  fol- 
low. Wharves  were  not  of  steel  and  concrete  in 
those  days,  and  through  the  gaping  cracks  of  the 
unhewn  floors  of  the  docks  where  he  was  now 
arrived,  Emile  could  see  and  hear  the  water  of  the 
Elbe  splashing  and  swishing  against  the  piles,  and 
feel  those  timber  pinions  swaying  now  and  then  as 
the  water  gurgled  in  with  a  bit  of  a  surge.  The 
whole  scene  filled  the  Hanoverian  emigrant  boy, 


TO  THE  LAND  OF  DREAMS  19 

land-lubber  as  be  was,  with  a  solemn  wonder. 
But  it  was  athrob  with  life — the  life  into  which  he 
felt  he  was  about  to  plunge — so  wonder  melted 
speedily  into  enthusiasm,  and  he  became  conscious 
of  a  leaping  anxiety  to  clamber  aboard  his  ship  of 
destiny. 

There  she  was,  tied  to  the  dock,  far  down  the 
row  of  barges  and  cargo  boats  crunching  at  the  pier, 
and  standing  forth  a  queen  among  her  ignobler 
sister  craft,  for  she  was  the  Eammonia  and  bore  the 
proud  name  of  the  patron  goddess  of  the  Free  Han- 
seatic  City  of  Hamburg.  From  her  black  and  red 
smokestack  smoke  floated  lazily,  indicating  that  the 
H ammonia's,  furnaces  were  alight  and  her  boilers 
ready  to  propel  her  on  still  another  transatlantic 
journey. 

The  Eammonia  glowed  before  Emile  Berliner's 
enraptured  gaze  the  embodiment  of  all  his  boyhood 
dreams  of  a  great  ship.  Brass  rails  agleam — spot- 
less cleanliness — ship-shapeness  all  about.  The 
Eammonia  was  not  the  liner  de  luxe  of  this  ostenta- 
tious age.  But  she  was  a  Leviathan  of  her  time, 
and,  of  course,  in  Emile 's  eyes,  a  miracle  ship.  He 
mounted  the  gangplank  that  led  into  the  second 
cabin,  and  Germany  was  bereft  of  a  genius. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE    MAKING    OF    AN    AMERICAN 

OCEAN  greyhounds  in  the  'seventies  had  only 
the  speed  of  bulldogs,  and  needed  just  as 
much  tenacity.  They  plowed  the  Atlantic  between 
Hamburg  and  New  York  laboriously  in  weeks,  not 
days,  and  the  Hammonia,  with  Emile  Berliner 
aboard,  required  for  her  voyage  exactly  a  fortnight. 
It  was  a  stormy  crossing.  Second-cabin  accom- 
modations fifty-five  years  ago  were  inferior  to 
steerage  facilities  to-day.  Humble  as  were  Emile 's 
home  comforts,  he  missed  them  sadly. 

He  and  his  shipmates  had  everything  in  common. 
Like  himself,  they  were  about  to  become  prospectors 
in  the  gold-fields  of  Opportunity.  Their  days  and 
nights  aboard  ship  were  weird  and  wonderful  hours 
of  speculation  and  anticipation.  Some  of  the 
Hammonia' s  emigrant  cargo  were  more  fortunate 
than  young  Berliner.  They  had  flesh  and  blood 
awaiting  them  in  America,  and  homes  into  which  the 
new  arrivals  would  be  welcomed,  literally,  as 
brothers,  sisters,  sons  or  daughters.  Parents  were 
aboard,  too,  bound  for  loving  firesides  established 
by  pioneering  and  subsequently  fortunate  offspring 

20 


MAKING  OF  AN  AMERICAN  21 

in  American  town  or  country.  Emile's  lot  was  to 
be  cast  among  friends.  But  beyond  that  lay  a 
vacuum.  He  was  of  stout  heart.  The  answer  to  a 
question  once  leveled  at  him  by  this  chronicler  is 
significant.  *'"What  was  your  chief  emotion  as  a 
poor  German  boy  about  to  be  put  dowoi,  a  complete 
stranger,  on  United  States  soil?"  Quoth  Berliner: 
**  Anxiety  to  know  how  long  it  would  take  me  to  be- 
come a  thorough  American  I ' ' 

The  Goddess  of  Liberty  was  not  enlightening  the 
world  in  the  days  when  the  Hammonia  slipped  into 
New  York  harbor.  Nor  was  there  that  ultra- 
modern institution,  the  immigration  quota.  Amer- 
ica in  those  halcyon  times  welcomed  to  her  capacious 
bosom  the  oppressed,  the  ambitious,  the  liberty-lov- 
ing of  all  climes,  regardless  of  whether  they  were 
Nordics,  Latins  or  Orientals.  Our  industries  were 
not  even  infant  industries;  they  were  little  more 
than  in  the  conception  stage.  The  illimitable 
wealth  of  our  mines  and  agricultural  fields  had  not 
been  scratched.  Railroads  were  in  the  chrysalis 
phase.  The  clamor  was  for  unskilled  labor  to  hasten 
the  colossal  economic  development  on  the  verge 
of  which  the  giant  republic  trembled.  Europe  was 
the  bottomless  well  from  which  the  United  States 
proceeded  eagerly  to  draw  its  human  supplies.  On 
they  came — in  torrents — in  the  'seventies,  and  the 
'eighties,  and  the  'nineties,  and  in  the  early  decades 
of  the  new  century,  till  we  became  a  satiated,  and, 
as  some  of  our  detractors  aver,  a  selfish,  folk,  bar- 


22 EMILE  BERLINER 

ring  our  gates  and  proclaiming  that  America  was 
no  longer  an  asylum.  Tempora  mutantur,  nos  et 
mutamur  in  illis,.  .■  .   . 

Apollo,  the  Sun  God,  whose  allegorical  splendor 
as  reflected  on  the  great  Hanover  opera-house 
curtain  is  one  of  Emile's  indelible  memories, 
was  holding  watch  and  ward  over  him,  for  the 
Jersey  coast  was  bathed  in  golden  sunshine  as  Ber- 
liner's ship  docked  at  Hoboken.  The  young  emi- 
grant's English  vocabulary  was  primitive,  and  he 
was  happy  to  be  met  by  a  New  York  acquaintance 
of  his  Washington  benefactor.  Unfamiliarity  •with 
a  strange  country's  language  is  an  appalling  and  a 
depressing  thing.  He  who  is  responsible  for  this 
record  endured  that  experience  in  Berliner's  native 
land  of  Germany,  though  under  immensely  less  dis- 
advantageous conditions  than  those  Emile  now 
faced.  Men  j^earn  at  such  times  for  Volapuk  or 
some  other  universal  medium  more  effective  than 
the  sign  language. 

Emile  was  awed  by  the  bigness  of  New  York, 
although  there  were  no  Woolworth  Towers  then, 
nor  Brooklyn  bridges,  nor  subways,  nor  even  cable 
cars.  The  horse  was  still  king.  Ferry-boats  are 
the  only  survivors  of  the  Gotham  that  Berliner  first 
knew — Edith  Wharton's  Age  of  Innocence.  He 
expressed  a  desire  to  reach  Washington  as  soon  as 
possible.  So,  after  half  a  day  of  itinerant  sight- 
seeing, he  was  put  on  the  train  for  the  capital,  as 
green  as  the  Jersey,  Pennsylvania  and  Delaware 


MAKING  OF  AN  AMEEICAN  23 

grass  he  was  soon  to  inspect  from  his  first  American 
car-window.  To  Washington,  the  telegraph  carried 
the  following  terse  warning  of  an  impending  event : 

New  York,  May  11,  1870 
Messrs.  Gotthelf,  Behrend  and  Co., 
818  Seventh  Street, 
Washington,  D.  C. 

Berliner  will  start  most  likely  to-night  or  to- 
morrow morning. 

Jacob  Davidson 

Berliner  has  lived  to  put  so  much  of  sunshine 
into  the  dark  places  of  the  world  that  one  is  often 
constrained  to  think  his  inspiration  came  from  the 
weather  conditions  that  first  greeted  him  here.  His 
most  vivid  impressions  of  early  hours  and  days  in 
America  are  recollections  of  super-abundant  sun- 
shine. He  had  come  out  of  North  Germany,  which 
has  its  moments  of  sunshine,  but  its  sieges  of  gray, 
damp,  bleak  and  cheerless  atmosphere.  In  his  first 
letter  to  his  parents — foreign  postage  in  1870  was 
forty  cents  the  half  ounce — Emile  mentioned  the  con- 
stant sunlight  as  one  of  America's  principal  char- 
acteristics. No  doubt  it  lifted  up  his  soul  in  his 
occasional  spells  of  homesickness  or  other  depres- 
sion. He  thought  it  accounted  for  the  omnipresent 
optimism  in  the  American  nature. 

It  was  to  the  sordid  Washington  of  reconstruc- 
tion days  that  Emile  Berliner  came  on  May  12,  1870. 
The  first  presidency  of  General  Ulysses  S.  Grant  was 
in  its  tempestuous  midst.    It  was  the  era  of  the 


24 EMILE  BERLINER 

carpetbaggers.  The  South,  still  bleeding  and  sullen, 
failed  to  find  in  Grant,  the  president,  the  generous 
conqueror  who  declined  Lee's  sword  at  Appomattox. 
''At  Appomattox,"  says  David  Saville  Muzzey,  his- 
tory mentor  of  so  many  thousands  of  American 
schoolboys,  "Grant  had  been  noble.  Yet  as  Presi- 
dent he  upheld  the  disgraceful  negro  governments 
of  the  Reconstruction  Act,  and  constantly  furnished 
troops  to  keep  the  carpetbag  and  scalawag  officials 
in  power  in  the  South,  in  order  to  provide  Republi- 
can votes  for  congressmen  and  presidential  elec- 
tors." 

Not  only  were  Reconstruction  methods  keeping 
open  the  Civil  War  wounds  of  the  South,  but  politi- 
cal corruption  everywhere  was  rife.  Muzzey 
teaches  that 

"Probably  the  tone  of  public  morality  was  never 
so  low  in  all  of  our  country's  history,  before  or 
since,  as  it  was  in  the  years  of  Grant's  Administra- 
tion (1869-1877),  although  a  more  honest  President 
never  sat  in  the  White  House.  Large  contracts  for 
supplies  of  food,  clothing,  ammunition  and  equip- 
ment had  to  be  filled  on  short  notice.  Men  grew 
rich  on  fraudulent  deeds.  Our  state  legislatures 
and  municipal  governments  fell  into  the  hands  of 
corrupt  'rings.'  Corruption  reached  the  highest 
offices  of  state.  Grant's  secretary  of  war,  William 
W.  Belknap,  resigned  in  order  to  escape  impeach- 
ment for  sharing  the  graft  from  the  dishonest  man- 
agement of  army  posts  in  the  West.  The  Presi- 
dent's private  secretary,  Babcock,  was  implicated 
in  frauds  which  robbed  the  government  of  its  rev- 
enue tax  on  whisky.  Western  stage-coach  lines,  in 
league  with  corrupt  post-office  officials,  made  false 


MAKING  OF  AN  AMERICAN  25 

returns  of  the  amount  of  business  done  along  their 
routes,  and  secured  large  appropriations  from 
Congress  for  carrying  the  mails.  Members  of  Con- 
gress so  far  lost  their  sense  of  official  propriety  as 
to  accept  large  amounts  of  railroad  stock  as 
'presents'  from  men  who  wanted  legislative  favors 
for  their  roads." 

That  was  the  America  which  Emile  Berliner 
was  first  to  know.  It  is  probably  a  blessing  that 
neither  his  knowledge  of  the  English  language  nor 
his  predilections  permitted  him  to  become  contami- 
nated by  the  atmosphere  in  which  he  found  himself 
at  Washington,  else  it  might  have  turned  the  young 
German  idealist  in  disgust  from  the  America  which 
had  tempted  him  away  from  native  heath. 

Emile  set  diligently  about  the  task  he  con- 
sidered to  be  paramount — to  make  himself  *'a 
good  American"  with  the  least  possible  delay.  The 
conquest  of  our  language  became  his  first  objective. 
He  listened  to  it  intently  in  the  Gotthelf  store.  He 
read  Hawthorne  and  Longfellow.  He  studied  the 
Quarterly  Reviews  of  England  in  the  old  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
reading-rooms  at  Ninth  and  D  Streets,  not  far  from 
his  place  of  work  in  Washington.  His  literary  bent 
was  in  the  direction  of  the  serious.  He  worshiped 
indiscriminately  in  churches  of  all  denominations,  in 
order  to  hear  eloquent  sermons  and  accustom  his 
ear  to  good  English.  At  his  place  of  employment 
some  of  the  wrapping-paper  consisted  of  surplus 
copies  of  the  Congressional  Record,  then  printed 
and  sold  by  a  private  firm,    Statesmen  in  the  Eecon- 


26  EMILE  BERLINER 

struction  era  were  as  loquacious  as  they  are  to-day. 
The  Congressional  Record  was  correspondingly 
bulky.  Emile  took  copies  regularly  to  his  lodgings 
and  from  them  imbibed  a  familiarity  with  the  ora- 
torical style  of  those  florid  days. 

Having  lived  to  see  Washington  ''the  city  of 
magnificent  distances,"  and  having  himself  become 
one  of  its  important  property-owners,  Emile  Ber- 
liner is  fond  of  comparing  the  national  capital  of 
to-day  with  the  Wasliington  of  the  Grant  era.  Then 
it  was  an  overgrown,  unkempt  community  of  sixty 
thousand,  giving  small  promise  of  conversion  into 
the  splendid  world  metropolis  which,  despite  the 
continuing  excrescence  of  Pennsylvania  Avenue,  it 
is  to-day.  When  John  Hay  came  to  Washington  as 
an  assistant  private  secretary  to  President  Lincoln, 
he  wrote : 

"Warsaw  (Illinois)  dull?  It  shines  before  my 
eyes  like  a  social  paradise  compared  Avith  this  miser- 
able sprawling  village,  which  imagines  itself  a  city 
because  it  is  wicked,  as  a  boy  thinks  he  is  a  man 
when  he  smokes  and  swears.  I  wish  I  could  by  wish- 
ing find  myself  in  Warsaw. ' ' 

Berliner's  early  Washington  was  a  town  of 
horse-cars  as  the  sole  means  of  public  transporta- 
tion. The  gorgeous  barouche  and  pair  was  the 
limousine  of  the  day.  Colored  coachmen  and  foot- 
men were  the  quintessence  of  elegance.  Gas  was  the 
most  luxurious  form  of  illumination,  and  farmers 
coming  to  city  hotels  occasionally  blew  it  out  and 


MAKING  OF  AN  AMERICAN  27 

were  asphyxiated.  Washington  had  no  sewage  or 
filtration  of  water.  At  meals  Potomac  River  water 
was  served  in  china  pitchers  so  that  those  about  to 
reduce  the  invisible  supply  of  microbes  might  not  be 
able  to  detect  their  presence  in  the  muddy  yellow 
fluid.  The  city  was  full  of  typhoid  and  malaria. 
There  were  no  shade  trees,  such  as  now  make  the 
great  avenues  of  the  capital  uniquely  lovely,  except 
in  the  grounds  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution  and 
the  Soldiers'  Home.  To  both  of  those  parks  people 
would  flee  for  relief  from  the  heat  of  the  equatorial 
climate  of  the  District  of  Columbia.  Rock  Creek 
Park  did  not  yet  exist,  except  as  a  wilderness. 

Gaunt  telegraph  poles,  from  which  wires  inter- 
laced the  streets  in  all  directions,  accentuated  the 
city's  crude  exterior.  Italian  organ-grinders,  A\dth 
their  dancing  monkeys,  were  popular  attractions. 
Their  canned  music  consisted  mostly  of  Civil  War 
songs  like  Marching  Through  Georgia  and  Captain 
Jinks,  for  the  martial  spirit  w^as  still  abroad  through 
Washington  and  the  North.  As  fervently  was  Dixie 
sung  and  played  throughout  the  seemingly  irrecon- 
cilable South. 

President  Grant,  short,  stocky  and  democratic, 
was  a  familiar  figure  on  Pennsylvania  Avenue  in  the 
afternoons,  as  he  took  his  constitutional,  hands 
clasped  behind  his  back,  unfailingly  accompanied  by 
his  cigar,  and  minus  guards  of  any  kind.  Through 
the  windows  of  the  swagger  hotels  of  the  capital, 
now  ramshackle  survivors  of  their  ancient  glory, 


28  EMILE  BERLINER 

lazy  politicians  in  whiskers  and  wide-brimmed  hats 
stretched  their  legs  by  the  hour,  as  they  discussed 
the  state  of  the  Union  amid  contests  in  long-distance 
tobacco-spitting  across  the  littered  sidewalks  of 
*Hhe  Avenue." 

Now  and  then  cattle  would  be  driven  through  or 
across  that  dilapidated  boulevard  of  state.  On  the 
southern  side  of  the  nation's  Via  Triumphalis 
coursed  a  murky  canal  along  which  scows  were 
tediously  towed.  Emile  Berliner  thought  of  Hanover 
and  other  well-kept  cities  in  Germany,  with  their 
civic  pride  and  cleanliness  and  love  of  architectural 
beauty,  and  found  it  difficult  to  reconcile  the  cobble- 
stones, brick  pavements  and  general  primitiveness 
of  Washington  with  his  preconception  of  the  capital 
of  great  America. 

The  Americanization  of  Emile  Berliner  set  in 
with  a  change  in  the  spelling  of  his  given  name.  At 
birth  he  was  christened  * '  Emil, ' '  but  he  had  been  in 
Washington  only  a  few  weeks  when  he  decided  to 
refurbish  it  into  ''Emile,"  adding  the  final  "e"  as 
an  Anglo-Saxon  touch.  He  thought  it  would  mate- 
rially fortify  his  morale  in  the  de-Prussianizing 
process  in  which  he  now  was  sturdily  immersed. 
Berliner  has  always  been  zealously  watchful  that 
nobody,  particularly  since  the  World  War,  in  ad- 
dressing him  or  referring  to  him  in  print,  shall 
forget  that  the  spelling  of  his  name  is  the  Anglo- 
Saxon  Emile,  and  not  the  German  Emil.  One  of  the 
considerations  that  impelled  him  to  make  the  change 


MAKING  OF  AN  AMERICAN  29 

was  the  marked  contrast  he  found  in  America  in  the 
treatment  of  yomig  men.  Here,  he  soon  discovered, 
they  were  treated  as  equals.  In  Prussia-Germany, 
elders  and  superiors  looked  down  upon  them  in  a 
spirit  of  military  hauteur. 

To  our  whimsical  national  habits,  weird  and 
strange  to  the  newcomer,  Berliner  steadily  adjusted 
liimself  in  Washington.  An  Italian  street-corner 
vender  taught  him  how  to  eat  peanuts  and  ba- 
nanas— arts  then  unknowai  to  a  German  boy.  Ice- 
cream soda  became  another  early  accomplishment, 
thanks  to  the  ministrations  of  a  friendly  draggist 
who  mixed  his  own  sirups  and  produced  concoctions 
that  passed  comprehension.  Emile  became  espe- 
cially fond  of  a  mixture  of  coffee-sirup  and  choco- 
late, which  he  himself  designed  in  a  spirit  of  bibulous 
adventure.  It  eventually  became  popular  with  many 
patrons  of  the  drug-store  as  ''half-and-half."  Ber- 
liner calls  it  one  of  his  first  inventions. 

Three  years  had  passed,  and  Emile  Berliner, 
now  at  man's  estate,  began  to  think  of  his  future. 
He  had  no  definite  plans  regarding  it.  His  time  in 
the  United  States  thus  far  had  been  assiduously 
devoted  to  the  earning  of  his  living,  the  learning  of 
English  and  the  absorption  of  American  ideas.  In 
all  three  of  those  directions  he  made  substantial 
progress,  except  with  regard  to  a  livelihood.  That 
he  had  earned,  and  little  more.  He  found  time  to 
take  up  the  study  of  music.  Now  and  then  he 
thought  music  might  become  his  profession.     He 


30 EMILE  BERLINER 

knew  such  a  life  would  delight  the  mother  he  had  left 
behind  in  Hanover.  Emile  took  some  lessons  in  both 
piano  and  violin,  and  still  plays  both  of  those  instru- 
ments. But  he  played  by  ear  only.  It  is  his  strange 
sort  of  eyesight  that  kept  him  from  becoming  a  sight 
reader  of  music.  *'I  have  an  unusual  kind  of 
vision,"  he  explains.  ''If  my  attention  is  called  to 
one  person  in  a  group  of  people,  I  see  no  one  else  in 
the  group.  This  is  the  reason  I  never  went  further 
in  music,  I  couldn't  see  notes  ahead  in  groups." 
Berliner's  gray  brown  eyes  are  almost  pierc- 
ing— not  intimidating  in  their  effect,  as  such  eyes 
often  are,  but  kindly,  and  endowed  with  an  intense 
power  of  concentration.  To-day,  at  seventy-five, 
before  Berliner  begins  to  read,  he  takes  off  his 
glasses.  He  appears  to  wear  them  principally 
for  decorative  effect.  They  are  nose-glasses  and 
dangle  most  of  the  time  from  the  black  cord  which 
anchors  them  to  his  person.  He  suffers  from  slight 
near-sightedness,  but  has  not  needed  a  change  of 
lenses  for  twenty-five  years.  For  close  work,  his 
eyes  still  serve  him  better  unaided.  They  seem  to 
have  been  given  him  to  look  keenly  and  fruitfully 
into  the  future. 


CHAPTER  ly 


A  ROLLING  STONE 


EMILE  BERLINER  had  lived  in  the  United 
States  long  enough  at  the  end  of  three  years  to 
imbibe  the  American  spirit  of  adventure.  He  had 
conquered  our  language;  absorbed  the  habits  of 
young  men  of  his  age,  including  a  predilection  to 
better  himself;  and  longed  for  fields  of  conquest 
other  than  the  drab  District  of  Columbia.  National 
activities,  in  a  financial  and  mercantile  sense,  were 
centered  in  New  York  City  almost  exclusively.  To 
achieve  fame  and  fortune  in  the  metropolis  was  the 
goal  of  every  ambitious  American  youth.  They  were 
the  times  that  fired  Horatio  A.  Alger  with  inspira- 
tion for  the  Oliver  Optic  stories — when  virtue  in 
Broadway  was  still  its  own  reward. 

The  year  in  which  Berliner  decided  to  pull  up 
stakes  in  Washington  and  tempt  fate  in  New  York 
was  a  period  of  unparalleled  crash  and  smash  in 
business  America.  A  fainter  heart  than  that  which 
beat  beneath  the  bosom  of  the  young  Hanoverian 
would  have  preferred  the  dull  certainty  of  life  along 
the  Potomac  to  the  atmosphere  of  devastation  and 
depression  which  prevailed  on  the  Hudson. 

31 


^32 EMILE  BERLINER 

Between  1869  and  1873  railroad  building  pro- 
ceeded at  a  feverish  rate  in  the  United  States.  Some 
twenty-four  thousand  miles  of  lines,  or  more  than 
three  times  as  many  as  were  built  during  the  pre- 
ceding four  years,  were  constructed.  Business  was 
at  the  high  tide  of  prosperity.  But  in  its  wake  there 
ensued  an  orgy  of  wild  speculation,  wide-spread  ex- 
tension of  credit  and  inflated  values.  The  bubble 
burst  with  tragic  and  annihilating  suddenness.  The 
great  banking  house  of  Jay  Cooke  went  to  the  wall — 
an  event  as  transcendent  as  would  to-day  be  the 
failure  of  J.  P.  Morgan  and  Company,  or  the  Na- 
tional City  Bank,  if  so  catastrophic  a  thing  can  be 
imagined.  Cooke 's  institution  had  been  of  priceless 
service  in  floating  Union  Government  loans  during 
the  Civil  War.  Without  the  bank's  aid,  Lincoln  and 
Grant  could  hardly  have  carried  on. 

Every  money  center  in  the  land  felt  the  shock  of 
the  Cooke  collapse.  Lesser  houses,  caught  in  the 
eddies  of  mistrust  and  fear  which  boiled  up  in  all 
directions,  went  under  by  the  dozen.  Many  people 
held  Congress  responsible  for  releasing  the  econom- 
ic furies  because  of  the  passage  of  a  currency  bill, 
known  as  *'the  Crime  of  'Seventy-Three,"  because 
of  its  discrimination  against  the  silver  dollar. 
Therefore  both  gold  and  silver  were  freely  coined 
on  terms  of  parity.  Either  precious  metal  was  ex- 
changeable at  the  Treasury  for  an  equivalent  weight 
in  coin.  That  is  to  say,  a  citizen  could  obtain  gold 
coins  for  his  silver  or  silver  coins  for  his  gold  at  the 


A  ROLLING  STONE 33 

rate  of  sixteen  ounces  of  silver  to  one  ounce  of  gold. 
Such  was  the  parity  that  William  Jennings  Bryan 
converted  into  a  popular  political  slogan  in  1896, 
when  he  sought  the  presidency  on  a  ''free  silver'* 
platform.  Bryan  demanded  that  the  ''Crime  of 
'Seventy-Three"  should  be  expiated  by  re-legalizing 
"the  free  and  unlimited  coinage  of  silver"  at  the 
ratio  of  sixteen  to  one.  "You  shall  not  crucify  man- 
kind upon  a  cross  of  gold,"  he  shrieked  in  his  im- 
mortal peroration  at  the  Democratic  national 
convention  in  Chicago.  Bryan  was  overwhelmed  at 
the  succeeding  election  mainly  because  the  country 
feared  a  repetition  of  the  crisis  of  1873. 

As  always  happens  on  these  cyclonic  occasions — 
panics  in  the  United  States,  before  creation  of  the 
Federal  Eeserve  system,  recurred  mth  regularity 
about  every  twenty  years — the  panic  of  1873  cleared 
the  economic  atmosphere.  Sturdy  oaks  of  commerce 
and  finance  were  brought  down  before  the  storm 
spent  its  fury.  Families  which  had  never  known 
anything  but  affluence  were  reduced  to  poverty  over- 
night. Historic  "Black  Friday"  saw  the  panic 
raging  at  the  zenith  of  its  destructive  force.  Thence- 
forward the  stabilizing  process  set  steadily  in,  but 
the  back-wash  of  the  incidental  tidal  wave  of  bank- 
ruptcy spread  its  ruinous  effects  over  many  years. 

The  panic  of  1873  was  one  of  the  things  known  in 
Emile  Berliner's  native  country  by  the  expressive 
idiom  of  Kinderhrankheiten — ^the  diseases  of  child- 
hood.    America  was  in  its  economic  childhood — 


34 EMILE  BEELINER ^ 

undergoing  its  growing  pains.  Wall  Street  lived  to 
learn  that  the  great  upheaval  was  one  of  the  most 
salutary  events  in  financial  America's  hectic  history. 
Two  men  emerged  from  the  encircling  gloom  as 
heroes  and  victors — Jay  Gould  and  "Jim"  Fisk, 
who  operated  together  as  speculators  on  the  right 
side  of  the  tempestuous  market,  especially  in  rail- 
road ''deals." 

In  the  business  rack  and  ruin  amid  which  Emile 
Berliner  arrived  at  New  York  for  the  second  time 
within  three  years,  he  was  aware  that  he  could  not 
be  a  chooser,  though  he  was  hardly  a  beggar,  for  he 
had  saved  some  of  his  meager  wages  as  a  drj^-goods 
clerk  in  Washington.  He  speedily  realized  that  he 
would  have  to  take  the  work  he  could  get  without 
waiting  for  the  kind  he  preferred.  It  is  interesting 
to  note  that,  though  now  aged  twenty-two,  Berliner 
had  as  yet  no  concrete  notions  whatever  as  to  his 
future.  His  anxieties  were  concerned  exclusively 
with  the  bread  and  butter  question.  He  had  not  been 
educated  for  a  profession  or  any  special  vocation. 
His  equipment  consisted  entirely  of  a  studious  na- 
ture, zest  for  hard  work,  ambition,  natural  intelli- 
gence and  ample  self-confidence.  Despite  a  distinct 
trace  of  intuitiveness  in  his  make-up,  the  inventive 
streak  in  him  had  not  yet  shone. 

Berliner  was  interested,  but  not  engrossed,  in 
scientific  achievement,  and,  of  course,  had  had  no 
sort  of  preparation  for  it.  So  he  turned  in  New 
York  to  the  first  employment  that  came  to  hand.    It 


A  ROLLING  STONE    35 

was  of  variegated  hue.  He  sold  glue.  He  painted 
the  backgrounds  of  enlarged  tin-type  portraits — his 
talent  for  drawing  stood  him  in  stead  for  that 
artistry.  He  gave  German  lessons.  The  United 
States  was  still  awed  by  the  results  of  the  Franco- 
Prussian  war  and  Bismarck's  creation  of  the 
German  Empire  by  blood  and  iron.  Americans 
acquired  a  correspondingly  new  interest  in  the 
Fatherland.  There  was  a  bull  market  for  instruc- 
tion in  the  language  which  Mark  Twain  described  as 
**the  only  one  in  the  world  in  which  you  can  travel 
all  day  in  one  sentence  mthout  changing  cars." 

New  York  having  failed  to  launch  Berliner  on 
the  tide  that  leads  to  fortune,  the  spirit  moved  him 
to  barken  to  the  advice  of  Horace  Greeley:  ''Young 
man,  go  west!"  In  literal  truth,  it  was  not  Gree- 
ley's admonition  so  much  as  an  advertisement  in  a 
New  York  newspaper  that  turned  Berliner's 
thoughts  in  the  direction  of  the  setting  sun.  "Mil- 
waukee gents'  furnishing  house  wants  enterprising 
young  man  to  go  on  the  road"  was  the  seductive 
legend  that  attracted  Berliner's  attention  and  as 
promptly  determined  him  to  don  the  armor  of  a 
knight  of  the  gripsack  and  sample-case. 

Commercial  travelers  were  already  known  as 
** drummers."  They  were  the  real  ambassadors  of 
trade.  Advertising,  as  we  know  it  to-day,  was  non- 
existent. The  mail-order  house  was  as  undiscovered 
a  phenomenon  as  the  automobile.  "Drummers" 
made  good  wages  and  were  regarded  indispensably 


36 EMILE  BERLINER 

members  of  business  society.  Berliner  applied  for 
the  ISIilwaukee  job  and  got  it.  Behind  the  counter  at 
Gotthelf,  Behrend  and  Company's  store  in  Wash- 
ing-ton he  had  learned  the  mysteries  of  collars  and 
cuffs,  neckties  and  suspenders,  and  the  other  habili- 
ments of  haberdashery.  When  he  turned  up  in 
Milwaukee,  then  almost  as  German  a  city  as  his  na- 
tive Hanover  itself,  his  employers-to-be  were  agree- 
ably surprised  by  his  familiarity  with  the  language 
of  the  ''gents'  furnishings"  tribe. 

Wisconsin  provided  young  Berliner  with  many 
reminders  of  the  Fatherland  besides  its  omnipresent 
German  population.  In  the  first  place,  it  was  bleak 
and  cold — Berhner  arrived  from  the  East  in  a  tem- 
perature of  thirty-three  degrees  below  zero  and  with 
a  pair  of  frozen  ears.  The  Dairy  State  flowed  with 
milk  and  cheese,  as  well  as  lager  beer,  and  those 
institutions  helped  to  keep  Berliner  from  grooving 
homesick,  too.  His  employers  told  him  he  was  to 
travel  up  and  down  the  Mississippi  River  between 
St.  Paul  and  St.  Louis,  and  out  to  the  Missouri 
River  as  far  west  as  Omaha.  The  western  spaces 
were  even  more  "open"  than  they  are  to-day. 
Distances  between  settled  communities  were  greater 
and  conditions  immeasurably  more  primitive.  The 
^■' trade"  Berliner  was  assigiied  to  canvass  was  of  a 
sort  to  test  every  ounce  of  salesmanship  in  his  green 
iftake-up.  For  the  most  part  it  consisted  of 
Da\id  Harums  who  had  gone  west  to  grow  up  with 
^hh-  countiy  and  could  bargain  the  bark  off  a  tree. 


A  ROLLING  STOXE  37 


Travel  was  principally  by  Mississippi  Eiver 
barges — tedious,  hot,  uncomfortable  and  slow.  Ber- 
liner had  to  learn  to  speak  a  Avholly  different  brand 
of  American  language  than  that  he  acquired  on  the 
Atlantic  seaboard.  He  found  himself  in  the  presence 
of  the  mid-western  drawl,  and,  as  his  wanderings 
took  him  down  river,  he  had  to  master  the  lingo  of 
the  Mississippi  darky,  who  spoke  a  dulcet  tongue 
that  was  all  his  own.  Many  of  the  rural  storekeepers 
to  whom  Berliner  offered  Milwaukee  creations  in 
"gents'  "  finery  were  Mark  Twain's  people — the 
droll,  shrewd  types  among  whom  Huckleberry  Finn 
and  Tom  Sawj^er  grew  up.  The  young  drummer, 
with  his  microscopic  mind,  found  lively  amusement 
in  studying  the  Main  Street  types  of  the  era. 

Berliner  was  a  satisfactory,  if  not  a  scintillating, 
traveling  salesman,  but  he  did  not  succumb  to  the 
lure  of  the  Middle  West.  After  considerably  less 
than  a  year's  dabbling  in  ''gents'  furnishings"  he 
retraced  his  steps  to  the  East.  For  the  third  time 
he  arrived  in  New  York  with  life  stretching  before 
him  a  complete  blank.  Yet  the  rolling  stone  unwit- 
tingly now  was  heading  for  the  path  along  which  he 
was  to  reach  a  worthy  destination. 

The  year  1875  was  tapering  to  its  end  when  Ber- 
liner obtained  work  in  the  laboratory  of  Doctor 
Constantine  Fahlberg,  an  analyst  of  sugar  by  occu- 
pation. While  Fahlberg  was  respected  in  the 
limited  community  which  had  need  of  his  profes- 
sional ser\aces,  he  was  not  looked  upon  as  the  scien- 


38  EMILE  BERLINER 


tific  genius  lie  later  was  recognized  to  be.  It  was 
several  years  afterward  that  Falilberg  discovered 
saccharin,  the  intensely  sweet  crystalline  substance 
derived  from  coal  tar  and  now  in  so  common  use  in 
both  industry  and  medicine. 

In  one  of  Emile  Berliner's  scrap-books  is  a  clip- 
ping dated  1886,  which  contains  Fahlberg's  own 
story  of  the  discovery  of  saccharin. 

It  reads: 

''One  evening  I  was  so  interested  in  my  labora- 
tory that  I  forgot  about  supper  until  quite  late,  and 
then  rushed  off  for  a  meal  without  stopping  to  wash 
my  hands.  I  sat  down,  broke  a  piece  of  bread,  and 
put  it  to  my  lips.  It  tasted  unspeakably  sweet.  I 
did  not  ask  why  it  was  so,  probably  because  I 
thought  it  was  some  cake  or  sweetmeat.  I  rinsed  my 
mouth  mth  Avater  and  dried  my  mustache  with  my 
napkin,  when,  to  my  surprise,  the  nax-)kin  tasted 
sweeter  than  the  bread.  Then  I  was  puzzled.  I 
again  raised  my  goblet,  and,  as  fortune  would  have 
it,  applied  my  mouth  where  my  fingers  had  touched 
it  before.  The  water  seemed  sirup.  It  flashed  upon 
me  that  I  was  the  cause  of  the  singular  universal 
sweetness.  I  accordingly  tasted  the  end  of  my 
thumb,  and  found  that  it  surpassed  any  confection- 
ery I  had  ever  eaten.  I  saw  the  whole  thing  at  a 
glance.  I  had  discovered  or  made  some  coal  tar  sub- 
stance which  out-sugared  sugar." 

Fahlberg's  discovery  of  saccharin  gave  him 
fame.  Berliner  remained  at  the  laboratory  in  the 
humble  and  unromantic  capacity  of  a  general  handy 
man  and  bottle-washer.  But  he  did  improve  his  op- 
portunities at  Fahlberg's  workshop  to  the  point  of 


Hiank  S*.   ]. 


-■■-v^ 


THE  WEBTERN  UNION 


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THOi.T.  ECIIEKT.   Ocn".  F^r,v^, ) 


I. 


SLEGRAPn  OOMPANT. 


■^'  '  ''*     '*^ 


•wj:,:.:a->i 
o.  H,  r-Ai 


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^/  <r 


y^^ 

*^i.\ 


^.,^-;.^  THIS  TELeOaAM  MAO   JU>T   KL:lSi.-CilVCI»    -■TX^E  OFFICE   IN 


l>'XV«.||AVlr.v.. 


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Telegram  Sext  ox  Emile  Berlixer 's  Arrival  ix  the  Uxited 
States  ix   1S70.     Ixset,  Mr.  Berlixer   ix   1S72 


Store   in  Washington  Where   Mr.  Berliner  Clerked 


A  ROLLING  STONE 39 

learning  to  analyze  raw  sugar.  The  knowledge 
whetted  his  interest  in  research. 

Many  of  his  evenings  Berliner  now  spent  at 
Cooper  Institute,  that  meritorious  university  of  the 
New  York  poor  for  the  past  three  generations.  He 
was  a  regular  habitue  of  its  library  and  indulged  his 
growing  fondness  for  scientific  books  and  publica- 
tions. It  was  while  frequenting  Cooper  Institute  that 
Berliner  struck  up  an  acquaintance  with  a  man  who, 
as  the  result  of  a  trifling  episode,  was  destined  to 
play  an  important  part  in  the  shaping  of  Berliner's 
career.  Around  the  corner  from  his  boarding-house 
was  a  drugstore  into  which  Berliner  often  dropped 
for  a  chat  with  the  proprietor,  August  Engel.  The 
druggist  took  a  fancy  to  his  visitor  and  a  whimsical 
interest  in  the  young  fellow's  ambitions  to  develop 
his  scientific  bent.  One  evening,  as  the  pair  was 
standing  around  the  coal-stove  which,  from  the  cen- 
ter of  the  store,  radiated  heat  throughout  the  prem- 
ises, they  drifted  into  a  casual  discussion  of  the  laws 
of  physics.  Berliner  had  a  smattering  of  the  subject 
from  his  readings  at  Cooper  Institute. 

''I've  got  a  book  on  physics  that  I'll  give  you," 
the  druggist  said.  It  was  forthwith  produced  and 
eagerly  accepted.  Berliner  still  has  it.  It  is  a  Ger- 
man book,  published  in  1854  and  entitled  Synopsis 
of  Physics  and  Meteorology.  The  author  was  Doctor 
Johann  Mueller,  professor  at  the  University  of 
Freiburg-in-Breisgau.  The  book  was  replete  with 
wood  engravings  and  in  its  day  was  a  classic  work. 


40 EMILE  BERLINER 

In  Mueller's  work  were  two  chapters  which  en- 
listed Eniile  Berliner's  particular  interest.  They 
dealt,  respectively,  vrith.  acoustics  and  electricity. 
Electricity  was  then  a  very  limited  branch  of  sci- 
ence, but  Mueller  treated  it  ^vith  great  clarity  and 
intelligence.  The  book  contains  an  illustrated  story 
showing  how  Luigi  Galvani,  the  eighteenth-century 
professor  of  anatomy  at  Bologna,  discovered  fluid 
electricity  through  a  frog's  leg  which  he  had  hung 
on  a  copper  wire  to  dry.  As  everj'body  knows,  gal- 
vanometers, galvanoplastics  and  all  the  other 
terminology  connected  with  the  "galvanic"  branch 
of  physics  get  their  names  from  the  Italian  scientist. 
Synopsis  of  Physics  and  Meteorology  forthwith  be- 
came Emile  Berliner's  faithful  guide,  philosophic 
text-book  and  scientific  friend.  He  had  his  nose  in 
it  day  and  night.  It  set  him  to  dreaming  and  think- 
ing. He  studied  it  till  he  knew  his  favorite  chapters 
almost  by  heart. 

Berliner  now  had  quit  his  bottle-washing  job  at 
Fahlberg's  laboratory  and  climbed  several  rungs  up 
the  economic  ladder  by  becoming  a  bookkeeper  in  a 
feed  store  at  twelve  dollars  a  week. 

One  evening  after  work,  while  boarding  a  street- 
car on  his  waj'  home  to  supper,  Berliner  encoun- 
tered a  friendly  face.  It  was  that  of  B.  J.  Behrend, 
now  proprietor  of  the  dry-goods  store  in  Washing- 
ton, where  Berliner  had  his  first  job  three  years 
before.  Forthwith  ensued  an  orgy  of  reminiscence 
over  the  old  davs.    There  was  a  new  and  different 


A  EOLLING  STONE 41 

Washington,  Berliner  was  told,  and  a  city  much 
richer  in  opportunity  than  the  crude  capital  of  Re- 
construction days — so  ran  the  seductive  tale  of  the 
long-lost  friend,  who  gave  persuasive  assurance  of 
a  future  on  the  Potomac  for  a  fellow  as  worldly 
vase  as  Emile  Berliner  had  become. 

Berliner  listened  to  the  siren  song,  and  arranged 
to  return  to  Washing-ton  (it  was  the  end  of  1876)  to 
resume  his  clerking  job  in  the  Seventh  Street  store. 
Before  he  left  New  York  he  took  out  his  first  nat- 
uralization papers.  Come  what  may,  he  was  de- 
termined to  work  out  his  salvation  as  an  American 
citizen.  America  was  on  the  brink  of  an  era  of 
stupendous  invention.  In  its  development  the  youth 
of  Hanover  was  ordained  to  play  a  role  he  w^ot 
not  of. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  SPIEIT  OP  1876 

THE  year  1876  marked  far  more  than  the  one 
hundredth  anniversary  of  the  birth  of  the  na- 
tion. It  ushered  in  a  new  industrial  age.  We  re- 
member 1876  as  the  period  of  the  great  Centennial 
at  Philadelphia — as  the  patriotic  celebration  of  a 
century  of  American  independence  under  the  sover- 
eign Stars  and  Stripes.  But  the  year  more  richly 
deserves  to  be  indexed  in  national  history  as  the 
advent  of  a  renaissance.  It  launched  American  in- 
ventive ingenuity  upon  a  cycle  of  achievement  that 
was  to  reconstruct  the  activities  of  the  human  race 
and  turn  them  into  channels  beyond  all  imaginings. 
It  can  not  be  said  that  invention  in  America  was 
a  lost  art  during  the  first  hundred  years  of  our  lib- 
eration from  the  British  yoke.  The  inventive  spirit 
of  the  * 'founding  fathers"  and  of  their  generations 
of  hardy  offspring  was  far  from  being  either  extinct 
or  in  decay.  Franklin's  lightning  rod,  Fulton's 
steamboat,  "Whitney's  cotton  gin,  Morse's  electric 
telegraph,  Goodyear 's  vulcanized  rubber,  Howe's 
sewing  machine,  Ericsson 's  Monitor,  Westinghouse  's 
air  brake,  and  Sholes'  typewriter  were  all  discov- 

42 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  1876 43 

ered  or  devised  prior  to  1876.  But  brilliant  in  con- 
ception and  important  in  results  as  were  those 
master  strokes  of  American  genius,  the  age  which 
the  Centennial  introduced  was  to  be  distinguished 
by  discoveries  of  even  more  transcendent  impor- 
tance. 

In  their  effects  upon  the  lives  and  times  of  men, 
the  ideas  about  to  spring  from  American  brains 
were  ordained  to  be  revolutionary.  The  nation  and 
the  world  were  at  the  threshold  of  the  telephone,  the 
talking  machine,  the  incandescent  lamp,  the  arc 
light,  the  gasoline  motor,  the  trolley  car,  the  self- 
binder,  the  skyscraper,  the  automobile,  the  motion 
picture,  high  speed  steel  and  the  airplane.  Spoiled 
moderns,  who  look  upon  all  these  boons  to  ex- 
istence as  matters  of  course,  can  not  easily  compre- 
hend the  state  of  relative  primitiveness  which 
prevailed  in  the  United  States  at  the  time  of  the 
Centennial.  Radio,  that  quintessential  accompani- 
ment of  present-day  life,  was  not  remotely  dreamed 
of  when  the  Liberty  Bell  broadcast  a  new  century  of 
American  freedom  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  1876.  The 
Centennial  was  the  birthday  of  an  epoch. 

Men,  women  and  children  seemed  to  scent  the 
dawn  of  the  new  era.  There  was  stimulus  in  the 
very  atmosphere  America  breathed.  Inspired  by  its 
colossal  achievements  thus  far  in  wringing  an  em- 
pire from  out  of  the  primeval  soil,  the  young  giant 
of  the  western  world  stretched  its  sturdy  muscles 
and  expanded  its  mighty  chest  in  proud  conscious- 


44  EMILE  BERLINER 

ness  of  latent  strength.  It  resolved  upon  fresh 
conquests  in  the  fields  of  material  progress  and  upon 
consistent  development  along  the  paths  of  enlight- 
ened democracy.    Such  was  the  spirit  of  1876. 

No  one  was  more  fervently  inoculated  with  it  than 
Emile  Berliner.  He,  like  nearly  every  young  man 
of  ambition  in  the  United  States,  had  had  a  look  at 
the  Centennial,  though  only  a  cursory  one,  for  it  was 
confined  to  a  day's  holiday  trip  from  New  York. 
Music  filled  his  soul  at  the  time  more  than  electro- 
magnetics. He  did  not  know,  when  he  visited  Phila- 
delphia, that  Alexander  Graham  Bell's  telephone — 
such  as  it  was — ^was  modestly  on  exhibit  at  the 
Centennial.  When  asked  not  long  ago  for  the  out- 
standing impression  of  his  visit  to  the  great  inter- 
national exposition  in  Fairmount  Park,  Berliner 
said:  *'My  recollection  of  seeing  Offenbach  conduct 
the  Centennial  orchestra!"  Yet  the  Centennial 
spirit  was  destined  to  leave  an  indelible  impress 
upon  Berliner's  life.  Another  Emil — Rathenau, 
founder  of  the  famous  Allgemeine  Electricitats  Ge- 
sellschaft  (General  Electric  Company)  of  Berlin — 
came  away  from  Philadelphia,  declaring  that  the 
Centennial  ''had  electrified  his  soul."  Eventually 
Rathenau  electrified  the  Fatherland  in  a  literal 
sense  by  superintending  the  first  telephone  ex- 
change in  Germany  and  organizing  the  greatest 
electrical  manufacturing  concern  in  Europe. 

The  spirit  of  1876  was  graphically  depicted  by 
Emile  Berliner  twelve  years  after  the  Centennial 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  1876 45 

when,  speaking  mthin  a  stone's  throw  of  Inde- 
pendence Hall,  he  addressed  the  Franklin  Institute 
of  Philadelphia.  On  May  16,  1888,  at  the  first  public 
'demonstration  of  the  gramophone,  he  referred  in 
these  terms  to  the  Centennial  cycle : 

**The  last  year  in  the  first  century  of  the  history 
of  the  United  States  was  a  remarkable  one  in  the 
history  of  science. 

' '  There  appeared  about  that  period  something  in 
the  drift  of  scientific  discussions  which,  even  to  the 
mind  of  an  observant  amateur,  foretold  the  coming 
of  important  events. 

**The  dispute  of  Religion  versus  Science  was 
once  more  at  its  height;  prominent  daily  papers 
commenced  to  publish  weekly  discussions  on  scien- 
tific topics;  series  of  scientific  books,  in  attractive 
popular  f  oiTn,  were  eagerly  bought  by  the  cultured 
classes;  popular  lectures  on  scientific  subjects  were 
sure  of  commanding  enthusiastic  audiences;  the 
great  works  on  evolution  had  just  begun  to  take  root 
outside  of  the  small  circle  of  logical  minds  from 
which  they  had  emanated  and  which  had  fostered 
them;  scientific  periodicals  were  expectantly 
scanned  for  new  information ;  and  the  minds  of  both 
professionals  and  amateurs  were  on  the  qui  vive. 

''Add  to  this  the  general  excitement  prevailing 
on  account  of  the  forthcoming  Centennial  celebra- 
tion with  its  cro^vning  event,  so  dear  to  this  nation 
of  inventors,  the  w^orld's  exhibition,  and  even  those 
who  did  not  at  the  time  experience  the  effects  of  an 
atmosphere  pregnant  with  scientific  ozone  can,  in 
their  minds,  conjure  up  the  pulsating,  swaying  and 
turbulent  sea  of  scientific  research  of  that  period. 
Science  e\ddently  was  in  labor. 

**The  year  1876  came,  and  w^hen  the  jubilee  was 
at  its  very  height,  and  when  this  great  city  of  Phila- 
delphia was  one  surging  mass  of  patriots  filling  the 


46 EMILE  BERLINER 

air  with  the  sounds  of  millions  of  shouts,  a  still 
small  voice,  hardly  audible,  and  coming  from  a  little 
disk  of  iron  fastened  to  the  center  of  a  membrane, 
"whispered  into  the  ear  of  one  of  the  judges  at  the 
exhibition,  "who  was  one  of  the  greatest  of  living 
scientists,  the  tidings  that  a  new  revelation  had  de- 
scended upon  mankind — that  the  svrift  and  fiery 
messenger  of  Heaven's  clouds  had  been  harnessed 
to  that  delicate,  tremorous,*  and  yet  so  potent  form 
of  energy  called  the  Human  Voice. 

"The  speaking  telephone  was  born." 

It  is  the  golden  jubilee  of  the  telephone  that 
America  and  mankind  generally  are  commemorating 
in  this  year  of  1926.  Telephony's  progress  in  the 
fifty  years  since  its  invention  fairly  staggers  the 
imagination.  Figures  frequently  fatigue.  But  there 
are  romance  and  drama  in  those  that  tell  the  story 
of  the  telephone,  and  a  power  to  awe,  even  in  our 
age  of  monumental  things. 

On  January  1,  1925,  there  were  26,038,508  tele- 
phones in  the  world.  Of  that  number,  sixty-two 
per  cent.,  or  roundly  three-fifths,  were  in  the  United 
States,  which  is  overwhelmingly  the  banner 
telephone  country.  Europe  had  twenty-six  per 
cent.;  all  other  countries  put  together,  twelve  per 
cent.  The  Scandinavian  kingdoms  are,  telephon- 
ically,  next  to  America,  the  most  progressive  in  the 
world,  and  their  inventors  have  made  valuable  con- 
tributions to  the  art. 


*Berlmer  used  the  ■word  tremorous  subconsciously  because  it  con- 
veyed his  precise  meaning.  Later  it  came  to  the  attention  of  the 
Century  Dictionary,  and  was  incorporated  in  all  subsequent  editioHa 
of  that  lexicon,  with  credit  to  Berliner. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  1876 47 

During  the  year  1924  the  loquacious  planet  which 
civilized  man  inhabits  and  surcharges  with  language 
echoed  to  the  thunder  of  30,543,134,000  recorded 
and  tabulated  telephone  conversations.  Having  the 
lion's  share  of  telephones,  Americans  largely  mo- 
nopolized the  world's  thirty  billion  talks  by  wire. 
There  is  an  average  of  over  one  telephone  conver- 
sation daily  for  every  three  persons,  men,  women  or 
children,  in  the  United  States.  While  we  were  hold- 
ing twenty-one  billion  odd  conversations,  the  rest  of 
the  world  was  conducting  a  beggarly  nine  billion 
odd.  Following  ourselves,  the  Germans  and  the 
Japanese  were  telephonically  the  most  verbose  peo- 
ples. China,  or  at  least  that  portion  of  China  still 
domiciled  in  Asia,  does  not  figure  in  the  official  tele- 
phone statistics.  The  largest  and  most  complete 
Chinese  telephone  exchange  is  in  San  Francisco.  It 
is  an  artistic  and  architecturally  exquisite  little 
building,  reminiscent  of  Cathay  in  its  everj^  nook 
and  corner,  and  conducted  by  American-born 
Chinese  girl  operators  who  dress  bewitchingly  in 
native  garb  and  lilt  "hello"  in  the  ancient  accents 
of  their  ancestors.  Nearly  twenty  thousand  sub- 
scribers are  served  from  their  pagoda  of  palaver. 
San  Francisco  leads  American  cities  in  the  number 
of  telephones  per  each  one  hundred  population. 
Perhaps  Chinese  capacity  for  conversation  is  re- 
sponsible for  giving  the  Golden  Gate  that  distinc- 
tion. 

Nearly  three-quarters  of  the  world's  telephone 


48 EMILE  BERLINER 

systems  are  privately  owned.  About  a  quarter  are 
comprised  under  government  systems,  such  as  Great 
Britain,  France  and  Germany  maintain.  In  the 
United  States  the  overwhelming  bulk  of  telephones 
is  that  embraced  within  the  great  coast-to-coast  Bell 
System,  in  the  eventual  perfection  of  which  the  work 
of  Emile  Berliner  played  so  essential  a  part.  The 
Bell  System  has  more  contacts  with  the  people  of 
the  country  than  any  other  single  institution,  not 
even  excepting  the  United  States  Post-Office.  Since 
it  ** hooked  up"  radio  broadcasting  stations  with 
its  continent-Avide  telephone  and  telegTaph  lines, 
its  contacts  can  be  calculated  only  in  tens  of  millions. 
Bell  lines  connect  with  Canada  and  Cuba.  In  the 
two  cities  of  New  York  and  Chicago  alone  there  are 
more  telephones  than  in  the  four  continents  of  Eu- 
rope, Asia,  Africa  and  South  America  combined. 
The  45,000,000  miles  of  wire  in  the  Bell  System 
would  span  the  distance  from  the  earth  to  the  moon 
more  than  one  hundred  and  forty  times.  So  univer- 
sal is  the  telephone  that  it  has  practically  put  the 
old  "city  directory"  out  of  business.  Anybody  in 
hamlet,  town  or  city  worth  looking  up  nowadays  has 
his  name  in  a  telephone  directory. 

The  financial  aspect  of  American  telephonic  de- 
velopment is  even  more  dazzling  than  the  figures 
which  record  its  physical  expansion.  So  vast  have 
become  the  holdings  of  the  Bell  System  that  a  cor- 
poration entirely  separate  from  the  telephone  com- 
pany    proper,    the     Bell     Telephone     Securities 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  1876 49 

Company,  is  now  concerned  with  their  administra- 
tion. At  its  head  is  David  F.  Houston,  who  became 
the  chancellor  of  the  telephone  exchequer  after  hav- 
ing been  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in  President 
Wilson's  Cabinet. 

Mr.  Houston  directs  the  economics  of  a  colossal 
organism.  The  number  of  stockholders  in  the  Bell 
System  (known  on  the  New  York  stock  exchange 
as  the  American  Telephone  and  Telegraph  Com- 
pany) has  grown  from  seven  thousand  five  hundred 
in  1900  to  more  than  three  hundred  and  sixty-two 
thousand  in  1926.  About  a  sixth  of  the  stockholders 
are  Bell  System  employees.  The  total  assets  of  the 
System  on  December  31,  1925  were  $2,938,000,000. 
Telephone  employees  in  the  United  States,  including 
those  engaged  in  making  Bell  apparatus,  numbered 
on  January  1,  1926,  more  than  335,189  (of  whom 
41,709  were  on  the  payroll  of  the  Western  Electric 
Company).  During  1925  more  than  813,000 
individual  telephone  installations  were  added  to  the 
Bell  System.  By  the  end  of  the  year  16,720,000 
telephones  were  inter-connected  so  that  practically 
any  one  of  them  can  be  connected  with  any  other 
one  anywhere  in  the  United  States,  day  or  night. 
Over  50,000,000  toll  and  exchange  connections,  each 
an  individual  transaction,  are  handled  daily. 

At  the  end  of  1925  the  Bell  System's  capital 
stock  outstanding  amounted  to  $921,597,000.*  Net  in- 


*The  capital  stock  of  the  "A.  T.  and  T. "  -was  increased  during 
the  summer  of  1926  to  more  than  one  billion  dollars,  making  it  prob- 
ably the  biggest  corporation  in  the  world,  a  distinction  previously 
held  by  the  United  States  Steel  Corporation, 


50 EMILE  BERLINEB 

come  during  that  year  was  $107,504,000,  derived 
from  gross  earnings  of  $761,200,000.  For  more 
than  forty-four  years  the  American  Telephone  and 
Telegraph  Company  and  its  predecessor  have  paid 
dividends  to  the  public,  which  owns  its  stock,  of  not 
less  than  seven  and  one-half  dollars  a  share  per 
annum.  Since  July,  1921,  dividends  have  been  at 
the  rate  of  nine  dollars  a  share.  Telephone  rates 
are,  on  the  average,  only  thirty-three  per  cent, 
higher  than  ten  years  ago,  while  wages  and  material 
costs  have  increased  at  a  considerably  larger  rate. 
The  genesis  of  these  fabulous  results,  the  mate- 
rial measure  of  the  triumph  of  telephony's  cre- 
ators— whose  were  the  hands  and  minds  that  en- 
abled their  fruition — the  vision  and  the  plodding 
that,  between  them,  evolved  conversational  order 
out  of  acoustic  chaos — the  bitter  controversies  and 
heart-breaking,  bankrupting  litigation  that  dogged 
the  footsteps  of  the  pioneers — how  despair,  then 
victory,  accompanied  their  labors  in  kaleidoscopic 
procession — that  is  now  the  story  to  be  unfolded. 
Man's  eternal  struggle  with  the  inscrutable  is 
marked  by  few  episodes  so  filled  with  drama. 


CHAPTER  VI 

CONCEPTION-   OF   THE  TELEPHONE 

ALL  inventions  savor  of  the  romantic,  running 
the  gamut  that  begins  \vith  inspiration, 
is  marked  by  despair  half-way,  and  ends  in  triumph. 
But  there  is  no  scientific  miracle  that  outrivals  the 
romance  of  the  telephone. 

Talking  by  telephone  is  nowadays  so  fundamen- 
tal a  part  of  human  existence  that  w^e  take  it  for 
granted,  like  the  air  we  breathe,  or  the  sky  above 
us,  or  the  flowers  that  bloom  in  the  spring.  We  have 
come  to  regard  the  telephone,  in  other  words,  as  a 
natural  phenomenon  that  was  always  with  God's 
children.  Yet  it  celebrated  its  fiftieth  birthday 
only  in  1926.  It  is  but  a  third  of  the  age  of  our 
young  republic. 

In  the  invention  of  the  telephone  one  name 
stands  out  like  Mars  at  Perihelion — ^Alexander 
Graham  Bell.  Though  the  idea  of  a  telephone  was 
not  original  with  Bell,  no  one  anticipated  him  in 
actual  achievement.  His  own  discovery  was  utterly 
unique ;  his  application  of  it,  scientifically  complete. 
It  only  remained  for  another  to  find  the  missing  link 
in  an  otherwise  flawless  acoustic  chain.     That  link 

51 


52 EMILE  BERLINER 

was  a  practical  transmitter.  Alexander  Graham 
Bell  was  the  inventor  of  the  telephone.  Emile  Ber- 
liner was  its  perfecter. 

The  modern  telephone  is  the  joint  product  of 
their  genius.  History  will  bracket  their  names  as 
those  of  men  who  dreamed  their  dreams  in  so  prov- 
idential proximity  that  mankind,  with  little  delay, 
was  able  to  avail  itself  of  the  boon  of  telephony. 
Emile  Berliner's  invention  of  the  transmitter,  to 
be  dealt  with  in  orderly  sequence  in  succeeding 
chapters,  has  been  called  the  jewel  in  the  crown  that 
Bell  fashioned — the  gem  that  gave  it  effective  luster. 

Charles  Bourseuil,  a  Frenchman,  was  the  first 
scientist  of  record  to  concern  himself  with  the  idea 
of  sending  speech  by  telegraph.  In  1854,  with  un- 
usual boldness,  Bourseuil  advanced  the  theory  that 
two  diaphragms,  one  operating  an  electric  contact 
and  the  other  under  the  influence  of  an  electro- 
magnet, might  be  employed  for  transmitting  speech 
over  long  distances  connected  by  wire.  ^' Speak 
against  one  diaphragm,"  Bourseuil  said,  ''and  let 
each  vibration  'make  or  break'  the  electric  contact. 
The  electric  pulsations  thereby  produced  will  set 
the  other  diaphragm  working,  and  the  latter  ought 
then  to  reproduce  the  transmitted  sound." 

The  Frenchman  was  credulous  enough — his 
hypothesis  must  almost  have  subjected  him  to  sus- 
picions of  lunacy — to  believe  that  electricity  could 
in  some  way  be  made  to  propel  the  human  voice 
through  space.     Bourseuil's  conception  was  intrin- 


CONCEPTION  OF  THE  TELEPHONE     53 

sically  sound.  He  realized  tliat  if  some  electrical 
mechanism  could  be  devised  so  flexible  as  to  respond 
to  all  of  the  vibrations  of  sound,  he  would  have  a 
*' telephone." 

BourseuiPs  ideas  were  exploited  with  avidity  by 
European  scientific  journals,  which  reprinted  them 
from  the  original  French  publications.  Among  the 
first  to  take  note  of  them  was  a  prominent  German 
semi-weekly,  The  Didaskalia,  published  at  Frank- 
fort-on-the-Main.  On  September  28,  1854,  it  gave  the 
earliest  knoAvn  expression  to  the  term,  ''Electrical 
Telephony."  Under  that  title  The  Didaskalia 
printed  a  full  account  of  BourseuiPs  fascinating 
thesis.  Had  his  proposition  not  called  for  a  "make 
and  break"  electric  contact,  the  telephone  might 
have  been  a  reality  long  before  Bell  invented  it.  As 
things  turned  out,  the  Frenchman's  theory  led  the 
early  explorers  in  the  new  field  astray.  Bourseuil 
died  without  carrying  out  his  ingenious  idea. 

Among  Frankfort's  institutes  of  learning  was  a 
Physical  Society,  which  counted  among  its  most 
zealous  members  an  enthusiastic  young  teacher 
named  Philip  Reis,  son  of  a  poor  baker.  Reis  con- 
structed for  himself  a  ''telephone"  embodying 
BourseuiPs  conception.  But  it  proved  incapable  of 
transmitting  anything  except  the  pitch  of  tones,  or 
the  pitch  of  speech.  It  could  not  transmit  their 
quality.  It  produced  nothing  but  a  musical  buzz. 
It  never  talked.  Years  afterward,  Bell  showed  why. 
The  reason  was  that  you  can  not  talk  with  inter-* 


54 EMILE  BERLINER 

rupted  currents.  You  can  talk  only  by  continuous, 
electric  current^  which  represents  the  undulations 
of  waves  of  the  voice  in  all  their  minute  shadings. 

Emile  Berliner  never  tires  of  recalling  that  when 
Germans,  twenty-five  years  later,  read  newspaper 
accounts  of  Bell's  invention  of  the  telephone,  they 
flouted  it  as  "an  American  exaggeration."  They 
asserted  that  Germany  knew  all  about  the  Bour- 
seuil-Reis  apparatus  and  was  certain  there  never 
could  be  any  such  animal  as  a  talking  telephone. 

The  German  language,  which  is  rich  in  expres- 
sive idioms  not  easily  translatable  into  English  or 
other  tongues,  boasts  of  the  term  RecJithaberei — the 
state  of  being  always  and  unquestionably  right. 
Germans  wallowed  in  RecJithaberei  when  they  heard 
about  Bell's  telephone  and  Berliner's  transmitter. 
They  said  it  simply  ''couldn't  be  done."  Yet  when 
they  were  finally  convinced  that  it  ivas  being  done, 
the  Germans  blithely  claimed  that  the  telephone  was 
invented  in  Germany  first!  When  Philip  Reis,  the 
baker's  son  was  laid  away,  his  epitaph  read:  "Der 
Er finder  des  Telephons^^ — inventor  of  the  tele- 
phone. Reis  was  reported  to  have  died  in  conse- 
quence of  the  sudden  loss  of  the  power  of  speech — 
a  dramatic  end  for  a  man  who  was  undoubtedly  on 
the  high  road  to  achievement  in  the  field  of  tele- 
phony. 

Invention  of  the  telegraph  and  the  laying  of  the 
Atlantic  cable  gave  natural  and  irresistible  impetus 
in  America  to  the  next  stage  in  sound  transmis- 


CONCEPTION  OF  THE  TELEPHONE  55 

sion — telephony.  In  an  insignificant  shop  in  cul- 
tured Boston  a  tall,  raw-boned  Scotsman,  not  yet 
thirty,  was  grappling  more  or  less  blindly  with  a 
device  he  termed  a  harmonic  telegraph.  ^'He  was 
wholly  absorbed  in  the  making  of  a  nondescript 
machine,  a  sort  of  crude  haraionica  with  a  clock- 
spring  reed,  a  magnet,  and  a  wire, ' '  says  Herbert  N. 
Casson,  in  his  History  of  the  Telephone,  published 
in  1922.  *'It  was  a  most  absurd  toy  in  appearance. 
It  was  unlike  any  other  thing  that  had  ever  been 
made  in  any  country." 

The  plodding  Scotsman  was  a  young  professor 
of  the  laws  of  speech.  His  name  was  Alexander 
Graham  Bell.  Born  at  Edinburgh  in  1847,  he  pur- 
sued the  calling  of  three  generations  of  his  fore- 
bears. The  first  Alexander  Graham  Bell  won 
distinction  as  the  creator  of  a  method  for  overcom- 
ing stammering  and  other  defects  of  the  vocal 
organs.  His  descendant,  Alexander  Melville  Bell, 
became  an  elocutionist  of  renown  and  invented  a 
remarkable  sign  language  which  he  named  "Visible 
Speech."  It  was  to  be  the  destiny  of  the  third 
Bell — Alexander  Graham — to  give  supreme  expres- 
sion to  the  ancestral  talent  for  improvement  of 
speech  by  inventing  the  telephone.  "Graham," 
Casson  sets  forth  in  his  gripping  story  of  tile  tele- 
phone, "inlierited  the  peculiar  genius  of  his  fathers, 
both  inventive  and  rhetorical,  to  such  a  degree  that 
as  a  boy  he  had  constructed  an  artificial  skull,  from 
gutta-percha  and  India  rubber,  which,  when  enliv- 


56 EMILE  BERLINER 

ened  by  a  blast  of  air  from  a  hand-bellows,  would 
actually  pronounce  several  words  in  an  almost  hu- 
man manner!" 

The  Bell  family  emigrated  to  Canada  in  quest 
of  a  climate  more  invigorating  than  that  of  Scot- 
land, where  two  of  Alexander  Graham's  brothers 
had  succumbed  to  the  white  plague.  He  himself  was 
threatened  with  the  dread  malady,  and  undoubtedly 
owed  his  escape  to  his  early  life  on  the  North 
American  plains.  There,  near  Brantford,  Ontario, 
he  recuperated  while  teaching  ''visible  speech"  to 
Mohawk  Indians.  In  1875  Bell  was  making  his  liv- 
ing in  Boston  as  a  teacher  of  ''visible  speech"  to 
deaf  mutes.  But,  as  a  thorough  student  of  the  cor- 
rect theory  of  the  telephone,  his  absorbing  ambi- 
tion was  to  convert  it  into  a  workable,  practical 
utility.  That  was  the  ultimate  goal  of  his  toyings 
with  the  harmonic  telegraph  idea  in  the  machine- 
shop  off  Scollay  Square.  "If,"  Bell  once  explained 
in  the  early  stages  of  his  experiments,  "I  could 
make  a  current  of  electricity  vary  in  intensitj^,  pre- 
cisely as  the  air  varies  in  density''  during  the  produc- 
tion of  a  sound,  I  should  be  able  to  transmit  speech 
telegraphically."  Along  that  line  he  steadfastly 
carried  on.  Meantime  he  provided  satisfactorily  for 
the  creature  comforts  by  maintaining  a  "School  of 
Vocal  Physiology."  But  as  enthusiasm  to  plumb 
the  bottomless  mystery  of  telephony  waxed,  the 
number  of  his  pupils  dwindled.  At  length,  two  deaf 
mute  girls,  Mabel  Hubbard  (whom  Bell  afterward 


CONCEPTION  OF  THE  TELEPHONE  57 

married)  and  Georgie  Sanders,  with  whose  uncle 
and  aunt  the  young  professor  now  lived,  became  the 
principal  source  of  his  pedagogical  income. 

The  Sanders  home  was  in  Salem,  scene  of 
early  American  *  Svitchcraf t. "  The  cellar  of  the 
house  was  Bell's  laboratory  and  workshop  for  three 
industrious  years.  There,  amid  batteries,  magnets, 
tuning  forks,  wire,  trumpets  and  what-not,  he  tink- 
ered and  adventured  in  hermit-like  seclusion.  The 
canny  Scot  in  him  feared  possible  discovery  and 
theft  of  his  ideas. 

Bell,  having  determined  that  *4f  I  can  make  a 
deaf  mute  talk,  I  can  make  iron  talk,"  resorted  to 
the  most  outlandish  recourses  to  promote  his  ex- 
periments. He  cajoled  a  medical  friend  to  ampu- 
tate an  ear  from  a  corpse,  together  with  its  internal 
parts,  in  order  that  Bell  might  use  the  human  aural 
mechanism  in  tests  with  his  acoustical  apparatus. 

The  conception  and  subsequent  invention  of  the 
speaking  telephone,  while  the  latter  was  based  on 
an  accidental  discovery,  was  the  logical  result  of 
Bell's  preparatory  studies  in  acoustics  and  of  liis 
innate  capacity  instantly  to  recognize  the  supreme 
importance  of  what  suddenly  happened — an  *' ex- 
ceedingly faint  sound  which  to  other  men  might 
have  been  as  inaudible  as  silence  itself,"  says  Cas- 
son,  ''but  to  Bell  was  a  thunderclap." 


CHAPTER  VII 


BIRTH  OF   THE  TELEPHONE 


BELL'S  activities  in  1875  were  carried  on  in  the 
attic  of  a  fivo-story  building  at  No.  109  Court 
Street,  Boston.  There  was  situated  the  electrical 
workshop  of  Charles  "Williams,  manufacturer  of 
telegraphic  instruments.  It  was  the  Mecca  of  aspir- 
ing inventors,  men  of  vast  dreams  and  meager 
funds,  who  came  to  Williams  to  have  the  offspring 
of  their  visions  incubated  into  brass  and  iron.  One 
of  these  dreamers  was  Alexander  Graham  Bell.  A 
mechanic  in  Williams '  shop  was  another  young  man 
of  Scotch  ancestry,  Thomas  A.  Watson,  who  was 
assigned  to  fashion  Bell's  apparatus.  Later  Wat- 
son became  Bell's  assistant.  Thenceforward  they 
worked  together  in  the  Court  Street  attic  till  the 
hour  of  triumph. 

Bell  had  just  reached  the  age  of  twenty-nine 
when  on  March  7,  1876,  the  United  States  Patent 
Office  issued  his  patent,  No.  174,465 — since  described 
as  "the  most  valuable  single  patent  ever  issued^ ^  in 
the  world.  It  was  so  uniquely  ingenious  an  inven- 
tion that  it  couldn't  be  called  by  any  recognizable 

58 


BIRTH  OF  THE  TELEPHONE 59 

name.     Bell  himself,  groping  wholly  in  the  dark, 
christened  it  '*an  improvement  in  telegraphy." 

But  with  the  granting  of  his  patent  Bell's  ex- 
periments, with  Watson's  faithful  assistance,  con- 
tinued intensively.  Watson's  own  story  of  their 
collaboration  is  told  in  his  Birth  and  Babyhood  of 
the  Telephone — an  address  delivered  before  the 
third  annual  convention  of  the  Telephone  Pioneers 
of  America  at  Chicago  in  1913 : 

**0n  the  afternoon  of  June  2,  1875,  we  were  hard 
at  work  on  the  same  old  job,  testing  some  modifica- 
tion of  the  instruments.  Things  were  badly  out  of 
tune  that  aftenioon  in  that  hot  garret,  not  only  the 
instruments,  but,  I  fancy,  my  enthusiasm  and  my 
temper,  though  Bell  was  as  energetic  as  ever. 

*'I  had  charge  of  the  transmitters  as  usual,  set- 
ting them  squealing  one  after  the  other,  while  Bell 
was  retuning  the  receiver  springs  one  by  one,  press- 
ing them  against  his  ear  as  I  have  described.  One 
of  the  transmitter  springs  I  was  attending  to 
stopped  vibrating  and  I  plucked  it  to  start  it  again. 
It  didn't  start  and  I  kept  on  plucking  it,  when  sud- 
denly I  heard  a  shout  from  Bell  in  the  next  room, 
and  then  out  he  came  with  a  rush,  demanding,  'What 
did  you  do  then?  Don't  change  anything.  Let  me 
see!' 

''I  showed  him.  It  was  very  simple.  The  make- 
and-break  points  of  the  transmitter  spring  I  was 
trying  to  start  had  become  welded  together,  so  that 
when  I  snapped  the  spring  the  circuit  had  remained 
unbroken  while  that  strip  of  magnetized  steel  by  its 
vibration  over  the  pole  of  its  magnet,  was  generat- 
ing that  marvelous  conception  of  Bell's — a  current 
of  electricity  that  varied  in  intensity  precisely  as 
the  air  was  varying  in  density  within  hearing  dis- 
tance of  that  spring. 


60 EMILE  BERLINER       

"That  wave-like  undulatory  current  had  passed 
through  the  connecting  wire  to  the  distant  receiver 
which,  fortunately,  was  a  mechanism  that  could 
transform  that  cuiTent  back  into  an  extremely  faint 
echo  of  the  sound  of  the  vibrating  spring  that  had 
generated  it,  but  what  was  still  more  fortunate,  the 
right  man  had  that  mechanism  at  his  ear  during 
that  fleeting  moment,  and  instantly  recognized  the 
transcendent  importance  of  that  faint  sound  thus 
electrically  transmitted. 

"The  shout  I  heard  and  his  excited  rush  into  my 
room  were  the  result  of  that  recognition.  The 
speakmg  telephotie  was  horn  at  that  moment. 

"Bell  knew  perfectly  well  that  the  mechanism 
that  could  transmit  all  the  complex  vibrations  of 
one  sound  could  do  the  same  for  any  sound,  even 
that  of  speech.  That  experiment  showed  him  that 
the  complex  apparatus  he  had  thought  would  be 
needed  to  accomplish  that  long  dreamed  result  was 
not  at  all  necessary,  for  here  was  an  extremely 
simple  mechanism  operating  in  a  perfectly  obvious 
way,  that  could  do  it  perfectly. 

"All  the  experimenting  that  followed  that  dis- 
cover^,'',  up  to  the  time  the  telephone  was  put  into 
practical  use,  was  largely  a  matter  of  working  out 
the  details.  We  spent  a  few  hours  verifying  the  dis- 
covery, repeating  it  with  all  the  differently  tuned 
springs  we  had,  and  before  we  parted  that  night 
Boll  gave  me  directions  for  making  the  first  electric 
speaking  telephone. ' ' 

How  real  telephone  history  later  was  inaugu- 
rated is  recorded  by  Watson  in  a  few  simple  words 
that  deserve  immortality: 

"I  had  gone  to  the  Exeter  Place  rooms  one  eve- 
ning to  help  Bell  test  some  improvement  and  to 
spend  the  night  mth  him.  The  occasion  had  not 
been  arranged  or  rehearsed,  as  I  suspect  the  send- 


BIRTH  OF  THE  TELEPHONE  61 

ing  of  the  first  message  over  the  Morse  telegraph 
was  arranged  years  before.  Instead  of  that  noble 
first  telegraphic  message — 'What  hath  God 
wrought' — the  first  message  of  the  telephone  'was: 
'3/r.  Watson,  please  come  here,  I  ivant  yoii!'  " 

That  was  on  March  10,  1876.  It  was  the  first 
complete  sentence  ever  spoken  and  understood  over 
the  telephone.  Although  perfection  was  still  invis- 
ibly remote,  Bell  and  "Watson  had  seen  a  great  light. 
During  the  summer  of  1876  matters  moved  more 
rapidly  with  them.  How  grateful  Bell  was  for  small 
favors  in  the  form  of  gradual  progress  is  quaintly 
admitted  by  Watson,  who  observed  that  ''the  tele- 
phone was  talking  so  well  that  one  didnH  have  to 
ask  the  other  man  to  say  it  over  again  more  than 
three  or  four  times  before  one  could  understand 
quite  well,  if  the  sentences  ivere  simple.^' 

It  was  the  summer  of  the  great  Centennial  at 
Philadelphia.  Through  the  influence  of  Gardiner 
G.  Hubbard,  the  father  of  Mabel  Hubbard,  the  deaf 
mute  to  whom  Bell  had  taught  "visible  speech"  and 
who  was  now  his  sweetheart,  the  young  inventor 
gained  fortuitous  access  to  the  exposition.  Hub- 
bard, a  Centennial  Commissioner  from  Massachu- 
setts, arranged  for  Bell  to  exhibit  his  telephone  in 
some  obscure  waste  space  in  the  Education  Depart- 
ment. There,  on  a  plain  table  standing  between  a 
stairway  and  a  wall,  the  mechanism  that  was  to 
revolutionize  mankind's  activities  first  peeped  forth. 
No  \iolet  was  ever  more  shrinking. 


62 EMILE  BERLINER 

Romance  took  Bell  to  the  Centennial,  and  Chance 
brought  about  his  recognition  there.  By  the  merest 
accident  of  good  fortune,  the  exposition  judges  had 
planned  a  special  trip  of  inspection  through  the 
Department  of  Education  for  the  first  Sunday  Bell 
was  in  Philadelphia.  Hearing  of  the  tour,  Gardiner 
G.  Hubbard,  a  patriarch  of  a  man  with  flowing 
white  hair  and  a  beard  that  draped  almost  his  whole 
chest,  successfully  pleaded  with  the  judges  to  tarry 
for  a  moment  at  the  hole  in  the  wall  where  Bell's 
telephone  apparatus  was  on  display.  It  had  been 
there,  unheralded  and  unnoticed,  for  the  better  part 
of  six  weeks. 

Amid  the  myriad  of  novelties  with  which  the 
great  Centennial  was  crowded,  neither  officials  nor 
visitors  had  dignified  the  telephone  with  anything 
except  passing  attention ;  and  hardly  that.  Nobody 
at  all  had  the  faintest  realization  that  this  crude 
contraption  had  already  given  forth  a  tinkle 
destined  one  day  to  roar  around  the  ci\'ilized  globe. 

A  hot  Philadelphia  afternoon  had  gone  and  sun- 
down come,  when,  along  about  seven  o'clock,  the 
judges,  who  must  have  been  conscientious  souls, 
finally  put  in  an  appearance,  frazzled  by  the  heat, 
fatigued  by  their  miles  of  meanderings  through  the 
exhibition  buildings,  and  on  the  verge  of  surrender 
to  the  inner  man,  for  it  was  past  dinner-time.  Bell 
pondered  that  they  were  in  anything  but  ideal  mood 
to  pass  considered  judgment  upon  his  poor  thing  of 
brass  and  wood  and  reeds.     His  fears  were  not 


BIRTH  OF  THE  TELEPHONE 63 

groundless.  With  a  gesture  of  indifference  border- 
ing on  contempt,  one  of  the  judges  picked  up  one 
of  Bell's  receivers  and  replaced  it  on  the  table  with 
a  bored  grimace.  Another  judge  indulged  in  what 
we  moderns  call  a  ''wise  crack,"  bringing  comic 
relief  into  the  situation,  with  the  abashed  young 
inventor  as  the  butt. 

Then  it  was  Chance  intervened,  clad  in  imperial 
robes.  The  Centennial's  most  august  ^dsitors  were 
the  Emperor  Dom  Pedro  de  Alcantara,  of  Brazil, 
and  his  consort,  the  Empress  Theresa,  doomed, 
thirteen  years  later,  to  be  dethroned  by  a  revolution 
and  to  spend  the  rest  of  their  saddened  lives  in 
banishment  and  exile.  Casson  terms  what  now  en- 
sued a  fit  setting  for  a  chapter  in  The  Arabian 
Nights  Entertainments.  Their  Brazilian  majesties, 
at  the  head  of  a  retinue  of  courtiers  and  Centennial 
oflficials,  happened  at  that  late  hour  to  be  making 
one  of  their  periodical  promenades  through  the  ex- 
position grounds  and  buildings.  They  sauntered 
quite  casually  into  the  room  where  Bell's  telephone 
was  on  exhibition.  To  the  consternation  of  the  in- 
ventor, his  friends  and  the  jury  of  mocking  judges, 
Dom  Pedro  strode  straight  toward  Bell,  held  out 
both  hands  to  him,  and  said:  "Professor  Bell,  I  am 
delighted  to  see  you  again!" 

Had  the  roof  of  the  building  suddenly  caved  in, 
or  the  floor  sunk  beneath  them,  neither  Bell  nor  the 
judges  could  have  been  more  thunderstruck.  It 
must  be  remembered  that,  till  that  moment,  Alex- 


64 EMILE  BEBLINER 

ander  Graham  Bell  was  an  utterly  unknown  inven- 
tor, like  thousands  who  were  tempting  Fate  and 
wooing  the  goddess  of  Fortune  at  the  Centennial. 
In  its  voluminous  catalogue  they  were  merely 
numbers,  and  Exhibits  A,  B.  C,  etc.  Bell  was 
momentarily  at  a  loss  to  account  for  the  Brazil- 
ian Emperor's  unfeigned  cordiality  and  unmistak- 
able acquaintance  with  him.  Then  it  suddenly 
dawned  upon  him  that  Dom  Pedro  a  couple  of  years 
before  had  observed  Bell  teaching  a  class  of  mutes 
at  Boston  University,  and,  largely  in  admiration 
of  the  ^'Bell  system"  of  visible  speech,  later  estab- 
lished an  institute  for  the  deaf  at  Rio  de  Janeiro. 
Royalty  now  altered  the  whole  atmosphere  of  the 
stuffy  quarters  in  which  the  Bell  telephone  was 
tucked  away.  The  judges  were  no  longer  jocular 
or  apathetic.  They  were  standing  up  and  taking 
notice.  Dom  Pedro  was  fascinated  by  Bell's  simple 
story  of  what  he  had  invented.  The  Emperor, 
though  he  was  from  Brazil,  and  not  Missouri,  asked 
to  be  shown.  Bell  had  a  wire  running  across  the 
room.  At  the  transmitter  end  he  himself  took  up 
station,  having  requested  Dom  Pedro  to  place  the 
receiver  to  his  ear  on  the  other  side  of  the  room.  An 
awesome  silence  reigned  while  the  entire  party,  a 
group  of  fifty  or  more,  waited,  a  little  incredulously, 
for  something  to  happen.  Then  suddenly,  and  ex- 
citedly, with  a  typical  Latin  gesture  of  animated 
emotion  and  astonishment,  the  Brazilian  Emperor 
cried  aloud:    ''My  God!  It  talks!" 


BIRTH  OF  THE  TELEPHONE  65 

Bell  next  invited  Professor  Joseph  Henry,  the 
oldest  scientist  present,  to  take  the  receiver.  Henry 
was  the  acknowledged  authority  on  electrical  science 
in  the  United  States.  He  evolved  the  theory  of  a 
telephone  before  Bell's  birth  in  the  Scottish  high- 
lands half  a  century  before.  In  1875  Bell  borrowed 
money  to  journey  from  Salem  to  "Washington  for  a 
consultation  with  Henry,  whom  he  found  generously 
helpful  and  encouraging.  Henry  told  Bell  that  the 
young  inventor,  his  junior  by  fifty  years,  was  *'in 
possession  of  the  germ  of  a  great  invention." 

Bell  lamented  his  lack  of  electrical  knowledge. 
"Get  it,"  said  Henry.  Bell  said  afterward  those 
two  words  proved  a  life-time  of  inspiration  to  him. 

After  Professor  Henry,  Britain's  great  savant, 
then  Sir  William  Thomson,  later  Lord  Kelvin,  and 
recognized  throughout  the  world  as  the  most  em- 
inent living  electrical  authority,  was  invited  to 
undergo  the  sensational  experience  of  telephone 
talk.  Thomson  a  few  years  before  had  functioned 
triumphantly  as  engineer  of  the  first  Atlantic  cable. 
When  he  turned  from  Bell's  receiver,  he  affirmed, 
enthusiastically:  "It  does  speak.  It  is  the  most 
wonderful  thing  I  have  seen  in  America!" 

Bell  and  his  telephone  had  now  "arrived." 
Henry  and  Thomson  were  both  judges.  That  they 
would  heartily  confer  upon  the  invention  the  cov- 
eted Certificate  of  Award  was  no  longer  a  matter 
of  doubt.  In  their  subsequent  official  reports  they 
frankly  registered  their  early  skepticism  and  as  un- 


66 EMILE  BERLINER 

reservedly  conceded  their  complete  conversion. 
*'Mr.  Bell  has  achieved  a  result  of  transcendent 
scientific  interest,"  wrote  Sir  William  Thomson. 
*'I  heard  his  instrument  speak  distinctly  several 
sentences.  ...  I  was  astonished  and  de- 
lighted. ...  It  is  the  greatest  marvel  hitherto 
achieved  by  the  electric  telegraph." 

Darkness  had  long  superseded  dusk  that  humid 
Philadelphia  Sunday  afternoon  at  the  Centennial 
before  the  judges  were  tempted  to  desert  Bell's 
telephone.  Alternately  they  talked  and  listened — 
literally,  for  hours.  Next  day  the  telephone  was 
transported  in  triumph  from  its  humble  place  in 
Education  Hall  to  the  judges'  pavilion.  There  it 
remained  enthroned  for  the  rest  of  the  Centennial, 
the  magnet  that  drew  scientists  and  visitors  in  jost- 
ling throngs.  Overnight  it  had  become  ''the  star 
of  the  Centennial." 

"It  had  been  given  no  more  than  eighteen  words 
in  the  official  catalogue,"  says  Casson,  "and  here 
it  was  acclaimed  as  the  wonder  of  wonders.  It  lia 
been  conceived  in  a  cellar  and  born  in  a  machine 
shop ;  and  now,  of  all  the  gifts  that  our  young  Amer- 
ican Republic  had  received  on  its  one  hundredth 
birthday,  the  telephone  was  honored  as  the  rarest 
and  most  welcome  of  them  all," 


CHAPTER  VIII 


BERLINER    SETS    TO    WORK 


BY  THE  time  the  Centennial  had  passed  into  his- 
tory, leaving  America  in  a  state  of  national  ex- 
altation over  her  glorious  past  and  illimitable  future, 
Emile  Berliner  was  at  work  again  in  Washington. 
His  job  was  that  of  a  bookkeeper  in  the  Seventh 
Street  store,  but  it  was  not  his  pre-occupation. 
''Long,  long  thoughts"  filled  his  head,  and  they 
were  far  remote  from  debits  and  credits.  He  had 
passed  his  twenty-fifth  birthday.  He  had  taken 
out  American  citizenship  first  papers.  He  had 
become  thoroughly  infected  with  the  creative 
spirit  that  saturated  the  country.  His  studies  in 
acoustics  and  electricity  turned  his  attention 
naturally  to  the  subject  of  telephony.  The  new 
science  was  a  matter  of  popular  discussion  because 
of  newspaper  accounts,  but  few  had  ever  seen  a 
telephone,  let  alone  speak  through  one.  Even  Ber- 
^liner  himself  had  never  had  a  look  at  a  telephone 
instrument. 

\  Unmistakably,  as  the  impending  development  of 
Emile  Berliner's  bent  was  to  show,  the  young  man 
was  an  inventor  by  nature  or  intuition.    It  was  to 

67 


68 EMILE  BERLINER 

demonstrate  that  a  man  may  even  possess  a  scien- 
tific instinct  without  knowing  it.     Berliner  had  an 
unquenchable  longing  to  do  something  in  the  scien- 
tific field  into  which  ambition  was  leading  him,  but 
he  had  no  glimmer  of  realization  that  in  him  lay 
dormant  talent  which  would  ultimately  spur  ambi- 
tion  to   the   point   of   stellar   achievement.     Thus 
without  anything  savoring  of  trained  equipment, 
premeditation    ot    conscious    purpose,    Berliner's 
mind   now   drifted   steadily   along   the    uncharted 
course  to  which  the  wizardry  of  telephony  pointed. 
It  would  not  do  to  say  that  Berliner  was  merely 
toying  with  the  problems  which  electrical  sound- 
transmission  raised  in  his  inquisitive  thoughts,  for 
he  was  deeply  impressed  by  its  mysteries  and  pro- 
found  possibilities.      But    in    the    post-Centennial 
winter  that  found  liim  drudging  in  a  bookkeeper's 
cage  at  the  back  of  a  little  store  in  Washington, 
Berliner's  scientific  activities  were  mainly  confined 
to  dreaming  and  speculating.    He  had  a  vagnie  no- 
tion that  somewhere  along  electrical  lines  a  career 
would  eventually  open  for  him.    It  is  no  disparage- 
ment of  the  reputations  which  many  inventors  have 
won  to  say  that  predilection  and  accident  are  often 
among  the  factors  upon  which  they  were   built. 
Could  the  annals  of  scientific  achievement  be  traced 
to  their  source,  it  would  undoubtedly  be  discovered 
that  more  than  one  dizzy  height  was  scaled  by  means 
of  chance  abetting  genius  at  a  psychological  moment. 
Lady  Luck  has  played  a  star  role  throughout  the 


BERLINER  SETS  TO  WORK  69 

whole  drama  of  mankind's  miceasing  evolution.  But 
it  is  only  the  intense  mind,  prepared  to  recognize  the 
accidental  when  it  happens,  that  turns  it  to  account. 
Such  was  the  mentality  of  Emile  Berliner. 

James  J.  Storrow,  Sr.,  of  Boston,  one  of  the 
most  brilliant  patent  lawyers  America  ever  pro- 
duced, then  counsel  for  the  Bell  Telephone  interests, 
once  made  a  study  of  the  psychological  conditions 
out  of  which  inventors  and  inventions  are  developed. 
He  found  that  far  more  original  ideas  occur  to  in- 
ventors between  the  ages  of  twenty-one  and  twenty- 
eight  years  than  at  any  other  period.  Berliner,  in 
the  midst  of  his  twenty-sixth  year,  was  immersed  in 
the  consuming  aspiration  to  make  something  of 
himself  in  physical  science  in  general,  and  in  the 
magic  field  of  the  speaking  telephone  in  particular. 
To  become  identified  with  this  new  industry  as  a 
worker  in  it,  rather  than  to  give  it  new  direction 
in  any  pioneering  sense,  was  his  primary  desire. 
It  amounted  to  a  determination.  He  sensed  that 
telephony  was  "the  coming  thing."  He  wanted  to 
be  on  the  ground  floor  of  its  development,  and  grow 
up  with  it. 

In  1910  Emile  Berliner,  addressing  the  Tele- 
phone Society  of  Washington,  gave  an  amusing  ac- 
count of  the  conditions  amid  which  he  set  to  ex- 
perimental telephonic  work  in  the  bleak  midwinter 
of  1876-1877. 

"I  lived  in  Washington,  as  I  do  now,"  he  said, 
**and  there  was  one  little  store  that  dealt  in  electri- 


70 EMILE  BERLINER 

cal  goods,  the  store  of  Mr.  George  C.  Maynard.  It 
was  on  G  Street,  between  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth 
Streets — a  little  bit  of  a  store.  It  contained  a  few 
keys  and  sounders  and  bluestone  batteries  (they  did 
not  have  any  others,  to  speak  of)  and  some  relays 
and  some  tapes,  and  some  wire,  and  probably  one 
or  two  more  highly  scientific  coils  and  galvano- 
meters. But  that  was  all.  That  comprised  the 
electrical  stores  of  Washington. 

"There  was  no  commercial  electric  light,  but 
there  was  at  the  Capitol,  near  the  dome  upstairs,  a 
large  room  in  which  was  a  big  battery  consisting 
of  about  one  hundred  so-called  Smee  cells.  At  that 
time  these  were  ver^^  well  known  among  scientific 
men.  Each  consisted  of  a  jar  full  of  sulphuric  acid 
and  water,  a  piece  of  carbon  and  a  piece  of  zinc. 
That  was  a  Smee  cell.  Of  course,  you  know  it 
polarized,  weakened,  very  quickly.  Every  Fourth  of 
July  the  daily  papers  announced :  '  To-night  the  elec- 
tric light  will  be  shown  from  the  Capitol, '  and  every- 
body was  down  on  Pennsylvania  Avenue  after  dark 
to  see  it.  All  at  once  we  would  see  a  brilliant  arc 
light  at  the  lower  part  of  the  dome.  The  electrician 
was  at  work.  By  and  by  it  went  out  because  the 
battery  polarized,  and  then  we  had  to  wait  about 
twenty  minutes  or  a  half-hour  for  another  glimpse 
of  the  shining  electric  light.  It  was  quite  an  inter- 
esting exliibition,  and  everybody  enjoyed  it  very 
highly. 

"There  were  no  dry  cells  known  in  those  days 
and  there  was  no  electric  bell.  The  house  bells 
were  mechanical.  Iron  bell  wire  was  used,  and 
eveiy  blacksmith,  or  every  locksmith,  knew  how  to 
fix  the  house  bell,  and  from  time  to  time  the  wire 
would  stretch,  or  something  of  the  kind,  and  they 
had  all  kinds  of  trouble  with  the  bell.  Of  course,  it 
was  a  pretty  good-sized  bell,  and  gave  the  old-time 
jingle  such  as  you  hear  now  and  then  in  boarding- 
houses. 


First  Bell   Telephone,  June,  1875 
Bell's  Magneto  System,  1876 


IIW    If 

Bell's  Magneto  Telephone,  1877.     (Contempokary  Jllustkation) 
Bell's  Magneto  Telephone  System  in   1877 


BERLINER  SETS  TO  WORK  71 

''Then  there  were  horse-cars,  no  electric  cars. 
Afterward  they  had  the  cable-car,  and  one  day,  the 
power-house  was  burned,  and  they  had  to  supply 
horses  for  the  cars.  I  recall  how  I  once  had  the 
privilege  of  riding  up  to  Mt.  Pleasant  in  a  mule 
car.  They  got  the  mules  over  in  Alexandria  to  help 
out.  Of  course,  it  required  some  time  to  get  around, 
but  people  had  plenty  of  time  then.  If  you  wanted 
anything,  you  had  to  send  a  messenger,  and  you 
could  attend  to  only  two  or  three  transactions  a  day, 
where  you  can  now  attend  to  a  hundred  "snth  the 
aid  of  the  telephone. 

"There  was  but  one  electrical  paper  in  the 
United  States.  That  was  the  official  organ  of  the 
Western  Union  Telegraph  Company,  and  known  as 
the  Journal  of  the  Telegraiih.  It  came  out  once  a 
month  as  a  sort  of  pamphlet.  Such  were  the  con- 
ditions in  1876." 

Berliner  was  li\dng  in  a  room  on  the  third  floor 
of  a  typical,  middle-class  Washington  brick  dwelling 
of  the  era,  situated  at  No.  812  Sixth  Street,  N.  W., 
and  just  around  the  comer  from  the  Behrend  store. 
Though  plainly  furnished,  the  house  was  neatly 
kept  by  a  widow  and  her  two  half-grown  children, 
who  were  engaged  in  the  time-honored  business  of 
** taking  lodgers."  Berliner's  quarters  soon  came 
to  look  and  smell  like  an  electrical  laboratory.  He 
filled  the  place  with  wires,  batteries  and  other 
paraphernalia.  Presently  he  rigged  up  a  set  of 
** telephones"  between  his  window  and  the  barn. 
Another  series  of  animated  wires  led  to  the  living 
quarters  of  his  landlady  and  her  family,  who  were 
duly  pressed  into  Berliner's  experimental  service. 


72 EMILE  BERLINER     

The  house  at  No.  812  Sixth  Street  still  stands. 
When  Emile  Berliner  visited  it  not  long  ago,  with 
a  party  of  friends  interested  in  seeing-*  his  first 
workshop,  the  present  occupant  was  astonished  to 
learn  that  she  inhabits  so  historic  premises.  But 
she  returned  coincidence  for  surprise,  when  Ber- 
liner told  her  of  the  establishment's  epochal  place 
in  telephony,  for,  she  said,  "I  have  three  daughters 
and  two  sons-in-law,  they  all  work  for  the  telephone 
company,  and  my  late  husband  himself  was  an  in- 
ventor !  His  name  was  Frank  Howarth  Brown  and 
he  devised  the  sorts  caster  for  making  type."  The 
widow  thought  her  home  might  well  aspire  to  be 
known  as  *' Telephone  House."  It  was  not  long 
afterward  that  The  Transmitter,  house  organ  of  the 
Chesapeake  and  Potomac  Telephone  Company  in 
Washington,  having  had  its  attention  called  to  the 
quaint  history  of  the  lodging-house  in  Sixth  Street, 
devoted  an  illustrated  article  to  it.  As  "Telephone 
House"  it  now  takes  its  place  in  historic  Washing- 
ton. 

Berliner  had  not  seen  the  Bell  membrane  tele- 
phone at  the  Centennial  and  began  tinkering  with 
speech-transmission  much  as  you  play  blind  man's 
buff — without  knowing  at  all  where  you're  going. 
He  thought  that  the  proper  way  to  transmit  speech 
was  by  means  of  battery  current.  That  fundamen- 
tal seemed  clear  to  him.  Bell  had  made  his  inven- 
tion with  the  magnetic  current,  but  Berliner 
thought  it  might  be  possible  to  do  it  differently,  so 


BERLINER  SETS  TO  WORK 73 

before  the  Bell  process  was  understood  except  by 
a  limited  number  of  scientists,  Berliner  set  out 
on  unexplored  paths  of  his  own.  Spare  time  during 
the  working  day  and  all  of  his  evening  time,  till 
sleep  claimed  him,  found  him  scheming  and  plod- 
ding, wondering  and  thinking,  with  his  interest  in 
the  electrio  mysteries  growing  with  every  unre- 
quited experiment. 

Presently  it  occurred  to  Berliner  that  he  could 
take  a  diaphragm  and  a  contact-pin,  or  screw,  touch- 
ing it  in  the  center,  and  somehow  produce  an  un- 
dulatory,  wave-like  electric  current  by  continuous 
action  of  the  contact,  that  is  to  say,  not  by  inter- 
rupting it,  but  by  some  form  of  perpetuity.  *'I  did 
not  catch  on  to  the  pressure  principle  right  away," 
he  explains,  '*but  I  thought  that  if  I  took  a  flat 
spring  and  attached  that  to  a  screw,  I  could  adjust 
the  spring  against  the  diaphragm — the  current,  of 
course,  passing  across  the  contact — so  that  if  I 
spoke  against  it,  each  vibration  would  bring  a  little 
broader  surface  of  the  spring  against  the  diaphragm 
and  thereby  produce  electric  sound  waves  in  the 
current. ' ' 

That  was  Berliner's  first  crude  idea.  He  gave 
it  form  and  substance  by  patching  up  a  flimsy  sort 
of  ' '  telephone, ' '  which  consisted  of  a  membrane  and 
a  piece  of  spring  in  front.  But  he  found  he  could 
not  transmit  speech.  No  discernible  action  ensued. 
Berliner  now  realized,  probably  for  the  first  time, 
that  his  technical  knowledge  was  unequal  to  the  de- 


74 EMILE  BERLINER 

velopment  of  a  conception  that  was  inherently  and 
scientifically  sound.  Then  Fate  intervened.  It 
guided  his  steps  in  a  fruitful  direction. 

Berliner  had  struck  up  an  acquaintance  with  Mr. 
Alvan  S.  Richards,  chief  operator  at  the  Washington 
fire-alarm  telegraph  office,  which  the  former  visited 
occasionally.  In  those  archaic  times,  forty-nine 
years  ago,  fire-alarm  systems  were  as  primitive  as 
everything  else  in  America  was.  The  Washington 
fire  telegraph  office  was  filled  with  the  usual  jumble 
of  instruments,  alarm-bells  and  old-fashioned  blue- 
stone  cells  or  batteries.  During  one  of  his  visits, 
Berliner  told  Richards  that,  in  connection  with  his 
amateur  telephonic  experiments,  he  was  now  inter- 
ested in  learning  telegraphy,  and  had  actually  been 
practising  at  ''sending." 

' '  Come  back  and  let  me  hear  what  you  can  do, ' ' 
said  Richards. 

The  chief  of  the  fire-alarm  telegraph  pointed 
to  an  instrument  in  disuse,  and  told  his  visitor  he 
might  try  his  hand  at  it.  Berliner  had  but  begmi, 
when  Richards  interrupted  to  advise : 

''Hold  on,  this  isn't  right.  You  must  press  down 
the  key — not  simply  touch  it." 

"What  difference  does  that  make — whether  I 
press  the  key  down  or  not — so  long  as  it  makes  a 
contact?"  asked  Berliner  curiously. 

"What  you  have  to  do,"  explained  Richards, 
"is  to  make  a  firm  contact,  otherwise  your  message 
might  not  be  readable  at  the  receiving  end."    Then 


BERLINER  SETS  TO  WORK  75 

he  explained  that  in  long-distance  transmission, 
where  the  resistance  is  high,  the  sending  key  must 
be  pressed  down  rather  forcibly  if  efficient  reception 
is  to  be  assured. 

''That's  why  Ave  use  men  exclusively  for  long- 
distance telegraphy,"  Richards  added,  ''because 
they  naturally  press  down  hard.  They  have  a 
strong  touch.  Women  wouldn't  naturally  press 
down  hard  and  are  therefore  not  adaptable  to  long- 
distance work." 

That  clear  explanation  immediately  sank  into 
Berliner's  mind.    Quick  as  a  flash,  he  rejoined: 

"Do  you  mean  to  say  that  more  current  passes 
over  that  contact  when  I  press  hard?" 

"Decidedly.  That's  exactly  w^hat  I  mean,"  was 
the  reply. 

"All  right.  Thanks.  Good-by."  And  Berliner 
was  off. 

"I  went  home  in  a  highly  expectant  mood,"  he 
has  since  recounted,  in  telling  of  what  proved  to  be 
the  turning  point  in  Berliner's  telephonic  re- 
searches. "I  knew  I  had  it.  Forthwith  I  rigged  up 
a  diaphragm,  made  a  contact  with  a  steel  button,  and 
polished  it  up  so  brightly  as  to  insure  a  clean  contact. 
Then  I  began  to  adjust  it  until  the  galvanometer 
showed  the  current.  Then  I  pressed  ever  so  gently. 
I  found  that  each  time  I  pressed  against  it  the  gal- 
vanometer deflected  a  larger  angle.  I  then  knew  the 
principle  was  right." 

Berhner  saw  through  the  microphonic  principle 


76  EMILE  BERLINER 

before  he  had  worked  it  out  with  apparatus.  The 
kernel  of  his  discovery  lay  in  the  conception  of  its 
operation.  All  the  rules  of  electricity  theretofore 
forbade  the  microphone.  The  invariable  rule  in 
electro-magnets  had  been  firm  contacts.  He  had  here 
a  loose  contact  with  its  importance  lying  in  the  vari- 
ableness of  the  press,ure,  which  at  once  presented 
itself  as  something  far  more  delicate  than  the  abrupt 
make-and-break  principle  of  the  old  and  abandoned 
Bourseuil-Reis  apparatus.  Berliner  was  using  f 
Bell's  undulatory  idea,  only  he  converted  an  already 
existing  electric  current  of  any  strength  into  ivaves, 
corresponding  to  sound  waves  with  all  their  minute 
characteristics,  instead  of  letting  the  force  of  the 
voice  produce  a  weak  electric  current  as  Bell's  tele- 
phone did. 

"It  needs  an  abler  pen  than  mine  to  do  justice  to 
the  work  that  Emile  Berliner  did  in  improving  the 
telephone,"  says  Waldemar  Kaempffert,  engineer, 
patent  attorney  and  one-time  editor  of  the  Scientific 
American  and  Popular  Science  Monthly.  ** Berliner 
was  one  of  half-a-dozen  men  who  saw  the  short- 
comings of  the  early  telephone  transmitter.  He 
improved  it  both  acoustically  and  electrically — 
standardized  it,  in  a  word,  so  that  it  became 
ultimately  the  instrument  it  is  to-day.  The  Courts 
of  the  United  States  have  given  Berliner  the  most 
ample  credit  for  this  achievement,  after  a  thorough 
examination  of  what  patent  lawyers  call  'the  state 
of  the  art.'  '» 


BERLINER  SETS  TO  WORK 77 

During  the  famous  telephone  litigation  Mr.  Stor- 
row,  the  Bell  Company's  counsel,  elucidating  the 
Berliner  discovery,  said:  ^'A  thousand  inventors 
have  worked  on  telephones  and  five  hundred  of  them 
on  microphones.  They  have  improved  the  details, 
but  have  not  been  able  to  supersede  the  Berliner 
type,  so  brilliant  and  daring  was  Berliner's  concep- 
tion." 

Mr.  Spottiswoode,  a  scientist  of  eminence  and 
president  of  the  British  Association,  stated  in  his 
inaugural  address  at  Dublin  in  August,  1878:  '*It  is 
remarkable  that  the  gist  of  the  (Berliner)  invention 
seems  to  lie  in  obtaining  and  perfecting  that  which 
electricians  have  hitherto  most  scrupulously 
avoided — namely,  loose  contact." 

Professor  Barker,  the  United  States  govern- 
ment's expert  in  the  futile  litigation  to  annul  Emile 
Berliner's  patent,  confessed  in  his  testimony  that 
the  invention  of  the  loose  contact  transmitter  at  one 
time  passed  the  limits  of  scientific  credibility.  ''If 
any  man  had  come  to  me  or  to  science,  in  1877,"  said 
Barker,  "and  proposed  the  idea  of  the  microphone, 
science  w^ould  have  said:  'We  have  no  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  that  is  possible;  that  any  material  exists 
which  will  answer  those  purposes ;  that  those  flight 
forces  will  accomplish  anything. '  In  short,  I  should 
have  declared  it  impossible,  and  that,  I  think,  would 
have  been  the  judgment  of  all  scientific  men  at  the 
time." 

Thus  the  microphone  came  to  be — the  instrument 


::.IILE  BEELIXEE 


which  renders  the  faintest  vibrations  of  sound  au- 
dible, and.  bv  varying  the  contact  pressure,  in- 
creases sound's  intensitv. 

TTe  shall  now  trace  more  minutely  the  steps 
which  Berliner  took  to  enable  talkative  Mother 
Earth  to  hold  her  thirty  billion  telephone  conversa- 
tions a  vear. 


CHAPTER  IX 

FEOM  SOAP-BOX  TO  3knCE0PH0NE 

BELL'S  telephone — ''the  star  of  the  Centen- 
nial"— was  simply  a  good  receiver.  It  was  a 
very  poor  transmitter,  even  for  short  distances. 
You  talked  into  it  and  you  listened  for  a  reply  from 
the  same  kind  of  instrument.  "When  Emile  Berliner 
set  himself  the  task  of  making  the  BeU  telephone 
practical  for  all  distances,  it  was  far  from  certain 
that  what  went  into  it  as  talk  would  come  out  as  talk 
at  the  other  end  of  the  line.  That  which  emerged 
was  more  often  a  jumble  of  sounds  that  was  difficult 
to  understand  and  had  to  be  repeated.  At  best,  it 
was  necessary  to  shout  the  message,  or  clamp  the 
lips  on  to  the  mouthpiece.  Even  then,  it  was  a 
gamble  whether  the  spoken  words  would  be  artic- 
ulate. The  talking  itself  produced  the  electric  cur- 
rent that  barely  went  over  the  wire.  It  was  the 
so-called  magneto-electric  induction  force,  discov- 
ei*ed  by  the  celebrated  Michael  Faraday  in  Great 
Britain  in  1S31  that  produced  BeU's  speaking  cur- 
rent. That  was  the  mile-post  which  marks  the 
beginnings  of  Emile  Berliner's  researches — the 
studies  that  led  to  the  employment  of  the  much 

79 


80  EMILE  BERLINER 

stronger  battery  current,  thrown  into  undulations 
corres;ponding  to  speech,  and  to  his  invention  of  the 
microphone. 

Until  the  year  1877  dawned  Berliner's  experi- 
ments had  partaken  mainly  of  the  theoretical.  He 
was  now  ready  to  give  them  practical  form  by  de- 
signing an  apparatus  embodying  his  conception  of 
the  microphone  principle.  What  the  inconspicuous 
young  dry-goods  clerk,  still  a  virtual  stranger  in  the 
land  of  his  adoption,  was  on  the  verge  of  achieving 
was  a  battery  speech  transmitter,  the  principle  of 
which  has  never  been  changed  or  superseded.  Out 
of  the  humble  lodging-house  back  room  in  Washing- 
ton was  about  to  come  the  magical  little  thing 
destined  to  link  not  only  cities,  but  countries,  and 
not  only  countries,  but  continents,  and  link  not  only 
continents  but  span  the  whole  inhabited  globe. 
To-day,  forty-nine  years  after  Queen  Genius,  in 
imagination,  gave  Emile  Berliner  the  accolade  and 
anointed  him  a  knight  of  science,  he  pleads  for  a 
universal  language  which  shall  bind  the  nations  as 
the  telephone  linked  them.  He  believes  it  would  end 
war,  as  the  microphone,  half  a  century  ago,  led  to 
-the  annihilation  of  space. 

Contemplate  the  miracle  we  are  now  dispassion- 
ately reviewing — no  other  term  for  it  seems  ap- 
propriate. The  telephone  was  not  yet  in  public 
use.  Here  was  Berliner,  under  twenty-six,  and 
utterly  self-taught.  He  had  no  scintilla  of  the  scien- 
tific background  that  predestined  Alexander  Graham 


SOAP-BOX  TO  MICROPHONE  81 

Bell  for  a  career  in  acoustical  communication.  Yet 
the  young  Hanoverian-American  was  by  way  of 
giving  the  telephone  its  most  vital  and  essential  ad- 
dition, the  loose  contact  transmitter,  or  microphone, 
and  the  continuous  current  induction  coil,  or  trans- 
former. He  was  to  do  so,  most  incredible  of  all, 
within  a  few  months  from  the  time  of  starting  actual 
experiments.  Asked  innumerable  times — asked  often 
to-day — how  a  man  of  liis  environment  and  complete 
lack  of  technical  training  managed  to  reach  out 
into  the  infinite  and,  with  the  precision  of  a  trip- 
hammer, hit  almost  instantaneously  upon  his  objec- 
tive, Emile  Berliner  confesses  himself  at  a  loss  to 
explain. 

Probably  a  gift  for  concentration,  and,  as  trained 
physicists  have  termed  it,  a  scientific  instinct,  come 
as  near  to  clearing  up  the  mystery  as  anything  else. 
Concentration  was  automatic  mth  him.  He  let  no 
single  day  go  by  without  pursuing  his  experiments. 
Every  luncheon-hour  at  the  store  in  Seventh  Street 
would  find  Berliner  snatching  time  to  run  around 
the  corner  to  his  "laboratory"  lodgings.  Either  a 
few  minutes  of  tinkering  or  a  few  moments  of 
study — he  allowed  no  time  to  go  to  waste.  Some- 
times he  was  up  before  the  sun,  restlessly  eager  to 
observe  the  further  effects  of  the  elusive  electric 
current  on  a  crude  contraption  which  a  carpenter 
friend  had  rigged  up  for  him. 

March  4,  1877,  was  a  memorable  day  in  Wash- 
ington.   Eutherford  B.  Hayes,  Republican,  was  to 


82 EMILE  BERLINER 

be  inaugurated  President  of  the  United  States  fol- 
lowing an  embittered  contest  with  Samuel  J.  Tilden, 
Democrat,  in  the  midst  of  which  the  grim  specter  of 
another  American  civil  war  more  than  once  raised 
its  menacing  head.  Hayes  had  been  declared 
the  duly  elected  chief  magistrate  of  the  republic, 
though  by  the  slenderest  possible  margin  in  the 
Electoral  College,  and  Washington,  on  Inauguration 
Day,  was  crammed  with  visitors  in  a  state  of  excited 
expectancy.  Among  them  were  friends  of  Berliner 
who,  visiting  him,  became  so  fascinated  by  what  he 
was  accomplishing  in  the  magic  new  realm  of  com- 
munication that  they  forgot  all  about  President-elect 
Hayes  and  the  day's  adventure — a  trip  to  the  east 
front  of  the  United  States  Capitol  for  the  inaugural 
ceremony — on  which  they  had  set  out  early  in  the 
morning. 

The  "miracle"  that  Berliner  had  to  show  them 
was  the  membrane  of  a  toy  drum  with  a  common 
sewing  needle  firmly  adjusted  through  it,  a  steel 
dress-button,  and  a  guitar  string — the  chrysalis, 
though  few  believed  it,  of  the  telephone  transmitter. 

Early  in  April,  1877,  Berliner  made  an  iron  dia- 
phragm transmitter.  He  knocked  the  bottom  out  of 
a  wooden  soap-box;  nailed  on  in  place  of  it  a 
piece  of  sheet-iron  for  a  diaphragm,  and  placed  a 
cross-bar  across  the  middle  of  the  box.  A  com- 
mon screw,  passing  through  this  cross-bar,  touched 
the  center  of  the  diaphragm.  In  fact,  Berliner 
soldered   a   polished   steel   button   to   the    end   of 


SOAP-BOX  TO  MICROPHONE  83 

the  screw  so  that  the  button  was  the  actual  contact- 
piece  which  touched  the  diaphragm. 

This  was  a  great  improvement.  He  tried  it  with 
a  galvanometer  and  found  that  the  current  varied 
regularly  with  the  variation  of  pressure.  With  this 
he  easily  got  speech.  The  instruments  were  not  per- 
fect, certainly.  But  they  talked ;  and  they  will  talk 
to-day. 

Berliner's  soap-box  was  a  receptacle  seven  by 
twelve  inches  in  size.  The  labels  that  still  adorn  it  tell 
the  world  that  the  original  package  contained  ''Old 
Brown  Windsor  Soap"  made  by  the  American  Com- 
pany, of  Philadelphia.  Undoubtedly  it  is  the  most 
famous  soap-box  in  history,  though  nowadays  we 
usually  associate  soap-boxes  with  street-corner  agi- 
tators. To-day  it  occupies  an  honored  niche  in  the 
United  States  National  Museum  along  with  other 
Berliner  relics.  Inside  of  it  is  tacked  a  card  on 
which  is  printed: 

Introduced  in  evidence  in 

Circuit  Court  of  United  States  District 

of  Massachusetts 

In  Equity  3106 : 

U.  S.  A.  vs.  American  Bell  Telephone 

Company  and  Emile  Berliner 

Defendants'  exhibit. 

Berliner's  Soap-Box  Transmitter, 

M.  S.  C,  Special  Examiner. 


84 EMILE  BERLINER 

There  is  fortunately  a  graphic  record,  in  Emile 
Berliner's  own  words,  of  the  precise  chain  of  events 
that  led  up  to  this  earliest,  though  epochal,  achieve- 
ment of  his.  It  is  taken  from  his  unchallenged 
testimony  in  the  lawsuit  brought  by  the  Government 
against  Berliner's  patent. 

''On  the  eighth  of  April,  1877,"  he  says,  "late 
in  the  evening  I  had  connected  the  instrument  of  the 
galvanometer  I  have  previously  described  and  I  was 
joining  two  terminal  wires  for  the  purpose  of  clos- 
ing the  circuit.  It  was  exceedingly  quiet  about  the 
house  and  on  the  street.  In  closing  the  circuit,  I 
suddenly  heard  a  noise  coming  from  the  chaphragm, 
which  surprised  me  greatly.  I  thought  I  had  mis- 
taken my  ears,  but  on  repeatedly  making  and  break- 
ing the  circuit  a  distinct  and  sometimes  loud  tick 
came  from  the  diaphragm  and  apparently  from  the 
point  of  contact  between  the  diaphragm  and  the 
steel  ball. 

"That  was  entirely  new  to  me,  and  I  became 
much  agitated,  because  I  saw  immediately  that  I  had 
here  a  new  electrical  phenomenon,  viz.:  that  sonnd 
was  produced  without  the  aid  of  electrical  mag- 
netism, merely  by  the  current  itself.  I  quickly  took 
a  tuning-fork  which  I  had  in  my  possession ;  I  wound 
one  of  the  wire  terminals  around  the  shank  of  the 
tuning-fork,  struck  the  same  on  the  table  and  ap- 
plied the  vibrating  prongs  to  the  other  terminal  of 
the  line. 

"Immediately  a  loud  musical  sound  correspond- 
ing in  pitch  to  the  sound  of  the  tuning-fork  came 
from  the  iron  diaphragm.  I  knew  at  that  moment 
that  I  had  made  an  important  addition  to  my  ob- 
ser\^ations,  for  I  quickly  perceived  that  if  the  dia- 
phragm could  give  out  a  musical  sound,  it  could  also 
reproduce  speech,  when,  instead  of  an  interrupted 
current,  an  undulatory  one  was  sent  to  aifect  it. 


SOAP-BOX  TO  MICROPHONE    85 

^^— ^i^— ^— ^^^— ^— ^^— ^^^^^■^^^~'^— — ^— ^— ^— ~^'»^-^'^— ^""^"^^— — ^~™~" 

**I  also  saw  very  plainly  that  I  had  here  an  ap- 
paratus which  would  act  both  as  transmitter  and 
receiver  of  articulate  sound  electrically;  and  that  I 
had  something  analogous  to  that  of  Mr.  Bell,  who 
also  used  the  same  instrument  both  as  transmitter 
and  receiver,  but  something  far  simpler  and 
cheaper. 

"I  had  always  been  ambitious  to  have  apparatus 
different  from  that  of  Mr.  Bell,  and  while  I  perfectly 
well  knew  that  I  could  not  get  around  his  undulatory 
current  claims,  still  I  thought  it  was  something  to 
have  actually  apparatus  entirely  different  from  his ; 
and  from  that  day  I  never  touched  again  a  Bell  re- 
ceiver until  about  a  year  afterward,  but  used  a 
contact  transmitter  also  as  a  recei\'ing  instrument. 

"On  the  next  day  I  got  another  soap-box, 
brought  it  to  the  carpenter  and  had  it  fixed  up  in  the 
same  way  as  my  other  one.  It  was  ready  on  the  next 
day.  I  tried  it  on  the  evening  of  April  tenth  in  my 
own  room  to  see  if  it  also  was  sensitive  to  pressure, 
and  showed  these  variations  of  the  galvanometer 
needle ;  and  on  the  next  morning,  before  going  to  the 
store,  I  tried  a  practical  experiment  from  my  room 
to  the  room  dow^i-stairs,  and  made  the  ladies  of  the 
house  listen. 

"They  were  very  greatly  surprised  when  I  trans- 
mitted as  I  always  did,  for  the  purpose  of  amusing 
them,  by  means  of  interrupted  currents ;  they  heard 
the  tunes  loudly  from  the  soap-box  all  over  the 
room,  and  when  I  made  them  listen  close  to  the  ap- 
paratus and  transmitted  speech  by  variation  of 
pressure  they  reported  to  me  much  better  results 
than  they  had  pre%'iously  heard  in  other  experi- 
ments, and  they  also  thought  that  it  was  very  won- 
derful indeed.  They  recognized  my  voice,  and  got 
familiar  sentences  now  and  then. 

"It  was  very  difficult  to  adjust  the  apparatus.  I 
had  to  run  up-stairs  and  down-stairs  continuously, 
both  for  adjusting  the  transmitter  and  receiver.  The 


86 EMILE  BERLIXEE 

current  would  heat  the  contact,  the  plate  would 
bulge  off  a  little  and  get  out  of  adjustment;  but  we 
did  get  quite  good  results." 

TThile  it  is  easy  to  explain  the  action  of  the 
microphone  by  increase  and  decrease  of  pressure 
between  two  electrodes,  it  is  not  so  easy  to  under' 
stand  why  a  loose  contact  should  transmit  speech 
electrically,  or  in  other  words  why  an  electric  cur- 
rent can  be  thrown  into  waves  corresponding  to 
sound  waves  in  all  their  delicacies  through  the 
meditmi  of  a  loose  contact  by  means  of  variable 
pressure. 

Several  theories  were  advanced  by  scientists  to 
explain  the  action  at  the  loose  contact.  But  Berliner 
himself  very  early  gave  the  only  explanation  that 
"would  stand  scientific  criticism.  His  theory  was  that 
a  loose  contact  between  two  electrodes,  or  ends  of 
conducting  wires,  is  no  real  contact,  but  that  a  thin 
stratum  or  layer  of  air  intervenes,  and  that  this  is 
the  field  of  action  where  the  voice  vibrations  with  all 
their  delicate  differences  are  transformed  into  elec- 
tric vibrations  exactly  corresponding  to  the  voice. 

Let  the  reader  consider  that  air  is  a  conductor  of 
electricity  precisely  as  is  a  metal  wire.  It  does  not 
readily  cany  as  much  current,  but,  being  very  elas- 
tic, it  is  highly  adaptable  to  microphonic  action. 

That  there  exists  a  layer  of  air  between  two 
electrodes  in  loose  contact  with  each  other  has  been 
proved  in  two  ways,  one  by  Berliner  himself.  He 
placed  a  loose  contact,  held  together  by  light  spring 


SOAP-BOX  TO  MICROPHONE  87 

pressure,  iu  a  closed  box  which  was  connected  to  an 
air  pump  that  could  exhaust  the  air  from  that  box. 
Careful  and  repeated  measurements  showed  that 
more  current  passed  over  the  contact  when  the  air 
was  exhausted ;  or,  putting  it  more  scientifically,  the 
electrical  resistance  of  the  contact  was  lower  in  a 
vacuum  than  in  air.  The  proof  offered  by  others 
than  Berliner  consisted  of  looking  through  a  loose 
contact  with  a  powerful  tele-microscope,  when  it  was 
found  that  there  was  a  thin  gap  between  the  two 
electrodes  and  that  they  did  not  actually  touch  each 
other. 

Therefore,  it  will  be  seen  that  when  sound  strikes 
the  diaphragm,  which  actuates  the  loose  contact  in 
a  microphone,  it  changes  the  thickness  of  that  thiu 
layer  of  air  at  each  ^^ibration  and  the  electric  cur- 
rent which  passes  is  therefore  thrown  into  electric 
vibrations  corresponding  to  the  sound  waves.  It 
may  correspondingly  be  a  surprise  to  some,  to  learn 
that  the  term  ''talking  on  the  air,"  so  commonly 
used  by  broadcasters  to-day,  is  more  scientifically 
correct  than  is  popularly  realized. 

The  curious  receiving  action  of  the  loose  contact 
has  never  been  fully  clarified.  According  to  Emile 
Berliner's  caveat  of  1877,  it  is  due  to  a  force  of  re- 
pulsion at  the  contact,  which  is  variable  according 
to  the  strength  of  the  passing  current. 


CHAPTER  X 


BERLINER  FILES  HIS  CAVEAT 


NOW  we  approach  an  episode  in  the  life  of 
Emile  Berliner  that  brands  him,  perhaps  as 
much  as  any  single  achievement  in  his  whole  career, 
as  a  favored  child  of  genius.  Before  he  went  to  bed 
on  the  night  of  April  8,  1877,  he  made  the  rough 
draft  of  a  caveat  describing  the  telephonic  results 
he  had  just  achieved.  Four  days  later  he  made  a 
clean  copy  of  the  draft.  Then  he  determined,  with- 
out either  legal  or  scientific  aid,  to  conduct  his  own 
negotiations  with  the  United  States  Patent  Office 
covering  the  invention  of  the  microphone.  Under 
the  former  patent  laws  of  the  United  States,  a 
caveat  was  a  description  of  an  invention  designed 
to  be  patented,  lodged  in  the  Patent  Office  before  the 
patent  itself  was  applied  for.  It  operated  as  a  bar 
to  other  applications  respecting  the  same  invention. 
Modern  manufacturing  corporations  employ  the 
great  brains  of  the  patent-law  profession  at  fancy 
fees  to  draw  their  patent  documents. 

Filing  a  caveat  did  not  imply  that  the  inventor 
considered  his  invention  incomplete  in  the  legal 
sense,  but  at  most  that  he  hoped  to  improve  its  form 


FILES  HIS  CAVEAT  -        89 

of  embodiment.  The  patent  statute  speaks  of  ''a 
person  wlio  makes  any  new  invention  or  discovery, 
and  desires  time  to  mature  the  same."  The  person 
has  ''made"  the  invention,  but  more  mature  thought 
is  eventually  to  apply  the  finishing  touches.  Ber- 
liner was  experimenting  in  that  direction. 

His  financial  condition  at  this  time  was  such 
that  he  did  not  hesitate  to  avail  himself  of  the 
privilege  of  drawing  his  own  caveat,  at  a  cost  of  ten 
dollars,  instead  of  filing  an  application,  which  would 
have  cost  at  least  sixty  dollars.  Think  of  the  plight 
of  the  man  who  facilitated  the  perfection  of  modern 
telephony,  having  to  hesitate  between  the  advis- 
ability of  taking  by  himself  a  legal  step  of  tran- 
scendent importance,  because  it  was  cheap,  or  hiring 
an  expert  to  do  it  for  him  at  a  cost  of  fifty  dollars 
more! 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Berliner's  economic  state 
required  him  to  resort  to  every  possible  economy. 
Describing  his  plight  at  that  time,  in  the  course  of 
the  subsequent  telephone  litigation,  Berliner  said: 

"I  had  contracted  some  debts  in  1876,  in  New 
York,  which  had  not  been  fully  paid  when  I  returned 
to  Washington.  In  the  few  months  I  was  out  of  a 
job  I  had  not  earned  anything  at  all.  My  place  as 
bookkeeper  brought  me  fifteen  dollars  a  week,  or 
something  of  that  kind.  I  don't  remember  exactly 
the  wages  I  had  in  the  latter  part  of  1876  at  Mr. 
Behrend's  store  in  "Washington,  but  I  was  out  of  a 
position  for  a  couple  of  months  on  account  of  the 
failure  of  my  employer.     After  that  I  earned  an 


90  KMTT.K  BERTJNER 


avora^o  of  about  twelve  dollars  a  week  with  Mr. 
Bell  rend." 

Lat(!r,  duriii^c  the  same  tostinumy,  B(!rlnior  tOHti- 
lied  that  while  he  was  employed  in  the  i^'ahlberg 
laboratory  at  New  York,  he  was  paid  six  dollars  a 
w(M'k,  <Mii(l  li;i(l  to  Icjive  that  work  because  Fahlberg 
oouhl  not  afford  to  pay  him  more. 

]5erUiier's  caveat  was  tiled  and  dated  April  14, 
1877.  0])viously  non-superstitious,  ho  had  sworn  to 
it  the  day  previous,  April  thirteenth.  It  was  com- 
posed niid  wiitten  (entirely  by  himself,  without  out- 
side aid  of  any  clmracter  whatsoever.  Ho  had 
famiruirized  himself  with  the  terminoloKy  of  the 
Pat(;jit  Oflieo  on  such  oeeasions,  l)ut  seoriied  the 
Hervie(!S  of  a  pat<(nt  attoriKiy.  The  preamble  of  the 
Berliner  caveat  read: 

Tii(!  petition  of  lOniih;  B(!rliner,  of  llic  (!ily  of 
AVashingtoti,  in  the  District  of  ( /oliiiiibi.'i,  re- 
spectfully r(!presents: 

Tlud,  he  h;is  made  ecirtain  Improvements  in 
Meetrical  Telegrjii)hy,  or  Telephony,  and  that 
he  is  now  engaged  in  makinj^  experiiruMits  for 
the  purpose  of  perfecting  the  same,  prepara- 
tory to  applying  for  Lettcirs  I'atent  therefor. 
He  ther(!fore  prays  that  Ihe  subjoined  dcfscrix)- 
tion  of  his  invention  m;iy  be  filed  as  a  caveat*  in 
the  coiihdential  archives  of  the  Patent  Ollice. 
EMlLli]  BEULINEB, 
818  Seventh  Street,  N.  W. 


'Bod  Ai)pi'ri(lix  for  full  Uixl.  of  Caveat. 


FILES  HIS  CAVEAT  91 


It  "Was  followed  by  the  statutory  ''Specifica- 
tion," of  which  the  following  opening  paragraph 
tells  the  story  of  the  microphone  in  a  nutshell: 

''Part  I.  The  following  is  a  description  of  my 
newly-invented  apparatus  for  transmitting  sound  of 
any  kind  by  means  of  a  wire  or  any  other  conductor 
of  electricity^,  to  any  distance. 

"It  is  a  fact  and  a  scientific  principle  that  objects 
near  each  other  which  are  charged  with  electricity 
of  the  same  polarity  repel  each  other.  It  is  also  a 
fact  that  if  at  a  point  of  contact  between  two  ends  of 
a  galvanic  current,  the  pressure  between  both  sides 
of  the  contact  becomes  weakened,  the  current  pass- 
ing becomes  intense,  as,  for  instance,  if  an  operator 
on  a  Morse  instrument  does  not  press  down  the  key 
with  a  certain  firmness,  the  sounder  at  the  receiving 
instrument  does  work  much  weaker  than  if  the  full 
pressure  of  the  hand  would  have  been  used.  Based 
on  these  two  facts,  I  liave  constructed  a  simple  ap- 
paratus for  transmitting  sound  along  a  line  of  a 
galvanic  current  in  the  following  manner,  etc." 

James  J.  Storrow,  chief  counsel  for  the  Bell 
Telephone  Company  and  in  his  day  without  a  supe- 
rior as  a  patent  lawyer,  and  with  few  peers,  thus 
eulogized  Berliner's  caveat,  which,  from  the  hour  of 
its  submission,  ranked  as  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able documents  ever  filed  with  the  United  States 
Patent  Office: 

"This  now  classical  document,  unrivaled  for  its 
concise  accuracj^  and  completeness,  worthy  to  rank 
with  Bell's  patent  (drawn  also  by  the  inventor  him- 
self) was  the  unaided  production  of  this  young  man 
of  twenty-five.  It  is  impossible  not  to  feel  that  Ber- 
liner had  made  the  invention  and  matured  the  sub- 


92 EMILE  BERLINER 

ject,  and  that  he  realized  its  importance.  It  was  no 
vague  and  half-formed  idea,  of  the  sort  that  men 
abandon.  No  one  ever  throws  away  so  perfect  an 
offspring  of  his  brain.  There  is  one  passage  in  it, 
which  of  itself  is  enough  to  prove  that  it  was  the  re- 
sult, not  of  thought  alone,  but  of  thought  carried  out 
by  experiment." 

Mr.  Joseph  Lyons,  assistant  examiner  of  elec- 
tricity in  the  electrical  di\dsion  of  the  Patent  Office 
from  1880  to  1885,  testifying  during  the  telephone 
litigation,  said: 

**When  I  came  into  the  electrical  division  (De- 
cember, 1880),  I  asked  for  information  on  the 
particular  point  of  whether  anybody  had  anticipated 
Emile  Berliner  in  the  invention  of  the  microphone, 
and  I  found  that  all  assistant  examiners  in  the  room 
with  one  voice  declared  Mr.  Berliner  as  the  first  in- 
ventor of  the  microphone.  Under  such  circum- 
stances, I  was  not  in  a  condition  to  question  the  fact, 
and,  moreover,  I  found  among  the  records  of  the 
office  Mr.  Berliner's  caveat  of  April,  1877,  which  de- 
scribed a  microphone  in  such  clear  and  unmistakable 
terms  that  there  could  be  no  question  about  it. ' ' 

The  new  departure  in  Emile  Berliner's  experi- 
ments set  the  pace  and  charted  the  direction  for  bis 
future  work  in  telephony.  Now  realizing  that  he 
had  something  different  from  Bell's  telephone,  he 
labored  unceasingly  to  improve  the  loudness  of  the 
loose  contact  as  a  receiver.  It  was  not  until  many 
months  later  that  he  came  into  possession  of  a 
modern  Bell  instrument  and  was  able  to  notice  that 
the  loose  contact  was  so  wonderfully  sensitive  a 
transmitter. 


FILES  HIS  CAVEAT 93 

For  a  time  the  Bell  magneto  telephone  remained 
in  obscurity.  The  country  talked  of  it  more  or  less 
vaguely  and  the  newspapers  wrote  about  it,  but 
people  never  listened  over  a  telephone,  or  ever  saw 
one.  For  the  most  part  Bell's  invention  was  coming 
to  be  looked  upon  as  a  plaything.  Now  and  then  men 
would  sheepishly  confess  their  unwillingness  to 
''make  fools  of  themselves"  by  leaning  against  a 
wall  and  talking  into  a  wooden  box  ^Yiih.  no  apparent 
result  except  a  metallic  echo  of  their  own  voice! 

Little  progress  in  the  new  art  seemed  to  be  in 
sight.  All  of  a  sudden  came  the  sensational  an- 
nouncement that  Bell's  telephones  were  now  being 
used  over  longer  distances  and  that  some  people  in 
Massachusetts  were  actually  using  the  telephone  for 
inter-communication  between  their  houses ! 

But  Emile  Berliner  was  still  in  Wasliington  wait- 
ing for  his  opportunity. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  COXTIXUOUS  CURRENT  TRANSFORMER 

NEARLY  everybody  who  is  interested  in  radio 
knows  that  the  two  vital  instruments  neces- 
sary for  broadcasting  are  the  microphone  and  the 
so-called  transformers.  They  are  parts  of  the  vast 
inheritance  which  radio  has  received  from  tele- 
phony. Both  of  these  were  conceived  and  used  by 
Emile  Berliner  for  sending  the  voice  by  electricity 
in  the  spring  of  1877.  He  discovered  that  the  carry- 
ing power  of  the  microphone  could  be  much  en- 
hanced by  combining  an  induction  coil  in  circuit 
T\ith  it. 

In  the  practical  arts  it  is  always  the  aim  of  the 
scientific  man  to  work  with  simple  means  and  with 
the  least  expense.  Thus,  if  it  is  possible  to  operate 
a  telephone  transmitter  with  one  or  two  cells  of 
battery,  it  is  superfluous  to  apply  a  powerful  dy- 
namo current  or  a  battery  of  one  hundred  cells. 
Berliner  was  far-sighted  enough  to  take  these  re- 
quirements into  consideration.  Within  a  month  of 
the  time  he  had  worked  out  the  microphone,  he 
evolved  the  idea  of  adding  the  highly  important 
transformer. 

94 


THE  TRANSFORMER  95 

In  those  early  years,  the  transformer  was  known 
as  an  induction  coil  or  incluctorium.  It  transforms 
currents  of  low  voltage  or  low  electric  pressure  into 
high  voltage  or  high  electric  pressure.  In  the  ver- 
nacular, as  used  even  by  telephone  people,  the  trans- 
former '' boosts"  the  current.  Before  Berliner's 
application  of  the  transformer  to  telephony,  trans- 
former induction  coils  were  employed  only  for 
making  sparks,  giving  shocks,  shomng  the  luminous 
effects  of  the  electric  current  in  vacuum  tubes,  and 
setting  off  mines  containing  explosive  mixtures. 
For  all  these  purposes,  a  battery  current  was  passed 
through  the  inner  coil,  or  primary,  of  heavj^  "wire, 
and  when  this  battery  current  was  suddenly  inter- 
rupted a  spark  jumped  from  one  end  of  the  sec- 
ondary or  outer  coil,  which  was  wound  around  the 
inner  primary  coil,  to  the  other  end  or  terminal  of 
the  secondary. 

In  April  and  May,  1877,  Berliner,  who  had  no 
trained  assistant  to  help  him,  had  to  run  incessantly 
from  one  end  of  the  line  to  the  other  when  his  crude 
contact  telephones  did  not  work  well.  It  was  cor- 
respondingly diflScult  for  him  to  readjust  the  deli- 
cate contacts  in  order  to  make  them  work  satisfac- 
torily. Being  full}''  familiar  with  the  induction 
coil,  he  conceived  the  idea  of  putting  one  of  his  in- 
struments mth  a  small  battery  into  the  primary  coil 
of  an  inductorium  at  one  station  and  the  second  in- 
strument, which  was  at  the  other  end  of  the  line, 
with  a  small  battery,  into  the  primary  of  another 


96 EMILE  BERLINER 

inductorium.  The  secondary  coils  of  both  induc- 
toria  he  connected  to  the  line. 

This  arrangement  made  each  of  the  contact  in- 
struments independent  of  the  other  and  greatly 
facilitated  keeping  them  well  adjusted.  Incidentally 
it  foreshadowed  what  afterward  became  common 
practise  in  practical  telephony. 

It  is  also  an  historic  fact  that  this  was  the  first 
time  that  any  induction  coil  or  transformer  was 
ever  used  with  undulatory,  continuous  currents. 
This  usage  became  the  prototype  of  all  subsequent 
transformers  used  by  the  million  in  power  stations, 
electric  light  plants,  and,  to-day,  in  radio.  The 
microphone  and  continuous  current  transformer, 
both  invented  by  Emile  Berliner  forty-nine  years 
ago,  are  indispensable  to  the  science  of  broadcast- 
ing, and  probably  always  will  be.  It  goes  without 
saying  that  transformers  used  in  telephony  operate 
by  means  of  Berliner's  continuous  current  system. 

Two  weeks  after  Berliner  filed  his  caveat  in  the 
United  States  Patent  Office  in  April,  1877,  describ- 
ing the  microphone,  Thomas  A.  Edison  filed  a 
patent  application  describing  a  transmitter  in  which 
a  metal  diaphragm  vibrated  against  a  large  flat  disk 
covered  with  graphite,  a  form  of  carbon.  The  action 
consisted  in  bringing  a  larger  or  smaller  area  of 
the  graphited  disk  in  touch  with  the  diaphragm  at 
each  vibration.  In  the  following  year  Mr.  Edison 
developed  his  compressed  lampblack  button,  which 
acted  by  increase  and  decrease  of  internal  pressure 


THE  TBANSFORMER 97 

on  the  lampblack.  But  it  was  Berliner  who  during 
the  summer  of  1877  first  used  a  hard  carbon  micro- 
phone precisely  as  such  contacts  have  alwaj^s  been 
used  by  the  Bell  Telephone  Company  and  later  in 
the  radio  microphone.  Multiple  contacts  introduced 
later  were  mentioned  by  Berliner  in  his  caveat  of 
April  14,  1877. 

The  modern  telephone  transmitter,  or  micro- 
phone, of  which  the  radio  microphone  is  only  a 
larger  fonn,  contains  a  box  filled  with  granules  of 
hard  carbon,  each  in  loose  contact  w^ith  one  another. 
It  is  noteworthy  that,  foreseeing  this  possibility, 
Berliner's  caveat  said:  ''There  may  be  more  than 
one  point  of  contact  becoming  effected  by  the  same 
vibrations. ' ' 

Berliner,  now  having  achieved  continuously 
promising  results,  concluded  to  apply  for  a  regular 
patent.  For  the  purpose  he  sought  the  services  of  a 
patent  attorney  in  order  to  have  his  application  pro- 
fessionally drawn  and  filed.  Acting  as  his  own 
patent  solicitor,  Berliner  had  invested  only  ten  dol- 
lars for  a  caveat.  He  now  engaged  an  attorney,  one 
James  L.  Norris,  whose  fees,  Berliner  thought, 
would  be  within  reach  of  his  slender  purse,  to  over- 
see the  drafting  of  an  application  for  patent.  The 
young  inventor  was  blissfully  unconscious  that  he 
was  thrusting  upon  Norris  a  piece  of  electrical  wiz- 
ardry so  utterly  strange  that  even  the  most  erudite 
of  patent  lawyers  of  the  time  would  hardly  have 
been  equal  to  it.    Nor  did  Berliner  dream  that  one 


98 EMILE  BERLINER 

day  his  ingenuousness  would  elicit  from  the  eminent 
patent  lawyers  of  the  Bell  Telephone  Company  the 
lamentation  that  he  had  not,  as  in  the  case  of  his 
caveat,  drafted  his  own  application  for  patent. 

During  the  luncheon  hour  of  a  late  May  day  in 
1877,  young  Berliner  hurried  into  Norris'  law  office, 
which  occupied  a  small  up-stairs  room  on  Seventh 
Street  opposite  the  Patent  Office.  By  the  window 
stood  a  man  contemplatively  immersed  in  the  fav- 
orite male  pastime  of  the  era — tobacco-chewing.  He 
was  unshaven  and  generally  unkempt,  and  in  his  eye 
there  was  a  groggy  squint.  Berliner  stated  his  er- 
rand. 

''Coombs,"  said  lawyer  ISTorris  to  the  unprepos- 
sessing person  at  the  window,  who  turned  out  to  be 
a  ''scrivener"  and,  as  Berliner  observed,  a  marks- 
man of  no  mean  talent  on  the  tobacco-spitting  range, 
"take  down  this  young  man's  ideas  and  write  them 
into  a  patent  specification." 

Charles  L.  Coombs,  the  scrivener,  as  the  patent 
litigation  later  was  to  bring  out,  received  from  Nor- 
ris two  dollars  apiece  for  drawing  up  patent  speci- 
fications. After  two  half-hour  lunch  periods  spent 
with  Berliner,  Coombs  evolved  the  microphone 
specification.  It  was,  of  course,  before  the  time  of 
typewriters.  Next  day  Berliner  received  a  flimsy 
letter-press  tissue-paper  copy  of  Coombs'  profes- 
sional masterpiece  in  the  form  of  a  specification, 
written  by  hand  in  ink.  In  spots  the  copy  was 
almost  illegible. 


MiOROPHOXE   OF   March   4,   1877.     Used   in  Lawsuits   ix    1879 

Still  Transmitting  Today  the  Ticking  of  a  Watch  and  Every 

Other  Sound 

Microphone  of  Berliner's  Caveat,  April  14,  1877,  With  Mouth- 
piece Added 


TRA.A/JS-A1/  TT£^R 


7~/Z/KA/S7^0/^/y/^^ 


BELL  -  BERLINER   SYSTEM 

/A"    OS£    S lives    1879 


/R£C^/VSR 


BE/fLfNER'S    B/^TTERY   SYSTEM 
yii-ifiL     ( n/CRORHOA/E  }    IS77. 


THE  TRANSFORMER 99 

Berliner  had  difficulty  in  deciphering  Coombs' 
draft,  but  eventually  discovered  that  it  contained  a 
number  of  poorly  expressed  statements.  Meantime 
the  application  had  been  duly  filed  in  the  Patent 
Office  under  date  of  June  4,  1877,  and  the  only  rem- 
edy was  to  introduce  amendments  correcting 
Coombs'  text.  Berliner  lost  no  time  in  filing  these 
corrections,  in  full  accordance  with  the  legal  proce- 
dure provided  for  such  cases.  In  later  years  the 
forces  opposing  the  Berliner  patent  made  these 
amendments,  necessitated  by  Coombs'  slovenly 
work,  one  of  the  major  pretexts  for  assailing  the 
validity  of  Berliner's  rights.  The  fact  was  that  by 
the  time  the  Patent  Office  reached  Berliner's  appli- 
cation, it  had  been  corrected  in  every  essential  de- 
tail. 

Berliner's  invention  struck  the  skilled  examiners 
in  the  Patent  Office  as  so  wholly  novel  that  in  a  let- 
ter addressed  to  Norris,  dated  September  19,  1877, 
they  expressed  doubts  that  so  simple  an  instrument 
as  a  plate  and  a  screw  in  contact  with  it  could  act  as 
a  telephone  receiving  apparatus.  Berliner  there- 
upon invited  the  examiners  to  his  lodgings  and  con- 
vinced them  of  the  soundness  of  his  invention. 

Among  the  visitors  who  from  time  to  time  came 
to  Berliner's  room  to  observe  his  experiments  and 
marvel  at  his  achievements  was  A.  S.  Solomons,  a 
prominent  bookdealer.  Mr.  Solomons  was  a  citizen 
of  Washington  of  so  eminent  standing  that  he  was 
selected  as  chairman  of  the  joint  committee  of  citi- 


100 EMILE  BERLINER 

zens  and  appointees  of  Congress  to  super\dse 
memorial  services  in  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives in  memory  of  Professor  Morse,  inventor  of  the 
telegraph.  Mr.  Solomons  was  apparently  very  much 
impressed  with  what  Berliner  showed  him,  and, 
before  leaving,  asked  if  the  inventor  would  not  like 
to  be  introduced  to  Professor  Joseph  Henry,  who 
was  an  electrician  of  great  distinction  and  had  been 
at  the  head  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution  for  a 
generation.  Professor  Henry  was  the  sympathizing 
confidant  of  inventors  in  scientific  branches  and  a 
discriminating  extinguisher  of  pretenders. 

Berliner  naturally  expressed  the  greatest  eager- 
ness to  meet  Professor  Henry,  and  about  the  middle 
of  July,  1877,  accompanied  Mr.  Solomons  to  the 
Smithsonian  Institution  for  that  purpose.  The  inven- 
tor of  the  microphone  explained  to  Professor  Henry 
what  he  had,  and  the  latter  revealed  the  liveliest 
interest  in  Berliner's  story.  He  said  that  at  any 
time  Berliner  had  the  instruments  ready  to  show,  he 
would  be  pleased  to  have  them  brought  to  the  Smith- 
sonian and  inspect  their  workings.  Berliner  subse- 
quently took  them  there  and  exhibited  them. 
Professor  Henry  was  fascinated  and  addressed 
encouraging  words  to  Berliner. 

On  the  second  of  October,  1877,  there  appeared 
in  the  National  Republican,  of  Washington,  D.  C, 
the  following  short  account  of  the  episode : 

''Yesterday  afternoon  there  was  a  very  interest- 
ing exliibition  at  the  Smithsonian  Institution  before 


THE  TRANSFORMER 101 

Professor  Henry  of  a  number  of  discoveries  and  in- 
ventions of  Mr.  E.  Berliner,  of  this  city.  The  inven- 
tions consisted  of  improved  apparatus  and  modes  of 
electric  communication.  The  first  instrument 
exhibited  was  the  *  contact  telephone'  for  transmit- 
ting sound  vibrations  from  plate  to  plate,  so  as  to 
enable  persons  to  communicate.  The  second  was  the 
'electric  spark  telephone,'  which  produced  the  same 
result  by  another  process,  that  of  the  transmission 
of  a  spark.  The  third  instrument  was  a  'telephonic 
transfer,'  designed  for  transmitting  sound  by 
changes  in  the  intensity  of  the  circuit." 

Berliner  filed  an  application  for  patent  of  his  in- 
vention of  the  continuous  current  transformer  on 
October  16,  1877.  A  patent  was  issued  to  him  on 
Januarj'-  15,  1878.  Within  a  comparatively  few 
months  now,  Berliner's  unaided  struggles  were 
about  to  come  to  an  end.  He  had  invented  the  speak- 
ing microphone  and  thus  completed  the  telephone. 
His  rights  and  theories  were  indisputable,  though 
soon  to  be  long  and  bitterly  contested.  And  so  we 
pass  to  the  next  phase  of  Emile  Berliner's  develop- 
ment— the  realization  of  his  aspiration  to  play  an 
integral  part  in  the  practical  exploitation  of  the 
telephone. 


CHAPTER  XII 

BERLINER  JOINS  THE  BELL  COMPANY 

THE  year  1878  was  to  be  the  year  of  practical 
destiny  for  Emile  Berliner  in  the  field  of  tele- 
phony— the  stage  of  transition  from  hopes,  dreams 
and  pioneer  achievements  to  the  realm  of  actual 
association  with  the  industry.  Having  invented  the 
microphone,  which  completed  Bell's  telephone,  and 
patented  the  continuous  current  transformer,  which 
still  further  improved  it,  Berliner  set  promptly 
about  the  business  of  reaping  the  material  rewards 
of  his  trials  and  triumphs. 

By  this  time  commercial  telephony  had  staggered 
into  its  swaddling  clothes.  Bell,  the  wizard,  ^\dth  his 
assistant,  AVatson,  an  enthusiastic  mechanic,  and  his 
far-sighted  backers,  Hubbard,  dreamer  and  builder 
of  air  castles,  and  Thomas  Sanders,  the  moneyed 
man  of  the  combination,  organized  in  Boston  the 
nucleus  of  the  Bell  System,  and  began  to  improve, 
manufacture  and  install  a  few  magneto  telephones, 
to  be  used  between  individual  homes  and  offices.  The 
idea  of  inter-connecting  the  isolated  groups  soon 
followed,  and  the  first  switchboard  was  a  natural, 
though  at  that  time  a  very  crude,  development. 

Within  a  week  of  the  granting  of  his  transformer 

102 


JOINS  BELL  COMPANY 103 

patent,  Berliner  placed  himself  in  communication 
with  the  lawyers  of  the  Telephone  Company  of  New 
York  (a  subsidiary  of  the  Bell  Company), Messrs. 
Dickerson  and  Beaman,  with  offices  in  the  old  New- 
Yorker  Staats-Zeitung  Building  in  City  Hall 
Square.  In  these  modern  days  of  Brobdingnagian 
finance,  when  capitalists  and  corporations  juggle 
with  millions  as  an  every-hour  pastime,  it  is  difficult 
to  read  without  a  smile  the  following  result  of  Ber- 
liner's baptismal  dip  into  the  commercial  waters  of 
telephony : 

**New  York,  Jan.  22,  1878. 
*'Emile  Berliner,  Esq., 
818    7th  St.,  N.  W.,  Washington,  D.  C, 
*'My  dear  Sir: 

"Yours  of  Jan.  20  and  21  received.  I  do  not  sup- 
pose that  you  seriously  believe  that  your  invention 
is  worth  $12,000  at  the  present  time.  The  entire 
stock  of  the  Telephone  Company  of  New  York  is 
only  $20,000.  So  you  see  that  your  interest  would 
make  a  large  share  of  that  company.  However  that 
may  be,  we  think  it  worth  while  to  communicate  with 
you  further  in  the  matter. 

*'I  am  therefore  authorized  to  say  in  behalf  of 
the  Telephone  Company  of  New  York  that  they  will 
be  glad  to  have  you  call  upon  them  here,  in  relation 
to  the  sale  of  your  matters  in  the  Patent  Office  and 
to  such  other  arrangements  as  may  seem  advisable ; 
and  they  offer  to  pay  your  expenses  during  such 
visit  to  them  here. 

''Please  answer  whether  or  not  it  will  be  con- 
venient for  you  to  come  and  meet  with  the  managers 
of  the  company  in  this  matter.  If  so,  as  I  before 
said,  they  will  be  responsible  for  your  expenses. 

"Yours  truly, 

"E.  N.  Dickerson." 


104 EMILE  BERLINER 

Berliner,  though  as  yet  a  callow  novice  in  the 
tortuous  field  of  business,  returned  an  adroit  reply, 
which  lost  nothing  in  directness  because  of  its  quaint 
English : 

'^Washington,  D.  C, 
"January  24,  1878. 
*'E.  N.  Dickerson  Jr.,  Esq., 
''New  York  City. 
"Dear  Sir: 

"Your  favor  of  the  22nd  inst.  came  to  hand.  I 
fail  to  see  the  correctness  of  your  argument  to  make 
the  value  of  an  invention  dependent  upon  the  capital 
of  a  Stock  Company. 

"Still,  aside  from  a  present  result  of  our  ne- 
gotiations, I  believe  that  a  meeting  with  the  mana- 
gers of  the  Telephone  Company  would  only  be 
promotive  to  general  telephonic  interests.  Where- 
fore I  beg  to  accept  their  very  polite  otfer  made 
through  you  and  will  call  at  your  office  at  about  10 
A..  M.  this  coming  Saturday. 

"Yours  very  truly, 

"E.  Berliner. '» 

Mr.  Dickerson  acknowledged  Berliner's  letter 
next  day  in  a  telegram  over  the  wires  of  the 
"Atlantic  and  Pacific  Telegraph  Company,"  saying: 
"Glad  to  see  you  Saturday.  Bring  your  instru- 
ments." Berliner  went  to  New  York,  but  negotia- 
tions with  the  Telephone  Company  came  to  naught. 
Hilborne  L.  Roosevelt  and  Charles  A.  Cheever,  its 
managers,  were  interested  in  his  apparatus,  but  not 
to  the  extent  of  desiring  to  acquire  it.  Yet  the  visit 
to  the  Telephone  Company  was  by  no  means  fruit- 
less.   It  led  directly  to  relations  between  Gardiner 


JOINS  BELL  COMPANY 105 

G.  Hubbard,  Alexander  Graham  Bell's  father-in-law 
and  first  president  of  the  Bell  Telephone  Company 
at  Boston — relations  which  were  speedily  to  even- 
tuate in  the  realization  of  Berliner's  burning  desire 
to  join  the  interests  now  bent  upon  exploiting  tele- 
phony on  the  grand  scale. 

The  founders  of  the  Bell  System  had  very  little 
money,  but  they  had  great  faith.  They  were  em- 
barked upon  a  long  and  arduous  struggle  to  estab- 
lish a  telephone  service,  and  make  it  self-supporting, 
while  developing  and  improving  the  telephone  itself, 
interesting  the  public  in  its  use  and  inducing 
investors  to  provide  means  for  its  growth. 

Every  sort  of  an  obstacle  seemed  to  block  their 
progress.  Bell's  patents  were  attacked,  formidable 
competition  appeared  and  technical  difficulties  which 
seemed  insurmountable  had  to  be  met.  Emile  Ber- 
liner, though  blissfully  ignorant  of  it  at  this  stage 
of  his  endeavors,  was  himself  cast  for  the  title  role 
in  a  drama  of  litigation  destined  to  be  almost  end- 
less. 

Nevertheless,  there  came  to  the  Bell  group  a 
period  of  growth  and  expansion.  By  lectures  and 
demonstrations  the  telephone  was  brought  to  public 
attention  at  home  and  abroad.  A  demand  for  in- 
struments arose  in  many  cities  almost  simulta- 
neously, a  demand  greater  than  it  was  possible  to 
supply  immediately.  Li  spite  of  its  constant  strug- 
gle for  existence,  the  Bell  group  adopted  a  policy 
of  progress  and  improvement,  and  it  was  in  conse- 


106    EMILE  BERLINER 

quence  of  that  program  that  Berliner's  ambition  in 
the  Bells'  direction  was  ultimately  to  be  gratified. 
Berliner's  first  contact  with  the  Bell  interests 
was  the  result  of  a  letter  of  introduction  from  the 
management  of  the  Telephone  Company  of  New 
York: 

The  Telephone  Company  of  New  York 
32  Tribune  Building 

''New  York,  Jan.  26,  1878. 
''Hon.  G.  G.  Hubbard, 
"Dear  Sir: 

"This  will  introduce  to  you  Mr.  E.  Berliner  who 
has  a  very  interesting  Telephone  that  I  would  like 
you  to  examine,  as  some  of  the  principles  are  very 
curious  and  may  be  of  much  importance.  He  lives  in 
Washington  and  will  be  pleased  to  show  his  ap- 
paratus. 

"Very  truly  yours, 

"Hilborne  L.  Roosevelt." 

Two  days  later  the  Telephone  Company  wrote 
Berliner  that  Mr.  Hubbard  was  now  in  New  York 
and  the  Berliner  apparatus  would  be  explained  to 
him  there,  so  that  he  could  examine  it  the  more  dili- 
gently when  he  went  to  Washington  the  following 
week.  "You  might  send  me  two  machines  to  try," 
Mr.  Roosevelt  added,  "when  you  have  them  in  good 
shape.  Your  experiments  have  interested  me  very 
much.  I  will  be  pleased  to  hear  from  you  from  time 
to  time,  and  will  notify  you  before  I  shall  come  to 
Washington.  I  will  also  report  your  offer  in  the 
matter  of  experiments." 


JOINS  BELL  COMPANY 107 

This  correspondence  marks  the  real  inauguration 
of  Berliner's  association  with  the  purely  commercial 
side  of  telephony.  Thenceforward  there  was  an  un- 
interrupted exchange  of  letters  between  the  inventor 
and  the  men  who  were  on  the  threshold  of  becoming 
the  telephone  magnates  of  America.  The  latter 
undertook  forthwith  to  examine  Berliner's  appara- 
tus and  his  patents,  with  a  view  to  their  acquisition 
if  they  turned  out  to  be  as  promising  as  they  seemed. 
As  for  Berliner,  he  devoted  himself  assiduously  dur- 
ing the  spring  of  1878  to  perfecting,  through  cease- 
less experiment,  the  principles  and  mechanism  he 
had  already  worked  out. 

Meantime,  ominous  clouds  were  gathering  in  the 
United  States  Patent  Office.  These  clouds,  which  do 
not  always  develop  a  silver  lining,  are  technically 
known  as  "interferences."  When  several  inventors 
come  into  the  Patent  Office  mth  applications  for 
patents  that  apply  to  the  same  or  similar  inventions, 
the  applications  are  "stopped"  by  the  examiners 
and  referred  to  a  bureau  which  formally  declares 
what  patent  law  terms  an  "interference."  There- 
upon, every  rival  inventor  is  required  to  file  a  state- 
ment detailing  just  when  he  conceived  his  own 
invention  and  when  it  was  put  into  practise.  The 
next  step  is  a  complicated  and  protracted  legal  in- 
quiry, which  may  last  for  months,  or  even  years. 
Eventually  the  inventor  deemed  worthy  of  priority 
rights  obtains  his  patent. 

During  1877  and  early  in  1878  other  inventors 


108 EMILE  BERLINER 

than  Berliner  filed  at  the  Patent  Office  their  applica- 
tions for  transmitter  patents.  Thus  it  came  about 
that  on  March  16,  1878,  an  extensive  ''interference" 
was  declared  by  the  Commissioner  of  Patents. 

The  Bell  Telephone  Company  was  keeping  an 
eagle  eye  upon  all  developments  in  the  telephone 
field,  particularly  in  the  domain  of  patents.  At  the 
end  of  the  spring  of  1878  the  Bell  interests  were  rep- 
resented at  Washington  by  Gardiner  G.  Hubbard,  as 
trustee.  The  Bell  telephone  at  this  stage  was  much 
talked  about,  but  little  believed  in.  Practically  no 
outsider  was  willing  to  venture  the  investment  of 
capital  in  it.  The  idea  of  conversation  over  tele- 
graph wires  continued  to  be  regarded  as  a  chimera. 
Hubbard's  job  in  Washington  was  mainly  to  **sell" 
the  practicability  of  the  telephone  to  anybody  who 
would  stand  still  long  enough  to  listen  to  his  per- 
suasive ''drummer's"  story  of  its  miraculous  pos- 
sibilities. A  stately,  gray-bearded,  confidence- 
inspiring  figure,  Hubbard  seldom  failed  to  carry 
conviction.  He  trundled  his  pair  of  Bell  telephones 
around  Washington  tirelessly,  seeking  opportuni- 
ties to  show  them  to  the  most  prominent  men  he 
could  approach.  One  of  these  was  Theodore  N. 
Vail,  the  virile  young  superintendent  of  the  United 
States  Railway  Mail  Service. 

Presently  the  Bell  group  had  its  attention  called 
to  the  possible  development  of  a  transmitter  oper- 
ated by  a  battery.  Forthwith  they  wrote  their 
Washington  attorney,  an  exceptionally  shrewd  law- 


JOINS  BELL  COMPANY 109 

1^        II       I  I    Til      I    -ll-r  I 

yer  named  Anthony  Pollok,  to  investigate  the  ''in- 
terference" declared  by  the  Patent  Office  and  find 
out  whether  there  were  any  transmitter  patents  on 
file  which  the  Bell  interests  ought  to  acquire  or  con- 
trol. Pollok  made  an  exhaustive  survey  of  the  sit- 
uation and  reported  to  the  Bell  Telephone  Company 
that  the  only  application  which,  in  his  judgment,  was 
worthy  of  their  interest  was  the  one  filed  by  Emile 
Berliner  on  June  4,  1877,  covering  the  loose  contact 
transmitter. 

Four  names  at  this  time  stood  out  in  the  ''inter- 
ference" cases  before  the  Patent  Office.  They  were 
Professor  Alexander  Graham  Bell,  scientifically 
educated  and  with  interested  and  influential  men 
at  his  back;  Professor  Elisha  Gray,  of  Chicago,  a 
learned  scientist  of  middle  age ;  Professor  Amos  E. 
Dolbear,  of  Tufts  College;  and  Thomas  A.  Edison, 
already  a  well-known  and  recognized  inventor  in  the 
field  of  telegraphy.  Such  was  the  galaxy  of  tech- 
nical talent  and  financial  strength  against  which 
Emile  Berliner — be  it  remembered,  still  a  "counter- 
jumper  "  in  an  inconspicuous  store  in  Washington — 
confronted  in  the  struggle  for  recognition  of  his 
rights  in  the  United  States  Patent  Office. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  his  uninterrupted  experi- 
ments at  his  rooming-house  "laboratory"  on  Sixth 
Street,  Washington,  that  Berliner  about  this  time 
struck  up  an  acquaintance  with  the  young  woman 
who  was  destined  to  become,  and  still  is,  his  life 
partner.    Now  and  then,  Berliner  would  stretch  a 


110 EMILE  BERLIXER 

line  across  the  street  from  his  lodgings  to  the  home 
of  friendly  neighbors  named  Adler.  Eventually  he 
met  the  two  attractive  daughters  of  the  house,  one 
of  whom  he  proceeded  to  woo  and  win.  It  was  pio- 
neering in  telephony  that  resulted  in  Alexander 
Graham  Bell  and  the  daughter  of  Gardiner  G.  Hub- 
bard becoming  man  and  vriie.  Xow,  the  same  sort 
of  tinkering  with  talk  transmission  was  to  lead  to 
the  altar  Emile  Berliner  and  Cora  Adler. 

One  day  a  messenger  boy  electrified  the  clerical 
staff  at  the  Behrend  store  on  Seventh  Street  by  ask- 
ing for  Emile  Berliner  and  announcing  that  the  lat- 
ter's  presence  was  desired  at  the  office  of  Anthony 
PoUok.  PoUok's  name  was  widely  known  in  "Wash- 
ington. A  summons  to  his  legal  throne  was  a  badge 
of  distinction.  Berliner's  fellow-clerks  were  cor- 
respondingly impressed.  Pollok,  like  Berliner,  was 
European-bom.  The  inventor  found  the  lawyer  to 
be  a  man  of  swarthy  complexion,  keen-eyed  and 
adorned  with  a  goatee  affected  by  Frenchmen  of  the 
era.    Pollok  talked  with  directness  and  decisioru 

"The  Bell  Telephone  Company,"  he  said,  going 
straight  to  the  point  of  the  inter\"iew,  "is  interested 
in  your  invention.  Thomas  A.  Watson,  the  superin- 
tendent of  the  company,  w^ould  like  to  come  here 
and  see  your  apparatus." 

Berliner  was  naturally  elated  over  this  prima 
facie  evidence  that  he  was  at  last  within  sight  of 
his  cherished  goal — a  close  scientific  identification 
with  the  interests  which  were  converting  the  tele- 


JOINS  BELL  COMPANY lU 

phone  from  a  crudity,  the  ultimate  possibilities  of 
which  were  not  yet  faintly  imagined,  into  a  public 
utility.  It  was  always  as  a  scientist  that  Berliner 
longed  for  recognition  in  the  field  in  which  he  now 
was  an  acknowledged  pioneer.  Amid  such  emotions 
and  secret  anticipations  he  awaited  the  approaching 
interview  T^ith  Watson — the  man  to  whom  Bell  had 
transmitted  the  first  complete  and  coherent  message 
ever  telephoned. 

The  superintendent  of  the  Bell  Company  came 
to  Washington.  It  was  a  tall,  energetic,  intensely 
practical-looking  New  Englauder  who  swung  open 
the  front  door  of  the  Behrend  store  one  dull  rainy 
day  and  proclaimed  that  he  had  business  there  with 
a  young  person  named  Emile  Berliner.  The  idhng 
clerks,  ''mute,  inglorious"  like  all  clerks  in  humble 
shops  since  time  immemorial,  were  visibly  awed, 
for  it  was  an  unusual  happening  on  humdrum 
Seventh  Street.  The  boss  gave  Berliner  time  off 
to  ''tinker"  with  his  "toys"  in  his  lodgings  around 
the  corner,  as  soon  as  the  inventor-clerk  disclosed 
the  eminent  identity  of  his  ^dsitor.  Berliner  led 
."Watson  aromid  to  the  little  room  on  Sixth  Street, 
showed  him  pridefully  the  magic  soap-box,  and  then 
the  pair  clattered  down  the  two  flights  of  stairs  and 
out  to  the  barn  in  the  rear  of  the  house,  to  which 
Berliner's  "telephone  line"  ran. 

No  other  man  at  that  time,  unless  it  was  Alex- 
ander Graham  Bell  himself,  was  so  familiar  with 
jthe  art  of  electrical  acoustics,  and  therefore  so  well 


112 EMILE  BERLINER 

able  to  recognize  new  merit  in  that  realm,  as  Thomas 
A.  "Watson.  With  his  own  hands  he  had  shaped  the 
original  Bell  mechanism.  He  knew  what  the  Bell 
telephone  would  do.  Also,  he  knew  what  it  would 
not  do.  While  Berliner's  apparatus  was  almost  the 
crudest  thing  imaginable,  Watson  w^as  prepared,  by 
the  process  of  elimination,  to  see  at  once  that  here 
was  a  logical  and  an  entirely  novel  way  of  sending 
voice  undulations  by  mre.  The  Bell  telephone 
"wafted"  them.  But  in  this  new  contrivance,  after 
being  most  minutely  and  perfectly  caught,  they  were 
sent,  and  the  power  that  sent  them  could  even  be 
automatically  ''stepped  up."  Realizing  that  he  was 
inspecting  a  telephone  system  that  ignored  Bell's 
mechanical  contrivance  entirely,  Watson,  in  far- 
sighted  vision,  pondered  thoughtfully  w^hat  this 
thing  might  lead  to.  After  a  brief  twenty  minutes, 
he  concluded  his  visit  wdth  the  impressive  words, 
*'We  will  want  that,  Mr.  Berliner,  You  will  hear 
from  us  in  a  few  days." 

Watson,  returning  from  Washington,  seemed 
convinced  that  the  Bells'  hope  lay  in  young  Berliner. 
His  instrument  was  unique;  he  was  the  originator 
of  the  continuous  current  transformer,  the  only  one 
directly  apxjlicable  to  the  telephone;  he  already 
possessed  the  xmtent  for  this  (which  idea  was  also 
being  usurped  and  utilized  by  the  Bells'  menacing 
and  aggressive  rivals,  the  Western  Union) ;  and  in 
Berliner's  eye  Watson  detected  the  glint  of  genius. 
During  the  next  few  weeks  a  flow  of  correspondence 


JOINS  BELL  COMPANY 113 

came  to  Berliner  from  Watson,  Vail  and  Hubbard, 
pa\dng  the  way  for  his  eventual  connection  mth  the 
Bell  interests. 

In  June,  1878,  Berliner  submitted  to  the  Bell 
Telephone  Company  through  Gardiner  G.  Hubbard 
at  Washington  an  offer  wliich  provoked  from  the 
latter  the  following  reply: 

''Dear  Sir: 

*'I  received  your  note  two  days  ago.  Your  prop- 
osition seems  to  be  fair  excepting  in  regard  to  the 
time  you  allow  for  accepting  it.  I  could  not  con- 
clude to  accept  it  until  I  see  Mr.  Watson,  who  is  at 
Chicago. 

'*If  you  \viU.  extend  the  time  and  make  it  six 
weeks,  I  think  Ave  can  make  an  arrangement  \nth 
you.  Until  after  Congress  adjourns,  I  can  not  agree 
to  attend  to  any  new  business.  AVill  you  please 
bring  your  new  telephones  to  my  room?  I  should 
like  to  try  them  mth  you." 

The  Bell  interests  had  now  engaged  as  their  gen- 
eral manager  the  man  who  was  destined  to  be  of 
profound  influence,  during  the  ensuing  generation, 
upon  telephone  and  telegraph  development.  He  was 
that  masterful  ''high  voltage"  personality,  hon 
vivant,  and  born  organizer,  Theodore  N.  Vail,  the 
superintendent  of  the  United  States  Railway  Mail 
Service,  whose  interest  in  the  telephone  was  first 
aroused  by  Gardiner  G.  Hubbard.  Vail,  now  head- 
quartered in  New  York,  was  almost  Heaven-sent  for 
the  Bell  group's  purposes.  He  had  moved  with  such 
celerity  on  behalf  of  his  new  associates  that  mthin 


114 EMILE  BERLINER 

a  few  weeks  his  forceful  and  magnetic  methods  re- 
sulted in  reorganizing  their  company  with  genuine 
capital  of  four  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars — 
a  mint  of  money  for  a  new  enterprise  in  those  days. 
On  July  2,  1878,  Vail  wrote  Emile  Berliner  as 
follows : 

*'I  intended  to  see  you  when  in  Washington 
lately  in  regard  to  your  letter  to  Mr.  Hubbard  con- 
cerning your  improvements  in  telephony. 

**I  wish  you  would  continue  your  proposition, 
so  as  to  cover  the  month  of  July.  During  this  month 
we  can  come  to  some  understanding,  which  will  be 
to  our  mutual  advantage.  I  am  speaking  now  as 
general  manager  of  the  Bell  Telephone  Company. 

"By  that  time  we  will  have  settled  our  head- 
quarters in  New  York,  and  arranged  matters  now 
pending  that  will  influence  to  a  certain  extent  any 
arrangement  we  can  make  with  you  as  to  your  enter- 
ing the  service  of  the  Company,  etc.  "We  have  about 
made  arrangements  with  a  company  manufactur- 
ing telephone  instruments  here,  for  facilities  to  ex- 
periment, etc. 

''I  shall  be  in  Washington  by  the  16th  and  will 
see  you  after  my  arrival.  Please  write  me  whether 
you  will  consent  to  this  extension  of  time,  etc." 

A  week  after  receipt  of  Vail's  letter,  Berliner 
heard  from  Thomas  A.  Watson,  superintendent  of 
the  Bell  Telephone  at  Boston,  enclosing  a  money 
order  for  four  dollars  and  fifty  cents,  covering  the 
cost  of  certain  legal  papers,  and  adding: 

''Our  Company  is  being  reorganized  and  the  ex- 
ecutive offices  will  probably  be  transferred  to  New 
York.    When  that  is  done,  I  think  some  arrange- 


JOINS  BELL  COMPANY  115 

ment  will  be  made  with  you  by  which  you  can  enter 
our  service." 

On  July  17,  1878,  true  to  his  pledge.  Vail,  writ- 
ing Berliner  from  the  Post  Office  Department  in 
Washington,  said: 

''What  time  to-day  could  I  see  you  for  a  few 
moments  in  relation  to  telephone  matters?  If  you 
could  make  it  convenient  to  step  in  my  office,  I  Avould 
not  detain  you  long,  and  think  we  could  settle  on 
some  terms." 

Matters  now  were  moving  so  rapidly  in  the  nego- 
tiations between  Berliner  and  the  Bell  people — Vail, 
Hubbard  and  ^Vatson — ^that  the  coveted  contract 
providing  for  Berliner's  entering  the  Bell  com- 
pany's employment  was  imminent.  Bell  headquar- 
ters was  now  at  66  and  68  Reade  Street,  New  York. 
On  September  7, 1878,  Berliner  heard  from  Hubbard 
at  New  York  in  these  terms: 

"Mr.  Vail  returned  last  night  sick,  so  I  have  not 
seen  him.  He  sent  me  a  line  saying  you  would  be 
here  on  Monday  wdth  full  copies  of  your  specifica- 
tions. I  have  written  Mr.  Watson  to  come  on  from 
Boston,  to  meet  you  at  that  time.  So  if  you  can  not 
come,  telegraph  what  day  you  will  be  here.  It  is, 
however,  important  that  we  lose  no  time." 

It  was  about  at  this  time  that  the  Western  Union, 
with  its  net  of  wires  spreading  across  the  country 
and  its  unlimited  capital,  had  decided  to  enter  the 
telephone  field.  To  that  end  it  had  begun  to  put  out 
imitation  receivers  and  a  battery  transmitter  de- 
vised by  Thomas  A.  Edison. 


116 EMILE  BERLINER 

''Give  us  a  good  transmitter!"  became  the  cry  of 
the  Bell  Company's  eager  managers,  now  almost 
frantic  in  their  efforts  to  be  first  in  the  telephone 
field  and  thwart  the  Western  Union's  bold  bid  for 
supremacy.  The  Bells  wanted  Berliner's  ideas, 
and  they  wanted  him.  They  were  rapidly  whipping 
their  affairs  into  shape  under  Vail's  energetic  gen- 
eralship and,  once  possessed  of  a  good  transmitter, 
were  confident  of  beating  back  the  Western  Union's 
attack. 

Vail  was  in  Washington  occasionally  during  the 
ensuing  weeks  and  met  Berliner  by  appointment. 
The  two  men,  came  cordially  to  like  each  other. 
Vail's  faith  in  Berliner  and  in  what  he  could  do  for 
the  telephone  gained  fresh  impetus  when  he  learned 
that  a  caveat,  a  supposedly  secret  paper  fully  de- 
scribing the  microphone,  had  been  deposited  by 
Berliner  in  the  Patent  Office  as  early  as  April  14, 
1877.  Vail  was  impressed  too,  by  the  fact  that 
this  young  inventor  possessed  enough  business 
acumen  not  to  disclose  the  secrets  of  this  docu- 
ment, even  under  tempting  circumstances,  until  he 
had  actually  signed  a  contract  with  the  company. 
Here  was  manifestly  not  the  average  ''impractical 
inventor."  Vail  discerned,  on  the  contrary,  a 
mentality  of  unusual  symmetry. 

How  to  make  a  satisfactory  agreement  on  the 
basis  of  nothing  but  a  prospective  patent  already 
blocked  in  an  "interference"  was  the  difficulty  that 
existed  when  Berliner  talked  "business"  with  Vail, 


JOINS  BELL  COMPANY 117 

It  showed  conclusively  that  the  Bell  Company,  after 
carefully  studying  the  situation,  not  only  concluded 
that  Berliner's  conception  of  a  battery  transmitter 
was  scientifically  correct,  but  that  he  had  a  first- 
class  chance  to  prevail  in  the  Patent  Office. 
David  Edward  Hughes,  in  England,  had  only  a  short 
time  before  sustained  the  Berliner  idea  in  his  ex- 
periments wdth  loose  contacts.  All  this,  and  the 
transformer  patent  which  Berliner  already  pos- 
sessed, made  the  latter  entirely  too  valuable  a  man 
for  tlie  Bells  to  lose. 

Hence,  by  September  they  made  Berliner  the 
kind  of  offer  that  appealed  to  him.  Unknown  to 
his  friends  or  employer,  a  two-day  trip  which  he 
made  to  New  York  that  month  was  for  the  express 
purpose  of  signing  an  agreement  with  the  Bell  Com- 
pany. It  provided  for  a  moderate  salary  and  a 
royalty  on  export  transmitters.  All  that  Berliner 
was  able  to  turn  over  to  the  Company  was  the  con- 
trol of  his  caveats,  and  his  patent  applications  that 
were  still  pending  in  the  Patent  Office,  as  well  as  the 
use  of  his  induction  coil,  or  transformer,  patent. 
Several  years  afterward  the  Bell  Company  paid 
Berliner  a  lump  sum  and  largely  increased  his 
annual  retainer,  which  took  the  place  of  salary,  be- 
cause he  later  left  Boston  and  went  to  work  for  him- 
self. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

BERLINER  COMPLETES  THE  TELEPHONE 

THROUGHOUT  his  seven  American  years  of 
stress,  struggle  and  final  success,  Emile  Ber- 
liner had  never  known  a  day  of  illness  worthy  of 
the  name.  But  now  the  cumulative  effect  of  physical 
and  mental  strain  was  to  exact  inevitable  toU  from 
him. 

Behind  the  young  inventor  lay  eighteen  months 
of  tremendous  effort.  He  had  experimented  cease- 
lessly and  intensively  with  his  telephone  apparatus. 
He  had,  virtually  unaided,  taken  the  first  hurdles  at 
the  United  States  Patent  Office.  He  had  weathered 
a  maiden  experience  with  "Big  Business."  Always 
a  conscientious  purveyor  of  gents'  furnishings  and 
bookkeeper  at  the  Behrend  store,  he  had  burned  the 
candle  at  both  ends,  employing  each  and  every  mo- 
ment off  duty  in  tinkering  and  toying  vrith.  the  mech- 
anism so  soon  destined  to  revolutionize  human  inter- 
course. 

The  word  play  found  no  place  in  Emile  Ber- 
liner's lexicon.  His  absorption  in  things  scientific 
was  complete.  It  found  constant  expression  in 
letters  to  his  kith  and  kin  in  Germany.  Once  a 
brother    in    Hanover    wrote    sternly    to    admonish 

118 


COMPLETES  TELEPHONE 119 

Emile  against  pursuing  the  elusive  shadow  of  tele- 
phony at  the  expense  of  the  tangible  substance  of 
dry  goods,  which  was  affording  him  an  honest 
living! 

Almost  immediately  after  the  realization  of  his 
supreme  ambition  in  associating  himself  with  the 
Bell  interests  in  September,  1878,  Berliner  suffered 
a  breakdown.  Xerves  ordinarily  taut  now  tired  and 
relaxed.  Then  came  exhaustion,  and,  finally,  col- 
lapse. Berliner  was  just  back  from  his  conclusive 
visit  Avith  the  Bell  group  in  Xew  York  when  he 
fainted  in  his  lodgings  at  Washington.  A  weari- 
some period  of  illness  ensued. 

He  was  now  to  pay  the  price  of  his  long  vigil 
of  strangeness  and  loneliness  in  a  new  land.  He  had 
never  kno^ii  in  America  the  caressing  influence  of 
a  home  enviromnent,  nor  the  stimulus  that  is  born 
of  intimate  relationshixDs  "\\'ith  confident  friends.  In 
the  Behrend  store,  surrounded  by  sordid  indiffer- 
ence toward  the  higher  things  which  were  engaging 
his  thought,  the  inventor  was  perforce  compelled  to 
conceal  his  hopes,  to  suppress  his  dreams  and  gen- 
erally to  erase  his  real  self  in  order  that  it  might 
fit  into  the  workaday  scheme  within  which  bread- 
and-butter  requirements  pinioned  him.  It  was  those 
psychological  conditions,  as  much  as  actual  wear 
and  tear  in  a  physical  sense,  that  sentenced  Emile 
Berliner  to  an  enforced  period  of  inactivity  and 
correspondingly  irksome  sojourn  in  a  sickbed. 
Through  the  mndow  of  his  room  in  Providence  Hos- 


120 EMILE  BERLINER 

pital  he  could  glimpse  the  glittering  white  dome  of 
the  Capitol,  and  he  derived  fresh  hope  and  deter- 
mination from  that  inspiring  symbol  of  the  land  of 
opportunity. 

For  six  weeks  he  was  a  patient  at  Providence. 
News  of  Berliner's  contract  mth  the  Bell  interests 
had  spread  through  the  scientific  world  at  AVash- 
ington  and  among  Berliner's  narrow  circle  of 
friends.  Among  the  first  to  congratulate  him  was 
Mr.  Solomons,  the  book  dealer  who,  the  year  pre- 
vious, had  brought  Berliner  and  his  work  to  the  at- 
tention of  Professor  Joseph  Henry,  at  the  Smithson- 
ian Institution.  "It  affords  me  sincere  pleasure  to 
learn,"  wrote  Mr.  Solomons,  ''that  your  merits  as 
an  inventor  have  at  last  been  recognized  in  a  sub- 
stantial manner,  and  I  can  assure  you  it  will  always 
be  gratifying  to  me  to  hear  of  your  continued  suc- 
cess." 

The  daughters  of  the  Solomons  house,  who  are 
to-day  among  the  distinguished  women  of  Washing- 
ton, perpetuate  the  family  friendship  with  Emile 
Berliner,  who  looks  upon  their  father  as  one  of  his 
earliest  benefactors. 

From  his  new  associates  of  the  Bell  Telephone 
Company,  words  of  encouragement  were  not  lack- 
ing, either.  "I  am  very  sorry  to  hear  of  your  sick- 
ness," wrote  Gardiner  G.  Hubbard,  from  New  York, 
on  October  1,  1878,  "and  trust  it  will  not  be  of  long 
continuance." 

Theodore  N.  Vail,  General  Manager  of  the  Bell 


COMPLETES  TELEPHONE  121 

Telephone  Company,  was  one  of  Berliner's  periodi- 
cal \dsitors  at  Providence  Hospital.     That  visible 
evidence  of  the  Bell  Company's  interest  in  their 
new  collaborator  was  as  medicine  and  fresh  air  to 
the  prostrate  inventor.     Buoyant,  optimistic,  dy- 
namic, Vail  was  an  unfailing  tonic.     His  bedside 
calls,  invariably  marked  by  encouraging  prophecies 
of  Berliner's  future  in  the  telephone  field,  acted  like 
electric  energy  poured  into  a  run-do^Ti  battery: 
Vail's  \'isits  helped  materially  to  fortify  the  patient 
against  the  depressing  dictum  of  physicians  that 
Berliner  should  not  resume  work  for  a  whole  year. 
That  advice  had  all  the  annihilating  effect   of  a 
prison  sentence  on  the  eager  young  scientist,  now 
longing  more  impatiently  than  ever  to  travel  the 
path  of  opportunity  that  at  last  was  opened  to  him. 
Since  those  formative  days,  forty-eight  years 
ago,  Emile  Berliner  has  had  one  or  two  other  nerv- 
ous breakdo^\^ls.    Yet,  past  seventy-five,  he  contends 
that  his  nerve  structure  is  more  rugged  than  at  any 
previous  time  in  his  life.    "When  asked  how  he  over- 
came his  first  collapse  and  by  the  same  methods 
triumphed  over  later  ones,  Berliner  clenches  his 
fists,  grits  his  teeth,  snaps  into  a  setting-up  posture, 
and  says:    "Just  like  this — by  holding  on! — and  by 
a  fiiTu  confidence  that  proper  rest  always  effects 
eventual  cure. ' ' 

Berliner's  theory,  time-tried  and  experience- 
tested,  is  that  nervous  breakdowns  as  such  are 
purely  physiological.    ' '  Under  a  continuous  strain, ' ' 


122 EMILE  BERLINEE      

he  explains,  "the  sheathing  of  the  nerve  fibers 
becomes  sore  and  more  or  less  inflamed.  In  that  con- 
dition they  affect  the  brain  and  give  rise  to  morbid, 
pessimistic  and  even  suicidal  thoughts.  If  one  will 
only  be  patient  and  give  the  system  a  chance  to 
pull  itself  together  under  more  favorable  conditions, 
nerves  will  become  as  strong  again  as  they  were 
before  collapse." 

The  solicitude  of  Gardiner  G.  Hubbard  and 
Theodore  N.  Vail  for  the  speedy  recovery  of  Emile 
Berliner  was  bom  of  something  more  than  genu- 
inely sympathetic  and  sincere  interest  in  his  health. 
In  the  letter  expressing  hope  that  he  would  soon  be 
up  and  about,  Hubbard  had  written:  ''Mr.  Watson's 
view  is  that  we  should  take  immediate  steps  for 
having  your  invention  patented  in  Great  Britain 
and  Canada,  and  I  will  prepare  and  forward  the 
necessary  papers  for  you  to  sign  in  a  day  or  two." 

Unbeknown  to  Berliner  himself,  he  had  become 
an  almost  indispensable  factor  in  the  Bell  Telephone 
Company's  calculations.  Indeed,  what  he  had  in- 
vented, and  that  which  the  Bells  acquired  from 
him — the  control  of  Berliner's  caveats  and  patent 
applications,  as  well  as  the  use  of  his  induction  coil 
patent — seemed  to  be  the  rocks  to  which  the  whole 
Bell  enterprise  was  about  to  clifig  for  security  and 
for  the  realization  of  its  uncharted  future. 

After  Alexander  Graham  Bell  had  obtained  the 
patent  for  his  telephone  invention,  he  and  Watson 
continued  to  improve  it,  until  they  reached  a  point 


COMPLETES  TELEPHONE      123 

at  which  they  thought  it  could  be  sold  to  the  West- 
ern Union  Telegraph  Company.  The  Bell  patent 
rights  were  offered  to  the  Western  Union  for  one 
hundred  thousand  dollars,  which  was  **real  money" 
half  a  century  ago.  That  already  great  corpora- 
tion was  the  logical  agency  for  turning  the  telephone 
to  practical  purposes.  But  the  management  of  the 
Western  Union  (later  headed  by  Theodore  N.  Vail) 
was  not  so  astute  or  far-seeing  as  its  successors,  and 
it  rejected  the  Bell-Watson  proposition.  It  did  not 
want  the  Bell  telephone — ^that  is  to  say,  it  did  not 
covet  the  prize  as  yet. 

Later,  when  the  patent's  immeasurable  possibil- 
ities were  grasped,  the  Western  Union  of  that  day 
simply  decided  to  annex  it  more  or  less  by  main 
force.  Millions  of  capital  and  shrewd  captains  of 
finance  stood  behind  the  company.  It  did  not  seri- 
ously occur  to  the  Western  Union  high  command 
that  a  little  thing  like  Bell's  patent — *'a  mere  scrap 
of  paper" — could  impede  the  progress  of  the 
colossus  that  now  occupied,  almost  unchallenged, 
the  field  of  electrical  communication.  The  Bell  Com- 
pany's  position  seemed  all  the  more  contemptible 
and  defenseless,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  Western 
Union,  in  view  of  its  financial  weakness.  "The 
giant  expected  to  crush  the  pigmy  with  a  blow," 
records  Albert  Bigelow  Paine  in  his  biography  of 
Theodore  N.  Vail  {In  One  Man's  Life).  "The  pop- 
ularity of  the  telephone  grew  amazingly,"  writes 
Paine,  "and  the  demand  for  instruments  increased 


124  EMILE  BERLINER 

^^— — »«-^'^^— **^— — ^— — ^— i— ^■^^■^^— ^■^— — — — i— ^— ^— ™— — — — — 

beyond  the  limits  of  the  Bell  Company  to  manufac- 
ture, and  especially  beyond  its  ability  to  purchase. 
The  company  was  constantly  on  the  verge  of  bank- 
ruptcy, through  its  prosperity." 

But  in  addition  to  its  slender  capital  resources, 
the  Bell  Company  seemed  vulnerable,  in  the  West- 
em  Union's  eyes,  because  of  the  technical  impres- 
sion the  Bell  telephone  itself  made.  It  was  very 
remote  from  perfection.  One  still  required  to  shout 
into  it,  and  often  to  repeat  the  shouts  several  times, 
to  be  heard  or  miderstood.  The  magneto  transmitter 
in  particular  was  so  primitive — ^more  designed,  as 
Watson  himself  admitted  on  a  later  occasion,  "to 
develop  the  American  voice  and  lungs  than  to  pro- 
mote conversation."  The  thing  seemed  indeed  so 
utterly  crude  that  the  Western  Union  persuaded  it- 
self it  would  not  have  to  face  a  serious  competitor 
for  some  time  to  come.  So  for  its  technical  pur- 
pose, the  company  leagued  three  of  the  best-known 
electrical  inventors  of  the  day — Thomas  A.  Edison, 
Elisha  Gray  and  Amos  E.  Dolbear — and,  under  the 
name  of  the  American  Speaking  Telephone  Com- 
pany, proceeded  to  drive  at  full  speed  into  the  field 
of  telephony.  With  a  bluster  destined  to  cost  it 
dearly  a  few  years  later,  the  company  proclaimed 
that  it  possessed  "the  only  original  telephone," 
flouting  Bell's  rights  as  if  they  had  never  existed. 
"The  fact  that  all  three  of  its  inventors,  Edison, 
Gray  and  Dolbear,  had  each  and  severally  fully  ac- 
knowledged Bell's  rights  apparently  was  little  re- 


COMPLETES  TELEPHONE     125 

garded,  especially  as  Gray  and  Dolbear  were  now 
quite  willing  to  repudiate  such  acknowledgments 
and  assert  prior  claims."* 

By  a  singular  coincidence,  Edison's  patent  ap- 
plication for  a  flat  disk  transmitter  was  filed  at  the 
United  States  Patent  Office  in  Washington  just  thir- 
teen days  after  Berliner  deposited  there  his  caveat 
for  the  microphone.  Mr.  Edison  for  some  years  had 
maintained  his  own  well-equipped  laboratories  and 
was  now  fully  prepared  to  aid  and  abet  the  Western 
Union  in  its  raid  for  priority.  It  should  be  observed, 
in  passing,  that  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Com- 
pany of  1926  is  a  wholly  different  enterprise,  in 
respect  of  policy,  personnel  and  management,  from 
the  organization  which  so  adventurously  embarked 
upon  the  uncharted  sea  of  telephony  in  1879. 

* 'Lessees  of  Bell  telephones,"  writes  Herbert  N. 
Casson  {History  of  the  Telephone),  ** clamored  with 
one  voice  for  a  transmitter  as  good  as  Edison's. 
This,  of  course,  could  not  be  had  in  a  moment,  and 
the  five  months  that  followed  were  the  darkest  days 
in  the  childhood  of  the  telephone.  How  to  compete 
with  the  Western  Union,  which  had  this  superior 
transmitter,  a  host  of  agents,  a  network  of  wires, 
forty  million  dollars  of  capital,  and  a  first  claim 
upon  all  newspapers,  hotels,  railroads,  and  rights 
of  way — that  was  the  immediate  problem  that  con- 
fronted Theodore  N.  Vail,  the  Bell's  new  general 


*ln  One  Man's  Life,  page  102. 


126 EMILE  BERLINER     

manager.  Several  of  his  captains  deserted,  and  he 
was  compelled  to  take  control  of  their  unprofitable 
exchanges.  There  was  scarcely  a  mail  that  did  not 
bring  him  some  bulletin  of  discouragement  or  de- 
feat." 

But  the  *'Big  Four"  now  in  charge  of  Bell  for- 
tunes— Bell  himself,  Watson,  Hubbard  and  Vail — 
had  no  notion  of  giving  up  the  ship.  On  the  contrary, 
the  Liliputians  determined  to  strike  the  Western 
Union  a  blow  that  would  go  straight  to  the  vitals  of 
the  onrushing  Gulliver.  To  that  end  they  put  a  dis- 
cerning finger  on  the  pulse  of  their  distressful  situa- 
tion— ^they  must  secure  a  transmitter  that  would 
outclass  the  lampblack  transmitter  developed  by 
Edison,  which  was  now  in  so  serious  danger  of  mak- 
ing the  Western  Union's  telephone  apparatus  more 
popular  than  Bell's  mechanism.  The  public,  it  was 
realized,  cared  nothing  about  patent  rights.  What 
it  wanted  was  telephone  service.  It  was  ready  to 
subscribe  for  the  most  efficient  instruments  it  could 
get,  no  matter  whence  they  came. 

It  was  in  the  midst  of  this  threatened  submerg- 
ence by  the  Western  Union  avalanche  that  Emile 
Berliner  came  within  the  Bell  Telephone  Company's 
orbit  with  a.11  the  providential  effectiveness  of  a  life- 
saver.  Then  and  thus  it  was  that  Watson,  at  Vail's 
instigation,  had  sought  out  Berliner  in  Washington, 
consequential  upon  the  initial  interview  with  Pollok, 
the  patent  lawyer;  had  inspected  the  inventor's 
little     soap-box    microphone     and     spoken    those 


■  ':■    ritii:i\i:    inii.iii.si:. 


t  A  1/  //     0 


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(>/"ht-d      lyO-^<-t^ 


•'^^W^y  ^- tX  >-^>^::^^^-' 


Letter   from  Telephone  Company  of   Xew   York   Ixtroducixg 
Emtle  Berliner  to  the  Bell  Group 


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COMPLETES  TELEPHONE 127 

words — ^prophetic  for  Berliner  and,  as  time  was  to 
show,  of  literally  vital  importance  to  the  Bells: 
^^  Young  man,  ive  will  want  thats  You  will  hear  from 
us  in  a  few  days. ' ' 

Six  weeks  elapsed  between  the  consummation  of 
Berliner's  agreement  with  the  Bell  interests,  fol- 
lowed by  his  breakdown  in  Washington,  and  the 
commencement  of  his  service  under  the  employment 
contract.  In  November,  1878,  against  the  urgent 
advice  of  his  physician,  he  proceeded  to  New  York 
for  that  purpose.  The  Bell  Telephone  Company's 
headquarters  at  66  and  68  Eeade  Street  occupied 
only  half  of  a  second  floor.  The  equipment  was  of 
Spartan  simplicity,  consisting  all  told  of  two  or 
three  plain  deal  desks  and  chairs — the  forerunner  of 
the  marble  pile  that  is  now  at  195  Broadway. 

In  that  modest  environment — the  cradle  of  the 
mighty  **Bell  System"  of  this  day — Theodore  N. 
Vail  was  organizing  the  affairs  of  the  company  with 
steam-engine  zeal.  He  had  only  one  assistant — a 
certain  R.  W.  Devonshire — who  sent  out  in  longhand 
all  of  the  correspondence.  Typewriters  had  not  yet 
emerged.  Emile  Berliner's  accomplishments,  dat- 
ing from  schooldays  in  Hanover,  included  uncom- 
mon skill  in  Spencerian  penmanship,  of  which,  at 
seventy-five,  he  is  still  a  master,  so  Vail,  for  the  time 
being,  commandeered  his  services  as  a  general  util- 
ity man  in  the  Bell  offices. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  Francis  Blake,  of 
Boston,  a  scientist  formerly  attached  to  the  United 


128 EMILE  BERLINER 

States  Geodetic  Survey  at  Washington,  designed  an 
ingenious  modification  of  the  Berliner  loose  contact 
microphone.  He  had  been  working  on  it  at  the  Will- 
iams electrical  shop  in  Boston  in  an  effort  to  put  it 
into  practical  condition,  and  eventually  sold  it  to  the 
Bell  Company.  Figuring  out  microphonic  action 
was  a  deep  and  intricate  problem — one  that  took 
about  all  the  strength  and  ingenuity  a  man  pos- 
sessed, for  it  was  at  this  stage  of  his  experiments 
that  Francis  Blake,  like  Berliner  a  little  while 
before,  was  prostrated  by  a  nervous  breakdown, 
with  his  work  unfinished. 

The  value  of  the  Blake  transmitter  modification 
lay  in  an  ingenious  suspension,  on  two  flat  springs, 
of  a  hard  carbon  button  and  a  bead  of  platinum  in 
such  a  way  that  the  two  would  not  easily  separate 
when  vibrated  by  the  diaphragm  against  which  they 
leaned.  When  carefully  adjusted  and  addressed  by 
a  trained  speaker  the  Blake  transmitter  would  work 
very  well.  But  it  took  practise  to  talk  into  it,  and, 
if  adjusted  in  the  evening,  it  might  be  entirely  out  of 
adjustment  the  next  morning.  Of  course,  such  an 
instrument  was  entirely  unfit  to  be  placed  in  com- 
mission. It  was  at  this  precise  period  that  Ber- 
liner's important  and  practical  work  for  the  Bell 
Company  commenced. 

As  the  days  sped  by  and  the  Western  Union  chal- 
lenge remained  unmet,  the  Bell  agents  became  more 
and  more  insistent  upon  securing  a  good  battery 
transmitter  because  whenever  the  Western  Union 


COMPLETES  TELEPHONE  129 

Company  came  to  prospective  subscribers  for  tele- 
phone service  with  lampblack  transmitters,  these 
proved  superior  to  the  Bell  magneto  transmitter. 
The  situation,  already  acute,  now  threatened  to  be- 
come critical.  At  the  end  of  January,  1879,  Vail 
and  Watson  decided  to  send  Berliner  to  Boston, 
to  take  up  his  experimental  duties  at  the  company 's 
laboratory  in  the  Williams  shop  and  finish  Blake's 
work  while  the  latter  was  sick  abed.  In  the  incred- 
ibly brief  period  of  six  weeks  Berliner  perfected 
the  Blake  transmitter,  so  that  two  hundred  instru- 
ments could  be  made  in  a  day,  and,  once  adjusted, 
would  remain  so  indefinitely. 

The  American  Telephone  and  Telegraph  Com- 
pany of  this  day  retains  in  its  archives  an  account 
written  by  Emile  Berliner  narrating  in  detail  what 
had  to  be  done  in  order  to  save  the  ingenious  Blake 
form  of  transmitter  from  being  a  pronounced  fail- 
ure. The  account  is  of  so  historic  importance  in  the 
development  of  telephony,  and  of  so  absorbing  inter- 
est to  all  students  of  electrical  apparatus,  who 
nowadays  include  ''radio  fans,"  that  it  has  been 
deemed  worth}''  of  reproduction  as  an  appendix  to 
this  volume.  (See  page  314.)  It  shows  what  keen 
and  exact  reasoning  a  successful  inventor  must 
apply  in  order  to  accomplish  his  purposes.  Inciden- 
tally, it  visualizes  the  condition  into  which  the  bud- 
ding art  of  telephony  had  fallen. 

''The  status  of  the  Blake  transmitter,  when  I 
took  hold  of  it,"  wrote  Emile  Berliner,  "was,  briefly, 


130 EMILE  BEBLINER 

that  it  was  not  possible  to  make  twelve  transmitters 
alike  good,  and  when  these  were  adjusted  at  night, 
they  were  out  of  adjustment  the  next  morning." 
Berliner's  plodding  efforts  eventually  detected  the 
flaws  in  the  Blake  mechanism.  As  soon  as  Berliner 
reported  that  it  had  been  perfected,  orders  were 
given  that  two  hundred  a  day  should  be  made.  Ber- 
liner himself,  with  his  assistant,  Eichards,  tested 
each  of  them  minutely.  Once  adjusted,  they  re- 
mained in  first-class  working  order.  Berliner  per- 
sonally inspected  and  tested  the  first  twenty  thou- 
sand transmitters  for  the  Bell  Company.  Then  that 
branch  of  the  business  was  turned  over  to  Richards. 
Thereafter  the  inventor  devoted  himself  to  research 
work  for  the  Bell  Company  and  assisted  Professor 
Charles  E-.  Cross,  of  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of 
Technology,  in  the  exhaustive  experiments  which 
the  latter  conducted  for  James  J.  Storrow  in  support 
of  that  patent  lawyer's  astute  defense  of  the  Bell- 
Berliner  patents  and  of  his  unceasing  attack  upon 
infringers. 

The  Blake  transmitter  as  perfected  by  Berliner 
was  vastly  superior  to  the  Edison  lampblack  trans- 
mitter, which  was  being  put  out  by  the  rival  tele- 
phone concern,  the  Gold  and  Stock  Telegraph  Com- 
pany, for  use  of  subscribers.  This  was  a  subsidiary 
of  the  Western  Union,  specially  organized  and  oper- 
ated for  the  benefit  of  stock-brokerage  houses  which 
had  their  own  telegraph  operators.  Momentous 
events  in  the  telephone  world  were  now  brewing. 


COMPLETES  TELEPHONE  131 

They  were  to  demonstrate  that  Berliner's  work 
saved  the  day  for  the  Bell  Company,  though  not  un- 
til after  the  contenders  for  supremacy  in  the  tele- 
phone field  had  fought  a  long  and  costly  duel  in  the 
arena  of  the  highest  courts  of  the  republic. 

Nearly  all  of  us  whose  memory  runs  back  to  the 
earliest  telephones  in  general  use  will  recall  that 
Berliner 's  name  appeared  prominently  on  the  Blake 
transmitter  affixed  to  the  wooden  box  telephones  of 
that  ancient  era.  The  author  remembers  vividly 
the  first  telephones  installed  in  his  native  La 
Porte,  Indiana,  that  "Maple  City"  which  nestles  so 
picturesquely  in  the  northwestern  Hoosier  county 
lapped  by  the  waters  of  Lake  Michigan.  He  recalls 
the  invincible  skepticism  of  an  eighty-year-old 
La  Porte  grandmother,  who  had  never  learned 
to  speak  English.  A  grandson,  of  whom  she  was 
especially  fond,  had  learned  German  to  please  her. 
Because  he  was  attorney  for  the  local  Bell  Company, 
some  of  the  first  instruments  installed  in  La  Porte 
were  placed  in  his  office  and  her  home.  The 
young  lawyer's  opening  conversation  was  held  with 
his  grandmother  in  her  language.  The  astonished 
and  somewhat  affrighted  octogenarian  remarked 
later  in  the  day,  after  recovering  her  equilibrium, 
that  she  didn't  think  it  a  particularly  wonder- 
ful thing  that  Amerikaner  should  have  invented 
something  enabling  English  to  be  talked  by  wire. 
But  that  they  had  discovered  a  device  whereby 
German  could  be  spoken  by  telephone — tJiat,  the 


132 EMILE  BERLINER 

old  lady  insisted,  was  positively  the  last  word  in  the 
way  of  a  scientific  marvel — Kolosjsall 

The  author,  many  years  afterward  long  sta- 
tioned in  Berlin  as  a  newspaper  correspondent,  sel- 
dom said  Wer  dortf  (Who's  there? — the  German 
equivalent  for  Hello)  over  the  Kaiser's  telephone 
lines  without  recalling  with  a  smile  the  La  Porte 
grandmother's  quaint  tribute  to  what  Bell  and  Ber- 
liner between  them  had  wrought, 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  TELEPHONE  FIGHTS  FOR  ITS  LIFE 

BEELINER'S  completion  of  the  telephone  placed 
the  Bell  Company  in  an  extremely  strong  posi- 
tion not  only  by  virtue  of  Bell's  own  broad  patents, 
but  also  because  the  company  now  possessed  incom- 
parably the  best  instruments  of  the  day.  But  as 
triumph  is  ever  the  mother  of  contention,  the  Bells 
speedily  found  themselves  ambushed  on  all  sides. 
They  were  on  the  threshold  of  attack,  intrigue  and 
rivalry  that  were  to  eventuate  in  lawsuits  literally 
by  the  hundred,  and  to  cost  them  in  defensive  mea- 
sures more  than  a  million  of  money  and  more  than 
a  decade  of  precious  time.  Before  their  herculean 
struggle  for  self-preservation  was  to  end,  they  were 
to  combat  none  other  than  the  government  of  the 
United  States  of  America  itself. 

The  Bell  telephone,  of  w^hich  the  Berliner  trans- 
mitter had  now  become  a  vitally  integral  part,  was, 
in  short,  face  to  face  with  a  fight  for  its  life.  No 
stone  of  recourse  or  of  resource  available  to  capital, 
legal  acumen  or  human  unscrupulousness  Avas  to  be 
left  unturned,  to  accomplish  the  ruin,  first,  of  Bell, 
the  inventor,  and,  then,  of  Berliner,  the  perfecter  of 
the  telephone. 

133 


134 EMILE  BERLINER 

The  illimitable  commercial  possibilities  of  the 
new  art  were  no  longer  in  doubt.  To  "get  rich 
quick"  out  of  them,  by  hook  or  by  crook,  became  the 
obsessing  passion  alike  of  recognized  captains  of  in- 
dustry and  of  piratical  adventurers. 

Telephony  accordingly  ushered  in  one  of  those 
*' booms"  which,  in  recurring  cycles,  fever  the  imagi- 
nations of  the  American  people.  Once  it  was  gold 
that  set  men  crazy ;  then,  silver ;  in  a  more  modern 
time,  oil;  latterly,  Florida  land.  In  the  early 
'eighties  it  was  telephony.  All  over  the  country 
men  were  suddenly  fired  with  the  notion  that  Bell 
and  Berliner  had  opened  up  a  field  that  could  be 
fabulously  exploited  by  any  one  with  a  smattering 
of  mechanical  ingenuity  and  the  enterprise  to  launch 
a  wildcat  stock- jobbing  campaign. 

To  the  more  ruthless,  the  new  field  even  held  out 
the  inviting  possibihties  of  successful  blackmail.  In 
one  form  or  another,  the  Bell  group  soon  found  it- 
self called  upon  to  baffle  a  long  conspiracy  of  malice, 
envy  and  greed  mthout  parallel  in  business  and 
legal  history,  measured  in  terms  of  the  rich  prize 
at  stake  and  the  duration  of  the  contest.  No  fewer 
than  six  hundred  defensive  lawsuits  were  fought 
up  to  May  10, 1897,  when  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court  finally  placed  its  historic  hallmark,  for  all 
time,  upon  the  validity  of  the  Bell-Berliner  patents 
and  pronounced  them  unassailable. 

Athwart  the  Bell's  path  lay  primarily  the  West- 
em  Union  Telegraph  Company.    Through  its  sub- 


FIGHTS  FOR  ITS  LIFE 135 

sidiary,  the  Gold  and  Stock  Telegraph  Company, 
the  Western  Union  had  boldly  invaded  the  telephone 
field.  It  commanded  eminent  engineering  talent — 
Edison,  Gray  and  Dolbear;  o\\Tied  a  far-flung  net- 
work of  wires  (all  overhead  in  those  days),  and  was 
ready  to  link  the  whole  comitry  into  a  sj^stem  of 
telephone  ** central"  stations  and  subscribers.  Its 
next  objective  was  to  crush  the  only  serious  com- 
petitor in  sight,  the  Bell  Telephone  Company.  As 
an  ally  in  that  campaign,  the  Western  Union  found 
ready  to  hand  the  budding  "granger  movement"  in 
the  rural  West,  with  its  insensate  hatred  and  fear 
of  anything  savoring  of  a  *' monopoly."  So  the 
Western  Union  interests  of  that  day  moved  Heaven 
and  earth  to  turn  the  anti-monopoly  guns  to  its  own 
uses  and  against  the  Bell  Telephone  Company.  Con- 
gress and  the  press  were  ruthlessly  exploited  for 
the  purpose. 

The  Western  Union  first  trotted  out  Elisha  Gray 
as  the  Simon-pure  inventor  of  the  telephone  and 
forthwith  began  infringement  proceedings  against 
the  Bell  Company.  The  palpable  pui^ose  was  to 
terrify  the  Bell  group  into  a  tame  submission.  The 
case  began  in  the  fall  of  1878  and  ended  dramati- 
cally a  year  later  on  the  advice  of  George  Gifford, 
the  Western  Union 's  chief  counsel,  who  notified  his 
clients,  point-blank,  that  Alexander  Graham  Bell 
was  the  unchallengeable  inventor  of  the  telephone. 
He  advised  them  to  sue  for  peace  on  the  best  terms 
the  Bells  would  grant. 


136 EMILR  BERLINER     

Months  of  conference  finally  resulted  in  a  give- 
and-take  arrangement.  The  Western  Union  agreed, 
under  a  covenant  to  run  for  seventeen  years: 

(1)  To  acknowledge  Bell  as  the  original  inventor 
of  the  telephone. 

(2)  To  concede  that  his  patents  were  unassail- 
able. 

(3)  To  quit  the  telephone  field. 
On  their  part,  the  Bells  agreed: 

(1)  To  purchase  the  Western  Union  telephone 
system, 

(2)  To  grant  the  Western  Union  twenty  per  cent, 
royalty  on  all  rentals  of  telephones. 

(3)  To  stay  out  of  the  telegraph  field. 

The  Western  Union  having  met  its  Waterloo,  the 
Bell  system  came  definitely  and  formally  into  its 
own  as  the  standard,  recognized  and  indisputable 
telephone  organization  of  the  country.  Its  stock 
sky-rocketed  to  one  thousand  dollars  a  share.  Theo- 
dore N.  Vail,  the  generalissimo  of  the  whole  trium- 
phant crusade,  reorganized  the  company,  and  in 
1882,  within  three  years  of  the  victory  over  the 
Western  Union,  Bell  Telephone  gross  earnings  ex- 
ceeded one  million  dollars.  But  the  company's 
trials,  especially  its  legal  tribulations,  were  far 
from  over.  Once  again  Elisha  Gray  thrust  himself 
into  the  picture.  Not  content  to  accept  the  defeat 
administered  to  the  Western  Union  in  1879,  he  re- 
asserted his  claim  to  be  the  original  inventor  of  the 
telephone. 


FIGHTS  FOR  ITS  LIFE 137 

The  paths  of  Alexander  Graham  Bell  and  Elisha 
Gray  had  been  running  close  together  and  in  almost 
parallel  lines  for  nearly  ten  years.  In  1874  they 
were  both  engaged  in  a  contest  to  invent  the  first 
harmonic  telegraph.  Gray  held  to  that  as  his  ob- 
jective. But  Bell  turned  to  telephony.  Yet  each  had 
always  at  the  back  of  his  head  the  notion  of 
sending  speech  by  wire.  Thereupon  ensued,  as  one 
of  the  freaks  of  Patent  Office  history,  an  amazing 
coincidence,  Bell  and  Gray,  utterly  unbekno^vn  to 
each  other,  selected  the  same  day,  on  which  to  file, 
respectively,  an  application  for  a  patent  and  a 
caveat  on  the  identical  subject.  It  was  St.  Valen- 
tine's Day — a  stormy  Monday,  the  fourteenth  of 
February,  1876.  Bell  reached  the  Patent  Office  first, 
according  to  the  book  of  record,  in  which  as  ''Cash 
Entry  No.  5"  stood  the  legend:  *'A.  G.  Bell,  $15." 
Entry  No.  39  read:  '^E.  Gray,  $10." 

There  was  thus  not  only  the  documentary  record 
of  Bell's  chronological  priority,  but  an  even  more 
vital  difference  in  the  fact  that  Bell  filed  an  applica- 
tion for  a  patent,  while  Gray  had  submitted  only  a 
caveat.  When  a  man  files  an  application  for  a 
patent,  he  declares  that  he  has  completed  the  inven- 
tion. Gray's  lawsuits  were  all  unsuccessful.  He 
was  rebuffed  at  every  turn. 

Following  Gray,  as  challenger  of  the  Bell  pat- 
ents, came  Professor  Amos  E.  Dolbear,  of  Tufts 
College.  Dolbear  contended  that  he  had  ''im- 
proved" the  telephonic  device  originated  by  the 


138 EMILE  BERLINER 

German,  Philip  Reis,  of  Frankfort,  in  1861.  But 
Dolbear's  claims,  like  Elislia  Gray's,  were  not  up- 
held. The  famous  court  decision  which  rejected 
them  observed:  "To  follow  Reis  is  to  fail;  but  to 
follow  Bell  is  to  succeed."  It  was  testified  during 
the  suit  that  Dolbear's  telephone  ''would  squeak,  but 
not  speak." 

Even  with  the  scalps  of  the  Western  Union,  Gray 
and  Dolbear  dangling  at  its  belt,  the  Bell  Telephone 
Company  was  to  have  no  immunity  from  attack. 
Telephony  was  making  fortunes  overnight  forty 
years  ago,  as  oil  and  Florida  land  have  created 
milUonaires  in  our  day.  That  was  why  the  Bells 
were  to  know  no  peace  at  the  hands  of  financial  ad- 
venturers, shyster  lawyers  and  fake  inventors. 

There  now  bounded  into  the  arena  of  coveted 
booty  one  Daniel  Drawbaugh,  resident  of  a  Penn- 
sylvania country  town,  whose  yokel  origin  at  first 
aroused  only  the  contempt  of  the  Bell  lawyers.  But 
Drawbaugh  persisted  with  his  claim  to  have  invented 
and  used  a  telephone  several  years  prior  to  its  inven- 
tion by  Alexander  Graham  Bell.  Dangling  before 
their  eyes  the  prospects  of  millions  in  tribute  to  be 
extorted  from  the  Bell  Company  if  he  could  establish 
his  pretensions,  Drawbaugh  induced  a  group  of 
Washington  bankers  to  form  the  ''People's  Tele- 
phone Company."  He  persuaded  these  credulous 
angels  to  finance,  at  vast  cost  to  themselves,  litiga- 
tion that  dragged  through  several  years.  But  once 
again  the  colors  of  the  Bell  System  emerged  vie- 


FIGHTS  FOR  ITS  LIFE 139 

torious.  Drawbaugli  turned  out  to  be  a  village 
tinker,  with  a  weird  mania  for  patterning  the  latest 
kink  in  mechanics  and  grandiloquently  claiming  the 
result  as  an  earlier  creation  of  his  own.  The  de- 
cision throwing  Drawbaugh's  case  out  of  court 
censured  him  for  '*  deliberately  falsifying  the 
facts." 

The  Bell  group  now  wore  an  obviously  indisput- 
able championship  belt  in  the  field  of  telephony,  but 
challengers  continued  to  bob  up  as  the  years  rolled 
by  and  as  the  success  of  the  Bell  System  was  aug- 
mented. The  Drawbaugh  debacle  was  followed  by 
a  sally  ventured  by  the  *' Overland  Company," 
which  strung  wires  and  sold  stock  on  the  strength 
of  them.  The  Overland  attack  was  sufficiently  per- 
sistent to  depress  the  stock  of  the  Bell  Telephone 
Company  and  to  carry  its  patent  suit  to  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court,  finally  to  be  dismissed  in 
that  tribunal. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE   UNITED   STATES   VS.    EMILE   BERLINER 

IT  SHOULD  not  be  supposed  that  during  all  these 
thrilling  years  of  strife,  development  and  tri- 
umph in  telephony  Emile  Berliner's  microphone 
patent  application  was  having  smooth  sailing.  It 
was,  in  fact,  perpetually  entangled  in  a  serious  ''in- 
terference" at  the  United  States  Patent  Office. 
Its  legitimacy  was  constantly  challenged,  and  its  is- 
suance correspondingly  blocked  by  rival  inventors 
backed  by  the  strong  corporations  anxious  to  enter 
the  telephone  field  or  to  develop  sufficient  ''nuisance 
value"  to  be  bought  up  at  profit  to  themselves  by 
the  Bell  Company.  Fourteen  years  of  these  obstruc- 
tive tactics  ensued,  despite  incessant  efforts  upon 
the  part  of  the  owners  of  Berliner's  rights,  the  Bell 
Telephone  Company,  to  checkmate  them. 

In  consequence  of  all  this,  it  was  not  until  No- 
vember 17,  1891,  that  the  Patent  Office  issued  to 
Emile  Berliner  Patent  No.  463,569  in  response  to 
the  application  filed  by  him  on  June  4,  1877.  The 
news  of  the  Patent  Office 's  action  was  a  sensation  in 
the  financial  and  telephone  world  when  conspicu- 
ously published  in  the  newspapers  of  November  18, 
1891, 

140 


UNITED  STATES  VS.  BERLINER       141 

Bell    Telephone — The    Berliner    Patent    Sends 
The  Stock  To  213 

ran  the  head-line  in  the  Boston  Globe.  ''The  Ber- 
liner patent,"  the  Globe's  financial  article  said, 
''issued  yesterday  morning  from  the  Patent  Office 
at  Washington  is,  next  to  the  original  Bell  patent, 
the  most  important  patent  in  the  telephone  field  ever 
issued.  It  covers  every  known  form  of  battery 
transmitter,  the  mechanical  device  behind  the 
mouthpiece  of  the  ordinary  'long-distance'  trans- 
mitter. The  announcement  that  the  Berliner  patent 
was  issued  sent  Bell  Telephone  stock  flying,  and 
from  198,  yesterday's  latest  sale,  the  price  shot  up, 
reaching  213  as  top  notch.  .  .  .  We  think  it  safe  to 
say,  though  we  do  not  knotv  that  any  of  the  Bell 
Telephone  directors,  or  officials  ivill  agree  tvith  the 
statement,  that  this  Berliner  patent  is  of  more  com- 
mercial value  tlian  the  original  Bell  TelepJione 
patent  J  ^ 

In  a  Washington  despatch  dated  November  18, 
1891,  the  day  following  the  issuance  of  Berliner's 
patent,  the  Chicago  Inter-Ocean  said : 

*'A  curious  computation  was  made  by  experts 
about  the  Patent  Office  to-day  as  to  the  value  of  the 
Berliner  patent  to  the  Bell  Company.  The  capital 
stock  of  that  company  being  $15,000,000  and  the 
maximum  rise  in  the  stock  30  points,  it  follows  that 
the  value  of  the  Berliner  microphone  patent,  as  de- 
termined by  stock  quotations,  is  $5,000,000.  On  this 
basis,  by  computation,  the  patent  added  one-third 


142  EMILE  BERLINER 


to  the  value  of  the  Bell  Telephone  Company's  capi- 
tal stock." 

It  was  immediately  realized  by  all  concerned  that 
the  issuance  of  the  Berliner  microphone  patent 
meant  the  continuance  for  seventeen  more  years 
(namely,  until  November  17,  1908)  of  the  Bell  Tele- 
phone monopoly,  which  up  to  that  time  had  been 
maintained  solely  by  the  Bell,  Edison  and  Blake 
patents.  The  public  was  astonished  to  learn  that  a 
patent  had  now  been  issued  to  the  Bell  Company, 
covering  in  the  broadest  possible  terms  the  identical 
microphone  transmitter  for  which  telephone  sub- 
scribers had  been  paying  rentals  for  thirteen  years, 
under  which  new  patent  the  company  would  be  en- 
titled to  exact  a  continuance  of  the  same  rentals  for 
the  same  instrument  for  seventeen  years  longer. 
This  consummation,  which  was  of  priceless  value 
to  the  Bell  interests,  caused  a  furore  in  the  country. 
It  found  vociferous  expression  in  an  indignant 
press.  The  Bell  Company  was  now  accused  of  hav- 
ing deliberately  and  illegitimately  contrived  to  keep 
Berliner's  microphone  patent,  applied  for  June  4, 
1877,  pending  in  the  Patent  Office  since  its  acquire- 
ment from  the  patentee  in  1878. 

Encouraged  by  the  public  agitation  thus  en- 
gendered, and  fomented  by  a  group  of  ambitious 
pohticians,  mostly  of  southern  origin,  the  Pan-Elec- 
tric Company  was  organized  with  a  capital  of  five 
million  dollars  for  the  ostensible  purpose  of  sub- 
stantiating  the    so-called   ''modification   patents" 


UNITED  STATES  VS.  BERLINER        143 

issued  to  one  Rogers.  With  these  as  their  basis,  the 
men  behind  the  Pan-Electric  Company,  on  the  eve 
of  the  second  Cleveland  administration  in  1893,  in- 
duced the  Federal  Government  to  bring  suit  for  the 
annulment  of  the  Bell-Berliner  patents  on  the 
ground  that  they  had  been  obtained  by  fraud. 

General  Joseph  E.  Johnston,  the  distinguished 
Confederate  officer,  and  hero  of  Manassas,  was 
president  of  the  Pan-Electric.  A  former  United 
States  Senator,  Augustus  H.  Garland,  of  Arkansas, 
who  had  been  attornej^-general  of  the  United  States 
in  the  first  Cleveland  Cabinet  a  few  years  previous, 
was  the  company's  counsel.  United  States  Senator 
Isham  G.  Harris,  of  Tennessee,  was  one  of  its  direc- 
tors. Johnston,  Garland  and  Harris  were  public 
men  of  spotless  integrity.  Their  identification  with 
the  new  crusade  against  the  Bell  Telephone  Com- 
pany sufficed  to  give  the  Pan-Electric  case  a  serious 
status. 

"United  States  of  America  v.  American  Bell 
Telephone  Company  and  Emile  Berliner"  there- 
upon became  the  title  of  a  bill  in  equity  filed  in  the 
Circuit  Court  of  the  United  States  in  and  for  the 
District  of  Massachusetts  on  February  1,  1893.  It 
prayed  a  decree  to  set  aside  and  cancel  the  Berliner 
microphone  patent  issued  on  November  17, 1891,  and 
now  the  property  of  the  Bell  Company  as  assignee 
of  Berliner. 

The  first  round  in  these  proceedings  was  lost  by 
the  Bell  Company — its  maiden  defeat  in  its  long  and 


144  EMILE  BERLINEE 

fierce  cycle  of  litigation.  On  January  3,  1895,  the 
Circuit  Court  at  Boston  entered  the  decree  prayed 
for  by  the  Government.  But  the  Bells  still  had  on 
their  fighting  togs,  and,  battle-scarred  as  they  were, 
they  waded  afresh  into  the  legal  fray,  this  time  dog- 
gedly to  defend  the  ingenious  invention  of  Emile 
Berliner.  On  their  appeal  to  the  Court  of  Appeals 
the  decree  in  favor  of  the  Government  was  reversed 
on  May  18,  1895,  and  a  decree  entered,  directing  a 
dismissal  of  the  Government's  bill.  Thereupon  the 
Government,  no  less  determined  to  mn,  took  an  ap- 
peal to  the  United  States  Supreme  Court.  A  motion 
was  made  by  the  Bells  to  dismiss  the  appeal  for 
want  of  jurisdiction.  But  this  was  denied,  where- 
upon the  case  proceeded  to  argument  upon  its 
merits. 

The  background  for  the  litigation  had  been  more 
than  three  years  in  the  making.  The  sort  of  popular 
virulence  in  which  the  vendetta  against  Berliner's 
invention  was  first  conceived  is  typified  by  the  fol- 
lowing editorial  published  in  the  Rochester  (N.  Y.) 
Herald  of  December  4,  1891,  a  fortnight  after  the 
sensational  issue  of  the  Berliner  patent  at  "Wash- 
ington : 

**For  a  long  time  prior  to  November  17th  the 
stock  of  the  Bell  Telephone  Company  stood  at  or 
near  $180.  For  about  a  week  preceding  that  date,  it 
advanced  some  three  or  four  dollars.  On  the  Friday 
before,  there  were  sales  at  $193 ;  Monday  it  had  gone 
up  to  $198,  and  on  the  day  the  Berliner  patent  was 
issued,  the  stock  reached  $210. 


UNITED  STATES  VS.  BERLINER       145 

''These  quotations  show  that  people  inside  the 
Bell  combination  knew  what  was  going  on  at  the 
Patent  OflSce,  confirming  opinion  long  held  by  many 
that  the  Bell  Company  had  altogether  too  confiden- 
tial relations  with  that  office.  The  Boston  Journal 
says:  'The  patent  virtually  secures  that  Company 
for  another  seventeen  years  in  the  control  of  its 
present  enormous  business.'  The  Boston  Herald 
says:  'It  is  claimed  that  the  patent  covers  every 
known  form  of  battery  transmitter.' 

"It  will  be  seen  from  these  statements  by  the 
papers  of  Boston,  which  is  the  home  of  the  Bell 
Company,  that  the  monopoly  expects  to  retain  its 
grip  upon  this  country  for  seventeen  years  longer. 
It  has  sought  to  accomplish  this  result  hy  the  dis- 
Jionorahle  trick  of  keeping  up  a  sham  contest  in  the 
Patent  Office  over  the  Berliner  application  through 
the  past  fourteen  years.  That  such  proceedings  are 
possible  in  a  bureau  of  the  national  government  is  a 
fact  discreditable  to  the  officials  of  that  bureau  dur- 
ing the  period  named  and  an  outrage  on  the  people 
of  the  United  States.  The  time  has  come  for  a  com- 
plete revolution  in  that  office  and  a  change  in  the 
laws  bearing  upon  this  question. 

"But  it  is  possible,  we  might  say  probable,  that 
the  Bell  Company  will  reach  its  Waterloo  in  the 
great  battle  that  \\i\\  be  fought  in  the  courts  over 
this  very  Berliner  patent.  Bell's  original  patent 
expires  with  the  term  of  the  English  patent  in 
1892.  .  .  .  The  public  will  follow  the  further  devel- 
opment of  this  matter  with  interest.  If,  in  the  face 
of  all  the  evidence  against  the  validity  of  the  Ber- 
liner claim  to  originality,  the  United  States  courts 
should  again  decide  in  favor  of  this  powerful 
monopoly,  these  courts  must  expect  to  suffer  in  the 
esteem  of  the  enlightened  public  even  more  than 
they  have  as  a  residt  of  the  litigation  already  had  on 
this  question.  But  the  public,  in  any  event,  should 
insist  upon  such  a  change  in  the  patent  system  as 


146  EMILE  BERLINER 

will  make  the  scandalous  history  of  the  Berliner 
clai^n  in  the  Patent  Office  hereafter  impossible." 

In  bringing  suit  for  nullification  of  the  Berliner 
patent,  the  Attorney  General  of  the  United  States 
(then  William  H.  H.  Miller)  virtually  identified  him- 
self with  the  innuendoes  in  popular  circulation  and 
which  are  characterized  by  the  newspaper  article 
above  quoted.  James  J.  Storrow,  of  Boston,  the 
learned  chief  counsel  engaged  to  defend  Berliner's 
rights,  in  the  course  of  the  brief  he  filed  in  the  Su- 
preme Court,  thus  stigmatized  the  action  of  the 
Federal  law  authorities : 

"Naturally,  accusations  of  fraud,  made  over  the 
signature  of  the  head  of  the  Department  of  Justice, 
are  of  themselves  a  grievous  injury  to  the  persons 
charged.  For  the  public  assumes  that  such  accusa- 
tions will  not  be  made  until  the  subject  has  been  ex- 
haustively examined,  and  in  a  fairly  impartial 
manner;  and  they  ought  not  to  be  made  until  then. 
This  is  especially  so  when  the  attempt  is  made  to 
throw  the  heavy  hand  of  the  government  upon  the 
side  of  what  is  really  a  contest  between  patentee  and 
infringers.  This  suit,  hotvever,  appears  on  the  com- 
plainant's own  papers,  to  be  in  large  part,  at  least, 
an  ill-considered  and  unjustifiable  assault.'* 

In  such  an  atmosphere  began  the  epic  of  Emile 
Berliner's  fight  for  vindication  of  his  inventive 
rights  in  the  republic's  court  of  last  resort.  It 
had  been  preceded,  as  has  been  shown,  by  years  of 
furious  legal  strife.  '*  Interwoven  in  the  story  of 
the  golden  growth  of  the  telephone,"  wrote  John 


UNITED  STATES  VS.  BERLINER       147 

Paul  Bocock  in  ''The  Romance  of  the  Telephone" 
(Munsey's  Magazine,  November,  1900),  ''are  so 
marvelous  oaths,  such  charges  of  corruption  and 
treachery,  such  tales  of  ruin  and  oppression,  such 
accusations  against  men  high  in  the  public  esteem, 
such  sacrifices  of  truth  and  honor,  such  disappoint- 
ments and  defeats  of  the  many  who  have  sought  to 
share  the  reward  of  the  one,  that  the  bare  relation 
of  them  all,  were  that  possible,  would  surpass  any 
romance  ever  written." 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  VINDICATION  OF  EMILE  BERLINER 

EMILE  BERLINER  was  now  to  become  the  tar- 
get of  a  fusillade  of  slings  and  arrows,  as 
outrageous  as  any  of  the  fortunes  already  suffered 
by  the  telephone  pioneers.  The  Government 's  bill  in 
equity  bluntly  sought  to  rob  him  of  the  fruits  of  his 
genius  by  branding  him  a  fraud.  It  asked  the 
Supreme  Court  to  adjudge  that  the  Berliner  patent 
of  November  17,  1891,  was  ^'nuU  and  void";  that  it 
was  "wrongfully  procured  to  be  issued  by  means  of 
fraud,  false  suggestion,  concealment  and  imposition 
on  the  part  of  the  Bell  Telephone  Company  and 
Emile  Berliner";  that  there  was  "nothing  in  said 
patent  which  contained  or  disclosed,  or  in  any  man- 
ner set  forth,"  by  reason  of  which  there  could  be 
secured  to  the  defendants  "any  monopoly  of  any 
patentable  invention  or  discovery  whatever";  and 
that  all  persons  interested  under  that  patent  "ought 
to  have  known,  and  did  know"  that  the  patent  was 
void. 

On  the  strength  of  this  scathing  indictment,  the 
Government's  bill  prayed  that  the  Berliner  patent 
should  be  cancelled  and  that  the  Government  "and 

148 


VINDICATION  OF  BERLINER  149 

all  the  people  of  the  United  States  be  in  all  things 
restored  and  reinstated,  as  nearly  as  may  be,  to  the 
actual  condition  and  state  existing  prior  to  the 
issue"  of  the  patent.  If  the  Supreme  Court  found 
that  the  Berliner  patent  was  not  wholly  void,  the 
Government  asked  that  it  **be  treated  as  a  contract, 
and  be  reformed,  limited  and  modified,  as  in  equity 
and  good  conscience  it  ought  to  be."  The  Govern- 
ment's bill  pointed  out  that  Emile  Berliner  sold  the 
invention  to  the  Bell  Company  before  October  23, 
1878,  and  that  the  Bell  Company  was  now  its  sole 
o^vner.  But  the  bill  made  Berliner  a  defendant,  in 
order  that  he  might  appear  and  be  heard,  if  he 
desired. 

The  '* grounds"  offered  by  the  Government  in  its 
petition  for  annulment  of  the  Berliner  patent  were 
five  in  number,  to-wit : 

1.  That  Berliner  never  made  the  invention. 

2.  That  he  was  not  the  first  inventor  of  it. 

3.  An  alleged  defect,  in  the  patent  itself,  i.e., 
that  the  described  apparatus  was  not  operative. 

4.  The  long  pendency  of  the  application,  i.e., 
abandonment  in  the  Patent  Office  by  nonprosecution, 
and  alleged  defects  in  the  proceedings. 

5.  That  Berliner's  invention  was  exliausted 
under  the  doctrine  of  Miller  v.  Eagle  Manufacturing 
Company,  151  U.  S.  186. 

The  Government 's  proofs  in  chief  began  July  10, 
1893,  and  were  finished  January  3,  1894.  They  con- 
sisted of  the  deposition  of  Professor  George  F. 


150  EMILE  BERLINER 


Barker,  expert;  of  a  large  amount  of  documentary 
evidence,  chiefly  the  Berliner  file,  and  other  files  and 
papers  from  the  Patent  Office ;  and  an  offer  of  other 
oral  proof  which  resulted  in  an  agreed  statement  of 
certain  facts. 

The  Bell-Berliner  proofs  in  defense  began  Oc- 
tober 21,  1893,  and  closed  February  15,  1894.  They 
consisted  of  the  depositions  of  Professor  Charles  R. 
Cross,  expert,  with  tests  of  Berliner  telephones  in 
presence  of  the  complainant  Government's  experts; 
of  Emile  Berliner,  the  inventor ;  of  John  E.  Hudson, 
president  of  the  American  Bell  Telephone  Company, 
and  of  a  variety  of  other  witnesses,  including  an 
imposing  array  of  examiners  from  the  Patent  Office. 
The  defendants  also  called  Messrs.  A.  S.  Solomons, 
Simon  and  Gustave  Oppenheimer  and  Alvan  S. 
Richards,  of  Washington,  personal  friends  who  had 
intimate  knowledge  of  the  history  of  Berliner's  ex- 
periments and  invention,  and  Mr.  Coombs,  the  patent 
solicitor's  assistant  who  drew  the  original  Berliner 
specification. 

The  Government's  opening  before  the  Supreme 
Court  consisted,  on  most  points,  of  the  barest  prima 
facie  case.  Then  the  defendants  went  into  the  case 
at  large,  and  proved  an  extensive  volume  of  vitally 
material  facts.  The  Government  in  rebuttal  at- 
tacked only  one  of  those  facts — the  operativeness  of 
the  instrument.  Counsel  for  Berliner  contended, 
therefore,  that  it  had  a  right  to  assume  that  the 
testimony  developed  on  his  behalf  on  all  other  points 


VINDICATION  OF  BERLINER  151 

could  not  be  disputed.  The  Government's  rebuttal 
testimony  that  the  Berliner  instruments  ivould  not 
talk  was  overthrown,  on  cross-examinatioyi,  hy  talk- 
ing with  them  from  Philadelphia  to  New  York — an 
impressive  achievement  in  those  days. 

On  May  10, 1897,  almost  exactly  six  months  after 
the  conclusion  of  the  final  arguments  in  the  case, 
the  decision  of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court 
was  handed  down  by  Mr.  Justice  Brewer.  It  con- 
stituted an  unqualified  victorj^  for  Emile  Berliner. 
It  completely  rejected  and  demolished  the  Govern- 
ment's principal  contention — that  there  had  been 
** extraordinary  delay"  in  the  United  States  Patent 
Office  in  the  issuance  of  the  Berliner  patent,  due  to 
corrupt  connivance.  It  left  the  allegation  of  fraud 
without  a  leg,  or  even  a  toe,  to  stand  on.  There  are 
few  cases  of  Supreme  Court  record,  in  which  the 
United  States  figures  as  a  litigant,  that  contain  a 
more  crushing  denunciation  of  the  Government's 
cause. 

Having  pointed  out  that  ''the  delay  in  the  Patent 
Office  is  the  great  fact  in  the  case;  determined  the 
bringing  of  the  suit;  stands  in  the  forefront  of  the 
bill;  was  the  principal  question  argued  in  both 
courts  below,  and  occupies  the  chief  space  in  the  de- 
cisions rendered,"  Mr.  Justice  Brewer  disposed  of 
''this  burden  of  the  Government's  case"  in  the  fol- 
lo\\dng  annihilating  terms : 

"The  Government's  contention  amounts  only  to 
this,  viz.,  that  the  defendant  company  was  not  active 


152 EMILE  BERLINER 

but  passive.  If  millions  were  to  be  added  to  its 
profit  by  active  effort  it  would  have  been  impor- 
tunate and  have  secured  this  patent  long  before  it 
did.  As  millions  came  to  it  by  reason  of  its  being 
passive,  it  ought  not  to  suffer  for  its  omission  to  be 
importunate.  It  must  keep  coming  before  the  Com- 
missioner, like  the  widow  before  the  unjust  judge  in 
the  parable,  until  it  compels  the  declaration,  though 
I  fear  not  God  nor  regard  man,  yet,  because  this 
widow  trouhleth  me,  I  will  avenge  her,  lest  by  her 
continual  coming  she  weary  me.* 

**But  is  this  the  rule  to  measure  the  conduct  of 
those  who  apply  for  official  action?  What  is  the 
amount  of  the  importunity  which  will  afford  protec- 
tion to  the  grant  finally  obtained?  How  frequent 
must  the  demand  be?  It  is  easy  to  say  that  the 
applications  of  this  defendant,  coming  only  at  the 
interval  of  months  and  years,  were,  taken  with  the 
replies  of  the  Patent  Offices,  mere  'perfunctory  ex- 
changes of  compliments,'  but  this  docs  not  change 
the  fact  that  action  ivas  ashed  and  repeatedly  ashed; 
that  no  request  was  made  for  delay,  no  intimation 
that  it  was  desired  or  ivould  be  acceptable/* 

Dealing  then  with  the  general  charge  of  fraud 
preferred  against  Bell  and  Berliner,  Mr.  Justice 
Brewer's  opinion  was  of  even  more  destructive  de- 
cisiveness.   He  said: 

'^The  difficidty  ivith  this  charge  of  tvrong  is  that 
it  is  not  proved.  It  assumes  the  existence  of  a 
knowledge  which  no  one  had ;  of  an  intention  which 
is  not  shown.  It  treats  every  written  communica- 
tion from  the  solicitor  in  charge  of  the  application, 
calling  for  action,  as  a  pretense,  and  all  the  oral  and 
urgent  appeals  for  promptness  as  in  fact  mere  in- 
vitations to  delay.  It  not  only  rejects  the  testimony 
which  is  given,  both  oral  and  written,  as  false,  but 
asks  that  it  be  held  to  prove  just  the  reverse. 


VINDICATION  OF  BERLINER  153 


''Indeed,  the  case  which  the  counsel  present  to 
us  may  be  summed  up  in  these  words:  'The  applica- 
tion for  this  patent  was  duly  filed.  The  Patent  Office 
after  the  filing  had  full  jurisdiction  over  the  pro- 
cedure ;  the  applicant  had  no  control  over  its  action. 
We  have  been  unable  to  offer  a  syllable  of  testimony 
tending  to  show  that  the  applicant  ever  in  any  way 
corrupted  or  attempted  to  corrupt  any  of  the  officials 
of  the  department.  We  have  been  unable  to  show 
that  any  delay  or  postponement  w^as  made  at  the 
instance  or  on  the  suggestion  of  the  applicant. 
Every  communication  that  it  made  during  those 
years  carried  with  it  a  request  for  action;  yet  be- 
cause the  delay  has  resulted  in  enlarged  profits  to 
the  applicant,  and  the  fact  that  it  would  so  result 
ought  to  have  been  known  to  it,  it  must  be  assumed 
that  in  some  way  it  did  cause  the  delay,  and  having 
so  caused  the  delay  ought  to  suffer  therefor. ' 

*' There  is  seldom  presented  a  case  in  which  there 
is  such  an  absolute  and  total  failure  of  proof  of 
wrong  J' 

In  his  ' '  syllabus ' '  of  the  proceedings  Mr.  Justice 
Brewer  added: 

"The  evidence  in  this  case  does  not  in  the  least 
degree  tend  to  show  any  corruption  by  the  applicant 
of  any  of  the  officials  of  the  department,  or  any  un- 
due or  improper  influence  exerted  or  attempted  to 
be  exerted  by  it  upon  them,  and  on  the  other  hand 
does  affirmatively  show  that  it  urged  promptness  on 
the  part  of  the  officials  of  the  department,  and  that 
the  delay  was  the  result  of  the  action  of  those 
officials. ' ' 

The  Supreme  Court's  opinion  finally  set  forth 
that  the  Government's  "question,  as  stated,  is  not 
open  for  consideration  in  this  case.  We  see  no  error 


154  EMILE  BERLINER 

in  the  decision  of  the  Court  of  Appeals,  and  its  de- 
cree, dismissing  the  [Government's]  bill  is  af- 
firmed." The  decision  was  all  but  unanimous.  Of 
the  members  of  the  Supreme  Court  who  took  part  in 
it,  only  one  (Mr.  Justice  Harlan)  dissented.  It  was 
by  a  vote  of  six  to  one  that  Emile  Berliner 's  rights 
were  vindicated  in  the  tribunal  of  last  resort. 

Thus  came  to  a  triumi)hant  end  the  most  impor- 
tant and  most  protracted  litigation  which  has  arisen 
under  the  patent  system  in  this  country.  For  years 
it  was  pending  in  the  trial  courts  and  subsequently 
was  brought  to  the  United  States  Supreme  Court. 
So  vast  was  this  litigation,  so  immense  the  volume 
of  testimony,  and  so  far-reaching  the  rights  in- 
volved, that  it  is  the  only  case  in  the  history  of  the 
Supreme  Court  to  which  an  entire  volume  of  its  re- 
ports is  devoted.  The  culminating  decision  fixed  for 
all  time  the  meritorious  place  of  Emile  Berliner  as 
a  master-builder  in  the  realm  of  telephony.* 


*A  great  deal  of  feeling  was  created  against  the  Bell  Telephone 
Company  by  the  issue  of  the  Berliner  microphone  patent.  The  delay 
of  fourteen  years  in  the  issue  of  the  patent  was  attributed  to  some 
"adroit  handling"  of  the  Berliner  application  by  the  Bell  Tele- 
phone lawyers.  True,  the  Supreme  Court  in  1896  absolved  the  Bell 
Company  of  any  intentional  delaying  of  the  issue  of  the  patent. 
Yet  public  opinion  was  so  aroused  that  in  1903  a  Court  of  Appeals 
narrowed  the  Berliner  patent  to  the  use  of  metallic  contacts,  but 
otherwise  sustained  the  patent.  In  the  face  of  that  restriction,  two 
presidents  of  the  American  Telephone  and  Telegraph  Company, 
Theodore  N.  Vail,  in  1918,  and  H.  B.  Thayer,  in  1924,  emphatic;illy 
upheld  Berliner  as  the  inventor  of  the  microphone.  A  metal  micro- 
phone transmits  talk  perfectly;  its  range  of  adjustment  alone  is 
smallei. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

BEELINEK  TAKES  THE  TRANSMITTER  TO  EUROPE 

CHRONOLOGICALLY  this  narrative  of  the 
Hanover  emigrant  boy  who,  scientifically  un- 
tutored, became  the  inventor  of  the  microphone,  was 
interrupted  to  make  place  for  the  drama  of  the  tele- 
phone litigation.  The  story  of  Emile  Berliner  is 
now  taken  up  where  it  was  left  off — at  the  beginning 
of  his  employment  with  the  Bell  Telephone  Com- 
pany as  perfecter  of  the  Blake  transmitter. 

A  humble,  unrecognized  and  merely  hopeful  dry- 
goods  store  clerk  in  Washington  only  a  year  before, 
Berliner  now,  in  the  middle  of  1879,  was  an  impor- 
tant factor  in  the  neAV  industry  of  telephony,  just 
staggering  into  its  illimitable  own.  The  first  twenty 
thousand  transmitters  turned  out  by  the  Williams 
factory  in  Boston  were  in  use  in  various  parts  of  the 
country  after  passing  muster  at  Berliner's  own 
hands.  They  were  known  as  ''Blake-Berliner  Trans- 
mitters." In  a  veiy  literal  sense,  it  was  Berliner 
under  whose  auspices  the  telephone  business  STvning 
into  its  practical  stride. 

Only  once  thereafter  did  it  ever  become  neces- 
sary for  Berliner  again  to  apply  himself  to  the 

155 


156     EMILE  BERLINER 

Blake  transmitter,  which  he  had  successfully 
launched.  During  Berliner's  absence  on  protracted 
leave,  the  instrument  department  was  placed  under 
the  supervision  of  another  man  who  was  considered 
an  able  mechanician.  But  Berliner  had  no  sooner 
returned  to  Boston  than  he  was  told  that  serious 
complaints  were  coming  in  from  the  Telephone 
Company's  agents  regarding  the  quality  of  the 
Blake  transmitters.  Theodore  N.  Vail,  General 
Manager  of  the  Company,  directed  Berliner  to  de- 
vote himself  without  delay  to  ascertaining  where  the 
difficulty  lay  and  removing  it. 

After  several  weeks  of  plodding,  Berliner,  with 
intuitive  grasp,  put  his  finger  on  the  trouble.  He 
found  that  the  substitute  man  who  had  functioned 
in  the  instrument  department  during  his  absence 
had  introduced  a  new  lock  for  the  transmitter.  In 
order  to  attach  the  lock,  it  was  necessary  to  bore  a 
good-sized  hole  under  the  casting  which  held  the 
diaphragm.  This  hole  formed  an  ''escape"  for  the 
voice  vibrations  that  went  into  the  mouthpiece,  cor- 
respondingly weakening  their  effect  on  the  dia- 
phragm. Only  a  trained  and  intensive  experimenter 
like  Berliner  could  have  located  the  cause  of  this 
serious  defect  so  unerringly.  Once  determined,  it 
was  speedily  remedied.  The  Bell  Company  realized 
that  once  again,  and  at  another  critical  moment,  the 
transmitter  had  been  saved  by  Berliner's  skill. 

The  Boston  of  the  early  'eighties  offered  many 
attractions  for  a  young  man  of  Emile  Berliner's  in- 


^ 


James  J.  Storrow 
GuGLiELMO  Marconi 


Alexander  Graham  Bell 
Maj.  Gex.  Geo.  O.  Squier 


TRANSMITTER  TO  EUROPE  157 

tellectual  bent.  Though  he  lived  in  a  typical  New 
England  city  boarding-house  of  the  era,  Berliner 
studiously  warded  off  the  dulling  influence  of  such 
an  environment  and  availed  himself  of  the  numerous 
educational  opportunities  of  "The  Hub."  The 
Boston  public  library,  art  institute  and  symphony 
orchestra  already  were  institutions  of  national  re- 
pute, and  at  those  fountains  of  inspiration  the  young 
inventor  drank  freely  in  his  spare  hours. 

Work,  under  great  pressure,  in  connection  vdth. 
the  perfection  of  the  Blake  transmitter,  brought  on 
a  recurrence  of  Berliner's  nervous  troubles,  which 
only  a  year  previous  had  threatened  so  serious  con- 
sequences. In  the  midst  of  his  labors  at  the  Bell 
laboratory  one  day,  he  suffered  an  attack  which  re- 
quired his  instant  removal  to  the  Massachusetts 
General  Hospital.  The  Bell  Company  was  deeply 
concerned  over  the  health  of  its  young  scientific  lieu- 
tenant. General  Manager  Vail  gave  instructions 
that  every  conceivable  care  and  attention  should  be 
given  Berliner.  As  soon  as  Alexander  Graham  Bell 
learned  of  the  inventor's  breakdown,  he  ^dsited  him 
in  the  hospital.  The  consideration  and  courtesy  re- 
ceived at  Bell's  hands  did  much  to  give  Berliner 
courage  and  strength  to  rally  from  his  sickbed. 
Within  ten  days  he  was  able  to  leave  the  hospital, 
though  not  strong  enough  to  resume  work.  Instead, 
Berliner  yielded  to  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Williams, 
the  head  of  the  telephone  factory,  that  a  period  of 
recuperation  in   the   New  Hampshire   hills   would 


158 EMILE  BERLINER      

work  wonders.  So  Berliner  arranged  to  make  his 
home  for  three  weeks  in  a  fisherman's  cottage  in  the 
"White  Momitains.  There,  complete  rest,  sleep  and 
life  in  the  open  accomplished  their  unfailing  cure, 
and  it  was  not  long  before  the  inventor  found 
his  old-time  strength  returning.  It  was  during  that 
beautiful  New  England  spring  of  1879  that  Berliner 
experienced  the  magic  of  Nature  as  a  healing  agent. 
He  remembers  to  this  day  the  buoyancy  of  his  steps 
as  he  again  walked  the  streets  of  Boston. 

Berliner's  social  contacts  in  Boston  were  limited, 
but  notable  and  delightful.  Alexander  Graham 
Bell  and  his  family  invited  him  to  their  home, 
a  beautiful  house  in  Cambridge  which  the  Bell  and 
Hubbard  families  occupied  together.  There  Ber- 
liner now  and  then  had  opportunity  to  meet  the  class 
of  people  who  give  the  Back  Bay  cultural  distinc- 
tion. Under  the  Bell  roof,  too,  Berliner  naturally 
found  agreeable  companionship  with  the  field  mar- 
shals of  telephone  science,  of  whom  Bell  was,  of 
course,  the  acknowledged  generalissimo. 

Maturity  had  come  with  his  arrival  in  the  throb- 
bing thirties,  and  Berliner  now  felt  himself  definitely 
launched  upon  the  coveted  career  of  a  scientist.  To 
him  it  was  an  ever  amazing  transition  as  he  looked 
back  upon  his  non-technical  background  and  recalled 
his  humdrum  life  as  a  dry-goods  clerk. 

Berliner  could  not  always  hold  his  o^^^l  with 
some  of  the  trained  scientists  who  frequented  the 
Bell-Hubbard  home.    He  was  often  embarrassed  by 


TRANSMITTER  TO  EUROPE  159 

finding  himself  entangled  in  intricate  mathematical 
discussions  a  little  beyond  one  who  had  left  school  in 
Germany  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  had  never  had  a 
single  day's  schooling  in  America,  and  was  entirely 
self-taught  as  far  as  the  science  of  telephony  was 
concerned.  Berliner's  embarrassment  on  this  ac- 
count was  unfailingly  removed  by  the  frank  pleasure 
of  new  acquaintances  in  finding  themselves  in  the 
presence  of  an  unaffected  personality. 

Berliner's  perfection  of  the  Blake  transmitter 
had  been  of  so  paramount  importance  that  he  was 
eventually  appointed  chief  instrument  inspector  of 
the  Bell  Telephone  Company.  In  that  capacity  it 
was  his  duty  to  tour  the  instrument  department  of 
the  factory  twice  a  day.  On  those  occasions  it  was 
his  habit  to  question  closely  his  assistant,  W.  L. 
Richards,  whom  Berliner  had  placed  in  charge  of 
testing  work,  on  all  and  sundry  that  was  transpir- 
ing in  connection  with  the  manufacture  of  instru- 
ments. It  was,  of  course,  of  the  most  direct  and 
vital  interest  to  the  Bell  Company  that  its  appara- 
tus should  function  with  faultless  precision.  The 
art,  in  a  commercial  sense,  was  still  too  young  and 
the  public  far  too  insufficiently  acquainted  mth  the 
telephone 's  practicability  to  permit  the  Bells  to  run 
the  risk  of  catering  for  patronage  with  faulty 
apparatus. 

One  episode,  destined  to  be  of  immense  impor- 
tance to  the  talking-machine  industry  in  later  years, 
came  under  Berliner 's  observation  during  his  scout- 


160 EMILE  BERLINER 

ing  trips  through  the  telephone  factory.  A  manu- 
facturer of  imitation  hard  rubber  offered  to  produce 
hand  receivers  for  the  Bell  Telephone  Company  at 
less  than  half  the  price  of  instruments  composed  of 
real  hard  rubber.  Vail,  the  general  manager, 
turned  the  proposition  over  to  Berliner,  who  visited 
at  Albany  the  works  where  the  imitation  rubber 
articles  were  being  made.  Berliner  was  so  much 
impressed  with  their  beauty  and  the  skill  with  which 
a  composition  was  used  for  turning  them  out  that 
he  advised  Vail  to  give  the  manufacturer  a  sample 
order  for  equipment  of  a  thousand  telephones.  They 
were  handsomer  than  real  rubber,  and,  after  under- 
going completion  in  the  AVilliams  factory  under 
Berliner's  supervision,  telephones  fitted  with  the 
imitation  rubber  material  were  shipped  to  a  few 
selected  Bell  agents  in  charge  of  local  exchanges 
with  instructions  to  keep  them  under  close  observa- 
tion. 

But  reports  soon  came  in  that  the  composition 
equipment  could  not  withstand  rough  treatment  and 
easily  cracked  and  broke.  Its  use  was  forthwith 
abandoned.  But  the  experiment,  which  had  proved 
rather  an  expensive  failure  for  the  Telephone  Com- 
pany, served  Berliner  years  afterward,  when  he 
successfully  utilized  the  same  imitation  rubber  com- 
position for  the  pressing  of  millions  of  disk  sound 
records  for  the  gramophone.  Other  talking  ma- 
chines copied  this  process.  The  identical  material, 
with  slight  variations,  is  used  to  this  day  for  disk 


TRANSMITTER  TO  EUROPE  161 

records,  showing  that  even  an  abandoned  scientific 
experiment  may  contain  the  seed  from  which  a  great 
new  industry  is  destined  to  arise. 

Apart  from  occasional  special  experiments  with 
new  kinks  in  telephony,  which  bobbed  np  incessantly 
from  nondescript  quarters,  Berliner's  activities  in 
the  instrument  department  of  the  Bell  Company  be- 
came more  or  less  routine.  He  had  worked  out  the 
Blake  transmitter  so  thoroughly  that  thousands  of 
those  instruments  could  be  produced  without  diffi- 
culty and  so  perfectly  that  they  kept  their  adjust- 
ment indefinitely.  This  was  the  more  remarkable 
because  the  transmitter  required  to  be  constructed 
with  the  most  minute  care,  whereas  the  Bell  magneto 
receiver  had  no  movable  parts  to  get  out  of  adjust- 
ment. 

It  was  at  this  stage  of  Berliner's  career  that  he 
conceived  a  desire  to  visit  the  land  of  his  birth.  A 
member  of  his  own  family,  Emile's  youngest 
brother,  Joseph,  was  now  in  America,  and,  being 
of  a  mechanical  turn  of  mind,  Berliner  secured  for 
him  a  position  in  the  Williams  telephone  factory. 
Joseph  proved  to  be  an  able  apprentice.  One  of 
Berliner's  personal  assistants,  a  trained  English 
mechanic,  gave  Joseph  daily  instruction  after  the 
plant  had  closed  down  for  the  d'ay.  The  education 
of  his  brother  Joseph  was  part  of  a  plan  upon  which 
Emile  Berliner  had  been  quietly  working,  namely, 
the  introduction  of  telephone  transmitters  into  Eu- 
rope.   Incidentally,  he  desired  to  give  two  of  his 


162 EMILE  BERLINER 

brothers  a  chance  to  ''get  in  on  the  ground  floor"  of 
the  telephone  industry  in  Germany. 

Vail  readily  consented  when  Emile  Berliner 
asked  the  general  manager  of  the  Bell  Telephone 
Company  for  a  leave  of  absence  to  visit  Europe. 
The  young  inventor  had  not  seen  his  mother  and 
brothers  and  sisters  for  eleven  years.  Berliner's 
father  had  meanwhile  passed  away.  Even  in  the 
days  of  his  slender  income  as  a  store  clerk  in  Wash- 
ington, Berliner  had  regularly  sent  money  to  his 
mother,  in  accordance  with  the  time-honored  prac- 
tise of  the  millions  of  young  Europeans  who  emi- 
grated to  these  treasure  shores. 

Early  in  the  summer  of  1881  Berliner  went  back 
to  Germany,  under  vastly  different  circumstances 
than  those  which  marked  his  departure  from  Han- 
over in  1870,  an  emigrant  youth  possessing  little  but 
dormant  talent  with  which  to  start  life  in  a  new 
and  strange  land.  Berliner  had  by  now  profited 
handsomely  from  his  telephone  inventions,  though 
his  rewards  were  wholly  incommensurate  with  the 
returns  which  inventive  achievements  like  the  trans- 
mitter would  bring  to-day.  Yet  the  Bells  had  given 
him  what  was  a  fortune  for  those  times — nearly  fifty 
years  ago.  His  financial  prosperity  was,  of  course, 
a  gratifying  testimonial  to  his  merit,  but  he  derived 
immensely  greater  satisfaction  from  the  scientific 
recognition  his  struggles  had  brought  him. 

Berliner's  widowed  mother  no  longer  occupied 
the  house  in  Hanover  which  had  sheltered  him  and 


TRANSMITTER  TO  EUROPE  163 

his  brothers  and  sisters  in  their  youth.  Four 
brothers  and  two  sisters  were  still  alive,  some  mar- 
ried, others  making  their  home  with  their  mother. 
Hanover  otherwise  was  much  the  same.  The  city 
was  throbbing  with  the  new  industrial  energy  which 
came  to  Germany  after  the  victorious  war  with 
France  and  was  the  seat  of  prosperous  factories  of 
various  sorts.  One  of  its  budding  new  industries 
was  a  rubber  works  in  which  a  comrade  of  Ber- 
liner's school  days,  Herman  Hecht,  was  prominent. 
The  inventor's  mother  rejoiced  in  the  reunion  with 
her  son  after  the  lapse  of  ten  years,  and  in  his  tri- 
umphant entry  into  the  newly  world-famed  science 
of  telephony.  Day  after  day,  for  the  edification  of 
his  mother,  brothers,  sisters  and  old  friends,  Ber- 
liner had  to  hold  forth  in  minute  description  of  his 
life  and  work  in  ''free  America."  In  the  eyes  of 
them  all  he  assumed  the  dimensions  of  a  hero.  What 
most  astonished  them,  steeped  as  they  were  in  Ger- 
man tradition,  was  that  success  in  life  was  possible 
mthout  influence,  and,  in  a  scientific  profession, 
without  university  training.  Berliner's  achieve- 
ment, accomplished  wholly  because  of  natural  abil- 
ity and  the  will  to  do,  struck  his  Hanoverian  kin 
and  former  associates  as  little  short  of  miraculous. 
The  Bell  magneto  telephone  was  already  known 
in  Germany.  To  a  limited  extent  it  was  in  use  in 
various  government  departments,  principally  by 
the  post-office.  The  largest  electric  concern  of  the 
time,  the  firm  of  Siemens  and  Halske,  of  Berlin,  was 


164 EMILE  BERLINER 

manufacturing  an  enlarged  Bell  magneto  telephone. 
This  was  used  both  as  a  receiver  and  a  transmitter, 
but  no  battery  transmitter  was  employed. 

The  young  American  saw  at  once  the  opportun- 
ity for  introduction  in  Germany  of  the  telephone 
transmitter,  or  microphone,  and  the  establishment 
of  a  factory  for  the  production  of  apparatus  on  the 
lines  pursued  by  the  Bell- Williams  factory  in  Bos- 
ton. In  Hanover  itself  there  were  as  yet  no  tele- 
phones at  all,  and  that  situation  was  characteristic 
of  practically  all  Germany. 

Berliner  proposed  that  his  older  brother,  Jacob, 
who  was  conducting  a  small  tannery,  should  form 
a  partnership  with  the  younger  brother,  Joseph, 
who  was  still  serving  his  telephone  apprenticeship 
in  America.  Emile's  idea  was  that  Jacob  should  be 
the  financier  and  business  manager  of  the  enter- 
prise, while  Joseph  should  attend  to  its  technical 
development.  It  was  decided,  upon  the  strength  of 
Emile's  persuasive  confidence  in  the  assured  and 
limitless  future  of  the  telephone,  to  cable  Joseph  to 
return  to  Germany. 

At  the  same  time  it  was  arranged  to  import  a 
number  of  transmitters  from  the  Williams  factory. 
Thereupon  there  was  launched  the  "Telephon-Fab- 
rik  J.  Berliner."  It  soon  developed  into  a  very 
large  producer  of  telephone  apparatus  which  be- 
came famous  all  over  Europe.  Eventually  it  made 
rich  men  of  the  two  brothers  whom  Emile  induced 
to  enter  the  virgin  field.    One  of  those  whom  Ber- 


TRANSMITTER  TO  EUROPE  165 

liner  had  tried  and  failed  to  interest  financially  in 
the  elec]trical  business  was  his  schoolmate  of  Wolf- 
enbiittel,  Herman  Hecht.  Hecht  conferred  with  a 
number  of  brother  capitalists,  but  they  came  to  the 
conclusion  that  electrical  engineering  was  still  too 
visionary  a  thing  to  merit  the  consideration  of  prac- 
tical German  business  men.  The  Berliner  factory 
at  Hanover  was  the  first  serious  step  toward  the 
introduction  of  modern  telephone  service  into  both 
Germany  and  France.  In  Paris  and  other  French 
cities  the  '^Transmetteur  Berliner"  was  for  years 
afterward  the  standard  instrument.  So  the  Han- 
over lad  paved  the  way  for  the  telephone  transmit- 
ter or  microphone  in  the  Old  World,  as  he  had  done 
in  the  New. 

Having  accomplished  liis  ambition  to  start  his 
brothers  in  the  telephone  business,  Emile  devoted 
the  rest  of  his  sojourn  in  Germany  to  recreation  and 
visits  among  the  cronies  and  scenes  of  his  early  life. 
He  went  to  Wolfenbiittel  to  see  the  old  school  and 
his  headmaster,  who  exhibited  him  with  beaming 
satisfaction  as  a  sample  of  what  the  educational 
system  of  that  modest,  though  model,  institution 
could  produce.  Emile  invited  his  mother  to  visit 
with  him  in  the  Harz  Mountains,  whence  America 
imports  canary  birds,  and  amid  their  picturesque 
and  invigorating  hills,  Sarah  Berliner  and  her  son 
lived  over  again  those  times,  fifteen  and  twenty 
years  previous  when  he  was  dreaming  the  ''long, 
long  thoughts"  of  youth,  though  not  faintly  envis- 


166 EMILE  BERLINER 

ioning  what  the  future  held  in  store  for  him  in 
''free  America." 

In  the  autumn  of  1881,  Emile  Berliner  returned 
to  the  United  States  to  claim  in  marriage  Miss  Cora 
Adler,  to  whom  he  had  become  engaged  just  before 
leaving  for  Europe.  It  was  the  Adler  home  on 
Sixth  Street,  "Washington,  to  which  Berliner  once 
strung  "telephone"  wires  from  his  lodgings  across 
the  way,  and  some  of  his  early  successes  were 
achieved  while  thus  combining  experiment  mtli 
courtship.  A  simple  wedding  was  solemnized  in 
October  and  the  young  couple  at  once  set  up  house- 
keeping in  Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  ^\itliin  walk- 
ing distance  of  Harvard  Square,  while  Berliner  re- 
sumed his  duties  at  the  Bell  telephone  factory  in 
Boston. 

Soon  afterward,  ^v'ith  his  assistant  Richards  in 
charge  of  the  instrument  department,  Berliner  was 
called  upon  by  the  Bell  lawyers  to  assist  Professor 
Cross,  of  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology, 
in  the  important  experiments  required  for  the  con- 
duct of  the  great  lawsuits  in  defense  of  the  Bell- 
Berliner  patents.  On  one  occasion  during  the  litiga- 
tion, when  the  United  States  Government's  experts 
attacked  Berliner's  microphone  caveat  (of  April  14, 
1877)  as  a  mere  description  of  an  unfinished  inven- 
tion, Berliner  resorted  to  an  unique  demonstration 
in  rebuttal.  He  rigged  up  and  adjusted  a  common 
telegraph  key  such  as  was  mentioned  in  the  caveat 
of  April  14,  1877,  but  instead  of  using  the  contact 


TRANSMITTER  TO  EUEOPE  167 

for  sending  a  telegraph  message  Berliner  made  of  it 
a  microphone  loose  contact,  leaving  everything  else 
intact.  Then,  in  the  presence  of  lawyers  and 
experts,  he  caused  the  Government's  counsel  to 
carry  on  a  perfect  conversation  over  a  line  simply 
by  talking  to  the  telegraph  ''microphone."  The 
Federal  attorney  took  this  conclusive  test  ^\'ith  good 
grace.  Turning  to  the  telephone  company's  law- 
yers, he  exclaimed:  ''It  does  seem  incredible!" 

The  impromptu  aural  proof  thus  supplied  estab- 
lished the  completeness  and  entire  sufficiency  of  the 
early  Berliner  caveat,  describing  the  microphone — 
a  patent  paper  later  eulogized  by  James  J.  Storrow 
as  "a  classical  document." 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

HOLDING  COMMUNION   WITH   IMMORTALITY 

WHEN  the  Sesquicentennial  throngs  in  the 
summer  of  1926  crossed  the  great  steel 
bridge  that  now  spans  the  Delaware  from  Phila- 
delphia to  Camden,  they  found  the  Jersey  sky-line 
dominated  by  a  factory  of  magnificent  dimensions. 
It  has  been  called  the  house  that  Emile  Berliner 
built — the  home  of  the  *' talking  machine." 

Many  men  and  many  minds  participated  in  its 
erection.  But  Berliner's  part — the  invention  of  the 
lateral  cut  disk  record — was  the  corner-stone. 
Upon  it  there  was  reared  and  now  firmly  rests  the 
w^hole  '' talking  machine"  industry  throughout  the 
world.  As  the  telephone  was  impracticable  until 
Emile  Berliner  completed  it,  so  the  art  of  reproduc- 
ing and  perpetuating  sound  remained  imperfect 
until  the  inventor  of  the  microphone  turned  his 
attention  to  the  "talking  machine." 

The  result  was  the  invention  of  the  gramophone. 

The  gramophone — gramma,  a  letter,  and  phone, 
a  sound — according  to  Noah  Webster  [Imperial 
Dictionary,  page  798)  is  "a  device  invented  by  E. 
Berliner  to  record,  retain  and  reproduce  sounds.    It 

168 


COMMUNION  WITH  IMMORTALITY     169 

differs  from  a  phonograph  in  ha\dng  a  circular  disk 
upon  which  tracings  are  made  by  a  recording  style, 
and  from  which  sounds  are  reproduced  by  another 
kind  of  style  attached  to  the  diaphragm  of  any  one 
of  various  types  of  reproducers."  Berliner  not  only 
invented  the  gramophone,  but  corned  its.  name. 

So  terse  and  technical  a  description  of  Emile 
Berliner's  second  triumph  in  his  chosen  field  of 
acoustics  does  necessarily  scant  justice  to  its  real 
contribution  to  human  happiness  and  to  civilization 
at  large.  To  have  invented  the  microphone-trans- 
mitter, as  one  of  Berliner's  early  eulogists  observed, 
*' would  be  sufficient  for  the  glory  of  a  single  life." 
But  the  task  to  which  the  restless  scientist  now  dedi- 
cated his  energies  was  to  culminate  in  an  achieve- 
ment that  is  likely  to  be  ranked  by  posterity  not 
very  far  behind  the  boon  of  the  telephone. 

What  Berliner  was  about  to  do — in  his  own 
graphic  language — was  to  ''etch  the  human  voice." 
Michael  Angelo,  with  brush  and  chisel,  immortalized 
the  human  form,  but,  despite  God-given  talent,  left 
it — as  all  modelers  in  marble  and  oil  perforce  must 
do — '''mute,  inglorious."  Emile  Berliner  took  hu- 
man sound,  whether  uttered  in  speech  or  song,  and 
reproduced  it,  not  as  a  parody  as  in  the  tinfoil 
phonograph  or  in  the  wax-cylinder  graphophone, 
which  were  already  in  existence,  but  in  accurate  and 
fadeless  form,  to  echo  down  the  ages  as  long  as  time 
endures.  He  enabled  mankind  to  ''hold  communion 
with  immortality."    Masterpieces  in  oil  have  been 


170 EMILE  BERLINER 

copied  as  etchings.  Many  original  creations  have 
been  made  by  etchers.  But  to  etch  the  human  voice 
constituted  a  superb  extension  of  the  etching  art 
into  the  realm  of  physics,  acoustics  and  of  the  hu- 
man, living  drama. 

For  the  better  part  of  the  subsequent  half-cen- 
tury civilization  the  world  over  has  been  the  sweeter 
and  the  nobler  for  the  entertainment  and  the  edu- 
cation that  came  with  the  ''talking  machine." 
Until  its  dawn,  the  music  of  the  masters  and  its 
rendition  by  interpreters  of  distinction  were  the 
luxurious  privilege  of  the  cultured  few ;  and  not  even 
always  of  them,  for  to  enjoy  Beethoven,  Liszt  and 
Chopin,  and  hear  the  great  orchestras,  the  virtuosos 
of  piano,  violin,  cello  and  harp,  or  the  song-birds  of 
international  repute,  meant  the  ability  to  purchase 
such  cultural  opportunities  at  prices  beyond  the 
purse  of  the  average  person. 

The  advent  of  the  "talking  machine,"  and  quite 
particularly  of  Emile  Berliner's  contribution  to  it — 
the  thing  we  know  as  the  *' record" — brought  Apollo 
into  the  homes  of  the  children  of  men  everywhere. 

It  turned  the  humblest  fireside  into  an  opera- 
house.  It  taught  the  cowboy  to  whistle  Wagner  and 
Tosti.  It  made  Melba  and  Caruso  the  familiar  com- 
panions of  music-lovers  far  and  wide.  It  made 
William  Jennings  Bryan  the  speaker  of  the  evening 
in  a  myriad  of  living-rooms.  It  banished  loneliness 
and  solitude  from  the  life  of  the  lowliest.  On  one 
of  Emile  Berliner's  walls  there  hangs  a  picture  be- 


COMMUNION  WITH  IMMORTALITY     171 

neath  which,  in  his  o^^^l  handwriting,  are  the  words : 
''In  Touch  with  Civilization." 

The  story  of  that  picture  was  once  quaintly  told 
by  him  in  a  paper  on  The  Development  of  the  Talk- 
ing Machine  before  the  Franklin  Institute; 

"It  shows  a  giant  lumberman  reposing  placidly 
on  a  rough  bench  in  front  of  his  crude  log  cabin  in 
the  mlds  of  western  Canada.  Nothing  but  forest 
and  mountains  surround  him.  His  ax  and  shot-gun 
lean  against  the  cabin  within  easy  reach.  He  is 
smoking  his  pipe,  and  his  faithful  dog  crouches  at 
his  feet.  His  nearest  neighbors  are  miles  away.  In 
days  gone  by,  the  solitude  of  his  existence  would 
have  been  but  rarely  relieved  by  diversions  or  pleas- 
ures, and  then  only  by  occasional  visits  to  the  cen- 
ters of  supplies,  where  barrooms,  gambling  dens  and 
low  dance-halls  satisfied  his  yearning  for  a  change 
from  his  dreary  and  laborious  daily  existence. 

*'But  now  there  stands  in  front  of  him  a  rough 
dry-goods  box,  on  it  an  old-time  horn  gramophone 
and  a  stack  of  disk  records.  The  concert  halls,  the 
vaudeville  and  opera-houses  of  the  world  are  repre- 
sented in  that  pile.  English  statesmen  and  Amer- 
ican presidents  may  talk  to  the  lumberjack  as  if  face 
to  face,  and  he  can  entertain  his  occasional  visitors 
■with  the  same  choice  selections  that  are  heard  in 
the  drawing-rooms  of  mansions  occupied  by  the 
favored  few,  be  they  in  the  capitals  or  greatest  cities 
on  another  side  of  the  globe." 

On  May  16, 1888,  Berliner  gave  before  the  Frank- 
lin Institute  of  Philadelphia  the  first  exhibition  of 
the  gramophone,  patented  by  him  a  few  months 
previous.  The  exhibition  consisted  of  the  grinding 
out  on  his  hand-driven  machine  of  half  a  dozen 


172 EMILE  BERLINER 

*'phonautograms" — the  name  for  records  in  those 
primitive  days — which  reproduced,  respectively,  in 
music  and  in  spoken  words,  the  following  program: 

1.  Baritone  solos:  Yankee  Doodle;  Baby  Mine} 
Nancy  Lee. 

2.  Cornet  Solo. 

3.  Baritone  Solo:  Tar's  Farewell. 

4.  Soprano    Solo:    Home   Sweet   Home;    Annie 
Laurie. 

5.  Tenor  Solo:  A  Wandering  Minstrel  I. 

6.  Recitation:  The  Declaration  of  Independence. 

Then  Berliner,  having  electrified  the  members 
of  the  Franklin  Institute  with  alluring  evidence  of 
the  gramophone's  present,  invited  them  to  accom- 
pany him  on  a  prophetic  tour  into  the  field  of  its 
future.  Here  is  his  flight  into  fancy  thirty-eight 
years  ago,  long  before  the  needles  of  the  talking  ma- 
chine had  scratched  the  surface  of  its  possibilities: 

**A  standard  reproducing  apparatus,  simple  in 
construction  and  easily  manipulated,  mil,  at  a  mod- 
erate selling  price,  be  placed  on  the  market. 

*' Those  having  one  may  then  buy  an  assortment 
of  Phonautograms,  to  be  increased  occasipnally, 
comprising  recitations,  songs,  chorus  and  instru- 
mental solos  or  orchestral  pieces  of  every  variety. 

*'In  each  city  there  will  be  at  least  one  office  hav- 
ing a  gramophone  recorder  with  all  the  necessary- 
outfits.  There  will  be  an  acoustic  cabinet,  or  acousti- 
con,  containing  a  very  large  funnel  or  other  sound 
concentrator,  the  narrow  end  of  which  ends  in  a  tube 
leading  to  the  recording  diaphragm.    At  the  wide 


COMMUNION  WITH  IMMOETALITY     173 

opening  of  the  funnel  will  be  placed  a  piano,  and 
back  of  it  a  semicircular  wall  for  reflecting  the  sound 
into  the  funnel.  Persons  desirous  of  ha\T.ng  their 
voice  taken  mil  step  before  the  funnel  and,  upon  a 
giten  signal,  sing  or  speak,  or  they  may  perform 
upon  an  instrument.  While  they  are  waiting  the 
plate  will  be  developed,  and  when  it  is  satisfactory, 
it  is  turned  over  to  the  electrotyper  or  to  the  molder 
in  charge,  who  will  make  as  many  copies  as  desired. 

''Prominent  singers,  speakers  or  performers 
may  derive  an  income  from  royalties  on  the  sale 
of  their  phonautograms,  and  valuable  plates  may  be 
printed  and  registered  to  protect  against  unauthor- 
ized publication. 

*' Collections  of  phonautograms  may  become 
very  valuable,  and  whole  evenings  ^\^11  be  spent  at 
home  going  through  a  long  list  of  interesting  per- 
formances. Who  will  deny  the  beneficial  influence 
which  civilization  wdll  experience  when  the  voices  of 
dear  relatives  and  friends  long  departed,  the  utter- 
ances of  the  great  men  and  women  who  lived  cen- 
turies before,  the  radiant  songs  of  Patti,  Campanini, 
and  others,  the  dramatic  voices  of  Booth,  Irving  and 
Bernhardt,  and  the  humor  of  Nye  and  Riley  can  be 
heard  and  reheard  in  every  Avell-furnished  parlor. 

''Last  wills  can  be  registered  with  the  testators' 
own  voices,  and  important  testimony  can  be  sent 
from  afar  and  read  in  court,  and  the  voice  so  pro- 
duced can  be  testified  to  by  friends  present. 

"Languages  can  be  taught  by  having  a  good 
elocutionist  speak  classical  recitations,  and  sell 
copies  of  his  voice  to  students.  In  this  department 
alone,  and  that  of  teaching  elocution  generally,  an 
immense  field  is  to  be  filled  by  the  gramophone. 

"Addresses — congratulatory,  political  or  other- 
wise— can  be  delivered  by  proxy  so  loudl}^  that  the 
audience  will  be  almost  as  if  conscious  of  the  speak- 
er's presence. 

"A  singer  unable  to  appear  at  a  concert  may 


174 EMILE  BERLINER    

send  lier  voice  and  be  represented  as  per  program, 
and  conventions  will  listen  to  distant  sympathizers, 
be  they  thousands  of  miles  away. 

"Future  generations  mil  be  able  to  condense 
within  the  space  of  twenty  minutes  a  tone  picture  of 
a  single  lifetime.  Five  minutes  of  a  child's  prattle, 
five  of  the  boy's  exultations,  five  of  the  man's  re- 
flections, and  five  from  the  feeble  utterances  from 
the  death-bed.  Will  it  not  be  like  holding  communion 
even  with  immortality?" 


CHAPTER  XIX 

BIETH  OF  THE  TALKING  MACHINE 

IT  IS  a  curious  coincidence  that  although  it  was  in 
America  that  both  the  telephone  and  the  talking 
machine  were  actually  invented  and  perfected,  it 
was  from  France  that  the  fundamental  ideas  under- 
lying each  of  them  sprang. 

Charles  Bourseuil,  a  Frenchman,  first  evolved  the 
theory  of  sending  speech  by  telegraph  in  1854.  An- 
other Frenchman,  Leon  Scott,  invented  in  1857  the 
first  instrument  for  recording,  though  not  reproduc- 
ing, the  vibrations  of  the  human  voice  and  of  musi- 
cal instruments.  Scott's  device  was  the  **phonauto- 
graph."  This  is  usually  regarded  as  a  precursor  of 
the  ** talking  machine,"  even  though  it  had  little  in 
common  with  the  instrument  we  know  to-day  by  that 
name.  Scott's  phonautograph  could  only  register 
sound,  which  was  projected  against  a  diaphragm 
and  recorded  on  a  moving  cylinder  around  which 
paper  covered  with  lampblack  was  wrapped.  A 
lever  or  stylus  was  attached  to  the  diaphragm,  and 
this  stylus  traced  the  record  on  the  smoked  paper. 

What  makes  a  talldng  machine  talk?    Emile  Ber- 

175 


176 EMILE  BERLINER 

liner  answers  the  question  tersely  and  clearly. 
''Fundamentally  it  is  this,"  he  saj^s.  "^ound 
throT\ai  against  a  diaphragm  makes  it  vibrate.  If  a 
needle  is  attached  to  the  center  and  made  to  touch  a 
moving  surface,  for  instance,  semi-hard  wax,  the 
point  of  the  needle  will  trace  or  cut  sound  vibrations 
into  the  wax.  This  is  called  a  sound  record.  If  now 
the  diaphragm  and  needle  are  made  to  retrace  the 
record,  the  vibratory  tracings  previously  made  will 
cause  the  diaphragm  to  re-vibrate  and  thereby  re- 
produce the  original  sound." 

The  development  and  history  of  the  talking  ma- 
chine began  with  Scott's  phonautograph.  It  con- 
sisted of  a  good-sized  horizontal  cylinder  mounted 
on  a  screw  and  turned  by  hand,  which  gave  the  cylin- 
der a  slowly  progressive  motion.  The  cylinder  was 
covered  with  paper;  this  was  smoked  over  a  sooty 
flame  to  an  even  film  of  black.  At  right  angles  to  the 
cylinder  was  a  large-sized  barrel-shaped  horn  which 
was  closed  by  a  diaphragm  and  to  the  center  of  the 
diaphragm  was  fixed  a  flexible  bristle,  so  adjusted 
that  the  point  of  the  bristle  just  touched  the  smoked 
surface.  When  the  cylinder  was  turned  any  sound 
uttered  into  the  barrel  traced  sound  waves  into  the 
sooty  surface.  The  phonautograph  was  one  of  the 
first  machines  utilizing  a  diaphragm  for  visual 
studies  of  a  voice  record.  In  the  National  Museum 
at  Washing-ton  there  is  an  old  original  Scott  Phon- 
autograph which  Professor  Joseph  Henry  used  in 
his  studies  of  sound  vibrations. 


BIRTH  OF  TALKING  MACHINE         177 


During  the  summer  of  1877,  when  America's  at- 
tention was  still  riveted  on  the  speaking  telephone, 
and  on  all  and  sundry  connected  with  that  miracle, 
Edward  H.  Johnson,  who  was  associated  with 
Thomas  A.  Edison,  embarked  upon  a  lecture  tour 
devoted  to  the  public  presentation  of  past  and  pros- 
pective achievements  in  technical  science,  especially 
electro-magnetics.  A  considerable  portion  of  Mr. 
Johnson's  lecture  consisted  of  a  description  of  a 
device  which  Edison  had  worked  out.  By  means  of 
it  the  inventor  thought  it  would  be  possible  to  send 
a  mechanically  registered  voice  message  to  any  of 
the  few  Bell  telephone  stations  then  in  operation, 
and  thence  have  it  transmitted  automatically  over 
wires.  This  process  would  have  been  the  equivalent 
of  sending  the  usual  written  message  by  telegraph. 

Edison's  idea  was  to  mount  a  diaphragm  and  a 
stylus,  or  needle,  against  a  moving  strip  of  paper, 
talk  the  message  to  the  diaphragm,  and  let  the  stylus 
indent  the  mo\^ng  strip,  with  the  characters  of 
speech  appearing  as  a  continuous  groove  containing 
these  up-and-down  indentations.  The  strip  was  to 
be  sent  to  the  telephone  station  and  passed  over  a 
transmitter  on  the  diaphragm  of  which  was  another 
stylus.  This  stylus  followed  the  voice  indentations 
and  thereby  caused  voice  undulations  in  the  current, 
as  if  some  one  had  spoken  to  the  transmitter  di- 
rectly. Thus  the  message  could  be  sent  by  a  sort  of 
automatic  telephone  repeater. 

According  to  the  testimony  of  Edward  H.  John- 


178 EMILE  BEELINEE 

son,  contained  in  an  address  published  in  the  Elec- 
trical World,  New  York,  on  February  22,  1890,  the 
graphic  term  "talking  machine"  was  not  the  inven- 
tion of  Mr.  Edison,  but  of  a  clever  head-line  writer 
on  a  Buffalo  newspaper. 

'*In  the  course  of  one  of  my  lectures,  or  impro- 
vised talks,"  Mr.  Johnson  narrated,  "it  occurred  to 
me  that  it  would  be  a  good  idea  to  tell  my  audience 
about  Edison's  telephone  repeater,  at  Buffalo, 
which  I  did.  My  audience  seemed  to  have  a  much 
clearer  appreciation  of  the  value  of  the  invention 
than  we  had  ourselves.  They  gave  me  such  a  cheer 
as  I  have  seldom  heard.  I  did  not  comprehend  the 
impoi^tance  of  the  device  at  the  time;  but  the  next 
morning  the  Buffalo  papers  announced  in  glaring 
head-lines : 

*A  Great  Discovery:  A  Talking  Machine  by  Pro- 
fessor Edison.  Mr.  Edison's  Wonderful  Instrument 
Will  Produce  Articulate  Speech  With  All  the  Per- 
fections of  the  Human  Voice. ' 

"I  realized  for  the  first  time  that  Edison  had,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  invented  a  talking  machine.  The 
immediate  importance  of  it  to  me  was  that  this  cre- 
ated a  sensation,  and  I  had  very  large  audiences  in 
all  my  entertainments  thereafter.  Realizing  that 
and  having  had  sufficient  experience  by  this  time  to 
profit  by  such  things,  I  made  a  special  point  of  this 
feature  in  m}^  next  entertainment,  which  was  at 
Rochester,  and  I  had  a  crowded  house — one  that  did 
my  heart  good — and  my  pocket,  too.  That  satisfied 
me  that  I  had  better  go  home  and  assist  in  perfect- 
ing this  instrument. 

"I  knew,  from  my  own  experience  in  the  matter, 
that  it  was  a  comparatively  simple  thing  to  do,  so  I 
canceled  thirteen  engagements  and  went  back  home 


BIRTH  OF  TALKING  MACHINE        179 

with  those  newspaper  clippings.  I  went  straight 
down  to  the  laboratory,  which  was  then  at  Newark, 
and  I  said:  *Mr.  Edison,  look  here.  See  the  trouble 
you  have  got  me  into.'  He  read  these  things  over 
and  said :  '  That  is  so ;  they  are  right.  This  is  w^hat 
it  is — a  talking  machine. '  I  said :  '  Can  you  make  it  ? ' 
He  said,  *0f  course.  Have  you  got  any  money  T  I 
said,  'Yes,  I  have  a  little,'  and  I  had  a  little.  He 
said:  'Go  to  New  York  and  get  me  three  feet  of  stub 
steel  an  inch  and  a  half  in  diameter,  and  a  piece  of 
brass  pipe  four  inches  in  diameter  and  six  or  eight 
inches  long,  and  we  will  make  it. ' 

*'I  took  the  next  train  to  New  York  and  got  the 
material  and  took  it  back  and  went  to  work.  Within 
twenty-four  hours  we  had  a  little  revolving  cylinder 
turned  with  a  crank  and  a  simple  diaphragm  needle, 
wrapped  a  sheet  of  tinfoil  around  the  cylinder,  and 
gave  it  the  original  phonographic  sentence,  'Mary 
Had  a  Little  Lamb.'  Then  we  sat  back,  to  see  what 
the  instrument  was  going  to  do  about  it.  It  came 
out  to  our  entire  satisfaction.  Not  as  clear  as  it 
does  to-day,  but  it  was  'Mary  Had  a  Little  Lamb' 
sure  enough.    That  was.  the  original  phonograph.^ ' 

This  happened  in  the  fall  of  1877.  It  is,  however, 
a  matter  of  record  that  Charles  Cros,  a  Frenchman, 
as  early  as  April  thirtieth  of  that  year,  actually  de- 
posited mth  the  Academy  of  Sciences  in  Paris  a 
sealed  envelope  containing  a  document  in  which 
Cros  described  a  fundamental  idea  for  reproducing 
speech  from  a  record  of  the  voice  previously  made 
on  a  moving  surface.  The  contents  were  described 
as  "A  Process  of  Recording  and  Reproducing 
Audible  Phenomena."  It  was  not  until  December  3, 
1877,  that  the  Cros  paper  was  divulged  in  an  open 


180  EMILE  BEELIXER 

discussion  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences.  Meantime 
Edison  appeared  with  the  phonograph. 

The  Edison  tinfoil  cylinder  phonograph  was 
presently  exhibited  all  over  the  world.  To  be  sure, 
the  reproduction  it  made  was  little  better  than  a 
parody  of  the  voice.  Every  indentation  made  by  the 
voice  was  changed  by  the  wave  and  the  indentation 
follomng  it,  because  the  tinfoil  readily  yielded  to 
direct  or  adjoining  pressure.  The  inevitable  result 
was  a  general  distortion  of  the  record.  But  as  a 
scientific  and  ingenious  curiosity  the  original  tinfoil 
phonograph  ranked  high,  even  though  after  a  few 
years  it  was  forgotten  by  the  public  at  large. 

A  year  or  two  after  the  invention  of  the  tele- 
phone Alexander  Graham  Bell  received  from  the 
French  Government  a  gift  of  money,  known  as  the 
Volta  Prize,  for  the  invention  of  the  telephone.* 
With  the  money  Bell  built  and  equipped  the  Volta 
Laboratory'  in  Washington  for  the  purpose  of  carry- 
ing on  scientific  research,  in  particular  in  matters 
relating  to  sound  and  acoustics. 

Among  the  men  engaged  to  conduct  the  Volta 
Laboratory  were  Alexander  Graham  Bell's  cousin, 
Chichester  A.  Bell,  and  Charles  Sumner  Tainter. 

Bell  and  Tainter  agreed  that  it  might  be  pos- 


*Ale3sandro  Volta  in  1800  made  the  first  electric  cell.  His  bat- 
tery, OP  "voltaic  pile,"  consisted  of  a  number  of  silver  coins  and  an 
equal  number  of  zinc  disks  of  the  same  size.  The  silver  and  zinc 
disks  were  piled  alternately  on  top  of  one  another,  with  pieces  of 
moist  cloth  between  the  disks.  Wires  were  fastened  to  the  top  and 
bottom  of  the  pile,  and,  when  they  were  joined,  Volta  obtained  a 
steadily  flowing  current  of  electricity.  Thus  did  electrical  engineer- 
ing begin.     [A  Popular  History  of  American  Invention.] 


L 


Gramophoxe  SotixD  Tracings 

Gramophone  Eeproducer,  1889 

Gramophone  Eecorder,  1888 


BIRTH  OF  TALKING  MACHTNE        181 

Bible  to  improve  the  Edison  tinfoil  phonograph 
so  as  to  make  it  a  serviceable  "talking  ma- 
chine." After  endless  experimental  work,  they 
finally  decided  that  distortion  of  the  voice  recorded 
by  indenting  the  vibration  into  tinfoil  might  be 
avoided  if,  instead,  the  voice  vibrations  were  cut  into 
wax  or  a  wax-like  substance  by  a  very  small,  sharp 
chisel  attached  to  the  center  of  a  diaphragm.  Their 
reasoning  was  thoroughly  logical  and  scientific. 
FortlR\'ith  the  process  that  was  evolved  from  it,  viz., 
a  wax  record  cut  with  a  chisel,  produced  a  vast  im- 
provement over  the  Edison  record  indented  into  tin- 
foil. Bell  and  Tainter  received  a  patent  for  it  on 
May  4,  1886. 

In  the  spring  of  1887  the  Bell-Tainter  instru- 
ment, which  they  had  christened  "graphophone," 
was  first  exhibited.  It  was  the  first  really  practical 
apparatus  of  the  phonograph  type  and  excited  the 
animated  admiration  of  crowds  in  Washington  and 
other  places  where  it  was  displayed.  The  American 
Graphophone  Company  was  organized  by  Philadel- 
phia capitalists  to  exploit  the  machine.  The  com- 
pany established  a  factory  and  embarked  commer- 
cially upon  the  production  of  talking  machines  and 
of  wax-covered  paper-cylinder  records. 

Berliner's  Franklin  Institute  address  on  the 
gramophone,  in  June,  1888,  contained  the  following 
paragraph : 

''Soon  after  the  graphophone  became  generally 
known,  Mr.  Edison  took  again  to  experimenting  with 


182 EMILE  BERLINEE 

the  phonograph,  and  also  settled  upon  a  cylinder  of 
wax  and  the  graving-out  process,  thus  confirming 
the  correctness  of  the  Bell-Tainter  conclusions.  The 
new  Edison  phonograph  and  the  graphophone  ap- 
pear to  he  practically  the  same  apparatus,  differing 
only  in  form  and  motive  power." 

It  was  the  cylinder  type  of  talking  machine  that 
finally  developed  into  the  dictaphone,  a  form  of  wax- 
cylinder  graphophone  now  in  so  common  use  in 
offices  for  stenographic  and  typing  purposes,  and 
frequently  impressed  into  the  service  of  the  detec- 
tive's mysterious  art. 


CHAPTER  XX 

BEBLINER  INVENTS   THE   GRAMOPHONE 

IN  1883  Emile  Berliner  and  his  bride,  after  two 
years  of  honeymoon  existence  within  the  cul- 
tured shadow  of  ''fair  Harvard"  at  Cambridge,  re- 
sumed their  residence  in  Washington.  Berliner  had 
come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  National  Capital, 
besides  being  the  country's  political  metropolis,  was 
also  its  scientific  hub.  The  Smithsonian  Institution 
and  the  United  States  Patent  Office  were  there.  In- 
tellectual achievement  in  America,  in  countless  di- 
rections, has  had  its  origin  and  inspiration  on  the 
Potomac,  the  atmosphere  of  which,  of  course,  had 
for  Berliner  in  addition  the  sentimental  charm  of 
the  environment  in  which  success  in  his  chosen  pro- 
fession came  to  the  inventor  of  the  microphone. 
Washington,  in  the  days  of  the  Arthur  administra- 
tion, was  still  a  horse-car  town,  with  few  indications 
of  its  impending  twentieth-century  importance  and 
grandeur.  But  Berliner  decided,  all  things  consid- 
ered, that  it  was  the  natural  place  in  which  to  pitch 
his  tent. 

One  of  the  recognized  captains  of  the  new  tele- 
phone industry  at  thirty-two  years  of  age,  and  with 
a  competence  that  was  more  than  comfortable  for 

183 


184 EMILE  BERLINER    

conditions  of  the  time,  Berliner  might  easily  have 
quit  the  anxious  and  arduous  field  of  inventive  en- 
deavor, and  rested  leisurely  upon  his  telephone 
laurels.  No  thought  was  remoter  from  his  desires 
or  intentions.  His  telephonic  studies  had  familiar- 
ized him  wdth  all  the  causes  influencing  the  trans- 
mission and  reproduction  of  the  voice.  The  idea  of 
devising  something  that  would  perfectly  record 
human  sound  seemed  to  him  like  a  natural  sequel  to 
the  art  of  telephony,  to  the  success  of  which  Ber- 
liner had  contributed  so  substantially.  He  deter- 
mined forthwith  to  devote  himself  to  the  invention 
of  a  talking  machine  on  original  lines. 

Now  a  full-fledged  citizen  of  the  United  States 
and  the  head  of  a  family,  Berliner's  first  objective 
in  Washington  was  the  establishment  of  a  home. 
Forty-three  years  ago  the  Columbia  Heights  section 
of  the  capital  was  a  suburban  region  that  suggested 
a  passion  for  solitude  on  the  part  of  any  one  who 
built  there.  But  Berliner  was  not  dissuaded  from 
his  purpose  by  friends  who  advised  against  "going 
out  into  the  country  to  live."  So  he  reared  him- 
self a  spacious  and  substantial  dwelling  of  brick 
and  stone  on  Columbia  Road,  only  a  couple  of 
miles  north  of  the  White  House,  yet,  in  those  days, 
a  remote  district  of  Washington.  To-day,  atop  **the 
Hill,"  as  the  neighborhood  is  called,  Columbia  Road 
is  the  center  of  a  throbbing  business  and  residential 
quarter.  Ultra-fashionable  Sixteenth  Street — ''Ave- 
nue of  the  Presidents" — is  just  around  the  corner, 


INVENTS  THE  GRAMOPHONE         185 

with  its  noble  row  of  foreign  embassies  and  stately 
church  edifices,  and  stretching  in  a  bee-line  for  half 
a  dozen  picturesque  miles  straightaway  from  the 
White  House  to  the  Maryland  line.  Berliner  was  a 
pioneer  believer  in  the  metropolitan  destinies  of 
"Washington  and  to-day  has  extensive  land  holdings 
acquired  in  times  when  the  possibilities  of  the  City 
of  Magnificent  Distances  were  not  realized  by  many 
of  its  citizens. 

In  a  front  up-stairs  room  of  his  beautiful  home 
on  Columbia  Eoad,  which  became  a  local  landmark 
and  was  owned  by  him  until  1925,  Emile  Ber- 
liner installed  a  small  laboratory.  It  was  destined 
to  be  the  cradle  of  the  gramophone — the  term  which 
he  himself  coined  and  which  was  the  description 
applied  to  his  machine  in  the  application  for  a 
patent  issued  November  12,  1887.  As  in  the  case  of 
his  telephone  inventions,  Berliner  evolved  the 
gramophone  only  after  long  and  persistent  experi- 
ment. His  family  saw  little  of  him  in  those  plodding 
days  and  for  the  most  part  was  kept  in  ignorance  of 
exactly  what  it  was  that  the  restless  young  inventor 
was  now  tinkering  with  in  his  home  workshop. 

The  old  Leon  Scott  phonautograph,  on  exhibition 
in  the  National  Museum,  fascinated  Berliner,  and  he 
had  been  giving  it  incessant  and  analytical  study. 
Its  soundness  of  theory  was  no  less  apparent  than 
its  obvious  crudities.  The  status  of  talking  machines 
in  1887-1888,  when  Berliner 's  experiments  were  ripe 
for  practical  results,  he  himself  set  forth  as  follows : 


186 EMILE  BERLINER 

*  *  The  tinfoil  phonograph  of  Edison  had  been  known 
for  ten  years  and  was  a  scientific  curiosity  only, 
though  of  historic  value.  The  wax  cylinder  phono- 
graph or  graphophone  of  Chichester  Bell  and 
Sumner  Tainter  had  been  invented,  and  its  aim,  as 
pronounced  by  its  promoters,  was  to  become  a  dicta- 
graph for  private  and  business  correspondence. 
Both  machines  represented  a  system  of  sound 
recording  in  which  sound  waves  were  either  ver- 
tically indented,  as  in  the  Edison  phonograph,  or 
vertically  engraved  into  a  wax  cylinder,  as  in  the 
Bell-Tainter  graphophone.  In  reproducing  these 
records  a  feed  screw  was  provided  which  turned 
either  the  cylinder  past  the  needle  or  the  reproduc- 
ing sound-box  past  the  cylinder." 

Berliner's  gramophone  changed  all  this.  Its 
record  was  made  horizontally  and  parallel  with  the 
record  surface.  By  itself  it  formed  the  screw  or 
spiral  which  propelled  the  reproducing  sound-box, 
so  that  while  the  needle  was  vibrated  it  was  at  the 
same  time  pushed  forward  by  the  record  groove.  As 
the  sound-box  was  mounted  in  such  a  manner  that  it 
was  free  to  follow  this  propelling  movement,  it  made 
the  reproducer  adjust  itself  automatically  to  the 
record.  The  horizontal  record  of  the  gramophone 
was  more  capable  of  recording  somid  in  its  entirety. 
In  the  vertical  record  of  the  phonograph-grapho- 
phone  there  was  a  certain  distortion  which  became 
more  pronounced  the  deeper  the  sound  waves  in- 
dented or  engraved  the  record  substance. 


INVENTS  THE  GRAMOPHONE         187 

Berliner's  attention  was  riveted  upon  three  dis- 
tinct phases  of  the  talking-macliine  art,  and  upon 
them  he  proceeded  to  concentrate.  He  set  out  to 
perfect  (1)  a  photo-engraving  process ;  (2)  a  scheme 
for  ''etching  the  human  voice" — another  of  the  in- 
genious idioms  which  he  minted;  and  (3)  a  duplicat- 
ing method  whereby  it  would  be  possible  to  make  an 
Unlimited  number  of  records  of  the  same  voice- 
registration  out  of  some  tough,  wear-resisting  mate- 
rial like  celluloid  or  hard  rubber. 

"Berliner's  idea  of  constructing  a  matrix,  en- 
abling records  to  be  pressed  in  large  quantities  for 
sale,  was  entirely  novel,"  says  Alfred  Clark,  the 
American  Managing  Director  of  the  Gramophone 
Company,  Ltd.,  of  Middlesex,  England.  "It  is  the 
basis  of  the  great  gramophone  industry  throughout 
the  world  to-day.  Without  it,  the  talking-machine 
business  would  have  remained  in  a  dwarf  state.  To 
Emile  Berliner's  conception  is  wholly  due  the  fact 
that  literally  millions  of  records  of  a  dance  number 
or  a  great  instrumental  or  vocal  masterpiece,  by 
orchestra,  band  or  soloist,  are  now  struck  of£  from 
the  one  original." 

When  the  graphophone  came  out  in  1887,  Ber- 
liner's sharply  trained  ear  at  once  discerned  that, 
while  the  process  of  cutting  the  record  was  better 
than  indenting  it,  distortion  of  the  voice  had  yet  to 
be  overcome.  He  finally  concluded  that  the  cause  of 
distortion  could  never  be  removed  by  the  method  of 
recording  up  and  down  into  the  wax,  no  matter  how 


18S lOMIlJO   Kl'^K'LlNMR 

(Iclic/iloly  the  iiiecliaiiical  parts  oi"  llio  macliiuo  might 
be  consirnciod. 

For  oxani|)!(\  if  oiio  wore  to  ])iisli  a  load  ])oiu'il 
throng:h  and  along  the  surface  of  a  cake  of  soap,  it 
-v^oiild  roquiro  a  oortaiii  amount  of  foi'oo  to  do  it.  It 
is  jiossible  in  a  laboratory  to  measure  this  foree.  If 
the  pencil  wore  pushed  Across  the  soap  at  a  depth  of, 
snjs  one-sixteenth  of  an  inch  and  at  a  speed  of  ono 
inch  |)er  second,  it  would  recpiire,  say,  five  ounces  of 
])rossuro  by  the  hand  to  do  it.  But  if  the  t)oncil  were 
ptlshod  across  at  a  depth  of  ()ne-cii>hth  of  aii  inch 
(twice  the  depth),  it  would  not  take  simply  twice  the 
flmoutit  of  pressure  (/'.  c,  ten  ounces),  but  three  or 
fouf  times  the  amount. 

So  Berliner  saw  that  to  make  a  Ivai  record  l\y 
causing  tlu^  sound  vibrjilions  to  cut  i(p  and  down 
meant,  according  to  the  laws  of  physics,  that  the 
vibrations,  while  being  registered,  would  contin- 
uously be  cut  out  of  propoiMlon  to  the  force  used  by 
the  voice.  A  distortion  of  the  voice  would  inevitably 
result.  A  more  perfect  method  would  consist,  Ber- 
liner' argued,  in  so  registering  the  voice  that  the 
force  required  to  do  so  would  prevent  distortion  of 
the  registered  vibrations,  lie  concluded  that  the 
vibrations  nnist  all  be  of  the  same  depth.  From  this 
theory  ho  developed  what  ever  since  has  been  known 
ns  the  lafcrcd  rut  record,  in  which  the  vibrations  are 
tocot'ded  Mdarisc  like  writing.  MMiis,  as  Mr.  Olark 
of  the  Fnglish  granio])lHnio  c(un]iany  ])oints  out,  is 
Another  fundamental  factor  in  the  talking-machino 
art  as  we  know  it  to-day. 


INVENTS  THE  GRAMOPHONE         189 

As  the  Bell-Tainter  patents  for  the  graphophone 
covered  every  form  of  a  record  cut  in  wax,  Berliner 
determined  to  go  back  to  the  original  recording  idea 
of  the  Scott  phonautograph  of  1857  and  from  that 
to  produce  a  record  groove  by  the  process  of  photo- 
engraving. With  this  conclusion  in  mind  he  con- 
structed a  small  cylinder  phonautograph  and  started 
makir  ttern  records  of  his  voice  on  a  paper  sur- 
face was  fastened  around  the  cylinder  and 
was  with  soot  from  a  smoky  flame.  He 
"fixed  voice  writings  by  pouring  a  shellac  solu- 
tion ovt'L  I  tom. 

After  Berliner  had  become  quite  proficient  in 
these  exjjcriments  he  cut  one  of  the  paper  tubes  into 
a  strip,  and  took  this  ''voice  writing"  to  Maurice 
Joyce,  a  well-known  photo-engraver  in  Washington, 
who  etched  the  record  into  a  piece  of  flat  zinc. 
Berliner  then  sawed  off  the  front  part  of  a  telephone 
receiver,  the  portion  that  held  the  diaphragm,  and 
affixed  to  it  a  stylus  (or  needle)  across  the  center  so 
that  the  free  end  of  the  needle  extended  beyond  the 
diaphragm.  To  this  free  end  he  attached  a  steel  pin, 
stuck  a  small  horn  into  the  hole  of  the  sound  box, 
and  moved  the  point  of  the  pin  through  the  photo- 
engraved  lines  by  hand.  The  vibrations  of  the  voice 
in  the  plate  (in  this  early  process,  photo-engraved) 
moved  the  point  of  the  pin,  which  in  turn  set  the 
diaphragm  vibrating  and  thereby  reproduced  the 
original  talk.  In  that  manner  Berliner  got  snatches 
of  articulation  coming  as  from  a  human  voice.  It 
proved  that  his  general  conception  was  correct. 


190  EMILE  BERLINER 


After  having  fully  satisfied  himself  that  the  lat- 
eral cut  was  the  only  logical  and  perfect  process  for 
correctly  recording  the  voice,  Berliner's  next  step 
was  to  rig  up  a  turn-table  similar  to  that  used  now- 
adays on  disk  talking  machines.  His  machine  was 
hand-driven,  which  meant  the  turning  of  a  handle 
during  the  whole  time  a  record  was  played,  but  it 
contained  a  fly  wheel  that  insured  regularity  of  mo- 
tion. A  small  framework  that  could  be  moved  side- 
wise  by  a  screw  held  the  recording  sound  box.  On  the 
turn-table  Berliner  laid  a  heavy  round  glass  plate 
made  for  the  purpose,  which  could  be  taken  off  and 
blackened  over  a  smoky  flame.  The  recording  sound 
box  was  carefully  adjusted;  so  that  an  elastic  stylus 
just  touched  the  smoky  surface  of  the  glass  plate.  In 
this  manner  a  flat  disk  record  was  finally  produced. 
After  the  record  had  been  ''fixed"  by  shellac 
varnish,  Berliner  took  it  to  Joyce,  who  quickly 
turned  out  the  first  flat  disk-record  made  by  the 
photo-engraving  process.  This  historic  "pancake" 
has  an  honorable  place  among  scientific  relics  in  the 
National  Museum  at  Washington. 

While  Berliner  reproduced  from  this  first  disk 
record,  he  noticed  that  even  when  he  disengaged  the 
screw  mechanism  the  record  groove  itself  would 
hold  the  stylus  of  the  sound  box.  Immediately  he 
realized  that  in  voice  reproducing  the  screw  mechan- 
ism could  be  discarded.  It  has  never  been  used  since 
then. 

Besides  its  reproducing  superiority,  the  gramo- 


INVENTS  THE  GBAMOPHONE         191 

phone  mechanism  was  of  materially  greater  sim- 
plicity. For  reproducing  a  phonograph-graphophone 
record,  because  it  was  done  in  a  soft  material,  a  fine 
screw  mechanism  was  required  to  propel  the  repro- 
ducing sound  box  and  stylus  needle  across  the 
record  lines.  In  the  gramophone  record,  which  was 
in  hard  material  like  metal  or  composition,  the 
record  disk  is  merely  revolved;  the  needle  of  the 
sound  box  is  dropped  into  the  groove,  and  this,  while 
playing  the  music,  not  only  vibrates  the  diaphragm 
(throwing  the  music  into  the  horn),  but  also  propels 
the  needle  across  the  record  disk  at  the  same  time. 
It  will  be  seen  that  this  automatic  propulsion  is 
necessarily  smoother  than  where  propulsion  is 
caused  by  an  outside,  unrelated  force.  The  self- 
propulsion  which  Berliner  oiiginated  was  eventually 
applied  to  all  existing  talking  machines  as  soon  as 
Berliner's  patent  expired  in  1912. 

Early  in  1888  Berliner  fitted  up  a  couple  of 
rooms  on  G  Street,  not  far  from  the  quarters  he 
occupied  when  he  invented  the  microphone  eleven 
years  before.  He  needed  a  more  central  location  for 
his  busy  workshop  and  now  continued  his  researches 
witliin  the  shadow  of  the  United  States  Patent  Office. 
Preceding  an  address  which  Berliner  made  there  in 
March,  1926,  before  four  hundred  patent  examiners, 
the  Assistant  Commissioner  of  Patents,  William  A. 
Kinnan,  who  presided  over  the  meeting,  introduced 
the  veteran  scientist  with  the  remark  that  ''many 
inventors  had  laid  a  biick,  here  and  there,  in  the 


192 EMILE  BERLINER __^ 

structure  of  civilization,  but  here  is  a  man  who  has 
added  a  whole  wall." 

Berliner  now  indulged  in  the  luxury  of  an  as- 
sistant by  the  name  of  Werner  Suess,  who  once 
worked  for  Robert  Wilhelm  von  Bunsen,  a  professor 
at  Heidelberg  University.  A  noted  chemist  and 
physicist,  von  Bunsen  in  1855  invented  the  burner 
which  bears  his  name.  Since  then  it  has  been  pos- 
sible to  burn  coal  gas  with  an  intensely  hot  and 
smokeless  flame.  Everybody  who  lights  an  ordinary 
gas  stove  is  putting  to  work  a  series  of  Bunsen 
burners.  Suess  was  the  man  who  constructed  one  of 
the  two  induction  coils  Berliner  used  when,  years 
before,  he  had  fashioned  his  triumphant  telephone 
apparatus.  He  was  older  than  Berliner — a  quaint, 
stocky,  sturdy,  ruddy-faced,  bespectacled  German 
and  had  been  a  close  student  of  Berliner's  work 
during  the  intervening  years,  Suess,  though  only  a 
mechanic,  was  full  of  intelligent  interest  and  en- 
thusiasm. He  was  also  addicted  to  telling  stories 
and  the  little  Berliner  laboratory  was  not  exclu- 
sively an  arena  of  scientific  discussion. 

Emile  Berliner  was  now  sure  that  a  perfected 
disk  talking  machine  had  a  great  future,  and  that 
records  for  such  a  machine  could  be  duplicated  end- 
lessly, provided  the  process  was  carefully  worked 
out.    That  became  his  next  objective. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

ETCHING  THE  HUMAN  VOICE 

ON  May  16,  1888,  six  months  after  the  issuance 
of  his  gramophone  patent,  Emile  Berliner 
gave  the  first  public  exhibition  of  his  ingenious 
method  of  ''etching  the  human  voice."  The  scene 
of  that  epoch-making  event,  as  befitted  its  scientific 
importance,  was  the  Franklin  Institute  at  Philadel- 
phia, which  had  in\'ited  Berliner  to  read  at  one  of  its 
stated  meetings  a  paper  on  his  latest  achievement  in 
acoustics. 

To  that  famed  American  clearing-house  for  the 
display  and  elucidation  of  the  newest  things  in  sci- 
ence, Berliner,  accompanied  by  the  faithful  and 
rotund  Suess,  trundled  through  the  streets  of  the 
Centennial  City  a  strange  collection  of  parapherna- 
lia, including  the  gramophone  recorder,  the  record- 
ing diaphragm  and  stylus,  and  the  reproducing 
apparatus. 

It  was  universally  realized  that  both  the  tele- 
phone and  the  talking  machine,  although  they  had 
long  since  ceased  to  be  novelties,  were  only  in  their 
swaddling  clothes.  Men  with  vision  recognized  and 
discerned  their  illimitable  possibilities,  but  these 

193 


194 EMILE  BERLINER 

were  yet  to  emerge.  The  Franklin  Institute's  in- 
terest in  what  Berliner  had  to  reveal  in  the  talking- 
machine  field  was  correspondingly  eager.  At  the 
old  graystone  building  on  South  Seventh  Street,  a 
etill  existing  symbol  of  the  Philadelphia  of  intellec- 
tual tradition,  Berliner  and  Suess  found  the  little 
amphitheater-like  auditorium  packed  to  its  farther- 
most seat  with  some  four  hundred  men  and  women 
on  the  tiptoe  of  expectancy. 

Curiosity  was  particularly  keen  mth  regard  to 
the  inventor's  process  of  recording  sound  waves, 
whereby  the  human  voice  was  captured,  imprisoned 
in  enduring  metal,  liberated  at  will,  and  then  locked 
up  again.   Spoiled,  matter-of-fact  moderns,  addicted 
to  the  habit  of  taking  miracles  for  granted,  can  only 
imagine  the  sensation  which  Berliner's  gramophone 
concert  caused  at  Philadelphia.    It  was  the  debut  of 
** canned  music" — John  Philip  Sousa's  celebrated 
description  of  the  talking-machine  art.    To-day,  di- 
rectly across  the  Delaware  from  Philadelphia   at 
Camden,  ''His  Master's  Voice,"  thanks  to  Emile 
Berliner's  pioneer  achievement,  is   reproduced  in 
millions  of  exemplars  for  the  entertainment  and  the 
education  of  the  civilized  universe.    In  May,  1913, 
on  the  twenty-fifth  anniversary  of  his  first  exliibi- 
tion  of  the  gramophone  on  its  premises,  the  Frank- 
lin Institute  awarded  Berliner  its  highest  honor — 
the  Elliott  Cresson  gold  medal  "in  recognition  of 
important   contributions   to   telephony  and  to   the 
science  and  art  of  sound  reproduction."     On  the 


ETCHING  THE  HUMAN  VOICE  195 

same  occasion  medals  were  presented  to  Charles 
Proteus  Steinmetz  "for  achievements  in  the  field  of 
electrical  engineering";  to  Lord  Rayleigh,  of  Eng- 
land, *'for  researches  in  physical  science,"  and  to 
Emil  Fischer,  of  Berlin,  ''for  contributions  to  the 
science  of  organic  and  biological  chemistry." 

The  lesson  of  simplicity  which  the  telephone  was 
continuously  preaching  caused  Berliner  at  an  early 
date  to  look  for  a  simpler  plan  to  attain  his  purpose 
in  connection  with  the  talking  machine.  In  the 
specification  originally  filed  by  him  at  the  United 
States  Patent  Office,  he  said:  ''This  record  [mean- 
ing the  phonautogram]  may  then  be  engraved  either 
mechanically,  chemically,  or  photo-chemically."  Al- 
though for  a  long  time  mthout  much  hope  for  suc- 
cess, the  idea  of  the  purely  chemical  process  of 
direct  etching  haunted  him  continuously,  and  was 
repeatedly  suggested  by  others. 

It  was  more  easily  suggested  than  carried  out. 
Under  the  principles  of  the  gramophone  the  etching 
ground  was  to  offer  practically  no  resistance  to  the 
stylus.  To  construct  a  ground  which  had  no  resist- 
ance mechanically,  but  would  resist  the  etching  fluid 
after  the  tracing  was  done,  was  the  problem  to  be 
solved. 

"You  ^rill  readily  see,"  Berliner  told  his  Frank- 
lin Institute  audience  in  May,  1888,  "that  if  we  can 
cover,  for  instance,  a  polished  metal  plate  with  a 
delicate  etching  ground,  trace  in  this  a  phonauto- 
gram, and  then  immerse  the  plate  in  an  etching  fluid, 


196 EMILE  BERLINER 

the  lines  will  be  eaten  in,  and  the  result  will  be  a 
groove  of  even  depth,  such  as  is  required  for  repro- 
duction. Such  a  process,  of  course,  would  be  much 
more  direct  and  quicker  than  the  photo-engraving 
method. 

"In  nature  provision  seems  to  be  made  for  all  the 
wants  of  mankind.  Confident  in  this  belief,  I  kept 
on  tiying  to  find  a  trail  which  would  lead  to  promis- 
ing results,  and  I  have  the  honor  to-night,  for  the 
first  time,  to  bring  before  you  this  latest  achieve- 
ment in  the  art  of  producing  permanent  sound 
records  from  which  a  reproduction  can  be  obtained, 
if  necessary,  mthin  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes,  and 
which  can  be  accurately  multiplied  in  any  number 
by  the  electrotype  process.  It  may  be  termed,  in 
short,  the  art  of  etching  the  human  voiced 

The  etching  ground  which  Berliner  used  was  a 
fatty  ink.  One  of  the  best  inks  he  discovered  was 
made  by  digesting  pure  yellow  beeswax  in  cold  gaso- 
line or  benzine.  Benzine  in  a  cold  state  did  not  dis- 
solve all  the  elements  of  the  wax,  but  only  a  small 
part — namely,  that  which  combined  with  the  yellow 
coloring  principle.  The  resultant  and  decanted  ex- 
tract was  a  clear  solution  of  a  golden  hue,  which 
gradually  became  bleached  by  exposure  to  light. 
The  proi>ortions  Berliner  employed  were  one  ounce 
of  finely  scraped  wax  to  one  pint  of  gasoline. 

He  then  took  a  polished  metal  plate — generally 
zinc — and  flowed  the  fluid  on  and  off,  as  if  he  were 
coating  with  collodion.     The  benzine  quickly  evap- 


ETCHING  THE  HUMAN  VOICE        197 

orated  and  there  remained  a  very  thin  layer  of  wax 
fat,  iridescent  under  reflected  light,  not  solid  as  a 
coating  produced  by  immersion  in  a  melted  mass, 
but  spongy  or  porous,  and  extremely  sensitive  to  the 
lightest  touch.  Partly  on  account  of  the  too  great 
sensitiveness  of  a  single  film,  and  also  as  an  addi- 
tional protection  against  the  action  of  the  acids  em- 
ployed in  the  subsequent  etching,  Berliner  applied 
a  second  coating  of  the  solution.  This  double  coat, 
he  found,  answered  all  requirements. 

With  many  weeks  of  tedious  experiment  behind 
him,  Berliner  now  took  a  number  of  zinc  disks,  had 
them  highly  polished,  cleaned  the  surface  with  gaso- 
line, warmed  them  and  poured  the  yellow  fat  solu- 
tion over  them.  In  the  meantime  he  had  constructed 
a  turn-table  machine  on  which  the  prepared  zinc  disk 
could  be  mounted  and  revolved  at  regular  speed, 
while  a  small  reservoir  of  alcohol  dripped  the  fluid 
on  the  fatty  film.  The  previously  used  phonauto- 
graphic  recording  sound  box  and  stylus  were 
mounted  over  the  disk  so  that  the  point  of  the  stylus 
cut  through  the  fatty  film.  The  whole  mechanism 
was  given  a  progressive  motion,  so  that  when  the 
disk  was  rotated  the  stylus  of  the  sound  box  in- 
scribed a  spiral  line  into  the  fatty  film.  If  now 
somebody  spoke  into  the  phonautogi^aphic  sound 
box,  the  line  in  the  fatty  film  assumed  the  wavy 
forms  of  the  sound  vibrations ;  and  when  the  record 
disk  was  immersed  into  the  acid  solution  the  record 
lines  were  etched  into  the  zinc,  forming  a  groove  of 


198 EMILE  BERLINER 

even  depth  and  varying  direction  as  distinguislied 
from  the  phonograph-graphophone  record  consist- 
ing of  a  groove  of  straight  direction,  but  of  varying 
deyth. 

By  the  early  spring  of  1888  Berliner  had  made 
sufficient  progress  to  enable  him  to  manufacture 
modern  disk  sound  records  out  of  zinc  plates.  To 
make  records,  he  invited  pianists,  violinists,  singers 
and  lecturers  to  his  laboratory.  One  day  a  couple  of 
Spaniards  arrived  with  an  introduction  from  a  mu- 
tual friend.  They  wanted  to  see  the  gramophone  in 
action.  Berliner  had  just  made  an  exceptionally 
good  record  of  a  coloratura  soprano,  and  he  played 
it  for  his  temperamental  callers,  placing  them  di- 
rectly in  front  of  the  horn.  One  of  them,  a  black- 
eyed,  fiery  South  American,  became  very  excited, 
as  the  amorous  tones  of  the  invisible  prima  donna 
emerged  from  a  mysterious  somewhere.  When  the 
singer  finished,  on  a  beautiful  high  trill,  the  Span- 
iard, all  enraptured,  turned  to  Berliner  and  enthu- 
siastically exclaimed:    "Oh,  I  could  just  hees  herP* 

Once  Berliner's  father-in-law  waited  outside  of 
the  laboratory  because  he  heard  the  inventor  speak- 
ing as  if  engaged  in  making  a  record.  When  the 
monologue  was  finished,  Mr.  Adler  walked  in,  and, 
to  his  surprise,  found  that  Berliner  had  not  spoken 
at  all,  but  was  merely  playing  a  record  of  his  own 
voice.  Experiences  like  these  convinced  Berliner 
that  he  was  on  the  high  road  to  practical  results 
with  the  gramophone. 


ETCHING  THE  HUMAN  VOICE  199 

The  Franklin  Institute  exhibition  proved  to  be 
the  forerunner  of  a  tremendous  activity  and  of  a  de- 
velopment in  the  talking-machine  industry  that  has 
not  halted  to  this  day.  Berliner  had  thus  far  been 
able  to  display  original  first  records  only,  although  at 
Philadelphia  he  showed  a  duplicate  made  by  the  or- 
dinary electrolysis  process.  As  soon  as  he  and  Suess 
returned  to  Washington,  Berliner  set  his  whole  mind 
to  work  on  a  feasible  and  practical  method  for  mak- 
ing unlimited  duplicates  from  an  original  disk.  He 
soon  matured  a  general  plan  which  consisted  of 
making  of  an  original  zinc  record  a  perfect  reverse 
or  matrix  by  the  process  of  electrotyping.  This 
showed  the  record  lines  raised  over  the  surface  of 
the  disk.  The  reverse  matrix  was  to  be  used  for 
impressing  the  record  lines  on  some  softened  mate- 
rial like  hard  rubber  and  celluloid,  exactly  as  seals 
are  made  by  impressing  an  engraved  letter  or  de- 
sign into  sealing  wax. 

Berliner  encountered  endless  difficulties  in  try- 
ing to  produce  an  accurate  reverse  of  an  original 
zinc  record,  because  unless  the  matrix,  down  to  its 
very  surface,  was  a  faithful  reproduction,  the  re- 
verse would  not  be  sufficient  to  answer  the  demand 
for  accurate  sound  copies.  It  was  four  years  before 
Berliner  finally  succeeded  in  perfecting  matrices 
with  complete  certainty  from  any  zinc  record. 

In  this  important  work  of  developing  absolute 
sound  copies  in  unlimited  numbers,  Berliner  had 
the  cooperation  of  Max  Levy,  of  Philadelphia,  a 


200 EMILE  BERLINER 

technician  of  great  ability.  Levy  was  the  well- 
known  inventor  and  first  manufacturer  of  the  glass- 
ruled  screens  used  all  over  the  world  in  making 
half-tone  reproductions  of  photographs.  By  1892 
perfect  matrices  were  obtained.  It  was  found  that 
after  the  copper  surfaces  were  nickel-plated  they 
could  be  impressed  without  deterioration  into  hard 
rubber,  celluloid,  or  composition  previously  softened 
by  heat. 

It  seemed  to  all  concerned  as  if  the  gramophone 
with  its  flat  disk  duplicate  records  was  now  ready 
for  commercial  exploitation.  The  Berliner  Gramo- 
phone Company  of  Philadelphia  in  fact  began  to 
manufacture  small  hand-driven  machines  and  asked 
Berliner  to  make  in  Washington  an  assortment  of 
records  comprising  a  sufficiently  varied  repertoire 
to  satisfy  a  small  popular  demand.  Then  a  serious 
hitch  occurred.  The  hard-rubber  concern,  which 
had  undertaken  to  press  as  many  records  as  might 
be  demanded  from  the  matrices  furnished  by  Ber- 
liner, found  that  it  could  not  produce  records  of 
even  quality.  There  were  flat  places  here  and  there, 
caused  by  gases  developed  by  the  rubber  when 
heated,  which  rendered  the  whole  output  unreliable. 

At  this  critical  stage  Berliner  recalled  the  un- 
successful attempt  in  1879  of  the  Bell  Company  to 
utilize  an  imitation  rubber  composition  for  a 
cheaper  hand  telephone.  Berliner  now  approached 
a  manufacturer  of  imitation  hard  rubber  and  fur- 
nished him  with  a  gramophone  matrix.    Within  a 


ETCHINO  THE  HUMAN  VOICE  201 

week  the  manufacturer  supplied  a  dozen  perfect  disk 
records.  Ever  since  then,  the  countless  millions  of 
disk  records  sold  annually  throughout  the  world 
have  been  made  from  a  similar  material.  The  base 
of  the  composition  is  shellac,  which  is  also  the  base 
of  sealing  wax,  and  it  is  literally  correct  to  say  that 
a  modern  disk  record  is  a  seal  of  the  human  voice. 

In  the  practise  worked  out  by  Berliner,  and  fol- 
lowed to  this  day,  a  lump  of  shellac  composition 
material  was  softened  by  heat.  It  was  placed  under 
a  matrix  in  a  power-press.  The  applied  pressure 
spread  the  composition  and  pressed  the  lines  of  the 
matrix  into  it.  The  matrix  and  the  pressed  composi- 
tion copy  were  then  chilled.  A  hard  composition 
copy  was  the  result. 

Thus  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  talking 
machines  ivas  solved  the  problem  of  snaking  un- 
limited copies  of  one  original  record.  Berliner  had 
laid  the  foundations  of  a  business  of  gigantic  dimen- 
sions.* 


*Waldeuiar  Kaempffert,  one-time  editor  of  the  Scientific  Amer- 
ican and  co-author  of  A  Popular  History  of  American  Invention, 
sajs: 

"Although  milliong  of  talking-machine  records  are  in  use  to-day, 
very  few  of  those  who  derive  enjoyment  from  them  realize  that  the 
acoustic  principle  on  which  they  are  based  was  Emile  Berliner  's  dis- 
covery. In  other  words,  what  is  known  in  the  trade  as  the  'lateral 
cut'  record  is  his  invention, 

"The  tremendous  importance  of  the  lateral  cut  is  demonstrated 
by  the  fact  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  flat-disk  records  which 
have  been  made  embody  Berliner 's  principle.  Hence  he  played  a  far 
larger  part  than  is  commonly  realized  in  bringing  into  millions  of 
homes  music  and  speech  of  the  finest  quality.  Whatever  the  telephone 
and  the  talking  machine  may  have  been  before  Berliner's  time,  I 
think  it  can  not  be  successfully  disputed  that  he  converted  them  into 
the  instruments  they  are  to-day. ' ' 


CHAPTER  XXII 

GERMANY   WELCOMES  TUE   GRAMOniONE 

HAVING  eight  years  earlier  revisited  the  land 
of  his  birth  with  brow  bedecked  with  tele- 
phone laurels,  Emile  Berliner  determined  in  1889  to 
return  to  Germany  with  the  latest  product  of  his 
inventiveness — the  gramophone.  lie  was  still  in  the 
midst  of  his  talliing-machine  experiments,  but  was 
convinced  of  the  indisputable  soundness  of  the  theo- 
ries that  underlay  them,  and  did  not  shrink  from 
submitting  his  work  to  the  scrutiny  of  men  with 
whom  wissenschaftliche  Griindliclikcit  (scientific 
thoroughness)  is  little  short  of  religion.  If  the 
gramophone  passed  muster  at  their  exacting  hands, 
Berliner  realized  it  would  bear  an  invaluable  hall- 
mark. Germany  was  already  acquainted  with  the 
Bell-Tainter  graphophone  and  the  Edison  phono- 
graph. 

Nearly  all  Europe  had  become  familiar  with  the 
name  '* Berliner"  on  telephone  transmitters.  Ger- 
many, on  her  part,  ever  ready  to  reclaim  a  native 
son  who  had  successfully  wooed  the  goddess  of  fame, 
especially  in  the  scientific  realm,  was  particularly 

202 


GERMANY  WELCOMES  GRAMOPHONE  203 

fertile  soil  in  which  to  plant  the  Berliner  conception 
of  the  talking  machine. 

Berliner  took  with  him  from  Washington  a 
varied  assortment  of  original  zinc  records  compris- 
ing vocal  and  instrumental  music.  His  baggage  also 
included  a  complete  recording  outfit  and  a  hand- 
driven  reproducing  machine.  The  expedition,  con- 
sisting of  the  inventor  and  his  young  family,  made 
straight  for  his  native  heath  at  Hanover  and  laid 
plans  to  remain  in  Germany  a  year. 

In  Hanover  Berliner's  two  brothers  were  now 
operating  a  large  and  successful  factory  for  the 
manufacture  of  telephone  apparatus.  In  it  facilities 
were  placed  at  the  inventor's  disposal  for  continued 
experimental  work  on  the  gramophone,  the  arrival 
of  which  at  once  excited  the  interest  of  technical 
societies  in  all  parts  of  the  country.  The  society 
which  had  its  headquarters  at  Hanover,  one  of  the 
throbbing  centers  of  the  newly  industrialized  Ger- 
man Empire,  promptly  invited  the  Hannoverkind 
(child  of  Hanover)  to  address  it  and  exhibit  the 
gramophone. 

Berliner  received  an  enthusiastic  welcome.  A 
professor  of  the  Hanover  Institute  of  Technology, 
who  was  in  attendance,  complimented  him  upon  his 
thoroughly  scientific  presentation.  That  was  praise 
from  Sir  Hubert;  for  Geimans  of  that  day  were 
inclined  to  \dew  with  skepticism  bordering  upon 
intolerance  the  merits  of  men  who  laid  claim  to 
scientific  attainments  without  having  been  educated 


204 SMILE  BERLINEtl 

up  to  them  through  the  tedious,  grinding  method  of 
a  specialized  academic  training.  The  one-time  dry- 
goods  clerk  of  Hanover  had  ''arrived"  by  a  route 
that  German  scientists  were  not  accustomed  to 
travel.  Berliner's  career,  in  their  eyes,  was  wholly 
unorthodox. 

The  fame  of  the  latest  talking-machine  marvel 
from  America  spread  rapidly  through  the  news- 
papers. It  was  not  long  before  the  German  Imperial 
Patent  Office,  through  Berliner's  patent  attorney 
in  Berlin,  invited  him  to  display  and  elucidate  the 
gramophone  before  its  staff  of  examiners.  The  ex- 
hibition was  so  successful  that  the  Commissioner  of 
Patents  asked  him  to  repeat  it  before  a  group  of 
distinguished  government  engineers  and  scientists. 
Among  the  company  invited  on  that  occasion  was 
the  celebrated  pianist,  Hans  von  Biilow,  whose  wife 
was  a  daughter  of  Herr  von  Bojanowski,  the  Com- 
missioner of  Patents.  Von  Biilow  was  fascinated  by 
a  piano  record  which  Berliner  had  made  at  Wash- 
ington with  conspicuous  success.  Before  the  assem- 
bled dignitaries  of  science  and  the  official  world,  von 
Biilow  predicted  a  brilliant  future  for  the  gramo- 
phone. Its  possibilities  in  the  realm  of  Apollo,  of 
course,  particularly  stirred  the  imagination  of  the 
German  virtuoso. 

It  was  during  Berliner's  sojourn  in  Berlin  that 
the  Electro-Technical  Society  of  the  Imperial  capi- 
tal, comprising  the  aristocracy  of  German  scientific 
brains,  invited  him  to  attend  its  regular  meeting  on 


GERMANY  WELCOMES  GRAMOPHONE  205 

November  26,  1889.  One  of  the  announced  features 
of  the  program  was  an  exhibition  and  demonstra- 
tion of  Edison's  phonograph.  The  secretary  of  the 
society,  having  learned  of  Berliner's  presence  in  the 
city,  invited  him  to  attend  the  meeting,  and,  if  he 
desired,  to  acquaint  the  membership  with  the  gramo- 
phone. 

Berliner  readily  availed  himself  of  this  flatter- 
ing opportunity.  No  one  who  has  not  personally 
brushed  shoulders  with  the  intellectual  superiority 
which  Prussian  kiiltur,  especially  of  the  scientific 
brand,  has  since  time  immemorial  arrogated  to  it- 
self, can  adequately  grasp  what  it  meant  for  the 
technically  uneducated  young  Washington  inventor 
to  address  so  exclusive  and  discriminating  an  au- 
dience as  Berliner  was  about  to  face.  They  were 
the  elite  of  German  science,  expert  in  their  various 
lines,  and,  with  regard  to  anything  new  under  the 
scientific  sun,  were  what  we  unregenerate  Ameri- 
cans to-day  would  call  '^hard  boiled."  Also,  to 
venture  still  further  into  the  Yankee  vernacular, 
they  were  men  who  required  very  decidedly  to  be 
*' shown"  before  they  could  be  convinced. 

Berliner  was  commensurately  conscious  that  he 
confronted  an  ordeal.  Uneifaceable  in  his  memory 
remains  the  recollection  of  the  awe-inspiring  pres- 
ence in  which  he  eventually  found  himself  that  rainy 
midwinter  night  in  Berlin  thirty-seven  years  ago. 
On  the  rostrum,  resplendent  in  his  regimentals,  sat 
the   president   of   the    society,   Lieutenant-General 


206 EMILE  BEBLINER 

Golz  of  the  Prussian  Army.  Other  officers  in  uni- 
form, who  traditionally  lent  distinction  to  any  kind 
of  a  function  in  Prussia,  were  present  in  numbers, 
for  the  German  Army,  even  in  those  pre-Armaged- 
don  days,  elevated  science  to  a  high  place  in  the 
war  scheme. 

Addressing  the  Carnegie  Peace  Endowment's 
round-table  on  disarmament  at  Briarcliff  Manor  in 
May,  192G,  Doctor  Edwin  E.  Slosson,  Director  of 
Science  Service  and  author  of  Creative  Chemistry, 
said:  "That  Germany  was  able  to  hold  out  so  long 
against  encircling  enemies  was  due  less  to  Hinden- 
burg  than  to  Fritz  Haber,  who  discovered  how  to 
extract  nitrogen  for  explosives  from  the  air  and 
thus  blow  over  the  blockade.  War  has  been  vir- 
tually a  branch  of  applied  chemistry  ever  since  the 
invention  of  gunpowder,  or  even  from  the  first  forg- 
ing of  the  steel  sword  from  the  ore." 

From  his  unobtrusive  seat  in  the  audience  of  five 
hundred  Berliner  observed  the  Edison  cylinder 
phonograph  on  the  platform,  which,  during  the 
course  of  the  evening,  was  explained,  exhibited  and 
made  to  perform.  The  regular  program  having 
been  carried  out,  a  soldier-member  of  the  Electro- 
Technical  Society  arose  and  informed  the  meeting 
that  Emile  Berliner,  "from  America,"  was  present 
and  had  consented  to  present  the  type  of  talking 
machine  that  he  had  invented.  To  the  accompani- 
ment of  courteous  applause  and  amid  the  liveliest 
interest,  Berliner  took  the  platform  for  some  pre- 


GERMANY  WELCOMES  GRAMOPHONE  207 

liminarj^  observations  before  introducing  the  gramo- 
phone. He  had  carefully  prepared  his  remarks  in 
German,  because,  though  commanding  the  language 
with  fluency,  he  was  less  proficient  with  its  technical 
lingo  than  he  had  become  with  English  scientific 
terminology  through  his  inventive  career  at  Wash- 
ington. 

"To  me  has  come  the  unexpected  honor,"  he 
said,  ''of  being  asked  to  explain  the  gramophone 
before  this  society  and  give  an  exhibition  of  both 
its  recording  and  reproducing  processes.  Although 
at  the  moment  I  am  only  inadequately  prepared,  I 
hope  that  it  will  not  be  difficult  for  me,  even  ^^^ith- 
out  holding  demonstrating  experiments,  for  which 
I  lack  the  proper  apparatus  in  Berlin,  to  elucidate 
those  few  points  which  will  contribute  to  an  under- 
standing of  the  mechanical  and  chemical  processes 
underlying  the  gramophone." 

Then,  in  the  course  of  a  terse,  modest,  fifteen- 
minute  address,  which  made  an  unmistakably  deep 
impression  on  his  audience,  Berliner  traced,  step 
by  step,  the  genesis  of  the  gramophone  and  of  the 
lateral  cut  disk  record.  ''In  conclusion,"  he  said, 
"I  believe  I  am  justified  in  saying,  not  only  on  the 
basis  of  actual  experiments,  but  from  the  standpoint 
of  fundamental  principles  of  physics,  that  the  pho- 
nograph already  has  reached  the  limits  of  its  tech- 
nical possibilities,  while  the  gramophone,  on  the 
other  hand,  has  only  begun  to  tread  the  new  paths 
of  its  immeasurable  development.    I  leave  it  to  your 


208 EMILE  BERLINER 

judgment  to  determine  whether  this  opinion  is  a 
tenable  one." 

Berliner,  Avith  that  final  passage,  deliberately 
threw  down  the  gauntlet  to  the  Edison  phonograph 
in  the  supreme  court  of  German  science  and  in  terms 
that  lacked  nothing  of  confident  and  frank  avowal. 
When  the  inventor  of  the  gramophone  finished 
his  address,  a  volley  of  applause  indicated  that  his 
arguments  had  not  failed  to  carry  conviction  to  most 
of  the  assembled  engineers  and  technicians.  Then 
came  a  dramatic  interlude. 

Privy  Government  Councilor  Doctor  Werner  von 
Siemens,  the  celebrated  electrical  engineer  and 
founder  of  the  world-famed  Siemens-Halske  and 
Siemens-Schuckert  electrical  concerns,  asked  for  the 
floor.  He  said  that  "it  was  certainly  extremely  in- 
teresting" to  them  all  to  see  these  two  American 
inventions,  the  phonograph  and  the  gramoi3hone,  in 
action,  cheek  by  jowl.  He  had  himself,  he  explained, 
never  seen  or  heard  the  gramophone  before.  **It  is 
extraordinarily  important  and  interesting,"  von 
Siemens  pointed  out,  that  Berliner  had  evolved  a 
system  of  recording  that  "made  it  possible,  if  not 
even  probable"  that  the  gramophone,  when  thor- 
oughly worked  out,  would  reproduce  the  tones  of 
speech  more  clearly  than  the  phonograph  repro- 
duced them.  "The  gramophone,"  continued  von 
Siemens,  "has  in  addition  the  great  advantage  of 
utilizing  a  record  etched  in  zinc  and  therefore  in 
more  durable  material  than  a  wax  cylinder.     The 


GERMANY  WELCOMES  GRAMOPHONE  209 

gramophone  will  in  consequence  deteriorate  less 
through  use  and  better  resist  the  teeth  of  time." 

Having  paid  this  ungrudging  tribute  to  the 
superior  merits  of  the  gramophone,  Doctor  von 
Siemens  then  said  that  he  felt  called  upon  to  make 
what  he  termed  ''some  passing  honorable  mention 
(eine  hleine  Ehrenerhldrung)  of  the  apparatus  of 
my  friend  Edison."  Von  Siemens  proceeded: 
''Herr  Berliner  told  us  a  few  minutes  ago  that  the 
phonograph  can  not  reproduce  the  voice  in  natural 
tones  because  the  depth  of  the  recorded  impression 
is  not  proportional  to  the  voice  pressure.  .  .  .  "VVe 
have,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  to-night  heard  the  pho- 
nograph reproduce  the  voice  completely  and  with 
wonderful  clearness.  I  think  it  is  appropriate  to 
call  attention  to  this  essential  purity  of  the  Edison 
phonograph. ' ' 

''Herr  Ingenieur"  Berliner  was  immediately 
recognized  by  the  chairman  for  the  purpose  of  a 
brief  rejoinder  to  Doctor  von  Siemens.  *'In  my 
short  address,"  he  said,  ''the  reference  to  the  pho- 
nograph's reproducing  qualities  applied  only  to  loud 
reproduction.  I  did  not  say  that  the  phonograph 
does  not  reproduce  naturally,  but  that  when  it  re- 
produces loudly,  its  tones  are  not  natural.  I  merely 
wished  to  stress  that  point." 

Berliner's  story  of  the  gramophone  later  was 
published  in  full  in  the  official  organ  of  the  Berlin 
Electro-Technical  Society.  To  this  day  it  remains  a 
standard  contribution  to  German  scientific  litera- 


210 EMILE  BERLINER 

ture  and  part  of  the  official  history  of  the  talking 
machine. 

Some  eight  or  ten  weeks  after  the  Electro-Tech- 
nical Society  affair,  word  was  cabled  to  the  United 
States  that  an  Edison-Berliner  ''competition"  had 
taken  place  in  the  German  capital.  The  New  York 
World  received  through  "Dunlap's  Cable  News 
Service"  and  x^ublished  on  February  5,  1890,  under 
the  caption  "Phonograph  vs.  Gramophone,"  the 
f ollomng  despatch : 

''Berlin,  Feb.  4 — Edison's  phonograph  and  Ber- 
liner's gramophone  were  put  in  competition  to-day. 
Berliner,  who  is  an  American  citizen,  was  declared 
the  victor.  Siemens,  the  electrician,  and  a  crowd  of 
distinguished  people  attended." 

The  despatch  made  a  profound  impression  in  the 
United  States.  Next  day's  New  York  World,  in  an 
editorial  note,  said : 

"The  statement  cabled  to  The  World  that  in  a 
competition  in  Berlin  between  Edison's  phonograph 
and  Berliner's  gramophone  the  latter  was  declared 
the  victor  created  considerable  excitement  in  elec- 
trical circles.  Neither  instrument  embodies  any 
electrical  principle,  both  having  purely  mechanical 
contrivances,  but  both  of  the  inventors  are  well 
known  in  electrical  circles,  and  hence  the  interest, 
which  is  intense,  has  been  fired  by  the  fact  that  but 
few  people  were  aware  that  Berliner  had  entered 
into  competition  mth  Edison  in  the  latter 's  favorite 
invention.  It  is  a  fact,  however,  that  Berliner  pat- 
ented his  gramophone  several  years  ago,  and  it  was 
exhibited  in  this  city,  Washington,  Boston  and  else- 


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GERMANY  WELCOMES  GRAMOPHONE  211 

where  and  attracted  attention,  but  was  not  con- 
sidered a  serious, rival  to  the  phonograph,  owing  to 
its  being  more  complicated  and  cumbersome." 

The  Evening  JVorld  of  February  5,  1890,  under 
the  head-lines  "Edison  Has  a  New  Rival — Ber- 
liner's Gramophone  Awarded  a  Victory  over  the 
Phonograph,"  said: 

'*A  despatch  from  Berlin  conveys  the  intelli- 
gence that  Thomas  A.  Edison,  the  inventor  of  the 
phonograph,  has  been  beaten  in  competition  in  that 
city  by  a  man  named  Berliner,  with  a  talking  ma- 
chine called  the  gramophone.  The  sad  intelligence 
is  in  a  manner  softened,  however,  by  the  fact  that 
Berliner  is  an  American  citizen,  and  is  a  resident 
of  Washington. ' ' 


^to" 


A  signal  honor  was  now  to  be  vouchsafed  the 
young  American  inventor.  The  proceedings  be- 
fore the  Electro-Technical  Society  of  Berlin  having 
been  broadcast  throughout  the  German  scientific 
world,  they  attracted  the  attention  of  Herman  von 
Helmholtz,  the  world-famed  professor  of  physics  at 
the  University  of  Berlin,  projector  of  the  theory  of 
the  conservation  of  energy,  and  the  first  exponent 
of  the  meaning  of  color  both  in  vision  and  in  music 
and  speech.  Excellenz  von  Helmholtz  was  then  di- 
rector of  the  Physical  Institute  of  the  University. 

Michael  Pupin,  author  of  From  Immigrant  to 
Inventor,  whose  eminent  career  in  American  science 
is  not  unlike  that  of  Emile  Berliner,  was  a  student 
of  von  Helmholtz  in  experimental  physics  a  year  or 


212 EMILE  BERLINER 

two  before  Berliner's  arrival  in  Berlin.  "Von 
Helmlioltz's  title,"  writes  Pupin,  ''conferred  upon 
him  by  the  old  Emperor  ("William  I),  was  Excellens, 
and  the  whole  teaching  staff  of  the  institute  stood 
in  awe  when  the  name  of  Excellenz  was  mentioned. 
The  whole  scientific  world  of  Germany,  nay,  the 
whole  intellectual  world  of  Germany,  stood  in  awe 
when  the  name  of  Excellenz  von  Helmholtz  was  pro- 
nounced. Next  to  Bismarck  and  the  old  Kaiser,  he 
was  at  that  time  the  most  illustrious  man  in  the  Ger- 
man Empire." 

On  the  morning  of  January  7,  1890,  six  weeks 
after  the  "phonograph-gramophone"  episode  at  the 
Electro-Technical  Society,  Berliner  received  at  the 
Hotel  Kaiserhof,  his  Berlin  stopping-place,  the  fol- 
lowing handwritten  letter  (in  German) : 

"  Charlottenburg,  6.     Januar  1890. 
"  Marsch-strasse. 
' '  Imperial    Physical    Institute. 
"Dear  Sir; 

"I  would  certainly  be  very  grateful  to  you  if  you 
would  give  me  opportunity  to  become  acquainted 
with  the  workings  of  the  gramophone.  I  could  not 
find  the  time  yesterday  for  the  somewhat  long  jour- 
ney to  the  Belle  Alliance  Theater  [where  there  had 
been  a  gramophone  demonstration].  If  it  is  agree- 
able to  you  to  repeat  the  experiments  in  the  Hotel 
Kaiserhof,  I  will  come  there  the  day  after  to-mor- 
row at  one-fifteen  o'clock  p.  m.,  as  I  happen  to  be 
going  to  the  city  that  day.  May  I  bring  those  of  my 
assistants  who  have  concerned  themselves  with  the 
phonograph  ? 

"Should  you  prefer  to  hold  the  demonstration 
in  rooms  that  are  fitted  up  for  experiments,  rather 


GERMANY  WELCOMES  GRAMOPHONE  213 

than  in  hotel  rooms,  this  can  take  place  in  a  room  of 
Division  No.  2  of  the  Imperial  Phj'sical  Institute 
(Charlottenburg,  Berliner-strasse  151)  perhaps  on 
Thursday. 

*'In  that  case,  I  would  only  ask  you  to  be  good 
enough  to  notify  the  director  of  that  division.  Doctor 
Loewenberg,  just  exactly  what  you  will  be  bringing 
along  with  you. 

"Yours  sincerelv, 

"H.  vonHeimholtz." 
"Herr    Emile  Berliner, 
"City. 

Berliner  informed  Excellent  von  Hehnholtz  that 
the  former's  living  quarters  at  the  Kaiserhof — the 
capacious  hostelry  on  the  Wilhelms  Platz  that  in  its 
day  housed  generations  of  American  tourists — 
would  adequately  serve  the  purpose.  One  of  Ber- 
liner's rooms  was  commodious  and  was  filled,  for  the 
occasion  of  von  Hehnholtz 's  visit,  with  extra  chairs. 

A  few  minutes  after  one  o'clock  on  Wednesday, 
January  eighth,  there  came  a  knock  at  Berliner's 
door.  "Herr  Ingenieur  Berliner?"  inquired  one  of 
two  men  who  stood  at  the  threshold,  clicking  heels 
and  standing  in  salute,  German  military  fashion,  as 
the  American  received  from  their  hands  cards  at- 
testing that  they  were  assistants  to  Excellenz  Pro- 
fessor Doctor  von  Helmholtz.  Berliner  welcomed 
them,  and  asked  them  to  be  seated.  There  was  an- 
other rap  on  the  door.  Three  more  men  clicked 
heels,  saluted  and  presented  cards.  They,  too,  were 
assistants  to  von  Helmholtz.  Then  ensued  a  succes- 
sion of  knocks,  chcked-heels,   salutes  and  visiting 


214 EMILE  BERLINER 

cards,  all  identifying  their  bearers  as  Helmholtzian 
lieutenants.  Evidently  the  eminent  physicist  had 
decided  to  mobilize  his  entire  scientific  staff  at  Ber- 
liner's gramophone  soiree. 

Within  a  few  minutes  every  chair  was  occupied 
and  standing-room  only  available.  Berliner  counted 
an  audience  of  thirty.  As  there  was  hardly  space 
enough  for  demonstrating  purposes,  he  asked  the 
hotel  to  open  up  an  adjoining  parlor  to  accommodate 
the  overflow.  Presently  von  Helmholtz  himself, 
accompanied  by  his  chief  assistant,  arrived,  prompt- 
ly at  the  appointed  hour  of  one-fifteen  o'clock. 

Berliner  accounts  their  meeting  one  of  the  red- 
letter  events  of  his  life.  It  was  a  triumphant  mo- 
ment for  him  and  one  that  was  significantly  rich  in 
contrast — the  world-celebrated,  profoundly  trained 
university  man  of  science,  the  colossus  of  his  pro- 
fession, in  democratic  contact  on  the  common 
ground  of  inventive  genius  mth  a  self-taught,  self- 
made  man  of  science,  who  had  scaled  the  Olympian 
heights  with  no  equipment  except  that  which  intui- 
tion breeds  and  preseverance  develops. 

Von  Helmholtz  was  on  the  verge  of  his  seventieth 
year.  He  had  an  enormous  head.  His  face  was 
deeply  furrowed  and  distended  veins  stood  out  upon 
a  massive  brow,  beneath  which  a  pair  of  protruding, 
penetrating  eyes  betokened  the  restless  searcher  for 
the  scientifically  unknown.  His  whole  mien  was 
that  of  a  profound  thinker;  and  his  entire  appear- 
ance, compellingly  striking.    No  one  could  possibly 


GERMANY  WELCOMES  GRAMOPHONE  215 

mistake  liim  for  anything  but  a  giant  in  the  domain 
of  learning.  Von  Helmholtz  was  partly  Anglo- 
Saxon,  his  mother  having  been  a  lineal  descendant 
of  William  Penn.  Pupin  records  an  aphorism  of 
Helmholtz  that  has  been  one  of  the  keynotes  of 
Emile  Berliner's  life:  "A  few  experiments  success- 
fully carried  out  usually  lead  to  results  more  im- 
portant than  all  mathematical  theories." 

The  great  physicist  was  cordial,  gracious,  nat- 
ural and  interested.  He  greeted  Berliner  with  a 
kindly  warmth  that  completely  disarmed  the  young 
inventor  of  any  semblance  of  stage  fright  in  the 
presence  of  so  eminent  a  personage. 

Helmholtz  and  his  staff  of  assistants  were  so  de- 
lighted with  the  exhibition  of  the  gramophone  that 
they  urged  the  American  to  visit  the  Imperial  Phy- 
sical Institute  and  make  some  gramophone  records 
in  the  well-equipped  laboratories  there.  Berliner  re- 
luctantly had  to  decline  the  invitation  because  at  the 
time  he  was  without  recording  apparatus. 

Not  long  after  the  visit  from  von  Helmholtz, 
Berliner  appeared  before  the  Technical  Society  of 
Frankfort-on-the-Main,  the  same  organization  to 
which  Philip  Reis  belonged  and  before  which  the 
latter  had  many  years  previous  exhibited  his  famous 
conception  of  the  Frenchman  Bourseuil's  telephone. 

German  science  having  bestowed  its  august 
blessing  upon  the  Berliner  gramophone,  German  in- 
dustry now  turned  its  attention  in  that  direction. 
The  very  first  concern  in  the  world  to  reveal  com- 


216  EMILE  BERLINER 


mereial  interest  in  the  gramophone  was  a  doll  fac- 
tory in  the  Thuringian  Forest,  that  mountainous 
wood  in  northern  Germany  whence  the  toys  of  the 
world  once  came  almost  exclusively  and  amid  the 
romantic  heights  of  which  stands  the  Wartburg — 
the  castle  in  which  Martin  Luther  sought  refuge  and 
threw  his  famous  inkpot  at  the  Devil,  and  the  arena 
of  the  traditional  Sdngerkreig  immortalized  by 
Wagner  in  Die  Meister singer. 

The  Thuringian  dollmakers  said  that  if  this  mir- 
acle-worker aus  Amerika  could  make  a  zinc  plate 
talk,  they  didn  't  see  why  he  couldn  't  make  their  wax 
dolls  talk.  Berliner  was  not  minded  to  branch  into 
the  special  researches  and  experiments  which  their 
proposals  would  have  entailed.  But  he  arranged 
with  the  firm  to  make  for  them  tiny  gramophones 
for  which  records  only  five  inches  in  diameter  were 
pressed  in  celluloid.  Those  miniature  talking  ma- 
chines, the  outgrowth  of  a  suggestion  from  the 
haunts  of  Kris  Kringle,  were  the  earliest  gramo- 
phones placed  on  the  market  for  public  sale.  The 
first  pressed  copy  of  a  gramophone  record,  pro- 
duced by  Berliner  in  the  course  of  his  pioneer  ex- 
periments, was  made  in  celluloid  in  1888  and  is  still 
on  exhibition  at  the  National  Museum,  Washington. 

In  the  autumn  of  1890,  the  gramophone  having 
made  a  triumphal  debut  in  Europe,  Emile  Berliner 
returned  to  the  United  States,  to  devote  himself  in- 
tensively to  the  working  out  of  details  that  would 
perfect  the  machine  to  a  point  whereby  its  popular 
appeal  to  the  American  public  would  be  irresistible. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 


THE  WOKLD  SET   TO   MUSIC 


THE  sun  never  sets  on  the  British  Empire  nor 
Emile  Berliner's  talking  machine.  To-day  the 
gramophone  sings  and  plays  in  forty  languages.  It 
has  literally  set  the  world  to  music.  It  is  manu- 
factured in  nearly  a  dozen  different  countries. 
Everywhere,  except  in  the  United  States,  the  talk- 
ing machine  which  Berliner  invented  is  known  as 
the  gramophone.  Out  of  it  has  grown  one  of  Ameri- 
ca's mighty  industries.  The  gramophone  does  not 
represent  the  first  attempt  at  a  talking  machine,  as 
is  disclosed  by  the  account  of  its  genesis  in  preced- 
ing chapters.  But  it  turned  out  to  be  scientifically 
the  most  perfect  machine  and  indisputably  the  most 
commercially  successful  product  of  its  kind  ever 
placed  on  the  market. 

Emile  Berliner's  love  of  music  is  inherent  and 
inherited.  Nurtured  in  childhood  at  Hanover  by 
his  mother,  it  was  mainly  that  which  inspired  him 
to  work  out  a  machine  which  would  essentially 
be  a  music-making  machine.  As  a  young  man, 
Berliner  studied  music,  and  became  something  more 
than  a  proficient  amateur  at  the  piano  and  violin. 

217 


218 EMILE  BERLINER 

He  still  plays  both  of  those  instruments.  He  has 
always  had  a  sound  theoretical  knowledge  of  music, 
and  it  served  him  effectively  throughout  his  many 
years  of  acoustic  experiment  and  achievement.  In 
earlier  life  he  sang.  When  Leopold  Damrosch 
founded  the  New  York  Oratorio  Society  in  the  be- 
ginning of  the  'seventies,  young  Berliner  became  one 
of  its  members  and  was  a  baritone  in  The  Messiah, 
Elijah  and  Sams,on. 

Berliner  has  been  a  composer,  as  well  as  an  in- 
terpreter, of  music.  One  of  his  patriotic  composi- 
tions, The  Columbian  Anthem,  was  first  heard  at  the 
national  council  of  the  Daughters  of  the  American 
Revolution  in  Washington  on  Washington's  Birth- 
day, 1897.  On  Flag  Day  of  the  same  year  The  Co- 
lumbian Anthem  was  presented,  with  full  chorus 
and  orchestra,  by  the  Castle  Square  Opera  Com- 
pany at  the  LaFayette  Square  Opera  House  in 
Washington,  and  sung  in  a  number  of  public  schools 
at  the  National  Capital  and  at  New  York.  On  Sep- 
tember 18,  1897,  the  United  States  Marine  Band, 
under  the  famous  conductor  Professor  Fanciulli, 
played  Berliner's  anthem  as  the  opening  number 
of  the  program  at  a  garden  party  of  the  President 
and  Mrs.  McKinley  in  the  White  House  grounds. 

The  Baltimore  American,  commenting  on  the 
White  House  concert,  said: 

''Considering  that  this  country  has  not  a  na- 
tional melody  other  than  those  borrowed  from  Eu- 
rope, the  Columbian  Anthem  of  Emile  Berliner  has 


THE  WQELD  SET  TO  MUSIC  219 

a  good  chance  some  day  to  be  selected  as  our  na- 
tional inelod}^  It  is  remarkable  for  its  stately  dig- 
nity and  lias  within  it  that  patriotic  stir  and  catchi- 
ness  bound  to  make  it  popular.  It  is  short,  like  the 
English,  Eussian  and  Austrian  hymns,  and  as  a 
composition  ranks  easily  with  the  best  national 
hymns  ever  written." 

The  Columbian  Anthem  was  sung  for  several 
years  in  the  Washington  public  schools.  It  was  not 
unusual  for  Berliner  to  hear  schoolboys  in  the 
streets  whistling  or  humming  his  song,  which  was 
alike  an  expression  of  his  musical  soul  and  a  deep 
reverence  for  the  land  of  his  adoption. 

As  passion  for  experiment  is  embedded  in  Emile 
Berliner's  marrow,  his  fondness  for  the  violin  once 
led  him  into  a  quest  for  the  mystery  that  gives  an 
old  instrument,  like  a  Stradivarius,  a  more  brilliant 
tone  than  a  newer  violin.  He  finally  concluded  that 
the  solution  would  have  to  be  found  in  a  considera- 
tion of  the  uneven  pressures  to  which  the  adjust- 
ment of  the  strings  subjects  the  violin  box.  Berliner 
reasoned  that  a  new  violin  box  did  not  vibrate  freely 
because  of  the  irregular  construction  caused  by  the 
base  bar  and  the  sound-post,  and  of  the  fact  that  the 
four  strings  exerted  uneven  pressures  on  the  fibers 
of  the  wood.  In  addition,  the  tension  of  the  strings 
acted  with  a  crushing  pressure  on  the  two  ^'feet"  of 
the  bridge,  one  of  them  pressing  lightly,  the  other 
hard  and  firmly.  As  a  consequence,  the  fibers  of  the 
wood  were  hampered  and  could  not  give  out  the  full 
volume  of  their  resonance.    Now,  argued  Berliner, 


220 EMILE  BERLINER 

as  a  violin  ages  and  is  much  played  upon,  the  fibers 
of  the  wood  gradually  adjust  themselves  to  the  un- 
even pressures  of  the  strings  so  that  eventually  the 
fibers  are  not  compressed  and  give  forth  freer  and 
more  even  tones. 

To  prove  this  theory  Berliner  worked  out  a 
method  of  stringing  which  would  carry  the  pressure 
through  the  center  of  the  violin  from  the  finger 
board  to  the  end  where  the  string  holder  is  usually 
attached,  but  he  abandoned  the  string  holder  itself. 
The  consequence  was  that  new  violins  thus  strung 
had  the  same  evenness  and  freedom  of  tones  as  long- 
used  violins.  Berliner  furnished  a  number  of  such 
instruments  to  artists,  who  were  surprised  at  the 
resultant  effects.  Among  them  were  Leopold  Dam- 
rosch  and  Camilla  Urso.  Berliner's  ideas  never 
attained  general  adoption  mainly  for  the  reason  that 
violinists  were  inclined  to  look  upon  any  radical  de- 
parture in  the  stringing  of  the  violin  as  heresy,  even 
though  they  recognized  the  ingenuity  and  the  effec- 
tiveness of  Berliner's  devices. 

The  monumental  plant  of  the  Victor  Company  at 
Camden,  New  Jersey,  is  the  direct  outgrowth  of  the 
Berliner  Gramophone  Company  founded  by  Ber- 
liner at  Philadelphia  in  1892.  In  an  Important  Let- 
ter to  the  Trade,  issued  by  the  Victor  Talking  Ma- 
chine Company  on  November  8,  1909,  in  connection 
with  ''Victrola  Infringement,"  these  statements 
occur : 


THE  WOELD  SET  TO  MUSIC  221 


"The  manufacture  and  sale  of  the  Gramophone 
was  first  conducted  by  the  United  States  Gramo- 
phone Company,  followed  by  the  Berliner  Gramo- 
phone Company  and  then  by  the  Victor  Talking- 
Machine  Company,  which  latter  company  acquired 
its  rights  from  the  former  companies. 

"We  now  control  the  original  Berliner  basic 
patents,  and  we  have  the  Gramophone  developed 
to  its  present  condition.  Through  our  efforts  and 
improvements  the  Gramophone  has  become  an  im- 
portant factor  in  the  market,  in  spite  of  the  general 
opinion  among  talking-machine  manufacturers,  at 
the  time  of  its  advent,  that  it  was  destined  to  remain 
nothing  more  than  a  toy." 

Just  as  the  Bell  Telephone  Company  j^ears  be- 
fore had  been  compelled  to  defend,  as  they  trium- 
phantly did,  the  validity  and  inviolability  of  the 
Berliner  telephone  patents,  so  the  Victor  Talking 
Machine  Company  for  many  years  was  called  upon 
to  take  up  legal  arms  to  protect  Berliner's  talking- 
machine  inventions  and  rights.  "We  have  met 
infringement  and  unfair  competition  very  success- 
fully," said  the  trade  circular  above  quoted;  and, 
speaking  of  "the  latest  attack,"  it  added:  "We  are 
obliged  again  to  enter  the  legal  arena,  in  which  we 
believe  to  exist  little  doubt  of  our  prompt  and  deci- 
sive victory."  Subsequent  events  justified  that  con- 
fidence. The  Berliner  basic  patents  in  connection 
mth  the  talking  machine  have  proved  as  attack- 
proof  as  the  Berliner  basic  patents  in  connection 
with  the  telephone. 

There  is  a  wide-spread  but  wholly  unfounded 
impression  that  radio,  especially  the  broadcasting  of 


222 EMILE  BERLINER 

music,  dealt  the  talking  machine  a  knock-out  blow. 
It  is  entirely  true  that  in  the  early  months  and  years 
of  radio's  vast  popularity,  in  1923  and  1924,  the 
Bale  of  machines  and  records  fell  off  seriously.  But 
the  industry  in  the  meantime  has  more  than  re- 
covered its  equilibrium  and  old-time  prosperity.  At 
the  annual  stockholders  meeting  of  the  Victor  Talk- 
ing Machine  Company  in  April,  1926,  its  astute 
president,  Eldridge  R.  Johnson,  was  able  to  report 
that  there  was  more  than  thirty  million  dollars' 
worth  of  orders  for  apparatus  and  records  on  the 
company's  books  and  that  the  manufacture  of  one 
hundred  thousand  records  a  day  was  required  to 
keep  up  with  the  demand.  Radio,  it  would  appear, 
has,  therefore,  not  put  the  talking  machine  out  of 
business.  They  have,  on  the  contrary,  become  part- 
ners in  the  eternal  and  correspondingly  lucrative 
industry  of  providing  happiness,  entertainment  and 
education  to  humankind. 

In  the  United  States  alone,  including  the  English 
language,  talking-machine  records  are  now  being 
''published"  in  no  fewer  than  forty  tongues.  To 
catalogue  them  is  virtually  to  tabulate  the  civilized 
races  of  the  world: 


Albanian 

Chinese 

English 

Arabian-Syrian 

Croatian 

Finnish 

Armenian 

Cuban 

French 

Bohemian 

Danish 

French-Canadian 

Bulgarian 

Dutch 

German 

THE  WORLD  SET  TO  MUSIC 


223 


Greek 

Lithuanian 

Serbian 

Hawaiian 

Mexican 

Slovak 

Hebrew- Yiddish 

Norwegian 

Slovenian 

Hungarian 

Polish 

Spanish 

Italian 

Porto  Rican 

Swedish 

Latin 

Portuguese 

Swiss 

Japanese 

Roumanian 

Turkish 

Korean 

Russian 

Ukrainian 
Welsh 

In  some  foreign  languages,  such  as  Hebrew- Yid- 
dish and  Italian,  more  than  six  hundred  records 
have  been  made.  There  are  more  than  thirteen  hun- 
dred Chinese  records,  shipped  principally  to  China, 
although  there  is  a  considerable  trade  in  Cantonese 
records  in  the  United  States. 

In  addition  to  the  present  Victor  plant  at  Cam- 
den, there  are  nine  factories  in  the  world  turning 
out  talking-machine  apparatus  of  the  Berliner 
gramophone  basic  pattern.  The  largest  of  them, 
outside  of  the  United  States,  is  the  works  of  the 
Gramophone  Company,  Ltd.,  at  Hayes,  Middlesex, 
England,  which  Berliner  was  mainly  instrumental 
in  founding  in  1899.  Until  1923,  the  Victor  Talking 
Machine  Company  of  Canada,  at  Montreal,  was 
knowai  as  the  Berliner  Gramophone  Company,  after 
the  name  of  its  organizer. 

The  British  Gramophone  Company,  which  has  an 
invested  capital  of  twelve  and  one-half  million  dol- 
lars, operates  in  Europe,  Africa,  Australia,  New 


224     EMILE  BERLINER 

Zealand  and  parts  of  Asia  through  subsidiary  com- 
panies, branches  and  distributors.  Branch  factories 
are  situated  at  Aussig,  Czechoslovakia;  Nogent-sur- 
Marne,  France;  Calcutta,  India;  Barcelona,  Spain; 
Sydney,  Australia ;  Milan,  Italy,  and  Nowawes,  Ger- 
many. 

Alfred  Clark,  who  grew  up  in  the  gramophone 
industry  as  a  lad  in  the  United  States,  became  the 
managing  director  of  the  English  plant  early  in  the 
present  century.  During  the  World  War,  when  all 
of  industrial  Britain  was  converted  into  an  arsenal, 
the  first  factory  to  be  turned  completely  and  eifec- 
tively  into  a  shell-making  works  was  Clark's  gramo- 
phone plant  at  Hayes.  It  was  also,  under  his 
direction,  the  first  British  works  to  employ  girls  and 
women  on  a  large  scale  in  the  manufacture  of  muni- 
tions of  war.  The  vast  park  of  fine  machine  tools 
used  in  the  construction  of  gramophones  and  rec- 
ords was  swiftly  and  steadily  displaced  by  lathes 
and  the  other  implements  required  for  production 
of  shells. 

It  was  the  relentless  rain  of  British  shells  that 
kept  the  enemy  at  bay  on  the  western  front  through 
the  first  two  and  a  half  terrible  years  of  the  war; 
and  it  was  the  ingenuity  and  industry  of  British 
manufactories,  like  the  Gramophone  Company  in 
Middlesex,  that  did  yeoman  service  in  sustaining  the 
Allies'  defense.  Emile  Berliner  is  essentially  a 
man  of  peace.  In  the  wildest  flights  of  his  imagina- 
tion he  could  never  have  dreamed  that  a  factory 


THE  WORLD  SET  TO  MUSIC  225 

built  for  the  production  of  his  talking  machine  one 
day  would  be  producing,  on  a  twenty-four-hour 
shift,  ammunition  to  be  hurled  across  French  battle- 
fields at  German  troops. 

It  has  been  said  in  an  imaginative  figure  of 
speech  that  music  won  the  World  War.  Music  may 
not  have  decided  the  fate  of  Civilization  on  the  shell- 
plowed  fields  of  France,  but  Song  was  a  mighty  fac- 
tor in  sustaining  that  morale  mthout  which  victory 
might  not  have  been  achieved.  Certain  it  is  that  the 
gramophone  and  the  disk  record  were  the  unfailing 
companions  of  the  poilu,  the  '^ Tommy"  and  the 
doughboy.  Often  they  were  all  that  made  life  still 
worth  living  in  mud-soaked  trench  and  dripping 
dug-out.  Foch's  invincibles  before  Verdun  and  the 
Marne  reeled  off  Madelon  and  the  Marseillaise  on 


*It  was  the  Gramophone  Company  in  Great  Britain  that  made 
world-famous  the  dog  which  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century 
has  been  listening  to  "His  Master's  Voice."  Collier's  Weekly,  in 
May,  1909,  remarked  that  "the  design  has  become  a  household  word, 
and  the  quaint  little  fox  terrier  at  attention  before  the  horn  is 
familiar  to  more  Americans  than  any  other  of  the  world's  greatest 
masterpieces."  From  a  brother  Francis  Barraud,  an  English  painter, 
inherited  a  faithful  fox  terrier  named  "Nipper."  Man  and  dog  be- 
came fast  friends  and  one  day  in  1899  it  occurred  to  the  artist,  an 
early  addict  to  the  talking  machine,  to  depict  ' '  Nipper ' '  on  canvas 
in  the  terrier's  favorite  posture  in  front  of  the  horn.  "Nipper" 
was  accustomed  to  listen  as  intently  to  the  sounds  that  oozed  from 
the  horn  as  any  human.  Eventually  the  painting  became  the  posses- 
sion of  the  Gramophone  Company.  The  original  now  hangs  in  a 
special  recess  over  the  fireplace  in  the  oak-paneled  board  room  of  the 
company's  head  office  in  Middlesex.  Later  Barraud  painted  many 
copies  of  the  picture,  and  these  now  occupy  honored  positions  in 
various  gramophone  centers  throughout  the  world. 

Emile  Berliner,  being  a  painter,  in  addition  to  his  many  other 
artistic  accomplishments,  realized  the  gripping  appeal  and  correspond- 
ingly big  commercial  possibilities  of  "His  Master's  Voice"  for  the 
talking-machine  industry.  He  therefore  secured  trademark  copyrights 
in  Barraud 's  '  *  Nipper. ' '  Eventually  the  gramophone  companies  all 
over  the  world  adopted  it  as  their  distinctive  symbol. 


226 EMILE  BERLINER 

gramophone  records  when  they  were  not  marching 
into  battle  with  those  soul-stirring  ballads  on  their 
lips. 

Wellington  declared  that  Waterloo  was  won  on 
the  playing  fields  of  Eton.  Historians  may  record 
that  the  British  Army's  victories  in  France  and 
Belgium  between  1914  and  1918  were  won  by 
the  meii  who  wrote  Tipperary,  There's  a  Long, 
Long  Trail  and  Keep  the  Home  Fires  Burning,  and 
by  the  men  who  made  it  possible  for  those  inspiring 
melodies  to  be  dinned  at  psychological  moments  into 
the  ears  of  the  men  of  England,  Scotland,  Ireland, 
Wales  and  the  "dominions  overseas,"  who  bared 
their  breasts  to  the  foe  at  Mons,  the  Somme  and 
Soissons. 

How  long  it  would  have  been  before  it  was 
''over,  over  there,"  without  George  M.  Cohan's 
haunting  lyric  of  the  American  war  spirit  is  a  grave 
question.  Troops  nowadays  do  not  tramp  into  battle 
behind  a  brass  band.  They  turn  on  their  talking 
machines  while  waiting,  in  soul-trying  impatience 
and  uncertainty,  for  the  zero  hour  which  sends  them 
over  the  top.  In  France  our  men  thanked  God  on 
innumerable  occasions  for  the  gramophone  and  for 
the  blessings  of  song  and  reminders  of  home  that 
it  never  failed  to  bring.  To-day,  thousands  of 
maimed  World  War  soldiers  condemned  to  existence 
in  hospitals  derive  their  chief  solace  from  the  boons 
with  which  history  will  link  the  name  of  Emile  Ber- 
liner— the  talking  machine  and  the  microphone,  soul 
of  radio. 


THE  WORLD  SET  TO  MUSIC  227 

Berliner's  lateral  cut  disk  record,  with  its  possi- 
bility of  unlimited  duplication,  is  the  seed  from 
which  the  whole  modern  talking-machine  industry 
has  sprouted.  Since  his  basic  patents  ran  out  in 
1912,  all  but  two  companies  now  manufacturing 
talking  machines  have  used  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  the  gramophone.  The  John  McCormacks, 
the  Galli-Curcis,  the  Geraldine  Farrars,  the  Louise 
Homers,  the  Schumann-Heinks,  the  Jeritzas  and  all 
the  other  songbirds,  who,  through  the  medium  of  the 
talking  machine,  turn  our  homes  into  opera-houses, 
long  since  refused  to  record  for  machines  of 
non-gramophone  type  because  their  form  of  sound 
grooves  distorts  the  voice.  Emile  Berliner's  pre- 
diction before  the  Franklin  Institute  in  1888  that 
the  world's  great  singers  some  day  would  receive 
rich  royalties  from  the  sale  of  their  records  long 
since  came  true.  Their  returns  from  concerts  to 
invisible  audiences  probably  far  outstrip  their  ac- 
tual box-office  receipts.  They  have  Emile  Berliner 
to  thank  for  that.  In  connection  with  accounting 
proceedings  instituted  in  the  New  Jersey  courts  in 
June,  1926,  by  Gloria  Caruso,  six-year-old  daughter 
of  Enrico  Caruso,  it  was  stated  that  the  great 
tenor's  ''record"  royalties  between  1921  and  1925 
amounted  to  one  million  dollars. 

The  modern  commercial  success  of  the  gramo- 
phone talking  machine,  though  resting  securely 
upon  Berliner's  invention,  is  attributable  in  very 
large  degree  to  the  supplementary  work  of  Eldridge 


228 EMILE  BERLINER 

R,  Johnson,  now  President  of  the  Victor  Talking 
Machine  Company.  An  able  mechanician  of  shrewd 
technical  perception,  Johnson  succeeded  in  develop- 
ing a  motor-driven  reproducing  machine  which  ran 
with  great  regularity  of  speed,  was  readily  adjust- 
able, and,  last  but  not  least,  ran  silently,  so  as  not 
to  disturb  the  sounds  of  the  record  by  its  own  noise. 
Such  a  motor  machine  had  been  made  by  a  New  York 
clockmaker  as  far  back  as  1891,  but  was  not  quite 
noiseless.  Johnson  also  took  note  of  the  fact  that 
the  patents  of  Bell  and  Tainter  covering  the  method 
of  cutting  a  sound  record  in  wax  were  approaching 
their  final  term  of  legal  existence.  Deciding  to  take 
advantage  of  that  circumstance,  he  applied  himself 
to  the  elimination  of  the  difficult  etching  process 
and  to  combining  the  much  easier  wax-cutting  tech- 
nique of  the  graphophone  with  the  gramophone 
method  of  horizontal  recording. 

Tho  new  gramophone,  which  was  evolved,  in- 
stantly appealed  to  grand-opera  stars,  to  the  great 
masters  of  the  piano,  to  the  wizards  of  the  violin, 
to  symphony  orchestras,  to  artists  on  every  kind 
of  musical  instrument,  and  to  celebrated  actors  and 
elocutionists.  Its  repertoire  soon  ran  the  whole 
gamut  of  audible  phenomena.  Voice  reproductions 
in  particular  became  so  startlingly  perfect  that 
hotels  and  restaurants  found  it  possible  to  have 
their  orchestras  accompany  singers  as  they  emerged 
by  proxy  from  the  horn  of  the  talking  machine. 

Presently  there  arose   a  moot  question  as  to 


THE  WORLD  SET  TO  MUSIC  229 

whether  the  word  "gramophone"  could  be  patented 
as  a  trade  name.  In  order  to  forestall  any  future 
difficulties  Mr.  Johnson  coined  the  name  ''Victor 
Talking  Machine"  as  a  trade-mark. 

The  creators  of  the  present  Victor  plant  at  Cam- 
den, by  far  the  largest  talking-machine  factory  in 
the  world,  have  contrived,  in  respect  of  internal 
beauty  and  atmosphere,  almost  entirely  to  divest  it 
of  the  character  of  an  industrial  establishment. 
They  have  breathed  into  it,  instead,  a  spirit  in  tune 
with  Orpheus  and  Apollo.  Some  thirteen  thousand 
men  and  women  are  employed  there  in  the  produc- 
tion of  everything  that  goes  into  the  talking  ma- 
chine. In  the  expansive  buildings  devoted  to  the 
making  of  cabinets  there  is  an  omnipresent  odor  of 
fine  woods.  Artisans,  apparently  joyous  in  their 
jobs,  hum  music  over  their  work-benches.  There  is 
visible  and  audible  happiness  rampant  in  the  Cam- 
den staff  that  strikes  all  \isitors  to  the  plant  as 
being  in  peculiar  harmony  with  the  daily  task  to 
which  it  is  devoting  itself — the  mass  production  of 
instruments  of  melody. 

Earlier  in  this  narrative  are  some  facts  and 
figures  that  tell  the  story  of  the  physical  growth  of 
the  telephone.  No  less  impressive  are  a  few  graphic 
details  that  reveal  the  present  magnitude  of  the 
talking-machine  industry. 

The  pressure  required  to  press  a  twelve-inch 
record  is  two  hundred  and  fifty-four  thousand  two 
hundred  and  fifty  pounds — the  equivalent  of  pres- 


230  EMILE  BERLINER 

sure  at  the  bottom  of  a  column  of  east  iron  twelve 
inches  in  diameter  and  approximately  as  high  as  the 
Woolworth  Building.  It  would  take  a  string  of 
freight  cars  twenty-six  and  three-quarter  miles  long 
to  haul  the  Victor  yearly  output.  At  the  Camden 
plant  six  hundred  and  thirty-seven  thousand  square 
feet  of  blue-print  paper  are  used  in  one  year — 
enough  to  make  a  single  print  over  an  eighth  of  a 
mile  square.  Each  day,  for  cooling  presses,  two  mil- 
lion seven  hundred  thousand  gallons  of  water  are 
pumped,  enough  to  fill  a  two-foot  diameter  pipe 
twenty-two  miles  long.  Daily  one  hundred  and  eighty 
tons  of  coal  are  burned.  They  would  last  the  average 
home-owner  twenty-five  years.  If  the  present  floor 
areas  of  the  vast  talking-machine  plant  on  the  Dela- 
ware were  laid  out  in  a  building  one  hundred  feet 
wide  (one  story  high),  the  building  would  be  three 
and  six-tenths  miles  long.  Between  May  and  October, 
1923,  sufficient  lumber  was  cut  up  at  Camden  to 
build  six  hundred  two-story  houses,  each  twenty- 
eight  feet  square,  and  enough  packing  material  was 
used  to  make  a  two-car  garage  for  each  of  them. 
The  monthly  production  of  records  piled  flat  would 
make  a  column  four  miles  high — twice  as  high  as  the 
F5  sea-plane  can  fly  and  fifty  per  cent,  higher  than 
Mount  Whitney,  the  loftiest  peak  in  the  United 
States.  Edge  to  edge,  the  same  records  would  reach 
five  hundred  and  twenty  miles,  or  the  distance  from 
Camden  to  Cincinnati.  It  would  take  nineteen  years* 
continuous  gramophone  playing  to  play  them  I 


THE  WORLD  SET  TO  MUSIC  231 

Two  institutions  of  world-wide  fame — the  Li- 
brary of  Congress  at  Washington  and  the  Grand 
Opera  in  Paris — have  given  substance  to  an  early 
prophecy  of  Emile  Berliner.  He  said  that  one  of 
the  missions  of  the  gramophone  record  was  to  per- 
petuate, for  eternity,  the  voices  of  celebrities,  or 
voices  near  and  dear  to  particular  persons.  In  1925 
the  Congressional  Library  decided  to  install  a  com- 
prehensive collection  of  talking-machine  records. 
As  an  addition  to  the  music  division  of  the  Library, 
the  collection  is  intended  to  give  students  of  music 
an  opportunity  to  hear  the  works  of  the  great  com- 
posers, as  performed  by  master  artists,  instead  of 
merely  tracing  them  mentally  from  books  and  notes. 
The  collection  contains  a  large  number  of  records 
made  by  artists  now  passed  from  the  scene  and  is 
the  first  seriously  conceived  public  aggregation  of 
its  kind  in  America. 

Herbert  Putnam,  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  said : 
*'The  records  add  greatly  to  the  resources  of  our 
music  division  and  to  the  Library's  auditorium  for 
chamber  concerts,  and  aid  in  giving  pleasure  and  in- 
struction to  a  highly  significant  public."  Carl 
Engel,  Chief  of  the  Music  Division,  added:  '*I  have 
been  moved  especially  by  the  thought  of  the  coming 
generations.  To  them  this  extension  of  the  resources 
of  the  music  division — adding  to  the  printed  record 
of  a  composition  the  record  of  its  sound  in  per- 
formance— will  be  invaluable.  With  my  pleasure 
and  satisfaction  there  mingles  only  the  regret  that 


232 EMILE  BEELINER 

this  wonderful  invention  was  not  made  three  hun- 
dred years  ago." 

Some  time  before  the  Library  of  Congress  ar- 
ranged to  install  its  record  collection,  the  Paris 
Opera  placed  in  hermetically  sealed  vaults  an  as- 
sortment of  records  which  are  not  to  be  touched  for 
fifty  or  a  hundred  years,  and  then  only  for  compari- 
son with  records  made  by  artists  still  to  come.  Down 
in  the  catacomb-like  fire-proof  storerooms  built  by 
the  big  talking-machine  companies  here  and  in 
Europe,  and  securely  barred  to  all  but  a  few  trusted 
employees,  are  stored  away  hundreds  upon  hun- 
dreds of  copper  and  steel  matrices,  the  indestruc- 
tible and  precious  legacies  which  the  masters  of  song 
and  performance  have  bequeathed  to  future  genera- 
tions.   Their  immortality  is  secure. 

In  a  paper  on  the  Bell-Tainter  graphophone, 
read  by  Henry  Edmunds  before  the  British  Associa- 
tion for  the  Advancement  of  Science  at  Bath  on 
September  7,  1888,  there  is  a  story  of  a  young 
Chinese  diplomat  at  Washington.  On  seeing  the 
Bell-Tainter  graphophone  for  the  first  time,  he  re- 
called a  famous  legend  in  China  about  a  fair  woman 
whose  voice  was  so  beautiful  that  her  children 
longed  to  preserve  it  for  future  generations  to  hear. 
So  they  persuaded  her  to  speak  into  a  bamboo  cane 
which  was  carefully  sealed.  The  cane  was  sacredly 
cherished  for  several  generations  and  then,  one  day, 
was  opened.  Each  word  came  out  in  order  and  with 
all  the  original  sweetness.  But  the  voice  was  never 
heard  again.    It  had  vanished  for  all  time. 


THE  WORLD  SET  TO  MUSIC  233 

What  filial  piety  once  in  far  Cathay  quaintly  es- 
sayed to  achieve  by  magic  has  become  a  practical 
possibility  in  our  day  because  of  what  Emile  Ber- 
liner wrought.  He  made  it  possible  for  posterity  to 
hold  communion  with  the  immortals.*  Enrico  Caruso 
no  longer  bestrides  the  boards  of  the  Metropolitan 
Opera,  but  his  majestic  song  is  with  us  yet.  Mankind 
has  realized  at  last  Tennyson's  msh  for  'Hhe  voice 
that  is  still." 


*A  certain  Colonel  Joyce^  speaking  into  the  graphophone  at 
Washington  in  July,  1888,  recited  the  following  verse  of  his  own 
composition  in  tribute  to  Berliner 's  invention : 

"I  treasure  the  voices  of  poets  and  sages, 

I  keep  them  alive  through  the  round  rolling  years; 
I  speak  to  the  world  for  ages  and  ages, 

Eecording  the  language  of  smiles  and  of  tears. 

"When  friends  have  departed,  and  sweet  life  has  ended, 

Their  voices  shall  sound  through  my  swift  rolling  heart; 
While  all  of  their  love-notes  are  treasured  and  blended, 
As  faithful  and  true  as  the  nature  of  art. 

"The  pulpit,  the  bar,  the  wants  of  the  household. 

Shall  photograph  thought  in  the  sigh  of  my  soul ; 
The  man  and  the  maid  shall  advance  more  than  tenfold, 
Who  talk  with  my  tongue  as  the  years  grandly  roll. 

"The  Godhead  alone  shall  be  found  in  my  preaching^ 
And  marvelous  secrets  I  yet  shall  disclose. 
The  schools  of  the  world  shall  list  to  my  teaching, 
As  pure  and  as  bright  as  the  blush  of  the  rose. 

"I  war  with  the  world  where  ignorance  slumbers, 
And  go  hand  in  hand  with  the  light  of  the  sua. 
I  count  every  thought  with  quick  magical  numbers; 
And  my  work  on  the  earth  shall  never  be  done.'' 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

Berliner's  contribution  to  public  health 

IN  THE  prefatory  words  by  Herbert  Hoover, 
statesman  and  humanitarian,  with  which  this 
story  of  inventive  genius  begins,  it  is  set  forth  that 
Emile  Berliner  ''has  crowned  his  material  success 
by  the  capstone  of  a  wise  and  notable  philanthropy. ' ' 

In  the  realm  of  human  beneficence,  Berliner, 
serenely  across  the  threshold  of  his  seventy-fifth 
year,  is  still  active.  As  he  is  a  fundamentalist  in  all 
things,  it  is  to  the  cause  of  child  health,  which  is 
the  foundation  of  citizenship  and  national  welfare, 
that  the  inventor  of  the  microphone  and  the  gramo- 
phone has  devoted  himself.  He  has  done  so  not  as 
a  theorist,  but  as  a  practical  idealist.  As  the  years 
have  failed  to  wither  the  infinite  variety  of  his  scien- 
tific activities,  neither  have  they  staled  his  zeal  in 
humanitarian  works,  for  it  is  more  than  a  quarter  of 
a  century  since  he  first  enlisted  in  the  war  against 
infant  mortality. 

During  the  interval  he  has  become  one  of  its 
recognized  field-marshals.  The  death  rate  among 
babies  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  when  Berliner 
took  up  arms  against  it,  was  so  appalling  that,  in 

234 


PUBLIC  HEALTH  235 

the  words  of  a  distinguished  Washington  professor 
of  hygiene,  Doctor  George  M.  Kober,  hot  weather 
saw  them  ''die  like  flies."  Li  the  late  'nineties, 
nearly  three  hundred  children  out  of  every  thousand 
born  in  Washington  perished  before  the  completion 
of  their  first  year,  principally  from  gastro-intestinal 
troubles,  or  an  average  of  approximately  thirty  per 
cent.  During  the  fiscal  year  ended  June  30,  1925, 
out  of  nine  thousand,  two  hundred  and  seventy- 
seven  babies  born  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  only 
one  hundred  and  thirteen  died  from  intestinal  com- 
plaints, or  an  average  of  less  than  one  and  one- 
fourth  per  cent.  Authorities  like  Doctor  Kober, 
now  the  honored  dean  of  Georgetown  University 
medical  faculty,  give  Emile  Berliner's  "clear  in- 
sight" in  the  field  of  popular  health  education 
unqualified  credit  for  the  progress  which  Washing- 
ton's vital  statistics  denote. 

It  was  an  attack  of  gastro-intestinal  illness  which 
overtook  one  of  his  own  offspring,  a  daughter  Alice, 
in  1900,  that  impelled  Berliner  to  clear  for  action 
against  prevailing  methods  of  combatting  child  dis- 
ease. More  than  half  a  dozen  skilled  physicians  did 
their  utmost  to  save  the  baby  girl.  But  the  days  and 
weeks  passed  without  bringing  improvement.  When 
Alice  was  six  months  old,  she  weighed  a  pound  less 
than  at  birth.  Only  her  native  vitality,  supplemented 
by  starvation  rations,  kept  her  alive  through  a  par- 
ticularly hot  Washington  summer.  At  eight  months, 
Alice  was  still  a  puny  infant  of  eight  and  one-half 


236 EMILE  BERLINER 

pounds.  But  meantime  Berliner,  his  scientific  fight- 
ing instinct  aroused,  had  given  intensive  study  to  a 
branch  that  was  utterly  virgin  soil  to  him — child 
nutrition.  With  Mrs.  Berliner's  hearty  approval, 
he  took  personal  charge  of  Alice's  case  and  person- 
ally prescribed  and  prepared  every  ounce  and  swal- 
low of  the  tot's  food. 

Slowly,  but  steadily,  then  swiftly,  the  baby 
gained  in  weight  and  vigor.  By  the  time  of  her  first 
birthday  anniversary,  Alice  was  plump,  rosy  and  of 
normal  weight,  tipping  the  scales  at  twenty-two  and 
one-half  pounds.  Breaking  new  paths,  as  was  his 
wont  in  the  field  of  electro-magnetics  and  acoustics, 
Berliner  had  won  his  first  skirmish  in  a  campaign 
for  child  health  that  was  to  eventuate  in  a  life-time 
crusade.  To-day  the  Alice  Berliner  of  those  anxious 
years  is  a  beautiful  and  healthy  young  woman,  hap- 
pily married  to  the  young  economist,  Isadore  Lubin, 
of  the  Institute  of  Economics  at  "Washington,  whose 
keen  analysis  of  the  British  coal  crisis  of  1926  at- 
tracted wide-spread  attention  throughout  the  United 
States. 

Forthwith  Berliner  determined  to  dedicate  him- 
self to  the  promotion  of  public  health  and  the  eradi- 
cation of  preventable  disease.  The  ravages  of  infant 
mortality  were,  in  1900,  not  quite  so  terrifying  as 
when  Doctor  Dickson,  of  England,  in  1851,  fran- 
tically asked:  ''How  shall  we  prevent  the  early 
extinction  of  half  the  new-born  children  of  men?" 
Yet,  twenty-seven  years  later,  in  1878,  out  of  every 


PUBLIC  HEALTH 237 

thousand  babies  born  in  Washington,  three  hundred 
and  twenty-two  died  before  they  were  a  year  old. 
Mothers  dreaded  ''the  second  summer"  of  their 
babies'  lives  as  they  feared  the  plague.  In  1895  the 
infant  death-rate  in  the  national  capital  was  still 
two  hundred  and  ninety-seven  and  two-tenths  per 
thousand.  Fully  forty  per  cent,  of  the  mortality 
was  due  to  gastro-intestinal  complaints,  and  two  and 
one-half  per  cent,  to  primary  tuberculosis  of  the 
intestinal  lymphatics. 

These  tell-tale  figures  caused  Emile  Berliner,  on 
the  basis  of  his  owti  researches,  strongly  to  suspect 
that  the  morbific  agent  in  intestinal  and  tubercular 
cases  was  introduced  into  the  human  body  with  its 
food.  In  addition  to  the  lamentable  losses  of  child 
life  directly  attributable  to  impure  or  contaminated 
milk,  there  were  recorded  by  Doctor  Kober  in  1895, 
throughout  the  world,  one  hundred  and  thirty-five 
epidemics  of  tj^hoid ;  seventy-four  of  scarlet  fever ; 
twenty-eight  of  diphtheria  and  several  outbreaks  of 
septic  sore  throat,  all  traceable  to  infected  milk.  The 
majority  of  epidemics  occurred  in  countries  where 
almost  exclusively  raw  milk  is  consumed. 

Berliner's  course  was  now  charted.  It  lay 
straight  across  the  sea  of  dangers  that  lurk  in  raw 
milk.  He  was  among  the  first  to  realize  the  vast 
importance  of  the  fact  that  milk  can  be  rendered 
safe  by  heating  and  by  killing  any  disease  germs 
secreted  in  it.  The  process,  known  to  the  world  as 
pasteurization,  was,  when  Berliner  and  other  scien- 


238  EMILE  BERLINER 


tists  first  advocated  it,  opposed  by  the  American 
Pediatric  Society  on  the  ground  that  children  could 
not  thrive  on  heated  milk,  but  on  the  contrary  con- 
tracted scurvy  and  rickets  from  such  nutrition.  For 
many  years  the  general  medical  profession  upheld 
that  theory. 

How  to  combat  the  always  influential  voice  of  the 
medical  world  became  a  problem,  but  Berliner,  the 
irrepressible  pioneer,  found  the  way.  Convinced  in 
his  own  mind  of  the  correctness  of  the  principles 
enunciated  by  a  few  sanitarians,  he  decided  upon  a 
"Wake  Up,  Mothers!"  campaign  of  wholly  original 
conception.  In  the  spring  of  1901,  Berliner,  in  col- 
laboration with  a  few  sympathizing  friends,  formed 
in  "Washington  under  the  expressive  title  of  ''The 
Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Sickness"  an  organ- 
ization to  be  devoted,  in  the  first  instance,  merely; 
to  the  spreading  of  knowledge. 

For  that  purpose  Berliner  engaged,  at  his  own 
expense,  advertising  space  in  the  Sunday  news- 
papers of  Washington  and  filled  it,  week  after  week, 
with  what  he  called  health  bulletins.  The  first  one 
was  published  in  the  Washington  Post  of  June  15, 
1901,  and  read  as  follows: 

MILK  is  notoriously  one  of  the  best  soils 
for  the  germination  and  multiplication  of  dis- 
ease germs. 

MANY  EPIDEMICS  of  Typhoid,  Malaria 
and  Scarlet  Fever  have  been  traced  to  infected 
milk,  not  to  speak  of  Tuberculosis  from  the 
same  source. 


PUBLIC  HEALTH  239 


INSPECTION  is  rarely  thorough  and  does 
not  prevent  contamination  of  the  milk  supply. 

SCALDING  (or  sterilizing)  will  destroy 
most  of  the  virulent  germs,  if  not  all. 

SOME  PEOPLE  say  that  you  should  not 
scald  milk  for  fear  of  making  it  less  easy  to  di- 
gest. This  is  a  very  small  matter  compared 
with  infection.  The  advice  is,  besides,  un- 
founded, and  should  be  disregarded. 

ROBUST  PEOPLE  may  with  impunity  dis- 
regard rules  of  precaution,  which  are  necessary 
with  weaker  constitutions  and  children. 

THEREFORE  SCALD  YOUR  MILK. 

SOCIETY  FOR  THE  PREVENTION  OP 

SICKNESS 

The  term  "pasteurization"  did  not  appear  in 
this  bulletin.  Instead,  ''scalding"  was  recom- 
mended, and  in  the  use  of  that  word  Berliner  had  the 
approval  of  the  late  Professor  Jacques  Loeb,  after- 
ward head  of  the  division  of  general  physiology  at 
the  Rockefeller  Institute  for  Medical  Research.  Ber- 
liner's bulletins  were  intended  to  instruct  the  com- 
mon people,  the  housewives  and  the  cooks,  who  could 
not  be  expected  to  understand  scientific  expressions. 
The  word  "scalding"  was  utilized  as  meaning  the 
use  of  heat  without  actual  boiling.  Boiling  might 
make  milk  less  digestible  for  infants  with  weak 
stomachs,  according  to  the  false  notion  then  existing. 

It  would  be  interesting  for  modern  milk  sani- 
tarians to  look  through  Berliner 's  pioneer  collection 
of  milk  bulletins.  They  were  changed  every  week. 
Many  authorities  were  cited.     The  whole  field  of 


240 EMILE  BERLINER 

milk  dangers  was  spread  before  the  public.  Every 
bulletin  ended  with  the  slogan:  '* Scald  the  milk,  and 
keep  it  cool  and  covered  afterward,"  and  accentu- 
ated the  fact  that  inspection  alone  was  insufficient. 

This  method  of  instructing  the  public  was  so  un- 
usual that  soon  after  Berliner  began  launching  the 
bulletins,  the  Marine  Hospital  vService  of  the  United 
States  Government  asked  the  Health  Officer  of  the 
District  of  Columbia  whom  the  Society  for  Preven- 
tion of  Sickness  ''represented."  An  adequate  an- 
swer was  promptly  sent  by  Berliner. 

The  bulletins  evidently  impressed  the  health 
authorities  of  the  District  of  Columbia  as  early  as 
1903,  because  a  newspaper  clipping  of  July  four- 
teenth of  that  year  mentions  that  the  Milk  Dealers' 
and  Producers'  Associations  of  Maryland,  Virginia 
and  the  District  of  Columbia  were  up  in  arms 
against  Doctor  Woodward,  the  health  officer,  irri- 
tated at  what  they  termed  "his  unjust  persecution 
of  their  members."  Two  days  afterward  an  edi- 
torial in  the  Washington  Times,  headed  ''The  Milk 
Problem,"  dealt  with  the  question,  insisting  that 
milk  dealers  must  supply  pure  milk  in  order  to  re- 
duce infant  mortality. 

Berliner  continued  the  milk  bulletins  in  spite  of 
the  stubborn  opposition  of  many  physicians  to  the 
use  of  heat  as  an  immunizer  of  milk — an  opposition 
which  to  some  extent  persists  to  the  present  day. 

In  addition  to  stigmatizing  impure  milk,  the 
bulletins  of  the  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Sick- 


PUBLIC  HEALTH 241 

ness  pointed  out  the  clangers  in  ice-cream,  butter 
and  dairy  products  made  from  non-pasteurized 
cream  and  milk.  This  voluntary,  popularized  prop- 
aganda, systematically  and  efficiently  conducted 
under  Berliner's  personal  direction,  supplied  the 
people  of  the  National  Capital  with  a  liberal  educa- 
tion in  the  science  of  health.  Its  ramifications  prob- 
ably were  nation-wide.  What  Washington  thinks 
and  does  to-day,  the  country  frequently  thinks  and 
does  to-morrow,  because  its  representatives  in  Con- 
gress and  the  great  government  departments  are 
habitually  relaying  to  the  outer  United  States  that 
which,  from  time  to  time,  is  noteworthy  in  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia. 

Certainly  no  phase  of  life  at  Washington  was 
literally  more  vital  in  its  beneficent  results  than 
Berliner's  health  crusade.  When  he  embarked  upon 
it,  infant  mortality  at  Washington  was  still  two  hun- 
dred and  seventy-four  and  five-tenths  out  of  every 
thousand  children  born.  Not  a  quart  of  milk  sold  in 
the  District  of  Columbia  was  pasteurized.  In  1914, 
according  to  Doctor  Woodward,  the  District  health 
officer,  half  of  the  bottled  milk  sold  in  Washing- 
ton was  pasteurized.  In  1924,  according  to  Doctor 
Fowler,  then  health  officer,  ninetj^-seven  per  cent,  of 
the  milk  marketed  was  pasteurized.  There  was  no 
law  compelling  what  Berliner  used  to  call  "the  scald- 
ing of  milk, ' '  but  the  public  having  been  educated  to 
demand  it,  pasteurization  automatically  came  about. 

In  1924  infant  mortality  had  fallen  to  seventy- 


242 EMILE  BERLINER 

five  and  seven-tenths  per  thousand.  Typhoid  fever 
was  reduced  from  seventy-two  fatalities  per  one 
hundred  thousand  of  population  in  1900  to  between 
four  and  five  per  one  hundred  thousand  in  1924. 
Pulmonary  consumption  in  the  same  period  fell 
from  four  hundred  and  ninety-two  deaths  among 
the  colored  population  to  two  hundred  and  thirty- 
eight,  and,  among  the  whites,  from  one  hundred  and 
eighty-three  to  sixty-two.  In  1925  white  mortality 
was  as  low  as  fifty. 

''This  is  indeed  a  field  of  glory,'*  exclaimed  one 
of  the  reviewers  of  Emile  Berliner's  health  work 
at  the  meeting  of  the  Association  for  the  Prevention 
of  Tuberculosis,  held  in  honor  of  his  seventy-fifth 
birthday  anniversary  in  1926.  "But  for  him,  scien- 
tific facts  might  have  remained  unnoticed  for  a  long 
time."* 

A  decided  step  forward  in  the  movement  for  safe 
milk  was  taken  in  the  year  1907,  when  the  Committee 
on  Tuberculosis  of  the  Associated  Charities,  of 
which  Brigadier-General  George  M.  Sternberg, 
former  Surgeon-General  of  the  United  States  Army, 
was  chairman,  created  a  Milk  Committee  and  made 
Emile  Berliner  its  chairman.  The  other  members  of 
the  committee  were  Doctor  E.  C.  Schroeder  and 
Doctor  AVilliam  H.  Dexter  of  the  Bureau  of  Animal 
Industry;  Doctor  D.  E.  Buckingham,  the  veter- 
inarian, and  Wallace  Hatch,  secretary  of  the  Associ- 
ated Charities. 


*From  parchment   testimonial  presented  to   Emile   Berliner   on 
May  20,  1926. 


Pkuf.    IIekmanx    Ludwig   Fer- 
dinand VON  Helmholtz.    Died 
AT  Berlin,  Germany,  Sept.  8, 
1894 


Dr.  Ernest  C.  Schroeder, 
Biologist,  Director  U.  JS. 
Animal  Experiment  Station, 
Bethesda,  Md.,  Whose 
Friendship  and  Cooperation 
Mr.  Berliner  Enjoyed  for 
Many  Years 


Heinrich  Hertz  07  Germany, 
Who  Was  the  First  to  Dem- 
onstrate That  When  an 
Electric  Spark  Jumps 
through  the  Air  it  Causes 
Electric  Waves,  Etc.  Elec- 
tric Waves  Travel  at  the 
Eate  of  183.000  Miles  Per 
Second.  This       Discovery 

Made    Eadio    Messages    Pos- 
sible 

Hon.  Herbert  C.  Hoover 


'H  i  >V-  i  ^l  i 


~\  V!     »>-^  ^i  T^,  ■'?<. 


^oS "  N^o,: 


^^ 


y  ^ 


A%^1 


^\^^  I  4  1^^ 


V, 


0       "^ 


1-.  -^ 


i  Mil.  K  >^4  ^  a  -^  4.. 

N?""  J    M     .^"  V  -^  -^    i  ^  nJ  J 


1  '"^^    '^    .i 

O    ~  i        _'5,        VI        ^ 


V    '^ 


•••: 

V               i 

f 

^       : 

*      i 

^^^' 

I 

•  i  ^ 

I 
4 

'^^ 

Ni 

V 

1 

A 

.s 

1 

4 

\^ 

.* 

* 

^ 

V' 

:i 

)'^ 

*^ 

PUBLIC  HEALTH 243 

At  the  first  conferences  of  tlie  milk  committee  at 
Berliner's  home,  milk  problems  were  discussed  at 
length.  Doctor  Schroeder  made  known  to  the  com- 
mittee his  recent  discovery  that  the  feces  of  tubercu- 
lous cows  are  often  heavily  charged  with  virulent 
tubercle  bacilli,  and  pointed  out  that  the  examina- 
tion of  numerous  samples  of  market  milk  disclosed 
that  very  little  milk  entirely  free  from  contamina- 
tion with  cow  feces  reaches  the  consumer.  Hence, 
according  to  Doctor  Schroeder,  the  presence  of  a 
single  tuberculous  cow  in  a  dairy  herd  had  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  danger  through  which  any  portion  or  all 
of  the  milk  from  the  herd  might  become  infected 
with  tubercle  bacilli. 

Berliner  was  so  impressed  with  the  importance 
of  the  Schroeder  discovery  that  he  proposed  that  his 
committee  should  request  the  Associated  Charities 
to  call  a  general  conference  on  milk  problems,  of 
sufficient  scope  to  include  representatives  of  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia  Health  Office  and  the  several 
bureaus  of  the  Federal  Government  which  have  pub- 
lic-health functions.  The  suggestion  was  accepted 
by  the  committee  and  conmiunicated  to  General 
Sternberg,  who  endorsed  it. 

On  March  30,  1907,  the  call  of  the  Commissioners 
of  the  District  of  Columbia  for  a  milk  conference 
was  issued.  The  men  invited  to  participate  com- 
prised most  of  the  prominent  authorities  on  sanita- 
tion that  could  be  assembled  from  among  Washing- 
ton scientists  and  from  the  bureaus  of  the  National 


244  EMILE  BERLINER 


Government.  Besides  these,  members  of  the  differ- 
ent milk  associations  were  invited.  The  Bar 
Association,  the  Veterinary  Association,  the  "Wash- 
ington Academy  of  Sciences  and  the  Chemical 
Society  of  Washington  also  were  represented. 

The  result  of  the  conference  was  the  adoption  of 
milk  standards  formulated  by  Doctor  A.  D.  Melvin, 
of  the  Department  of  Agriculture,  whereupon  the 
cause  of  pasteurization  received  the  strong  endorse- 
ment of  the  Federal  Government.  This  development 
compelled  the  American  Pediatric  Society  to  assume 
the  defensive.  As  an  immediate  consequence,  the 
health  department  of  the  City  of  New  York  called  a 
milk  conference  in  1909,  and  then  and  there  adopted 
milk  standards  similar  to  those  previously  endorsed 
in  Washington.*  To  this  New  York  conference  its 
organizers  specially  invited  Doctor  E.  C.  Schroeder, 
Doctor  G.  L.  Magruder  and  Emile  Berliner,  and 
they  made  their  influence  felt  in  the  proceedings 
which  culminated  in  unqualified  approval  of  pas- 
teurization. 

Ultimately  the  proceedings  and  reports  of  the 
Washington  conference  were  published  by  the  De- 
partment of  Agriculture  as  Circular  114.  Copies  of 
it  can  be  found  in  the  files  of  health  bureaus  and 
associations  the  world  over.  When  Professor  von 
Pirquet,  the  renowned  child-hygienist  of  the  Univer- 


*Natlian  Straus,  who  in  1892  originated,  and  has  since  main- 
tained, a  system  of  distribution  of  pasteurized  milk  to  the  poor  of 
New  York  City,  for  years  combatted  the  opposition  of  the  Pediatric 

Society  and  of  medical  men  who  refused  to  recognize  the  manifest 

results  that  flowed  from  sterilized  milk. 


PUBLIC  HEALTH 245 

sity  of  Vienna,  visited  Washington,  Berliner  was 
told  that  his  gospel  of  safe  milk  for  healthy  infants 
had  spread  to  Europe  and  was  universally  ac- 
claimed. The  work  of  the  Washington  milk  con- 
ference became  eventually  the  foundation  of 
municipal  and  state  dairy  laws  in  many  parts  of  the 
country,  and  references  to  its  importance  can  be 
found  in  transatlantic  publications,  notably  in  Eng- 
land, where  it  received  high  praise. 

Stimulated  by  the  constructive  achievements  of 
the  Washington  milk  conference,  the  Society  for 
Prevention  of  Sickness  prosecuted  its  campaign 
with  increased  vigor.  The  Society,  at  Berliner's  in- 
stigation, initiated  various  other  reforms  connected 
with  the  milk  supply.  He  attacked  Washington 
hospitals  because  they  furnished  indiscriminate  raw 
milk  to  their  patients.  He  criticized  in  particular 
certain  children's  hospitals  because  several  of  their 
leading  doctors  continued  to  oppose  pasteurization. 

As  early  in  his  warfare  on  impure  milk  as  1907 
Berliner  had  pointed  out,  in  a  prepared  paper,  what 
he  called  ''Some  Neglected  Essentials  in  the  Fight 
Against  Consumption. ' '  In  the  closing  paragraphs, 
he  said: 

"Let  me  suggest  to  those  humanitarians  who 
labor  in  the  cause  of  the  prevention  of  consumption 
that  no  agitation  is  as  efficient  as  that  begun  in  the 
Public  Schools.  If  modern  text-books  could  be  in- 
troduced, dealing  not  only  with  the  causes  and  pre- 
vention of  consumption,  but  w^th  prophylaxis  in 
general,  it  would  plant  the  seed  of  knowledge  where 
it  would  bear  the  richest  fruit. 


246  EMILE  BERLINER 


**But  such  text-books  would  only  half  fulfill  their 
mission,  or  indeed  entirely  fail  in  it,  if  undue  prom- 
inence were  bestowed  on  the  hunting  and  destroying 
of  the  tubercle  bacilli  and  too  little  stress  placed 
upon  the  more  important  essentials  for  the  fortify- 
ing of  the  human  body,  thereby  maintaining  and 
increasing  its  natural  power  of  resistance  to  all 
diseases,  including  consumption." 

That  was  the  first  time  that  health  education 
through  the  schools  was  ever  publicly  emphasized. 
Within  a  few  years  the  Tuberculosis  Association  at 
Washington,  of  which  Berliner  was  for  seven  years 
the  president,  inaugurated  its  literary  campaign  on 
the  lines  proposed  by  him  and  under  his  leader- 
ship. Three  years  later,  in  1910,  the  Berliner  com- 
mittee began  the  distribution  of  twenty-five  thousand 
copies  of  the  Twelve  Rules  for  Health  adopted  by 
the  Association.  They  were  printed  in  words  of  one 
syllable  on  card-board  in  two  colors  for  display  in 
the  Washington  public  schools  from  the  fourth 
grade  up.  Teachers  would  explain,  and  comment 
upon,  the  rules;  children  would  take  copies  home, 
and  the  advice  to  parents,  printed  on  the  envelope, 
to  tack  up  or  frame  the  rules  in  the  house  was  gen- 
erally followed.  The  Tuberculosis  Association  also 
authorized  the  publication  of  a  book  entitled 
Washington  Health  Rules.  Copies  were  distributed 
among  school-teachers  and,  to  this  day,  are  pre- 
sented to  all  graduates  of  District  of  Columbia 
normal  schools. 

In  1919,  in  order  to  teach  the  young  idea  as  early 


PUBLIC  HEALTH  247 


in  life  as  possible  to  shoot  straight  in  the  direction 
of  health,  Berliner  conceived  the  quaint  notion  of 
turning  his  Rules  for  Health  into  simple  nursery 
rhymes  and  illustrating  them  in  colors  for  the  use 
of  third-grade  pupils.  Children  were  encouraged  by 
their  teachers  to  memorize  the  rhymes.  Here  is  one 
of  his  lyrics,  entitled  TJie  Gentle  Cow: 

*'When  milk  is  raw  just  from  the  farm 
It's  full  of  germs  which  may  do  harm; 
But  safe  it  is  and  highly  prized 
When  it  is  boiled  or  pasteurized 
Ice-cream,  cheese  and  butter-fat 
Come  from  milk — you  all  know  that. 
Made  from  raw  milk,  we  can  see 
They  might  harm  both  you  and  me." 

As  an  incentive  to  schools  and  school  children  to 
take  part  in  the  crusade  for  public  health,  Berliner 
in  1920  endowed  a  Silver  Trophy  Cup,  to  be  awarded 
annually  by  the  National  Tuberculosis  Association 
to  the  city  showing  the  largest  proportionate  enroll- 
ment of  pupils  engaged  in  the  health  crusade.  Ber- 
liner is  a  director  of  the  National  Association.  In 
1921  his  cup  was  won  by  the  public  schools  of  Wash- 
inton,  D.  C,  and  presented  by  President  Harding. 
Last  year  Berliner  endowed  a  similar  trophy  to  be 
awarded  in  the  Dominion  of  Canada. 

In  1921  Berliner  resorted  to  a  new  and  far- 
reaching  departure  in  his  child  health  work.  With 
the  professional  cooperation  of  Doctor  Alfred  J. 
Steinberg,  of  Washington,  a  graduate  of  Harvard 


248 EMILE  BERLINER 

Medical  School  and  a  children's  specialist,  Berliner 
wrote  and  published  The  Bottle-Fed  Baby*  Its 
purpose  was  to  infonn  the  young  mother  in  prac- 
tical, concise  terms  exactly  how  a  bottle-fed  baby 
should  be  reared. 

Berhner's  plan  was  to  place  a  free  copy  in  the 
hands  of  every  new  mother  in  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia, rich  or  poor,  for  within  its  pages  were  packed 
more  useful  facts  and  figures  than  ever  before  were 
issued  in  manuals  of  maternity  information  five  or 
six  times  the  size.  The  District  health  authorities 
readily  acceded  to  Berliner's  wish  to  be  placed  reg- 
ularly and  promptly  in  possession  of  names  and  ad- 
dresses of  newly-reported  mothers.  To  this  writing, 
midsummer,  1926,  and  within  a  period  of  five  years, 
more  than  fifty  thousand  copies  of  The  Bottle-Fed 
Baby  have  been  distributed.  Berliner  still  super- 
intends personally  its  circulation  to  new  mothers  as 
fast  as  their  names  are  supplied  him. 

This  Silver  Jubilee  of  humanitarian  work  and 
Diamond  Jubilee  of  Emile  Berliner's  life  find  Ber- 
liner waging  the  never-ending  war  for  public  hy- 


•Professor  Ealph  V.  Magoffin,  president  of  the  Archeological 
lastitute  of  America  and  head  of  the  department  of  charities  of  New 
Tork  University,  brought  back  from  Egypt  in  June,  1926,  a  black 
stone  nursing  bottle  ■which  did  service  in  the  land  of  the  Pharaohs  in 
1200  B.  C.  As  proof  of  the  utensil's  use  for  the  rearing  of  Egj'ptian 
infants  three  thousand  one  hundred  and  twenty-six  years  ago.  Pro- 
fessor Magoffin  pointed  out  that  the  bottle  is  heavily  constructed  at 
the  bottom  to  prevent  tipping  and  has  square  sides  to  avoid  rolling. 
The  top  is  very  much  like  that  of  nursing  bottles  of  the  present  age. 
The  American  archeologist  considers  the  Eg;v7jtion  nursing  bottle 
Bcientifically  superior  to  its  modem  type.  Emile  Berliner's  comment 
on  Professor  Magoffin's  discovery  waB  "There's  nothing  new  under 
the  sun. " 


PUBLIC  HEALTH 249 

giene  from  a  three-story  building  which  he  erected 
and  dedicated  to  its  exclusive  purposes  in  1924. 
It  is  what  military  men  might  call  a  General  Head- 
quarters for  Child  Health.  A  modest  sign  informs 
the  passer-by  in  Columbia  Eoad — less  than  a  stone's 
throw  from  the  site  of  the  rambling  old  home  where 
Berliner  made  his  earliest  gramophone  experi- 
ments— that  within  is  the  ''Bureau  of  Health  Edu- 
cation." One  of  its  features  is  a  class-room  where 
yomig  mothers  with  their  children  come  regularly 
for  education,  by  chart,  picture  and  blackboard.  In 
1909  Berliner  erected  an  infirmary  building  at  the 
Starmont  Tuberculosis  Sanitarium  near  Washing- 
ton in  memory  of  his  own  father. 

Restless  in  the  achievement  of  constructive 
works  for  public  health,  Emile  Berliner  in  1925,  ^^'ith 
the  assistance  of  Mrs.  E.  E.  Grant,  a  member  of  his 
Committee  on  Publications,  secured  the  passage  by 
Congress  of  a  modern  milk  law  for  the  District  of 
Columbia,  which  was  drafted  by  Doctor  W.  C. 
Fowler,  health  officer  of  the  Federal  area.  Mrs. 
Grant  succeeded  in  enlisting  the  interest  of  Mrs. 
Calvin  Coolidge,  an  ideal  mother,  who  herself  had 
only  a  little  while  before  suffered  the  loss  of  her 
second-born.  Since  the  passage  of  the  law,  the  milk 
supply  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  much  of  which 
had  been  of  low  sanitary  rating,  has  been  of  uni- 
formly high  standard. 

Had  Emile  Berliner  never  touched  the  telephone 
or  the  talking  machine,  his  health  work  should  make 


250 EMILE  BERLINER 

secure  his  claim  to  the  gratitude  of  his  era  and  of 
eras  to  come.  The  tears  it  has  saved,  the  mother 
hearts  it  has  spared  from  anguish,  can  never  be 
recorded  in  the  vital  statistics.  But  that  he  has 
made  child  life  sweeter,  surer  and  safer  is  estab- 
lished beyond  all  peradventure.* 


^Berliner's  published  coutributions  to  the  literature  of  the  con- 
servation of  child  life  include: 

Some  Neglected  Essentials  in  the  Fight  against  Consumption; 
Sccent  Developments  in  Infant  Feeding ;  History  of  the  Society  for 
the  Frevention  of  SicJcness;  The  Tuberculin  Test  as  a  Factor  in  the 
Milk  Traffic;  The  Outbreak  of  Typhoid  Fever  i?i  Cassel  in  1909; 
Opening  Address  "before  a  Congressional  Sub-Committee  on  Milk 
Legislation  for  the  District  of  Columbia;  Hospital  Milk;  High.  Ty- 
phoid Mortality  in  Tj^asliington  Hospitals  and  Their  Milk  Supply; 
The  Literary  Health  Propaganda  of  the  Washington  Tuberculosis 
Association;  What  Constitutes  Municipal  Responsibility;  How  a 
Love  Kiss  May  ie  a  Death  Kiss;  Twelve  Health  Rhymes  (used  reg- 
ularly in  Washington  schools) ;  Are  Annual  Winter  Epidemics  Caused 
by  Infected  Butter: 


CHAPTER  XXV 


BERLINEB  AND  RADIO 


WHILE  this  biography  was  in  the  making,  a 
letter  arrived  at  the  Post-Office  in  Washing- 
ton, post-marked  Battle  Creek,  Michigan,  and  ad- 
dressed as  follows: 


To  the  Inventor  of  the  Microphone, 
Washington,  D.  C. 


In  due  course,  it  was  delivered  at  No.  2400  Six- 
teenth Street,  N.  W.,  the  residence  of  Emile  Ber- 
liner. The  omniscient  postal  authorities  of  the 
capital  city  knew  more  about  the  origin  of  radio 
than  the  average  American,  to  whom,  no  doubt,  it 
"udll  come  with  surprise  to  learn  that,  but  for  Emile 
Berliner's  trail-blazing,  the  miracle  of  broadcast- 
ing— any  more  than  the  telephone — would  hardly  be 
what  it  is  to-day. 

In  the  perfection  of  that  eighth  wonder  of  the 
world  Berliner  played  a  fundamental  role.  Without 
the  Berliner  microphone,  "the  crowning  achieve- 
ment of  the  spirit  of  invention,"  as  radio  was  re- 
cently eulogized,  might  still  be  a  voice  screeching 

251 


252 EMILE  BERLINER 

through  the  static  wilderness  instead  of  having 
become  the  oracle  of  the  universe. 

The  "mike,"  as  the  broadcasting  fraternity  has 
affectionately  dubbed  the  microphone,  is  but  one 
part  of  the  heritage  bequeathed  to  radio  by  tele- 
phony. Berliner  invented  and  patented  it  for  use 
in  the  ordinary  telephone,  where  it  soon  became 
known,  as  it  is  to-day,  as  the  transmitter.  Tech- 
nically, the  microphone  and  the  transmitter  are 
identical.  The  ''mike's"  history  and  development, 
like  that  of  the  receiver,  the  amplifier  and  the 
vacuum  tube,  involved  long  and  painstaking  re- 
search before  it  was  converted  into  the  perfect 
instrument  through  which  sound  now  spans  the 
Atlantic  and  reverberates  from  end  to  end  of  the 
North  American  continent,  not  excepting  even  the 
frozen  reaches  of  the  Arctic. 

Curious  as  it  may  seem,  the  highly  efficient 
microphone  used  in  broadcasting  was  developed 
long  before  its  present  use  was  anticipated.  It  was 
first  utilized  as  a  laboratory  instrument  in  connec- 
tion with  researches  conducted  mth  transmitted 
speech.  Speech,  of  course,  is  the  product  with  which 
telephone  engineers  are  most  concerned.  They  ex- 
periment with  it  much  as  the  chemist  treats  chemi- 
cal compounds.  It  may  be  analyzed  into  its  elements 
and  each  element  studied  by  itself  in  order  better  to 
understand  the  conditions  and  requirements  which 
telephone  circuits  must  meet.  In  this  ''speech 
chemistry,"  it  is  necessarj-  that  the  experimental 


BERLINER  AND  RADIO 253 

transmitter  produce  exact  electrical  copies  of  the 
speech  to  be  studied ;  therefore,  a  good  transmitter 
is  an  all-essential  feature.  When  broadcasting 
began,  this  "high  quality"  microphone  was  ready 
for  the  new  role. 

To  be  capable  of  perfect  reproduction  the  micro- 
phone must  respond  to  high  pitched  tones  and  low 
pitched  tones  equally.  If  any  of  the  tones  are  either 
over-emphasized  or  under-emphasized,  an  unnat- 
uralness  results.  This  is  usually  known  as  "distor- 
tion." Microphones  are  now  built  which  respond 
vdth  great  fidelity  to  all  of  the  frequencies  between 
fifty  and  five  thousand  vibrations  per  second. 

Naturally,  because  of  the  very  severe  require- 
ments which  it  must  meet,  the  broadcasting  micro- 
phone is  constructed  somewhat  differently  from  the 
telephone  transmitter.  It  consists  of  an  "air- 
damped"  diaphragm  on  each  side  of  which  is  located 
a  cup  of  carbon  granules.  The  result  is  that  during 
operation  the  granules  in  one  cup  are  compressed 
and  possess  a  low  resistance,  while  those  in  the  other 
are  released  and  possess  a  high  resistance.  Be- 
cause of  this  double  feature,  the  microphone  is 
sometimes  referred  to  as  the  "push-pull"  tj'pe.  The 
air  damping  supplies  a  very  thin  air  cushion  (about 
one  one-thousandth  of  an  inch  thick)  which  tends  to 
minimize  any  resonant  effects  that  might  otherwise 
be  present,  due  to  the  springiness  of  the  diaphragm. 

Not  only  must  the  microphone  respond  to  a  wide 
range  of  frequencies  faithfully,  but  it  must  repro- 


254 EMILE  BERLINER 

duce  a  wide  range  of  intensities.  The  same  micro- 
phone that  reproduces  the  grand  crescendo  of  a 
whole  orchestra  may  a  moment  later  be  required  to 
reproduce  the  most  delicate  strains  of  a  violin, 
which  may  scarcely  be  audible  even  to  those  in  the 
same  room.  Indeed,  the  power  represented  by  such 
sounds  is  barely  a  millionth  of  a  watt,  and  the  re- 
sulting motion  of  the  diaphragm  is  too  small  to  be 
detected.  Experiments  to  develop  the  microphone 
were  carried  out  in  the  Bell  System's  extensive 
laboratories  which  date  back  to  the  early  Bell  Com- 
pany 's  experimental  department  started  by  Berliner 
and  Watson  in  1879. 

All  this  explains  why  various  means  have  to  be 
used  to  encourage  a  speaker  or  singer  to  stand  at  the 
proper  distance  from  the  microphone — about  four 
feet.  Experience  has  shown  that  if  a  small  rug  is 
placed  in  front  of  the  microphone  pedestal,  a  speak- 
er will  unconsciously  tend  to  confine  himself  to  that 
region.  Others  do  not  feel  oratorically  at  home  un- 
less they  can  walk  around  while  talking,  in  which 
case  provisions  for  long-distance  speaking  must  be 
made.  Temperamental  radio  performers  accus- 
tomed to  the  bare  floor  of  the  stage  have  refused  to 
sing  while  standing  on  plush  carpet!  In  one  in- 
stance, the  program  was  delayed  until  boards  could 
be  brought  in. 

In  1873,  James  Clerk  Maxwell,  a  profound  Eng- 
lish mathematician  and  apostle  of  Michael  Faraday, 
published  his  classic  Electricity  and  Magnetism,  in 


BERLINER  AND  RADIO 255 

which  he  boldly  proclaimed  the  theory  that  electric 
waves  could  be  reflected  and  refracted  like  light. 
He  maintained  that  if  the  electrical  wave  motion 
with  which  Faraday  experimented  could  be  meas- 
ured it,  too,  would  be  found  to  travel  at  the  speed  of 
one  hundred  and  eighty-six  thousand  miles  a  second. 
The  first  man  to  demonstrate  the  correctness  of 
Maxwell's  theory,  and  to  show  that  electric  waves 
navigate  the  ether  in  the  same  manner  as  light 
waves,  was  Heinrich  Hertz,  a  humble  German  pro- 
fessor at  Bonn  University.  Hertz  created  in  his 
laboratory  electric  sparks,  or  little  flashes  of  artifi- 
cial lightning.  With  their  aid,  he  established  that 
electric  sparks  cause  electric  waves  in  the  ether  pre- 
cisely as  sound  causes  acoustic  waves  in  the  air. 

''Hertzian  waves,"  as  the  astounded  electrical 
world  forthwith  and  thenceforward  called  the  Bonn 
physicist's  discovery,  riveted  scientists'  attention  in 
many  lands.  Branly,  in  France ;  Lodge,  in  England, 
and  Popoff,  in  Russia,  contributed  substantially,  by 
experiment  and  research,  to  the  knowledge  of 
''Hertzian  waves."  But  to  none  of  them  did  it  occur 
that  waves  in  the  ether  might  be  impressed  into 
service  for  transmitting  messages  over  immense 
distances.  Years  after  radio  communication  was  an 
accomplished  fact.  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  wrote  that  he 
"did  not  realize  that  there  would  be  a  practical  ad- 
vantage in  .  .  .  telegraphing  across  space.  .  .  . 
In  this  non-perception  of  the  practical  uses  of  wire- 
less telegraphy,  I  undoubtedly  erred.'* 


256  EMILE  BERLINER 

It  was  reserved  for  William  Marconi,  twenty- 
two-3^ear-old  son  of  an  Italian  father  and  an  Irish 
mother,  to  patent  in  1896  a  system  of  utilizing  Hert- 
zian waves  for  telegraphing  through  the  air  with  the 
Morse  key.  ''At  the  receiving  station,"  writes 
Waldemar  Kaempffert  (A  Popular  Bistort/  of 
American  Invention),  "was  the  equally  familiar  re- 
ceiving apparatus,  in  which  a  detector  (the  Branly- 
Lodge  form  of  'eye')  was  included.  The  Morse  key 
was  depressed.  Sparks  passed.  They  sent  out 
waves  into  the  ether.  The  key  was  released.  The 
sparks  and  the  waves  ceased.  Thus  long  or  short 
trains  of  waves  were  sent  out,  corresponding  with 
the  dashes  and  dots  of  the  Morse  code.  The  receiver 
responded  sympathetically.  The  eye  or  detector 
'saw'  while  the  key  was  down.  It  'saw'  nothing 
when  the  key  was  up.  It  received  invisible  telegraph 
flashes." 

Thus  was  radio  horn. 

By  the  end  of  1897  Marconi  was  acclaimed  the 
world  round  for  the  incredible  feat  of  signaling  nine 
or  ten  miles.  "Half  a  mile  was  the  mldest  dream,'* 
said  Sir  William  Preece,  of  the  British  Post-Office 
Department,  when  conmienting  upon  the  expecta- 
tions of  Marconi's  more  optimistic  devotees. 

Radio  broadcasting,  which  is  just  another  name 
for  telephoning  without  wires,  may  be  explained  as 
follows : 

If  we  throw  a  stone  into  a  placid  sheet  of  water, 
a  series  of  ring-shaped  waves  is  produced  on  the 


BERLINER  AND  RADIO 257 

surface,  stretching  out  in  all  directions  until  finally 
they  become  lost  in  the  distance.  An  analogous 
action  takes  place  when  an  electric  spark  rushes 
through  the  air.  Forthmth  electric  waves  radiate 
from  the  spark  in  all  directions  at  a  speed  of  about 
one  hundred  and  eighty-six  thousand  miles  a  second. 
There  exist  to-day  other  and  more  effective 
means  in  electrical  science  for  producing  thousands 
of  these  electric  impulses  in  quick  succession,  so 
that  we  can  produce  such  a  stream  of  ether  waves 
as  to  amount  practically  to  a  continuous  ether  wave 
current.  If  such  a  current,  which  may  be  called  a 
** carrying  current,"  is  passed  through  one  coil  of  a 
transformer  before  being  thrown  out  into  space  at 
the  broadcasting  antenna,  and  then  a  speech  wave 
current,  produced  by  a  microphone,  is  passed 
through  the  other  coil  of  the  same  transformer,  the 
electric  speech  vibrations  will  be  impressed  by  in- 
duction, or  electric  influence,  upon  the  carrjdng 
current.  Then  they  mil  be  taken  along  by  the  carry- 
ing current  into  space,  to  be  picked  up  by  the  thou- 
sands of  smaller  antenna  of  the  listeners-in  with 
recei\dng  apparatus.  Thus,  it  is  seen  that  the  micro- 
phone is  the  means  by  which  all  sound  to  be  broad- 
cast is  sent,  and  that  the  transformer  is  the 
apparatus  which  unites  with  that  sound  the  energy 
by  which  that  sound  is  carried  an  unlimited  distance. 
Both  of  these  inventions,  the  microphone  and  the 
continuous  current  transformer  used  in  radio  broad- 
casting, ivere  made  hi/  Emile  Berliner  in  1877. 


258 EMILE  BERLINER 

It  is  plain  from  this  simplified  explanation  that 
in  broadcasting,  the  speech  current  passes  through 
the  ether  in  all  directions  and  practically  fills  the 
ether  of  the  whole  world.  It  can  be  caught  up  any- 
where by  receiving  antenna,  but  before  the  now 
greatly  enfeebled  speech  current  can  be  made  au- 
dible in  the  telephone  receiver  it  has  to  be  reinforced 
or  amplified.  This  is  accomplished  by  the  well- 
known  modern  vacuum  tube,  or  amplifier  tube,  in- 
vented by  Lee  De  Forest,  without  which  it  would  be 
practically  impossible  to  listen  to  broadcasting  over 
any  great  distance.  De  Forest's  invention  is  one  of 
the  truly  remarkable  contributions  to  electricity  and 
one  of  the  greatest  inventions  of  all  time. 

''Wired  wireless"  is  the  term  applied  where 
broadcast  matter  is  sent  part  of  the  way  over  a  long- 
distance telephone  wire,  to  be  tapped  at  any  inter- 
mediate station  and  then  sent  or  relayed  through 
the  ether.  Wired  wireless  is  the  invention  of  Major- 
General  George  Owen  Squier,  U.  S.  A.,  retired, 
a  friend  and  neighbor  of  Emile  Berliner  at  Wash- 
ington. For  a  number  of  years  radio  was  beset  with 
various  exasperating  difficulties.  Broadcasting  was 
largely  confined  to  the  winter  season.  It  suffered 
from  the  now  celebrated  ''static"  and  frequently 
from  a  sudden  "fading  out"  of  the  voice  or  other 
broadcast  sounds.  It  also  was  much  more  efficient 
at  night  than  during  daylight. 

These  and  other  atmospheric  disorders  were  re- 
moved by  "wired  wireless."     In  General  Squier 's 


BERLINER  AND  RADIO 259 

system  tlie  radio  waves  are  guided  along  telegraph, 
telephone,  or  even  electric  light  mres,  and  are  not 
affected  by  ether  disturbances  in  space.  Arrived  at 
a  station,  the  reproductions  are  from  there  broad- 
cast (relayed)  for  lesser  distances  over  allotted 
ether  wave  lengths.  ''Wired  wireless"  has  lifted 
radio  from  out  of  the  depths  of  totally  unreliable 
acoustic  effects  to  the  plane  of  an  exact  science.  It 
lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  ''hook  up"  system  whereby 
radio  to-day  enjoys  its  fabulous  radius  of  action. 
What  mighty  strides  has  radio  accomplished  in 
the  thirty  years  that  have  intervened  since  William 
Marconi,  in  1896,  achieved  the  miracle  of  communi- 
cating by  wireless  telegraphy  over  a  distance  of  one 
and  three-fourths  miles!  Amazing  and  revolution- 
ary as  have  been  the  fruits  of  scientific  invention, 
none  rivals  the  romance  of  radio.  In  America  the 
art  has  reached  its  highest  development.  Broad- 
casting has  become  as  integral  a  part  of  the  nation's 
daily  life  as  telephoning  and  the  newspapers.  It  is 
difficult  to  conceive  what  modern  American  existence 
would  be  without  a  receiving  set,  to  be  turned  on 
and  off  like  an  electric  light  switch.  Radio  is  to-day 
almost  as  indispensable  to  human  intercourse  in  the 
United  States  as  the  automobile.  Six  million 
homes  are  estimated  to  be  equipped  with  radio  re- 
ceivers, and  the  number  is  increasing  every  hour  of 
each  day.  Already  the  percentage  is  nearly  one  set 
to  every  four  homes.  America  has  eighty  per  cent. 
of  all  the  receiving  sets  in  the  world  and  five  times 


260 EMILE  BERLINER 

as  many  broadcasting  stations  as  all  the  rest  of  the 
countries  put  together. 

Two  thousand  firms  of  radio  manufacturers,  one 
thousand  firms  of  radio  distributors  and  jobbers, 
and  thirty  thousand  radio  retail  dealers  comprise  an 
industry  which  did  two  million  dollars'  worth  of 
business  in  1920 ;  three  hundred  and  fifty  million  dol- 
lars, in  1925,  and  probably  will  do  four  hundred 
million,  or  more,  in  1926.  Directly  or  indirectly  em- 
ployed in  radio  throughout  the  world  is  an  army  of 
two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  persons. 

On  January  1,  1922,  there  were  but  twenty-eight 
licensed  broadcasting  stations  in  the  United  States, 
the  first  one  having  received  its  authority  to  begin 
operations  on  September  15,  1921 — one  of  the  red- 
letter  days  of  radio  history.  On  May  29,  1926,  there 
were  five  hundred  and  thirty-three  licensed  broad- 
casting stations.  The  number  is  limited  only  by 
the  determination  of  the  Department  of  Commerce, 
in  the  hands  of  which  regulation  of  radio  to  the 
hour  of  this  writing  has  been  vested,  to  keep  as  clear 
as  possible  the  ever-increasing  traffic  jam  in  the  air. 
No  new  broadcasting  licenses  were  issued  by  Sec- 
retary Hoover  subsequent  to  November,  1925, 
although  his  department  had  on  file,  at  the  beginning 
of  the  summer  of  1926,  no  fewer  than  six  hundred 
and  twenty-three  applications  for  new  licenses  for 
stations  in  all  parts  of  the  United  States. 

On  May  29,  1926,  radio  activities  in  the  United 
States  were  officially  tabulated  as  follows: 


BERLINER  AND  RADIO  261 


Class  of  Station 

Number  of  Stations 

Conunercial  Ship 

1963 

Commercial  Land 

323 

Commercial  Airplane 

1 

Technical  and  Training 

35 

Experimental 

212 

Government  Ship 

12U 

Government  Land 

312 

Government  Airplane 

4 

On  June  30, 1925,  at  the  end  of  the  last  fiscal  year 
of  record,  there  were  listed  15,111  amateur  radio 
stations.  The  figures  of  ship  stations  are  eloquent  of 
the  magical  growth  of  radio.  In  1909  the  steamship 
Republic  of  the  White  Star  Line  met  in  collision 
the  Italian  ship  Florida  off  Nantucket.  The  crash 
came  in  the  middle  of  the  night.  The  first  call  for 
help  flashed  from  the  ocean  by  a  wireless  operator 
thrilled  the  whole  world.  This  was  the  immortal 
"C.  Q.  D."  signal  sent  by  Jack  Binns,  whose  cool- 
ness and  presence  of  mind  resulted  in  saving  the 
lives  of  one  thousand,  five  hundred  human  beings  on 
a  sinking  ship.  It  was  the  Republic  disaster  that 
focused  the  world's  attention  upon  a  struggling  art 
and  crystallized,  in  dramatic  form,  the  priceless 
value  of  radio  on  shipboard.  In  a  sense,  radio  has 
robbed  the  sea  of  its  terrors.  To-day  all  sea-going 
vessels  carrying  fifty  persons  or  more  are  required 
by  international  law  to  carry  radio  installation  and 
competent    operators.      In    1913    there    were    but 


262  EMILE  BERLINER 


four  hundred  and  seventy-nine  American  vessels 
equipped  with  radio.  In  1926,  as  the  figures  herein- 
before set  down  indicate,  three  thousand,  one  hun- 
dred and  seventy-seven  American  ships  are  fitted 
vAth.  the  most  effective  life-saving  apparatus  the 
mind  of  man  has  yet  devised. 

Achievements  in  the  broadcasting  realm  during 
the  past  two  or  three  years  have  piled  up  in  an 
unceasing  crescendo  of  magnitude.  Literally,  no 
one  dares  predict  where  they  will  end.  Develop- 
ments that  seem  fantastic  to-day  are  altogether 
likely  to  be  recorded  to-morrow.  "Radio  vision"  is 
believed  to  be  just  over  the  horizon.  Transatlantic 
radio-photograms  burst  upon  the  astounded  gaze  of 
American  and  British  newspaper  readers,  as  a  daily 
feature,  in  the  spring  of  1926.  Europe  and  the  Amer- 
icas exchange  music  and  conversation  by  radio  with 
relative  ease,  though  not,  as  yet,  with  that  complete 
accuracy  or  dependability  which  distinguish  long- 
distance transmission  and  reception  between  points 
in  the  western  hemisphere.  On  the  north  shore  of 
Long  Island  the  Radio  Corporation  of  America, 
pioneer  in  transoceanic  broadcasting,  has  con- 
structed a  "Radio  Central" — a  superpower  radio 
station  for  the  simultaneous  desiJatch  of  messages 
to,  and  the  receipt  of  messages  from,  countries 
across  the  Atlantic.  This  colossus  of  radio,  with  its 
steel  towers  covering  more  than  ten  square  miles  of 
land,  has  made  the  United  States  the  focal  point 
of  the  world  in  the  transmission  and  reception  of 


BERLINER  AND  EADIO 263 

wireless  intelligence.  It  stands  as  a  monument  to 
American  achievement,  the  greatest  mile-stone  in 
the  progress  of  radio  across  the  oceans.  "Radio 
Central"  was  opened  for  public  service  on  Novem- 
ber 5,  1921,  with  a  message  to  the  world  from  the 
late  President  Harding.  The  message  was  received 
simultaneously  and  directly  in  twenty-eight  differ- 
ent countries,  including  far-off  New  Zealand,  Aus- 
tralia and  the  southermost  republics  of  South 
America. 

A  year  earlier,  in  November,  1920,  radio  was 
employed  for  the  first  time  on  a  large  scale  as  a 
means  of  broadcasting  news  of  general  interest. 
For  that  purpose  the  Westinghouse  Company 
erected  a  broadcasting  station  KDKA  at  its  great 
plant  in  East  Pittsburgh  and  inaugurated  the 
world's  pioneer  organized  "radio  program"  service 
with  the  announcement  of  the  Harding-Cox  presi- 
dential election  returns.  Crude  as  that  service  was, 
compared  with  that  rendered  by  the  modern  broad- 
casting station,  it  was  a  startling  demonstration  of 
the  universal  and  beneficent  power  of  radio.  Little 
did  the  small  groups  of  first  listeners  realize  that 
within  six  years  the  all-penetrating  voice  of  radio 
would  echo  into  six  million  American  homes. 

Men  and  women  differ  as  to  what  constitutes 
radio's  outstanding  achievement  to  date.  There 
are  several  events  that  merit  distinction  and  each 
was  so  marvelous  that  there  is  glory  enough  for  all 
of  them.    When  Firpo,  the  "wild  bull  of  the  pam- 


264 EMILE  BERLINER 

pas,"  knocked  Jack  Dempsey  out  of  the  ring  at  the 
Polo  Grounds  in  New  York  City  on  September  14, 
1923,  the  devastating  punch  from  the  Argentinian 
gladiator's  glove  was  caught  by  the  ringside  micro- 
phone and  heard  a  thousand  miles  away.  Almost  a 
year  later  to  the  day — on  the  memorable  night  of 
September  12,  1924 — General  John  J.  Pershing, 
about  to  retire  from  the  generalship  of  the  Armies 
of  the  United  States,  said  good-by  by  radio,  from  his 
desk  in  the  AVar  Department,  to  the  commanders  of 
the  nine  corps  areas  of  the  country,  stretching  all 
the  way  from  Governors  Island  in  New  York  to  the 
Presidio  at  San  Francisco.  It  was  not  exactly  a  con- 
fidential farewell  that  Pershing  took  of  his  devoted 
subordinates,  for  the  entire  nation  listened  in,  and 
enjoyed  the  General's  half -bantering,  half-sorrow- 
ing, parting  confabs  with  his  comrades  precisely  as 
if  he  were  addressing  every  individual  listener  per- 
sonally. It  was  a  historic  night,  never  to  be  forgot- 
ten by  any  one  privileged  to  be  part  of  it,  as  millions 
upon  millions  of  the  American  people  were. 

Although  Pershing  was  retiring  from  the  army 
that  night,  the  hook-up  of  the  nation's  broadcasting 
facilities  on  a  continent-wide  scale  was  designed 
primarily  as  part  and  parcel  of  the  Defense  Day 
test  that  day  inaugurated.  As  explained  to  the 
millions  of  listeners  by  General  J.  J.  Carty,  one 
of  the  vice-presidents  of  the  American  Telephone 
and  Telegraph  Company,  which  was  in  charge  of  the 
mighty  talkfest,  its  purpose  was  to  illustrate  in  a 


BERLINER  AND  RADIO 265 

practical  manner  the  progress  of  communications. 
Mr.  Carty  said: 

''The  uses  of  radio  in  the  national  defense  are 
many  and  one  of  its  special  functions  is  to  carry 
to  all  of  our  citizens  a  national  proclamation  or  call, 
or  a  message  directed  to  the  people  at  large.  Omit- 
ting the  great  volume  of  messages  carried  daily  over 
the  telegraph  wires,  there  passes  each  day  over  the 
telephone  wires  of  the  United  States  a  grand  total 
of  fifty  million  messages.  In  handling  this  enor- 
mous volume  of  traffic,  forty-five  million  miles  of 
wire  are  in  action,  and  their  availability  for  serv- 
ice, should  they  be  required  in  the  national  defense, 
has  been  demonstrated.  This  wire  system  is  spread 
over  our  country  like  a  great  net  covering  the  whole 
republic.  From  Washington  direct  connections  may 
be  established  with  more  than  twenty  thousand  cen- 
tral telephone  offices,  providing  inter-communication 
between  them  and  more  than  fifteen  million  individ- 
ual telephone  stations.  Employed  in  this  mighty 
inter-communication  system  throughout  the  United 
States  are  four  hundred  and  twenty-five  thousand 
men  and  women.  This  Defense  Day  test  has  demon- 
strated that  they  can  be  depended  upon  to  perform 
any  duty  ^vithin  their  power  that  may  devolve  upon 
them  at  a  moment  of  national  emergency. 

''In  order  that  you  of  the  air  audience  should 
hear  the  addresses  broadcast  this  evening,  nineteen 
radio  stations  have  been  called  into  service  and 
thirty-eight  thousand  miles  of  wire  are  employed. 
From  these  radio  stations  the  words  are  carried  di- 
rect to  your  ears.  It  is  possible  to  hold  a  conversa- 
tion over  the  long  distance  telephone  wires  between 
Washington  and  any  point  in  the  United  States. 
Because  the  radio  stations  are  connected  to  the 
wires  over  which  I  am  now  talking,  it  is  possible  for 
all  those  who  are  listening  by  radio  to  hear  the  con- 
versations. 


266 EMILE  BERLINER 

"I  will  now  call  over  the  long  distance  wires  a 
number  of  cities  and  towns  extending  from  the  At- 
lantic seaboard  westward  to  the  Pacific,  placing  all 
of  them  in  direct  wire  communication  with  this  room 
at  Washington.  To-night  the  radio  stations  are  con- 
nected to  these  wires  so  the  radio  listeners  may  hear 
the  conversations  taking  place  over  them.  In  the 
event  of  a  national  emergency,  such  messages  would 
reach  only  the  individuals  for  whom  they  were  in- 
tended. ' ' 

There  is  a  plain-told  tale  worthy  of  the  Arabian 
Nights.  Such  an  achievement  in  communication  was 
never  before  attempted  in  the  history  of  the  world. 
It  was  an  epoch-making  event. 

The  year  1924  was  in  countless  directions  an  era 
of  tremendous  accomplishment  in  radio.  Its  high- 
water  mark  was  the  broadcasting  of  the  Democratic 
''national  confusion"  in  Madison  Square  Garden 
through  those  endless  and  bellicose  days  and  nights 
of  June  and  July.  How  many  millions  of  edified, 
amused  or  horrified  American  citizens  on  that  hectic 
occasion  heard  Alabama  bellow,  ''twenty-four  votes 
for  Underwood,"  ballot  after  ballot;  or  listened  in 
while  Senator  Thomas  J.  Walsh,  the  permanent  and 
patient  chairman  of  the  bedlam,  besought  some 
delegate  to  "state  his  question";  or  heard  "Al" 
Smith's  bands  and  boosters  blare  Tlie  Sidewalks  of 
New  York ;  or  picked  up,  as  millions  did,  every  side 
remark  uttered  on  the  convention  platform,  even 
if  it  were  only  a  stage  whisper — how  many  of  our 
people  took  part  by  radio  in  that  unparalleled  orgy 
of  political  turmoil  will  never  be  known.    But  it  was 


BERLINER  AND  RADIO 267 

a  prodigious  event,  the  like  of  which  humankind  had 
never  kno^^^l.  There  are  cynics  who  avow  that  the 
ability  of  the  whole  people  to  listen  in  while  the 
Democratic  ''national  dissension"  was  in  progress  in 
1924  was  one  of  the  reasons  why  its  splendid  nom- 
inee, John  W.  Da\ds,  was  not  elected. 

In  the  ensuing  national  campaign  radio's  possi- 
bilities for  political  purposes  w^ere  utilized  to  the 
full.  President  Coolidge  had  no  need,  as  his  im- 
mediate predecessor  had,  to  conduct  a  front-porch 
campaign,  or  to  swing  around  the  circle  and  across 
country  as  many  predecessors  had  done.  All  Mr. 
Coolidge  had  to  do  was  to  sit  in  his  office  or  living- 
room  at  the  White  House  and  broadcast  his  message 
to  the  electorate,  which  he  repeatedly  did,  while 
millions  listened  in.  The  President  does  not  shine 
as  a  visible  public  speaker.  But  as  a  radio  broad- 
caster he  has  taken  his  place  among  the  immortals. 
The  Coolidge  nasal  twang  "cuts  through"  the  ether 
ideally  and  makes  the  President  a  perfect  performer 
on  the  wave  lengths.  The  night  before  election,  in 
1924,  both  the  Republican  and  Democratic  candi- 
dates sang  their  campaign  swan  songs  by  radio. 
Mr.  Coolidge  was  particularly  etfective.  He  was 
also  uncommonly  human.  "And  now,"  he  said,  just 
before  closing,  "I  want  to  send  a  good-night  greet- 
ing to  my  father,  w^io  is  listening  in  at  our  old  home 
near  Plymouth,  Vermont."  There  are  people  who 
say  it  was  his  economy  program  that  swept  Calvin 
Coolidge  into  victory  next  day  by  a  fabulous  plu- 


268  EMILE  BERLINER 

rality.  That  may  be.  But  certain  it  is  that  the  radio 
message  to  his  father,  since  gathered  to  his  progeni- 
tors, struck  a  responsive  chord  through  the  air 
audience  across  the  country  and  made  countless 
votes  for  the  Republican  ticket.  Radio  has  never 
known  a  more  kin-making  touch  of  human  nature. 
The  Republican  National  Committee  estimated  that 
the  President's  final  speech  of  the  campaign  by 
radio  was  delivered  to  an  audience  of  over  ten 
million  people.  In  1925,  when  Governor  Smith  was 
battling  with  the  New  York  Legislature,  he  resorted 
to  the  radio  as  a  means  of  bringing  popular  pressure 
to  bear  upon  a  hostile  Assembly  and  Senate  and 
succeeded  in  doing  so.  He  broadcast  an  appeal  to 
the  people  to  write  their  representatives  at  Albany. 
They  wrote,  and  *'Al's"  program  went  through. 

The  present  writer,  for  the  past  three  years, 
has  been  broadcasting  regularly  each  week,  except 
during  the  dull  season  at  Washington,  a  review 
of  national  and  international  events  known  as 
The  Political  Situation  in  Washington  To-night 
originally  sent  out  from  only  station  WRC  of  the 
Radio  Corporation  of  America,  it  later  was  relayed 
through  the  super-power  station  of  the  same  com- 
pany, WJZ,  at  New  York.  Exactly  how  many 
millions  of  people  listen  to  that  weekly  digest  of  the 
nation's  business  can  not  be  guessed,  except  approx- 
imately. But  the  total  runs  into  staggering  figures. 
No  one  unprivileged  to  enjoy  the  unprecedented 
opportunity  so  generously  offered,  in  the  name  of 


W\'JJ>£>«S^^^>i:^l^]M^ 


'^^^  !        I    /K'  .         '     ?i    - -'-S-^  >      ail' 


t  /V.i  ^  '•'i  • 


V 
6 


BERLINER  AND  RADIO 269 

public  service,  b}^  the  Radio  Corporation  of  America 
can  comprehend  the  thrill  it  inspires  every  time  the 
microphone  at  Washington  is  faced.  One  is  cer- 
tainly reaching  a  "circulation"  outstripping  many 
times  the  largest  number  of  readers  any  newspaper 
reaches.  It  is  not  only  a  post  of  thrill.  It  is  a 
station  of  responsibility.  It  carries  voice  and  views 
into  the  White  House  and  into  the  ears  of  members 
of  the  Cabinet,  of  Congress  and  of  the  diplomatic 
corps.  It  provokes  a  mountainous  correspondence — 
the  most  instructive  cross-section  of  popular  opin- 
ion encountered  in  the  broadcaster's  quarter  of  a 
century  of  journalism.  It  has  taught  him  the  price- 
less value  of  objectivity  and  of  understatement.  It 
has  sometimes  made  him  wonder  whether  the  com- 
munication of  news  and  views  one  day  may  not 
become  a  regular  function  of  the  air  rather  than  the 
monopoly  of  the  press. 

Two  giants  of  radio — Herbert  Hoover,  Secretary 
of  Commerce,  to  whose  lot  first  fell  the  task  of 
supervising  broadcasting  activities  in  the  United 
States,  and  David  Sarnoff,  brilliant  young  vice- 
president  and  general  manager  of  the  Radio  Cor- 
poration of  America — have  said  terse  and  illumi- 
nating things  about  the  magical  public  utiUty  that 
is  making  the  world  over. 

"Radio,"  says  Hoover,  "has  already  become  so 
embedded  in  American  life  that  we  forget  that  the 
development  of  this  great  scientific  discovery  is  but 
a  little  over  five  years  old.     I  do  not  believe  any 


270      EMILE  BERLINER 

other  generation  in  history  has  had  the  privilege  of 
witnessing  the  progress  from  birth  to  adolescence  of 
an  invention  so  profoundly  affecting  the  social  and 
economic  life  of  the  peoples  of  the  world.  No  other 
discovery  in  all  time  invaded  the  home  so  rapidly 
and  intrenched  itself  so  securely  as  radio,  and, 
though  it  is  still  far  from  maturity,  we  see  great 
advances  every  year.  .  .  .  We  have  watched  the 
industry  grow  from  the  curiosity  of  a  scientific  toy 
to  a  communication  system  now  well-nigh  universaL 
So  great  has  it  become  in  service  that  I  believe  it 
would  be  almost  possible  in  a  great  emergency  for 
the  President  of  the  United  States  to  address  an 
audience  of  forty  or  fifty  millions  of  our  people. 
It  is  bringing  a  vast  amount  of  educational  and  in- 
formative material  into  the  household.  It  is  bring- 
ing about  a  better  understanding  among  all  of  our 
people  of  the  many  problems  that  confront  us.  It 
is  improving  the  public  taste  for  music  and  enter- 
tainment. It  is  bringing  contentment  into  the  home. 
We  are  at  the  threshold  of  international  exchange  of 
ideas  by  direct  speech.  That  will  bring  us  better 
understanding  of  mutual  world  problems. 

''Only  over-optimistic  prophets  would  attempt 
to  predict  radio  advance.  One  thing  we  are  sure 
of — that  the  radio  industry  is  only  in  its  youth,  that 
it  will  continue  to  grow  with  increasing  strength. 
If  it  will  succeed,  it  must  continue  as  in  the  past  to 
devote  itself  to  actual  public  service,  to  which  it  is 
already  dedicated.'* 

*' Radio  broadcasting,"  says  Sarnoff,  *4s  fre- 
quently characterized  as  the  infant  prodigy  of  the 
electrical  family.  But,  as  is  often  the  case  with  a 
promising  youngster,  a  httle  time  and  experience 
have  already  given  it  character  and  it  is  now  making 
rapid  strides  toward  maturity.  Indeed,  in  its  brief 
span  of  life,  the  radio  industry  has  had  the  cleans- 
ing   effect    of    several    baptisms.      Each    time    it 


BERLINER  AND  RADIO 271 

emerged  with  a  better  understanding  of  its  problems 
and  those  who  have  benefited  by  this  experience 
gained  more  vigor  and  clearer  vision. 

"The  year  1926  will,  I  believe,  show  the  distin- 
guishing marks  of  radio 's  efforts  in  the  direction  of 
stabilization.  The  public's  preference  in  radio  pro- 
grams and  radio  devices  is  better  understood.  The 
problems  of  distribution  are  clarifying  themselves, 
and  the  major  problem  of  the  business — broadcast- 
ing— is  now  receiving  attention  by  many  capable 
minds.  The  industry  no  longer  has  a  place  for  the 
mere  opportunist.  Radio  has  become  a  permanent 
asset  of  our  daily  life  and  its  future  prosperity  is 
assured." 

In  this  wondrous  story  of  the  sky-rocket  prog- 
ress of  radio,  since  Maxwell  dreamed,  Hertz 
materialized  and  Marconi  achieved,  Emile  Berliner, 
inventor  of  the  microphone  and  the  continuous  cur- 
rent transformer,  played  worthily  and  effectively 
his  part.  He  is  at  the  age,  now,  when  men  indulge 
in  introspection,  and  in  his  reveries  he  speculates  in- 
tensively about  the  spiritual  value  and  ultimate 
potentialities  of  radio.  Primarily  he  considers  that 
it  will  become  an  irresistible  force  for  peace.  Men 
do  not  quarrel  when  they  understand  one  another. 
Nations,  Berliner  thinks,  are  less  likely  to  fling  at 
one  another's  throats  if  they  possess  a  common  de- 
nominator in  the  field  of  thought  interchange.  Radio 
seems  Heaven-sent,  to  the  originator  of  the  micro- 
phone, for  the  purpose  of  establishing  upon  earth 
for  all  time  and  among  all  peoples  the  reign  of  good 
wiU. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 


EMILE  BERLINER  TO-DAY 


AUGUST  THYSSEN— ^'King  Thyssen,"  the 
Rhinelanders  used  to  call  the  late  colossus  of 
German  steel  and  iron — had  a  philosophy  which  he 
epitomized  in  the  phrase:  *'If  I  rest,  I  rust."  That 
terse  and  alliterative  expression  of  the  strenuous 
life  personifies  Emile  Berliner.  His  entire  career 
has  been  one  long  consistent  refusal  to  rust,  and 
to-day,  just  over  the  threshold  of  his  threescore 
years  and  fifteen,  he  as  resolutely  eschews  the  privi- 
lege of  rest.  An  uncommonly  sturdy  physique,  a 
mental  attitude  toward  men  and  matters  that  defies 
the  ravages  of  time,  and  an  unquenchable  sense  of 
humor  combine  to  fit  him,  at  seventy-five,  for  new 
attempts  at  conquests  in  whichever  fields  of  scien- 
tific or  humanitarian  endeavor  he  cares  to  furrow. 
His  hand,  indeed,  is  actually  on  a  plow  that  he 
expects  to  trench  entirely  new  ground  in  the  area 
of  architecture.  As  it  was  acoustics  that  led  Ber- 
liner into  the  unexplored  regions  of  the  telephone 
and  the  talking  machine,  it  is  the  science  of  sound 
that  has  again  summoned  him  to  active  service  on 
the  firing-line  of  invention.    Emile  Berliner,  at  the 

272 


EMILE  BERLINER  TO-DAY  273 


beginning  of  the  autumn  of  1926,  is  ready  to  intro- 
duce a  scientifically  worked-out  method  of  making 
churches,  theaters,  opera-houses  and  assembly  halls 
of  every  description  acoustically  infallible. 

He  contends  that  there  has  never  been  a  time 
when  architects  could  guarantee  satisfactory  acous- 
tic qualities  in  any  interior  designed  for  auditory 
purposes — whether  it  be  a  church,  a  cathedral,  a 
concert  hall,  a  railroad  waiting-room  (in  which  train 
departures  or  arrivals  are  announced),  a  theater, 
or  a  full-sized  auditorium  in  which  great  gatherings 
like  national  conventions  are  held.  The  reason  why 
poor  acoustics  can  not  be  combatted  mth  mathe- 
matical precision  has  never  been  positively  known. 
The  usual  recourse,  when  an  interior  is  found  to  be 
acoustically  defective,  is  to  cover  the  walls  with 
sound  absorbing  material.  This  weakens  the  objec- 
tionable reverberations  or  other  acoustic  impurities, 
but  also  reduces  the  loudness  of  the  sounds  sent 
forth  by  speaker,  singer,  actor,  instrumentalist  or 
orchestra.  Moreover,  'porous  walls  covered  with 
cloth  or  felt  are  highly  insanitary,  absorb  dust  and 
germs,  and  can  not  be  washed,  as  walls  of  public 
halls  require  to  be,  at  frequent  intervals. 

Berliner  studied  hall  acoustics  for  years.  He 
is  an  inveterate  theater-goer  and  music-lover,  and 
a  sharply-trained  ear  long  since  made  him  acute  in 
the  detection  of  acoustical  inadequacies  in  many  of 
the  temples  of  entertainment  into  which  the  Ameri- 
can public  is  from  time  to  time  beguiled.    Berliner 


274 EMILE  BERLINER 

eventually  came  to  the  conclusion  that  the  cause 
of  bad  acoustics  is  the  hardness  or  rigidity  of  the 
usual  brick  or  stone  walls.  He  observed  that  an 
auditorium  that  has  wooden  walls,  especially  of  pine 
or  spruce  that  vibrates  freely,  also  has  superior 
acoustics.  It  was  this  theory  that  Berliner  devel- 
oped logically  in  what  he  terms  ''acoustic  tiles.'* 
These  are  composed  of  porous  cement,  are  as  hard 
as  stone,  and  yet  have  the  resonance  of  wood  when 
vibrated  by  a  tuning  fork.  They  are  the  fruit  of 
more  than  twenty  years  of  research  and  experiment. 

Emile  Berliner's  remedy  for  the  knotty  problem 
of  hall  acoustics  consists  of  a  process  of  cementing 
these  tiles  to  the  walls  of  an  auditorium  over  a  suffi- 
ciently large  area,  thus  combining  the  hardness  and 
dignity  of  a  stone  wall  with  the  resonance  of  wooden 
panels.  The  tiles  can  be  molded  ornamentally  to 
please  the  taste  of  an  architect,  or  builder,  or  prop- 
erty-owner, and  may  form  the  final  finish  of  walls. 
They  may  even  be  painted  without  reducing  their 
acoustic  efficiency. 

Another  method  which  Berliner  has  found  to  be 
feasible  is  to  attach  flat  acoustic  cells  of  wire  netting 
to  a  rough  finished  wall  and  spread  "acoustic  ce- 
ment" over  them.  This  the  inventor  has  demon- 
strated to  be  thoroughly  efficient,  acoustically,  and 
the  process  lends  itself  to  any  treatment  applicable 
to  plain  cement  walls. 

A  prominent  Roman  Catholic  churchman,  before 
whom  Berliner  demonstrated  his  invention,  repre- 


EMILE  BERLINER  TO-DAY  275 

sented  that  in  countless  communities  Catholic 
churches  have  been  erected  with  an  eye  to  nearly 
everything  except  proper  hearing  facilities.  He 
was  fascinated  by  the  prospect  that  Berliner's 
acoustic  tiles  offer  and  expressed  the  belief  that  the 
princes  of  the  Roman  church,  then  about  to  assemble 
at  Chicago  for  the  great  twenty-eighth  International 
Eucharistic  Congress,  would  be  deeply  interested  in 
the  possibility  of  enabling  a  priest,  bishop  or  car- 
dinal to  celebrate  mass  in  speaking  tones  and  yet 
be  audible  many  hundreds  of  feet  away.  That  is  the 
boon  Berliner  believes  his  acoustic  tiles  hold  out. 
Architects  and  builders  who  have  heard  him  ex- 
pound his  theories  are  persuaded  they  contain  germs 
of  an  important  advance  in  interior  construction. 

Berliner  has  converted  the  basement  of  his 
*' Bureau  of  Health  Education"  building  on  Colum- 
bia Road  in  Washington  into  a  laboratory  for  con- 
ducting practical  experiments  with  acoustic  tiles. 
Ordinarily  the  room  in  question  serves  the  purpose 
of  a  billiard  room.  Berliner  has  covered  the  walls 
with  his  *'loud  speaking"  tiles.  A  simple  experi- 
ment which  he  is  fond  of  making  is  to  let  a  visitor 
walk  a  little  distance  from  the  door  in  the  hall  that 
leads  into  the  billiard  room.  Then  Berliner  asks 
the  visitor  to  listen  to  his  own  footsteps.  As  soon 
as  the  billiard  room  is  entered,  the  footsteps  sound 
twice  or  three  times  as  loud  as  they  sounded  in  the 
hall  outside,  although  the  floors  of  the  hall  and  the 
billiard  room  are  of  precisely  the  same  material. 


276 EMILE  BERLINER 

Another  demonstration  that  carries  simple  con- 
viction to  the  lay  mind  is  for  Berliner  to  lead  a 
caller  to  a  brick  wall,  and  there  set  a  tuning  fork  to 
vibrating.  The  fork  is  applied  to  the  wall,  but 
scarcely  any  sound  is  heard.  Then  the  inventor  lays 
against  the  brick  wall  one  of  his  tiles  measuring 
about  eight  inches  in  diameter  and  three-eighths  of 
an  inch  in  thickness  and  touches  the  vibrative  fork 
against  the  face  of  the  tile.  There  results  a  ringing 
sound  as  if  the  tuning  fork  were  applied  to  the 
sound  board  of  a  piano. 

Berliner  asserts  there  is  nothing  in  the  science 
of  acoustics  that  challenges  the  soundness  of  his 
premises  or  the  practical  form  which  he  has  given 
them.  He  has  boldly  disregarded  previous  theories, 
and,  as  an  irrepressible  scientific  iconoclast,  has  set 
out  on  wholly  original  paths  to  achieve  a  solution. 
One  major  demonstration  on  a  large  scale — say,  cor- 
recting with  the  use  of  his  tiles  the  notoriously  bad 
acoustics  in  some  well-known  church  or  theater — 
will,  Berliner  is  confident,  establish  the  practical 
utility  of  his  invention.  He  holds  that  the  preva- 
lence of  improper  hearing  facilities  in  public  places 
without  number  the  world  over  is  due  to  imperfect 
reasoning  on  the  part  of  architect  and  builder  and  to 
the  chance  they  are  given  to  taking — of  ''guessing 
right."  Acoustic  tiles  are  designed  to  substitute  re- 
liability for  guess-work.  Said  an  architect  to  Ber- 
liner on  one  occasion:  "Acoustics  has  always  been  a 
gamble."  Berliner  rejoined:  ''You're  right;  and, 
as  I'm  against  all  gambling,  I  want  to  stop  this!" 


EMILE  BERLINER  TO-DAY  277 

Berliner  made  the  first  public  presentation  of 
his  solution  for  coming  to  grips  with  the  obscure 
and  baffling  problem  of  hall  acoustics  in  Washington 
on  October  8,  1925.  The  occasion  was  a  meeting  of 
the  local  chapter  of  the  American  Institute  of  Archi- 
tects. In  that  presence  Berliner  read  the  follo\ving 
paper : 

"The  object  of  this  paper  is  to  present  to  you  the 
solution  of  a  problem  that  has  at  all  times  appeared 
a  difficult  one  to  handle. 

"Let  me  first  advance  the  following  proposi- 
tions : 

"1.  Every  partly  or  nearly  wholly  enclosed  body 
of  air  assumes  a  rhythmic  vibration  which  will  re- 
sound either  as  a  tone  or  as  a  so-called  reverbera- 
tion whenever  that  air-body  is  agitated;  the  larger 
the  volume  of  air,  the  slower  the  rhythm  of  the  tone 
or  of  the  reverberation  mil  be. 

"2.  When  the  agitation  is  caused  by  any  sound 
in  the  neighborhood  of  the  air-body  whose  vibration 
corresponds  with  the  individual  rhythm  of  the  air- 
body,  then  the  response  will  be  strong  and  resonant. 

"3.  When  the  agitation  is  caused  by  a  sound 
whose  pitch  is  merely  acoustically  related  to  the 
rhythm  of  the  air-body,  then  the  resonance  or  the 
reverberation  mil  be  only  noticeable. 

"4.  The  harder  or  the  more  rigid  the  walls 
which  enclose  an  air-body,  the  more  intense  will  be 
its  individual  tone  or  its  reverberation. 

"In  collections  of  physical  apparatus  we  often 


278 EMILE  BERLINER 

see  sets  of  resonators  consisting  of  hollow  brass 
balls  of  different  sizes  which  are  provided  with  open 
necks  like  a  bottle  and  each  of  which  will  reverberate 
and  emit  its  own  resonant  tone  when  that  same  note 
is  sounded  in  the  neighborhood,  or  when  air  is  blown 
across  the  open  neck. 

''Organ  pipes  are  examples  of  such  resonators 
and  when  made  of  metal  the  sound  emitted  by  them 
is  louder,  though  sometimes  less  penetrating  or 
carrying,  than  if  made  of  wood. 

''Any  bottle  will  illustrate  all  this  by  sounding 
or  singing  notes  of  different  pitches  into  or  in  front 
of  it  or  blowing  air  across  the  open  neck  when  the 
individual  note  can  be  quickly  discovered.  I  have 
here  a  set  of  dinner  gongs  consisting  of  metal  bars 
mounted  over  wooden  boxes  that  have  openings  at 
the  tops  and  which  are  tuned  to  correspond  with  the 
notes  of  the  bars.  When  the  holes  in  the  boxes  are 
covered  and  the  bars  are  struck  they  emit  their  notes 
but  feebly  and  without  resonance.  But  when  the 
boxes  are  open  the  latter  will  sound  in  unison  when 
the  bars  are  struck  and  the  notes  will  be  ringing 
with  a  beautiful  resonance. 

"The  pitch  of  every  sound  depends  on  the  num- 
ber of  its  vibrations,  and  the  limits  within  which 
the  human  ear  can  differentiate  between  different 
pitches  range  from  about  sixteen  vibrations  per  sec- 
ond for  the  lowest  notes  to  about  sixteen  thousand 
per  second  for  the  highest.  Below  sixteen  vibra- 
tions the  sounds  are  mere  noises  or  booms  and  above 


EMILE  BERLINER  TO-DAY  279 

about  sixteen  thousand  they  appear  as  squeaks  or 
high  whistles  if  emitted  by  instruments.  While, 
however,  the  average  human  ear  can  differentiate 
sounds  only  within  about  these  limitations,  the 
sounds  beyond,  either  below  sixteen  thousand  or 
above  sixteen  thousand,  maintain  the  law  of  reso- 
nance. This  is  particularly  obvious  with  low  pitched 
sounds  which  will  become  audible  if,  for  instance, 
octaves  of  their  notes  are  sounded  in  their  neighbor- 
hood. We  may  even  assume  that  large  masses  of 
enclosed  air  might  represent  indi\T.dual  notes  having 
only  a  few  vibrations  per  second,  and  yet  such  air- 
bodies  would  emit  their  rhythmic  sound  if  they  were 
agitated  by  sounds  whose  notes  may  be  related  and 
are,  say,  one  or  more  octaves  above  them.  Nor  would 
this  be  necessary  if  such  air-bodies  were  agitated  by 
mere  shocks.  A  blow  by  a  hammer,  a  tramp  of  feet, 
or  a  striking  of  any  hard  object  will  set  up  the  reso- 
nance and  produce  the  indi^ddual  vibration  of  that 
air-body,  though  this  note  may  be  of  a  pitch  below 
the  recognizable  register  of  the  human  ear.  It  is 
then  termed  reverberation  pure  and  simple. 

"The  resonators  mentioned  heretofore,  like 
organ  pipes  or  dinner  gongs,  were  all  of  regular 
forms,  being  either  tubes  or  oblong  boxes.  But  we 
have  in  the  string  instruments  of  the  violin  type 
hollow  boxes  of  irregular  shapes  which  apparently 
do  not  follow  out  the  propositions  advanced.  If  they 
did,  then  every  time  a  string  note  was  played  which 
corresponded  to  the  individual  note  of  the  air-body 


280 EMILE  BERLINER 

that  note  would  be  reenforced  by  the  violin  box  and 
would  sound  much  louder  than  the  rest.  On  first 
consideration  it  naight  be  concluded  that  the  irreg- 
ular shape  of  the  \iolin  or  the  bass  viol  was  respon- 
sible for  the  absence  of  individual  resonance  or 
reverberation.  This  is,  however,  erroneous,  be- 
cause a  violin  made  of  glass  or  metal,  such  as  now 
and  then  has  been  tried,  does  emit  its  individual 
note  and  follows  our  fourth  proposition  relating  to 
the  question  of  how  rigid  the  walls  are  which  en- 
close the  air-body.  The  note  so  emitted  by  a  glass 
or  metal  violin  of  a  Stradivarius  model  corresponds 
to  a  tone  having  about  five  hundred  vibrations  per 
second  or  to  the  tone  of  B  of  the  middle  tenor  reg- 
ister. 

"Hence  it  follows  that  the  reason  why  a  violin 
does  not  resonate  or  reverberate  the  individual  tone 
of  its  enclosed  air-body  is  because  its  walls  are  not 
rigid  enough  to  permit  the  development  of  individ- 
ual resonance. 

**I  will  now  present  some  facts  which,  while  ob- 
served in  an  entirely  different  branch  of  technology, 
have  considerable  bearing  on  the  problem  of  hall 
acoustics.  Many  years  ago  when  I  began  my  inves- 
tigations which  led  up  to  the  gramophone,  I  was 
bothered  considerably  by  the  resonance  of  the  horns 
which  I  used  as  sound  collectors.  Individual  notes 
would  be  recorded  and  would  reproduce  much  louder 
than  other  notes  by  the  same  singer  or  from  the 
same  musical  instrument. 


EMILE  BERLINER  TO-DAY  281 

*'I  soon  discovered  that  the  disturbing  sounds 
were  always  in  the  same  key  and  that  their  notes 
corresponded  to  the  individual  note  of  the  horn  used 
for  recording  them.  These  horns  were  at  that  time 
usually  several  feet  long  and  had  flared  openings, 
or  so-called  bells,  from  eight  to  twelve  inches  in  di- 
ameter. Their  individual  note  was  well  mthin  the 
register  of  the  male  voice  so  that  scarcely  a  song  or 
a  musical  composition  could  be  recorded  but  the  dis- 
turbance took  place.  Soprano  voices  were  not  so 
much  affected  by  it,  but  the  instruments  used  for 
accompanying  the  voice  were.  Employing  smaller 
horns,  while  doing  away  with  the  disturbance,  re- 
duced the  sensitiveness  of  the  contrivance  and,  since 
loud  effects  were  desired,  singers  would  have  to 
stand  close  to  the  horn  in  order  to  register  their 
voices  with  sufficient  power  or  amplitude. 

**I  do  not  recall  now  what  else  I  did  to  try  to 
remedy  the  trouble,  but  I  finally  discovered  that 
punching  a  certain  number  of  small  holes  into  the 
sides  of  the  horn  would  destroy  the  individual  reso- 
nance of  the  horns  and  obviate  the  disturbance. 

''The  modus  operandi  consisted  in  punching 
three  or  four  rows  of  small  holes,  each  row  of  about 
six  holes,  lengthwise,  along  the  horn  into  the  mate- 
rial of  which  the  horn  was  made,  generally  common 
tinplate.  This  would  much  reduce  the  individual 
resonance.  Then  holes  would  be  gradually  added, 
the  resonance  tried  again  until  it  would  have  ceased. 
After  this  point  was  reached  the  effect  of  adding 


282 EMILE  BERLINER      

further  holes  would  merely  weaken  the  capacity  of 
the  horn  for  transmitting  or  deflecting  sound 
against  the  recording  diaphragm. 

''Such  perforated,  or  as  we  used  to  call  them, 
ventilated  horns  faithfully  transmitted  all  sounds 
equally  well  to  the  recording  diaphragm  and  per- 
mitted perfect  recording,  and  with  all  larger  horns 
perforations  have  been  employed  ever  since. 

"But  when  horns  of  these  sizes  were  employed 
in  reproducing  machines  the  disturbance  of  individ- 
ual resonance  was  not  noticed  because  the  pressure 
of  the  sound  vibrations  came  from  the  diaphragm 
outward  and  the  cause  of  the  resonance  which  is 
rhythmic  elastic  compression  of  enclosed  air  did 
not  occur. 

''When  about  twenty  years  ago  I  prepared  this 
address  originally,  it  occurred  to  me  that  the  theories 
of  individual  resonance  as  advanced  in  the  four 
propositions  with  which  I  began  this  paper  might 
be  further  tested  if  I  tried  horns  of  pyramidical  in- 
stead of  conical  shape  such  as  are  used  in  cabinet 
talking  machines.  In  such  horns  there  are  four 
triangular  plates  of  wood  or  metal  which  form  a 
sound  chamber.  Their  sides  are  not  rigid  as  in  a 
conical  horn,  but  semi-elastic,  each  side  forming  a 
panel  capable  of  freely  vibrating  within  certain  lim- 
its, depending  on  the  thickness  of  the  wood  or  other 
material  of  which  they  consisted. 

"My  anticipations  that  such  a  horn  would  ex- 
hibit reduced  individual  resonance  in  recording,  or 


EMILE  BEELINER  TO-DAY  283 

none  at  all,  proved  true  and  confirms  the  fourth 
proposition  that  individual  resonance  or  reverbera- 
tion of  enclosed  air-bodies  depends  on  the  greater 
or  lesser  rigidity  of  the  walls  which  enclose  the  air. 

**Let  me  now  take  a  brief  survey  of  what  we  find 
in  large  rooms,  halls  or  auditoriums,  considering 
their  acoustic  conditions. 

''What  is  demanded  is  that  sounds  from  the  plat- 
form of  the  speaker  or  singer  or  performer  should 
be  heard  loudly  and  distinctly  over  all  the  auditor- 
ium. In  particular  boomy  reverberations  should  be 
absent,  because  they  not  only  impair  distinctness, 
but  jumble  and  destroy  the  evenness  of  rendition 
so  that  some  portions  of  a  speech  are  heard  dis- 
tinctly and  others  not. 

''It  is  an  old  experience  that  a  hall  when  empty 
may  exhibit  marked  reverberation  but,  after  the 
audience  has  filed  in,  the  disturbance  has  disap- 
peared ;  at  the  same  time,  however,  the  resonance  of 
the  sound  of  the  speaker  or  performer  is  greatly 
weakened.  What  has  happened  is  this.  The  side  of 
the  auditorium  taken  by  the  acoustically  elastic 
wooden  floor  has  been  covered  with  a  mass  of  flesh 
and  clothing  which  absorb  the  vibrations  striking 
against  them  and  therefore  impair  the  resonance  of 
the  voices  or  notes  themselves. 

"Or  an  empty  and  unfinished  room  may  exhibit 
a  fine  natural  resonance  without  any  disturbing  re- 
verberation, but  after  it  has  been  carpeted,  and 
hangings  put  in,  sounds  are  muffled.  This  accounts 


284 EMILE  BERLINER 

for  the  fact  that  a  piano  or  a  violin  tried  out  in  the 
bare  and  unfurnished  rooms  at  the  music  dealers 
and  appearing  of  brilliant  tone  will  often  sound  un- 
satisfactory when  it  is  being  played  in  the  furnished 
home  of  the  purchaser. 

*'The  worst  examples  of  bad  acoustics  occur  in 
fine  old  cathedrals  and  in  the  large  waiting-rooms  of 
magnificent  railroad  stations.  It  is  next  to  imposs- 
ible to  understand  the  sermons  or  the  strenuous 
efforts  of  the  criers  when  calling  out  trains.  There 
are  larger  churches  built  of  brick  or  stone  in  which 
the  acoustics  are  not  so  very  bad,  but  very  few  in 
which  they  are  very  good.  At  best  it  requires  care- 
ful voice  handling  on  the  part  of  the  minister,  unless 
he  be  a  natural  elocutionist,  to  make  himself  easily 
understood.  When  a  newly  built  hall  is  found  to 
have  poor  acoustics  the  remedies  applied,  while 
helping  in  some  respects,  usually  impair  the  speak- 
ing voice  trying  to  reach  the  distant  part  of  the 
audience  as  w^ell. 

*'But  there  are  within  my  knowledge  two  large 
auditoriums  the  acoustic  properties  of  which  are  not 
only  not  bad  but  exceptionally  fine,  and  these  are 
the  Tabernacle  at  Salt  Lake  City,  seating  eight  thou- 
sand people,  and  the  Wagner  Theater  in  Bayreuth, 
with  a  seating  capacity  of  about  two  thousand. 

"I  shall  never  forget  the  impression  which  I  re- 
ceived when  our  traveling  party  one  summer  day 
inspected  the  Bayreuth  Theater  at  a  time  when  no 
performances  were  given.    After  we  had  entered  I 


EMILE  BERLINER  TO-DAY  285 

began  to  comment  on  the  seating  capacity  and  the 
simplicity  of  the  designs.  Every  word  I  uttered  in 
a  subdued  voice  echoed  into  my  ears  with  wonderful 
resonance.  It  was  not  the  boomy  reverberation  one 
notices  in  cathedrals  but  a  true  resonance  which 
increased  the  volume  of  the  voice  without  in  the 
slightest  degree  changing  its  quality.  And  no  mat- 
ter in  what  part  of  the  theater  I  tried  it  the  reso- 
nance was  beautiful  and  perfect  everywhere. 

**In  the  very  large  auditorium  at  Salt  Lake  City 
words  spoken  in  an  ordinary  voice  at  the  speaker's 
platform  are  distinctly  understood  at  distant  places, 
and  of  course  the  musical  results  are  always  superb. 

**Both  these  great  halls  are  built  of  wood,  or 
their  interiors  at  least  show  wooden  walls,  and  in 
the  light  of  my  fourth  proposition  it  leads  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  elastic  or  vibratory  character  of 
wooden  auditorium  walls  is  mostly  responsible  for 
their  good  acoustical  results. 

''There  are,  however,  several  objections  to  the 
using  of  wooden  walls  in  large  halls  or  auditoriums. 
They  are  inflammable  and  they  lack  architectural 
dignity.  They  do  not  impress  with  that  feeling  of 
permanence  which  stone  or  marble  walls,  or  cement 
imitations  of  these,  convey  to  the  discerning  mind. 

*'In  the  new  development  which  I  bring  before 
you  to-day  a  compromise  has  been  effected  by  cover- 
ing walls  ivith  elastic  cement  tiles  and  which  have 
the  acoustic  resonance  of  wood.  This  is  accom- 
plished,  first,   by  mixing   a   porous   material   like 


286 EMILE  BERLINER 

asbestos,  pumice  or  sawdust  with  the  cement,  and 
second,  by  shaping  these  tiles  so  that  when  joined  to 
the  wall  they  form  vibratory  diaphragms.  At  pres- 
ent the  acoustic  tiles  are  eight  inches  in  diameter 
and  consist  of  square  center  portions  about  a 
quarter-inch  thick  and  projecting  rims  by  which  they 
are  cemented  to  the  wall.  "With  substances  like 
asbestos  and  pumice  the  tiles  could  be  made  of  china 
clay  or  of  terra  cotta  and  be  baked  in  fire  as  a  real 
tile  is. 

''Acoustic  tiles  may  have  any  surface  grain  de- 
sired and  it  is  not  unlikely  that  grouping  together 
larger  and  smaller  tiles  on  the  same  set  of  walls 
may  result  in  increased  resonance  for  certain  defi- 
nite purposes. 

''Existing  churches,  theaters  or  concert  halls 
with  defective  acoustics  may,  I  think,  be  readily  cor- 
rected by  covering  sections  of  their  interiors  with 
acoustic  tiles  to  a  sufficient  height  for  catching  and 
reflecting  the  voices  of  speakers  or  singers  as  well 
as  the  tones  of  instruments. ' ' 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

AN  INVENTOB^S  HUMAN  SIDE 

X-RAYING  the  man  to-day,  at  threescore  and 
fifteen,  with  so  many  achievements  to  his 
credit  that  ahnost  any  one  of  them  would  assure 
him  place  in  the  Hall  of  Fame,  it  is  plain  that  inven- 
tive success  came  to  Emile  Berliner  because  of  three 
qualities  indispensable  in  the  scientific  explorer — 
driving  force,  inconquerable  optimism  and  contempt 
for  failure.  Berliner  is  a  stubborn  man,  and  stub- 
bornness, in  an  inventor,  is  pure  gold. 

''Above  all,"  he  once  said,  "the  inventor  must 
have  the  patience  and  fortitude  to  face  failures — 
hundreds  of  them,  if  necessary — and  still  keep  on. 
He  must  be  ready  to  average  ninety-nine  failures  for 
one  success  or  one  encouraging  development.  He 
must  work  hard,  and  be  content  to  slave  for  months 
at  a  time  without  registering  apparent  progress.  He 
must  not  be  disheartened  by  the  necessity  to  travel 
over  the  same  ground  again  and  again,  or  by  the 
sudden  necessity  to  detour.  Therein  lies  the  key  to 
victory — never-ending  application.  The  idea  that 
an  inventor  is  necessarily  a  genius  is  entirely  fallac- 
ious.   Genius  for  invention  is  only  the  capacity  for 

287 


288 EMILE  BERLINER 

concentration.  Given  that,  plus  the  power  of  ob- 
servation, and  you  have  the  raw  material  for  a  suc- 
cessful inventor." 

Berliner  has  frittered  away  an  amazingly  small 
amount  of  time  on  the  trifles  of  modern  existence. 
He  tabulates  work  as  his  recreation,  though  he  con- 
fesses to  one  play-time  hobby — billiards.  He  attri- 
butes to  the  creative  atmosphere  of  America  his 
passion  for  accomplishing  things.  ''In  the  United 
States,"  Berliner  says,  "you  are  w^hat  you  have 
done/^  He  considers  that  he  was  richly  blessed  in 
having  been  deprived  of  too  many  advantages  in 
early  life.  ''I  once  knew  a  man,"  the  inventor  likes 
to  recall,  "who  said  he  gave  his  son  every  possible 
advantage  except  one — he  could  not  give  him  a  poor 
father." 

Intellectual  curiosity  was  implanted  in  Berliner 
in  youth.  At  the  only  school  he  ever  attended,  Wolf- 
enbiittel,  in  Hanover  province,  which  he  left  when 
he  was  fourteen  years  old,  his  teachers  dubbed  him 
a  hermit  "because  I  was  so  much  alone — thinking." 
All  his  life  he  has  cultivated  the  tedious  art  of  tak- 
ing pains.  He  has  a  card-index  mind  which  endows 
him  with  a  talent  for  sorting  out  ideas  and  for 
winnowing  theoretical  chaff  from  practical  grain. 
He  possesses  an  extraordinarily  concentrated  eye- 
sight— a  physical  vision  which  supplements  a  men- 
tal insight  and  forms  a  combination  making  for 
unusual  power  of  penetration.  Unlike  most  inven- 
tors, Berliner  is  an  able  business  man.     He  made 


AN  INVEXTOR^S  HTMAX  SIDE         289 

shrewd  investments,  largely  in  District  of  Columbia 
land,  with  the  early  fruits  of  his  scientific  successes. 
He  has  always  preferred  looking  after  his  own 
affairs,  and  has  a  passion  for  promptness  and  order- 
liness in  connection  with  them. 

Asked  to  name  Emile  Berliner's  principal  per- 
sonal characteristic,  the  average  man  or  woman  who 
knows  him  unhesitatingly  says:  '' Generosity."  A 
fortune  came  to  him  relatively  soon  in  life,  and  it 
grew  rapidh'.  His  benefactions  have  always  kept 
pace  with  his  prosperity,  though  they  were  not,  and 
are  not,  of  the  sort  that  attract  the  light  of  publicity. 
Berliner  has  devoted  a  king's  ransom  to  his  child 
health  work. 

BerUner  bubbles  with  good  nature.  He  would 
rather  perpetrate  a  witticism  than  an  opinion,  and 
prefers  telling  or  hearing  good  stories  to  holding 
post-mortems  on  his  scientific  past.  To  many  au 
aspiring  young  man  Berliner  has  said:  ** Never 
dwell  on  a  success.  Eeach  out  for  the  next ! "  He  is 
a  modest  man.  For  more  than  ten  years  family  and 
friends  tried  in  vain  to  induce  him  to  compile  his 
autobiography.  He  thinks  autobiography  is  the 
stage  of  life  a  man  reaches  when  he  begins  to  take 
himself  seriously,  and  Berliner  has  always  warded 
off  that  s^^nptom  of  dotage,  as  he  calls  it.  "Within 
these  pages  is  the  only  account  of  the  inventor's 
career  for  which  Berliner  has  ever  taken  the  time  to 
assemble  essential  data.  "Wlien  friends  become  ad- 
ulatory about  his  discoveries,  he  dismisses  these  as 


290 EMILE  BERLiyrER 

''just  good  guesses."  He  wanted  to  call  this  volume 
Guessing  Right.  Berliner  tenaciously  refused  to 
become  the  lion  of  festivities  which  prominent 
Washington  friends  wanted  to  arrange  in  honor  of 
the  seventy-fifth  anniversary  of  his  birth  on  May  20, 
1926.  When  the  day  came,  he  stole  away  to  Swarth- 
more  College,  where  a  favorite  granddaughter.  Miss 
Gertrude  Sanders,  is  an  undergraduate,  and  spent 
the  diamond  jubilee  with  her  and  nine  other  co-eds 
at  lunch  and  on  the  Quaker  campus. 

Once  Berliner  met  an  old  friend  in  a  Washington 
optician's  shop  after  a  lapse  of  many  years.  He 
banteringly  berated  the  man  for  ** neglecting"  him 
and  never  taking  the  trouble  to  reknit  the  ties  of 
other  times.  The  friend,  a  little  flustered,  resorted 
to  the  ruse  of  changing  the  conversation  by  admir- 
ing a  beautiful  pigeon-blood  ruby  ring  which  Ber- 
liner wore.  ''Emile,"  he  said,  "that's  a  handsome 
ring  you've  got  there.  You  promised  me  that!" 
Berliner  replied  that  he  was  sorry  he  couldn't  part 
with  the  jewel,  as  it  was  a  present,  many  years  pre- 
vious, from  Mrs.  Berliner.  A  couple  of  days  later 
the  inventor's  old  friend  was  astonished  to  receive 
from  a  fashionable  jeweler's  shop  an  exact  duplicate 
of  the  ruby  ring  with  Berliner's  compliments. 

When  Berliner  Avas  launching  his  pure-milk 
crusade  in  Washington,  he  was  at  more  or  less  in- 
cessant war  mth  the  local  doctors.  The  Medical 
Society  objected  in  particular  to  his  gratis  circula- 
tion of  The  Bottle-Fed  Baby,  on  the  ground  that  it 


Mr.    Berlixer    in    Fkoxt    of    Microphoxe   at   WEC    Broadcastixc; 

Statiox,  V\'AsnixGTOx,  D.  C.     The  Author  of  This  Volume  Since 

1923   Has  Broadcast  "The  Political  Situation  in  Washington 

To-night"'  Weekly  through  the  Microphoxe  Here  Shown 


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AN  INVENTOR  >S  HUMAN  SIDE         291 

gave  young  mothers  so  much  and  so  sound  advice  on 
the  rearing  of  infants  that  it  was  almost  as  potent 
as  an  apple  a  day — it  kept  the  doctor  away.  Finally 
the  Medical  Society  decided  to  invite  Berliner  to  a 
joint  conference  at  which  the  merits  and  demerits  of 
The  Bottle-Fed  Bahy  would  be  thoroughly  discussed. 

^'We  shall  name  five  delegates,"  said  the  medics 
to  Berliner,  **and  you  may  name  five." 

**I  don't  need  but  three,"  the  inventor-humani- 
tarian rejoined. 

The  conference  was  duly  convened.  Berliner's 
trio  of  protagonists  consisted  of  Doctor  George 
Martin  Kober,  Professor  of  Hygiene  and  Dean  of 
the  Medical  Faculty  of  Georgetown  University, 
Washington;  Doctor  Ernest  Charles  Schroeder, 
Veterinarian  and  Expert  on  Animal  Industry  in  the 
Department  of  Agriculture;  and  Mrs.  E.  R.  Grant, 
Chairman  of  the  Advisory  Committee  on  Child 
Health  Education  of  the  National  Tuberculosis 
Association. 

Berliner  introduced  his  **big  three"  to  the  Med- 
ical Society  ''trial  board"  and  reeled  off  their  re- 
spective ranks,  titles  and  scientific  stations  in  life 
with  impressive  solemnity. 

Going  through  the  motions  of  being  staggered  by 
this  galaxy  of  talent,  the  spokesman  of  the  doctors 
ejaculated : 

''Why,  Mr.  Berliner,  you  leave  me  speechless!" 

"Well,  Doctor,"  Berliner  replied,  "we  expected 
to  render  you  speechless  with  our  argument,  but  not 


292 EMILE  BERLINER 

with  our  mere  presence.    Are  we  to  consider  the 
matter  settled  without  conference?" 

When  the  World  War  broke  out  in  1914,  Emile 
Berliner,  though  of  German  origin,  made  prompt 
avowal  of  his  unqualified  pro-Ally  sympathies. 
He  has  always  had  an  amused  contempt  for  the  pre- 
tensions of  the  more  arrogant  type  of  German, 
especially  of  the  titled  aristocrat  and  military  breed. 
Menials  in  Germany,  when  they  want  to  fawn  upon 
a  superior,  frequently  address  a  vain  and  suscep- 
tible male  as  ''Herr  Baron"  (Mr.  Baron).  To-day 
Emile  Berliner  is  fond  of  bestoudng  that  mock  title 
of  nobility  upon  his  intimate  friends,  especially  if 
they  understand  German. 

The  inventor  of  the  microphone,  despite  his  Ger- 
man blood,  is  a  tireless  spinner  of  yarns  illustrative 
of  Teuton  pretensions  and  foibles. 

''A  Yankee  millionaire  once  was  motoring 
through  Berlin,"  Berliner  narrates,  ''and  drove 
helter-skelter  through  Brandenburg  Gate  (Berlin's 
Arc  de  Triomphe  at  the  head  of  Unter  den  Linden). 
A  policeman  stopped  the  American  on  the  other  side 
of  the  gate.  'You're  fined  five  hundred  marks,'  the 
cop  said.  'What  for?'  asked  the  Yankee.  'For  using 
a  part  of  this  arch  reserved  exclusively  for  the 
kaiser.'  The  American  pulled  out  his  pocketbook 
and  gave  the  policeman  one  thousand  marks.  'I  said 
five  hundred  marks,'  the  Scliutzmann  explained.  'I 
heard  you  the  first  time,'  the  man  from  the  United 
States  said,  'but  I'm  coming  back!'  " 


AN  INVENTOR  >S  HUMAN  SIDE  293 

Berliner  was  once  asked  what  impressed  him 
most  about  pre-war  Berlin,  when  sabers  rattled 
more  conspicuously  than  in  this  democratic  day 
on  the  Spree.  *'The  Prussian  mounted  police,"  he 
replied.  '^I  liked  the  intelligent  look  on  the  face  of 
the  horses!"    The  republican  police  has  improved. 

A  friend,  during  this  golden  jubilee  year  of  the 
invention  of  the  Bell  telephone,  asked  Emile  Ber- 
liner if  he  thought  the  telephone  is  now  perfect. 

"No,"  the  maker  of  the  transmitter  chuckled. 
''I've  got  three  more  inventions  up  my  sleeve — one 
is  a  scheme  to  prevent  your  getting  the  wrong  num- 
ber; another,  which '11  prevent  you  from  being  cut 
off,  and  a  third,  perhaps  the  most  important  of 
all,  which  will  prevent  johnnies  and  flappers  from 
talking  at  a  stretch  more  than  twenty  minutes  dur- 
ing the  busy  hours  of  the  forenoon!" 

Berliner  says  he  has  only  one  regret  about  the 
invention  of  the  gramophone.  He  thinks  it  ought  to 
have  been  devised  so  that  records  couldn  't  be  played 
after  ten  o  'clock  at  night,  except  for  dancing. 

In  his  old  home  on  Columbia  Road,  in  Washing- 
ton, Berliner  once  had  a  large  golden  eagle  hanging 
in  the  front  hall.  A  gullible  visitor  was  inquisitive 
about  the  gleaming  bird's  origin. 

''That,"  said  Berliner,  with  great  gravity,  "is 
the  original  American  eagle  shot  by  George  Wash- 
ington in  the  Rocky  Mountains.  He  gave  it  to  his 
bodyguard,  who  was  a  cousin  of  Uncle  Tom,  and  for 
years  it  hung  in  Uncle  Tom's  cabin.    One  day  Har- 


294 EMILE  BERLINER 

riet  Beecher  Stowe  visited  Uncle  Tom,  and  out  of 
gratitude  for  having  been  written  up  by  Mrs.  Stowe, 
he  gave  her  the  eagle.  Mrs.  Stowe  took  it  to  New 
York  and  after  her  death  her  effects  were  sold  at 
auction.  It  was  bought  by  a  wholesale  feather  mer- 
chant, and  one  day  I  bought  it  from  him!" 

Berliner  has  an  uncommonly  good  memory — bet- 
ter, he  says,  than  the  absent-minded  German  pro- 
fessor who  said:  ''There  are  three  things  I  can 
never  remember:  names,  faces,  and  the  other  thing 
I  have  completely  forgotten!" 

Although  he  has  been  away  from  the  Fatherland 
fifty-six  years,  Berliner  still  speaks  a  classic  Ger- 
man, and  can  quote  Goethe  and  Schiller  like  a  Herr 
Professor.  AVhen  the  war  depopularized  the  use  of 
the  kaiser's  jawbreaking  language  in  America,  a 
German-American  friend  asked  Berliner  what  the 
latter  was  going  to  substitute  for  Gesundheit 
(Health),  the  ancient  German  greeting  when  one 
hears  another  sneeze. 

"Say  'Liberty!'  "  Berliner  suggested.  He  acted 
on  his  own  proposal,  and  throughout  the  war  when 
anybody  in  the  Berliner  household  sneezed,  some- 
body exclaimed:   "Liberty!" 

Berliner  considered  Luther  Burbank  one  of  the 
outstanding  men  of  our  day.  Once  the  inventor  of 
the  microphone  described  the  union  of  a  certain 
eminent  American  couple,  the  fairer  of  whom  is  in- 
incomparably  more  charming,  as  "a  Luther  Burbank 
marriage — the  union  of  a  'lemon'  and  a  'peach.'  " 


AN  INVENTOR'S  HUMAN  SIDE  295 


Hardly  a  day  passes  that  Emile  Berliner  is  not 
asked  his  recipe  for  keeping  eternally  youthful  in 
spirit  and  point  of  view,  looking  young  out  of  tune 
\dth  his  age,  and  for  the  almost  boyish  springiness 
that  marks  his  every  step  and  gesture.  He  claims 
never  to  have  sipped  at  the  rejuvenating  fountain 
of  Ponce  de  Leon,  or  had  resort  to  any  of  the 
standard  elixirs  of  life,  but  to  have  adhered,  rather, 
to  six  whimsical  "rules"  of  his  o^vn  fashioning: 

1.  Select  healthy  parents. 

2.  Follow  Doctor  Pat's  advice  to  liis  friend 
Mike:  "Ni^^er  have  anything  on  yer  mind  but  ver 
hat." 

3.  Keep  away  from  raw  milk,  from  raw  cream 
and  from  butter  made  of  unpasteurized  cream. 

4.  Get  all  the  sleep  your  body  seems  to  need. 

5.  Seek  the  association  of  persons  younger  than 
yourself. 

6.  Don't  carry  grievances — cultivate  cheerful- 
ness, kindliness  and  smiles. 

Because  like  "Bobs"  in  Eudyard  Kipling's  bar- 
rack-room ballad,  "  'e  does  not  advertise,"  Emile 
Berliner's  virtues  as  father,  friend  and  man  are 
those  most  often  acclaimed  in  the  immediate  circle 
of  his  acquaintances  and  admirers.  They  know  of 
the  love  he  has  lavished  upon  a  large  family ;  of  the 
pious  devotion  with  which  he  honors  the  memory  of 
his  mother;  of  the  unostentatious  and  unrecorded 
charities  he  is  constantly  rendering;  of  his  aggres- 
sive public  spirit;  of  his  fondness  for  old  friends, 
especially    the    comrades    of   his    struggling   days. 


296 EMILE  BERLINER 

They  know,  in  particular,  of  the  sympathetic  back- 
ground and  sustaining  influence  wliich  have  been 
vouchsafed  Emile  Berliner  by  a  well-regulated 
home,  over  which  the  companion  of  forty-five  years 
still  presides.  They  know  what  the  combination  of 
wife  and  fireside  has  meant  to  the  restless  inventor. 
They  know  the  joyous  pride  he  has  unceasingly 
taken  in  the  six  children  that  Cora  Adler  Berliner 
bore  him — all  of  them  now  grown  up  and  married, 
with  a  glorious  brood  of  seven  grandchildren  in 
whose  company  Emile  Berliner  derives  endless  con- 
firmation of  his  theory  that  advancing  age  is  most 
successfully  resisted  amid  the  environment  of 
' '  flaming  youth. ' ' 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

BERLINER  PEERS  INTO  THE  FUTURE 

EMILE  BERLINER  does  not  believe  that  we 
already  inhabit  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds. 
He  has  survived  to  see  it  become  an  immeasurably 
happier  place  of  abode,  spiritually,  esthetically  and 
scientifically,  than  any  planet  the  ancients  could  pos- 
sibly have  envisaged.  In  that  development  of 
human  well-being,  Berliner  has  had  a  share,  as  these 
pages  have  set  out.  But  the  inventor-humanitarian, 
whose  optimism  and  idealism  are  always  tinctured 
with  realism  and  conunon  sense,  has  an  abiding 
faith  that  if  he  could  survey  the  terrestrial  scene  a 
hundred  years  hence,  he  would  find  mankind  as  far 
in  advance  of  present-hour  progress  as  the  America 
of  to-day  fabulously  outstrips  the  pioneer  era  from 
which  it  sprang. 

Yet,  paradoxical  as  it  may  sound,  Emile  Ber- 
liner's firmest  conclusion  mth  reference  to  the 
future  is:  "1  do  not  hiotv."  He  contends  that  "we 
know  only  so  far  as  we  can  demonstrate."  He 
points  out  that  those  who  have  demonstrated  most 
feel,  as  a  rule,  that  they  have  not  penetrated  very 
far;  that,  in  a  sense   they  have  only  scratched  the 

297 


298 EMILE  B?]RLIXER 

surface  of  the  inscrutable  soil  they  essayed  to  till. 
Berliner,  in  a  word,  holds  that  the  true  scientist  is, 
intuitively,  the  least  dogmatic  of  men.  The  word 
cocksureness  is  not  in  his  lexicon. 

AMien  Berliner  is  asked  for  his  "philosophy  of 
life,"  as  he  frequently  is,  he  takes  recourse  in  James 
Clerk  Maxwell's  Atoms.  In  that  essay,  the  English 
mathematician  who  blazed  the  trail  that  led  to  radio, 
said  : 

"Science  is  incompetent  to  reason  upon  the  crea- 
tion of  matter  itself  out  of  nothing.  We  have 
reached  the  utmost  limit  of  our  thinking  faculties 
when  we  have  admitted  that,  because  matter  can  not 
be  eternal  and  self-existent,  it  must  have  been 
created." 

"Whenever  I  scan  that  prescient  passage  in 
Maxwell,"  says  Berliner,  "and  realize  that  the 
greatest  mathematical  physicist  of  the  nineteenth 
century  thus  had  to  admit  the  fallibility  of  human 
logic,  I  cease  to  worry  about  the  infinite."  Berliner 
has  a  personal  creed  that  is  based  to  a  considerable 
extent  on  the  Maxwellian  theory.  As  to  religion, 
Berliner  inclines  to  Elbert  Hubbard's  view  that 
"mf-re  dogma  is  a  hard  substance  that  forms  in  a 
soft  brain." 

But  the  maker  of  the  microphone  believes  that 
religion  is  an  indispensable  factor  in  life  because 
its  institutional  feature — the  church — is  the  only 
agency  that  has  for  its  primary  object  the  pre- 
sentation and  propagation  of  ideals.  Without  ideals. 


PEEES  INTO  THE  FUTURE  299 

Berliner  asserts,  ''civilized  society  would  disin- 
tegrate. ' ' 

One  of  the  calls  echoing  urgently  from  the  future 
to  the  present,  in  Emile  Berliner's  judgment,  is  for 
a  program  of  popular  education  in  sex  psychology', 
i.  e.,  the  understanding,  by  men,  of  the  minds  of 
women.  He  considers  such  a  program  fundamental 
to  the  happiness  of  the  human  race.  If  the  sexes 
understood  each  other  better,  greater  unity  of  pur- 
pose ■would  come  out  of  willing  compromises,  and 
marriage  would  be  less  of  a  gamble. 

"Marriage,"  Berliner  affirms,  "is  a  mutual  ac- 
commodation between  the  natural  instinct  to  mate 
and  the  laws  of  society  that  are  necessary  for  the 
protection  of  children.  Happy  marriages  are  un- 
doubtedly the  best  solutions  of  the  mating  instinct 
and  afford  the  most  solid  foundation  for  civilized 
society.  Unfortunately,  economic  conditions  con- 
tinuously operate  against  early  marriages  craved  by 
Nature.  Human  society,  of  course,  has  been  grap- 
pling with  the  problem,  in  all  its  multifarious  rami- 
fications, since  the  da^^l  of  Time,  and  demanded  a 
solution  not  yet  vouchsafed  the  children  of  men. 
Only  in  recent  times  has  youth  apparently  revolted 
openly  against  a  system  it  finds  intolerable,  claim- 
ing the  right  to  love  as  youth's  natural  preroga- 
tive." 

"What  is  your  remedy  for  this  state  of  affairs?" 
Berliner  was  asked  while  this  story  of  his  life  was 
in  the  making. 


300 EMILE  BERLINER 

** Probably  Ingersoll  had  the  right  answer,"  Ber- 
liner replied.  ''Many  years  ago  I  discussed  this  rid- 
dle of  the  universe — sex — with  the  great  agnostic. 
Ingersoll  said:  'Some  day  you  scientific  men  will 
furnish  a  simple  means  of  birth  control.  That  will 
help  to  bring  about  a  solution  of  the  sex  question.' 
Ingersoll  placed  his  finger  on  the  strategic  feature 
of  the  problem.  To-day  the  time  which  he  foresaw 
has  almost  arrived." 

On  the  eternal  issue  of  how  a  world  peopled  with 
men  and  women,  in  whom  belligerency  and  covetous- 
ness  are  dormant,  if  not  active,  traits,  can  abolish 
war,  Emile  Berliner  holds  stimulating  views.  He 
believes  the  international  millennium  is  much  more 
likely  to  be  promoted  by  language  than  by  leagues. 
"A  prime  means  to  'end  war,'  "  he  says,  "would  in 
my  opinion  be  the  adoption  of  a  universal  language 
which  every  schoolchild  in  creation  would  learn. 
Literature  in  that  language  would  then  bo  fostered 
in  every  land.  Radio  would  speak  a  tongue  under- 
stood around  the  globe,  and  could  carry  it  to  the 
uttermost  corners.  I  believe  that  English,  with 
reformed  and  simplified  spelling,  would  make  an 
excellent  universal  language.  This  would  lead  the 
nations  readily  into  a  common  channel  of  thought, 
would  make  every  mind  accessible  to  universal 
ideals,  and  would  enable  every  great  writer  to  dis- 
seminate his  ideals  in  all  directions.  The  fraterni- 
zation of  the  nations  would  automatically  ensue  and 
continue.    There  would  be  no  more  'foreigners'  or 


PEERS  INTO  THE  FUTURE  301 

'aliens'  in  a  world  inhabited  by  men  and  women 
who  talked  to  each  other  in  a  language  common  to 
all." 

Berliner  contends  that  such  thoughts  as  these  are 
not  the  dreamings  of  an  impractical  idealist.  **0n 
March  23,  1926,"  he  points  out,  ''the  Associated 
Press  carried  the  following  striking  news:  'Com- 
plete annihilation  of  space  for  the  human  voice  is  the 
ultimate  aim  of  engineers  of  the  American  Tele- 
phone and  Telegraph  Company,  now  perfecting  a 
commercial  transatlantic  telephone  service.  They 
believe  that  ultimately  men  will  be  able  to  talk  be- 
tween any  two  points  on  the  face  of  the  earth.* 
Thus,  we  see,  the  engineers  are  doing  their  part.  Let 
the  dreamers  and  the  idealists — and  the  philolo- 
gists— ^now  do  theirs." 

His  contemporaries  often  seek  light  and  leading 
from  Emile  Berliner  on  the  puzzle  of  the  life 
hereafter.  "Intermolecular  space,"  he  replies,  "ex- 
ists between  the  molecules  or  atoms  and  may  par- 
take and  embody  in  its  ether  something  of  the 
activities  of  the  molecules.  Under  this  entirely 
scientific  assumption  a  so-called  astral  body,  a  body 
of  ether,  might  remain  after  the  dissolution  or  scat- 
tering of  the  molecules  of  the  human  body.  This,  I 
believe,  as  a  theory,  might  presage  some  individual 
activity  after  death." 

Emile  Berliner,  as  he  looks  down  the  endless  cor- 
ridor of  the  future,  foresees  a  world  in  which  women 
through  educated  motherhood  will  play  a  tremen- 


302 EMTLE  BERLINER 

dously  increasing  role.  In  his  own  realm  of  science, 
in  particular,  he  visualizes  them  as  factors  bound 
one  day  to  serve  mankind  as  effectually  as  men 
scientists  in  the  long  past  have  done.  That  women, 
with  rare  exceptions  like  Madame  Curie,  hitherto 
have  not  shone  scientifically  Berliner  attributes 
primarily  to  their  lack  of  educational  opportunity, 
rather  than  to  inherent  incapacity.  Actuated  by 
that  conviction  Berliner  in  1908,  with  the  coopera- 
tion of  the  American  Association  of  University 
Women,  founded  ''The  Sarah  Berliner  Research 
Fellowship."  It  was  established  in  memory  of  the 
inventor's  mother,  a  woman  of  parts,  who,  of  course, 
had  not  had  a  college  education  herself — women  in 
those  days,  neither  in  Germany  nor  in  America, 
even  having  been  admitted  to  university  courses — 
but  a  woman  who  was  decidedly  intellectual  in  her 
interests. 

It  was  largely  at  the  instigation  of  Mrs.  Chris- 
tine Ladd  Franklin,  wife  of  Fabian  Franklin,  and 
one  of  the  first  women  to  complete  the  work  required 
for  the  doctor's  degree  at  Johns  Hopkins  Univer- 
sity, that  Emile  Berliner  was  induced  to  found  the 
Fellowship.  It  is  open  to  all  American  women  hold- 
ing the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy  or  Doctor  of 
Science,  who  give  promise  of  distinction  in  the  sub- 
ject to  which  they  are  devoting  themselves.  The 
Fellowship  is  available  for  research  in  physics, 
chemistry  or  biology.  The  committee  on  fellowships 
of  the  Association  of  University  Women  is  the  com- 


PEERS  INTO  THE  FUTURE  303 

mittee  on  awards.  The  university  women  in  charge 
of  the  Sarah  Berliner  Fund  give  explicit  recognition 
to  those  candidates  for  the  award,  who  can  carry  on 
research  and  at  the  same  time  might  have  the  privi- 
lege of  giving  one  or  more  courses  of  lectures  at 
some  university  or  other  institution  of  learning. 
The  value  of  the  Fellowship  is  more  than  twelve 
hundred  dollars  a  year. 

Professor  Agnes  L.  Rogers,  of  the  department  of 
education  at  Bryn  Mawr  College,  who  is  now  chair- 
man of  the  Committee  on  Fellowships  of  the  Amer- 
ican Association  of  University  Women,  says : 

*'Mr.  Berliner's  foundation  was  one  of  the  first, 
if  not  the  first,  fellowships  for  women  in  the  United 
States  and  the  very  first  designated  for  work  in 
science.  As  it  has  always  been  the  largest  fellow- 
ship for  women  in  this  country  until  1926,  when  the 
Guggenheim  Fellowships  were  founded,  amounting 
to  twenty-five  hundred  dollars  each,  the  women  who 
have  held  the  Berliner  Fellowship  have  been  very 
distinguished.  It  has  bound  to  our  Association  of 
University  Women  some  of  the  leaders  among  re- 
search workers  in  this  country,  and  we  are  exceed- 
ingly proud  of  what  we  have  been  able  to  accomplish 
through  Mr.  Berliner's  vision  and  generosity. 

*'It  should  be  remembered  that  Mr.  Berliner 
made  this  fellowship  available  when  woman's  posi- 
tion in  colleges  and  universities  was  far  from  being 
so  assured  as  now,  and  when  their  power  to  conduct 
research  in  any  field  was  questioned.    His  faith  has, 


304 


EMILE  BERLINER 


I  believe,  through  the  Sarah  Berliner  Fellowship, 
encouraged  many  -women  to  high  endeavor  and  has 
enheartened  them  to  pursue  their  interest  in  science 
in  spite  of  an  atmosphere  of  what  was  as  recently  as 
eighteen  years  ago  almost  universal  discourage- 
ment."* 

Berliner,  of  course,  is  radiantly  optimistic  with 
regard  to  the  future  possibilities  of  the  inventions 
■svith  which  his  name  is  indissolubly  linked — the  tele- 
phone, the  gramophone  and  radio.  Literally,  he  con- 
siders those  possibilities  illimitable,  and  progress  in 
their  realization,  Berliner  predicts  will  be  rapid  be- 
yond all  popular  expectation 

The  Bell  Telephone  System  in  1926  had  to  in- 
crease its  share  capitalization  to  one  billion  one 
hundred  million  dollars — making  it  the  largest  cor- 
poration in  the  world — to  keep  pace  with  the  in- 
creased growth  of  telephony. 


*SAiiAH  Beslesee  Eeseaech  axd  Lectuke  Fellowship 


Tear     Recipient  of  Award 


University 


1909  Caroline  McGill 

1911  Edna  Carter 

1912  Gertrude  Rand 

1913  Elizabeth  R.  Laird 

1914  Ethel  X.  Bro-svne 

1915  Janet   T.  Howell 

1916  Mildred  West  Loring 

1917  Carlotta  J.  Maurj 
(Marjorie  O'Donnell 

1918 ^Cornelia  Kennedy 

1919  Olive  Swezy 

1920  Mrs.  Helene  Connet  WilsomBaltimore 

1921  Francis  G.  Wick  Various  Collegea 

1922  Ruth  B.  Holland  Various  Colleges 

1923  Helen  C.  Coombs  Yonkers 

1924  LeoHora  Neuffer  Cincinnati 

1925  Hope  Hibbard  Various  CoDegea 

1926  Helen  Downes  Various  Collegea 


Missouri 

Vassar 

Brm  Mawr 

Mt.   Holyoke 

Columbia 

Brrn  Mawr 

Johns  Hopkins 

Hastings-on-HudBon 

New  York 

Minnesota 

Minnesota 


Selected 

Subject 
Anatomy 
Physics 
Biology 
Physics 
Biology 
Physics 
Psychology 
Paleantology 
C  Geology 
I  Nutrition 
Parasitology 
Physiology 
Physics,  himina 
Biology 
Physiology 
Chemistry 
Zoology 
Chemifltrj 


PEERS  INTO  THE  FUTURE  305 

It  was  only  in  1926,  too,  that  the  medical  world 
was  electrified  by  news  head-lined  in  the  metropoli- 
tan journals  of  the  country  as  follows:  '* Talking 
Machine  Disks  Trap  Heart  Beats."  Then  it  was 
narrated  that  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of 
medical  science  the  sound  of  heart  heats  ivas,  re- 
corded on  talking-machine  records  and  reproduced 
for  a  class  of  physicians.  A  hundred  doctors  from 
all  parts  of  the  United  States  and  from  Canada 
gathered  at  the  Massachusetts  General  Hospital  in 
Boston  on  June  eighth  and  listened  simultaneously 
through  individual  stethoscopes  to  heart  beats  en- 
graved on  talking-machine  records.  The  sounds 
were  recorded  and  reproduced  in  so  minute  detail 
that  they  served  for  study  in  diagnosis.  The  inven- 
tion is  expected  to  be  of  far-reaching  significance  to 
both  the  medical  profession  and  the  general  public. 
The  recording  and  reproducing  devices  were  devel- 
oped by  Doctor  Richard  C.  Cabot,  of  Boston,  noted 
physician  and  educator,  and  Doctor  Clarence  Gam- 
ble, of  Philadelphia,  and  the  results  cro^vn  eighteen 
years  of  study  and  experimentation. 

Radio,  in  Berliner's  judgment,  will  revolutionize 
the  future  art  of  oratory.  It  will  divest  public 
speaking  of  the  purely  flamboyant  and  clothe  it  mth 
a  dignity  born  not  so  much  of  emotion-stirring  elo- 
quence as  of  conviction-carrjdng  statement  of  fact 
and  presentation  of  argument. 

*'My  views  on  this  score,"  says  Berliner,  ''were 
put  more  forcefully  than  I  could  express  them  wheq 


306 EMILE  BERLINER 

Vice-President  Dawes  spoke  at  Washington  on  June 
4, 1926,  at  the  'finals'  of  the  third  national  oratorical 
contest  of  the  high  school  children  of  the  United 
States. 

**  'The  radio,'  Mr.  Dawes  pointed  out,  'has  inter- 
posed itself  between  the  orator  and  our  largest 
crowds — crowds  which  run  into  millions  in  num- 
ber— while  the  exceptional  human  voice  unaided  by 
this  device  can  make  itself  heard  at  best  by  only  from 
five  to  twenty  thousand  people.  But  a  fact  of  immense 
significance  is  that  each  man  of  the  larger  number 
listening  to  an  orator  over  the  radio  listens  as  an  in- 
dividual thinking  man  and  not  as  one  of  an  impres- 
sionable crowd.  As  scientists  have  pointed  out,  when 
a  gathering  of  people  is  in  the  physical  presence  of 
an  orator  and  under  the  spell  of  his  eloquence  and 
personal  magnetism,  the  emotions  can  be  so  aroused 
as  not  only  to  interfere  with  individual  mental 
activity,  but  at  times  absolutely  to  destroy  it.  The 
amalgamation  of  people  into  crowds  seems  to  create 
a  living  organism  possessing  a  definite  character 
and  definite  mental  attributes,  one  of  which  is  the 
almost  total  lack  of  reasoning  power.  All  this  means 
that  instead  of  reaching  the  mind  through  the  emo- 
tions, a  man  speaking  over  the  radio  must  reach  the 
emotions  through  the  mind,  if  he  is  to  reach  them 
at  all.  It  means  that  the  orator  of  the  future,  to  hold 
and  impress  his  audience,  must  largely  abandon  ap- 
peal to  emotion  and  confine  himself  to  reason  forci- 
bly expressed  and  logically  arranged.     It  means 


PEERS  INTO  THE  FUTURE  307 

inevitably  that  the  oratory  of  the  future  is  to  he  the 
oratory  of  condensed  reason,  as  distinguished  from 
demagoguery  with  its  appeals  to  prejudice  and  emo- 
tion., This  fact  is  fraught  with  tremendous  sig- 
nificance to  the  future  public  welfare.'  " 

For  whatever  good  fortune  has  come  to  Emile 
Berliner  in  a  life  of  constructive  contribution  to 
civilization,  he  gives  devout  and  humble  thanks  to 
the  spirit  of  America.  In  our  land  of  untrammeled 
opportunity  he  found  himself.  From  out  of  its 
boundless  possibilities,  with  a  confidence  born  of  his 
own  experience,  he  foreshadows  that  still  greater 
things  will  come  for  the  enrichment  not  only  of  the 
country  of  his  adoption,  but  for  the  world  which  it 
leads. 

In  honor  of  a  friend,  who  was  celebrating  a  sev- 
entieth birthday  anniversary,  Emile  Berliner,  con- 
templating the  inevitable  fate  of  mortals,  once  drew 
a  fantastic  picture  of  the  eventide  of  men  and 
women  who  have  played  worthily  the  roles  assigned 
them  on  Life's  fitful  stage.    He  wrote  this  finale: 

**And  when  the  end  cometh  they  shall  walk  down 
a  flower-bedecked  slope  and  meet  the  smiling  old 
ferryman  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  who  will  beckon  them 
to  follow  him  to  the  blissful  abodes,  where  dwell  the 
serene  and  gentle  souls  that  preceded  them,  into  the 
realms  of  peace,  to  the  glades  where  fairies  sing 
enchanting  melodies,  into  a  world  of  sunlit  golden 
dreams. 


308         EMILE  BERLINER 

''There  they  shall  listen  to  the  music  of  the 
spheres  filling  all  with  their  bewitching  harmonies. 
Time  has  lost  its  measure  and  its  meaning,  space  is 
pierced  by  the  spiritual  eye. 

*'And,  beholding  a  world  of  splendor  and  of 
glories,  from  the  watch  towers  of  eternity,  glisten- 
ing in  the  tremulous  rays  of  celestial  fires,  they  shall 
hear  the  far  cry  of  a  venerable  Muezzin : 

"  'Peace  he  with  you,  fighting  is,  over,  and  all  is 
well!'  " 

THE  END 


APPENDICES 

I 

BEELINER'S   CAVEAT   DESCRIBING   THE 
MICROPHONE* 

Filed  in  the  United  States  Patent  Office,  April  14,  1877_ 

SPECIFICATION 

PART  I.  The  following  is  a  description  of  my 
newly-invented  apparatus  for  transmitting 
sound  of  any  kind  by  means  of  a  wire  or  any  other 
conductor  of  electricity,  to  any  distance. 

It  is  a  fact  and  a  scientific  principle  that  objects 
near  each  other  which  are  charged  with  electricity 
of  the  same  polarity  repel  each  other.  It  is  also  a 
fact  that  if  at  a  point  of  contact  between  two  ends 
of  a  galvanic  current,  the  pressure  between  both 
sides  of  the  contact  becomes  weakened,  the  current 
passing  becomes  less  intense,  as,  for  instance,  if  an 
operator  on  a  Morse  instrument  does  not  press  down 
the  key  with  a  certain  firmness,  the  sounder  at  the 
receiving  instrument  does  work  much  weaker  than  if 

*See  page  90. 

309 


310 EMILE  BERLINER 

the  full  pressure  of  the  hand  would  have  been  used. 
Based  on  these  two  facts  I  have  constructed  a  sim- 
ple apparatus  for  transmitting  sound  along  a  line 
of  a  galvanic  current  in  the  following  manner: 

Part  II.  In  the  drawing  accompanying  this 
caveat  B  is  a  metal  plate  well  fastened  to  the  wooden 
box  or  frame  A,  but  able  to  vibrate  if  sound  is 
uttered  against  it  or  in  the  neighborhood  of  said 
plate.  Against  the  plate,  and  touching  it,  is  the 
metal  ball  C,  which  rests  on  the  bar  or  stand  F  and 
presses  against  the  plate,  which  pressure  however 
can  be  regulated  by  the  thumb-screw  D  attached  to 
the  ball.  By  making  the  plate  vibrate  the  pressure 
at  the  point  of  contact  A  becomes  weaker  or 
stronger  as  often  as  vibrations  occur  and  according 
to  which  side  of  the  plate  the  sound  comes  from. 

Part  III.  If  a  current  of  electricity  passes 
through  the  plate  and  the  point  of  contact  or  vice 
versa,  a  repulsive  movement  mil  take  place  be- 
tween the  plate  and  the  ball  because  both  are 
charged  with  the  same  kind  of  electricity.  This 
force  of  repulsion  may  be  weakened  or  strengthened 
by  varying  the  strength  of  the  current. 

Part  IV.  By  placing  now,  as  in  the  drawing  is 
shown,  one  such  instrument  in  the  station  fig.  1  and 
another  instrument  in  the  station  fig.  2  both  situ- 
ated on  the  same  voltaic  current  (as  shown  by  the 
wire  connections  following  the  arrows),  sound  ut- 
tered against  the  plate  of  the  instrument  fig.  I  will 
be  reproduced  by  the  plate  of  the  instrument  fig.  2 ; 


APPENDICES  311 


for  as  the  vibrations  of  the  transmitter  fig.l  caused 
by  the  sound  will  alternately  weaken  and  strengthen 
the  current  as  many  times  as  vibrations  occur,  so  mil 
also  the  force  of  repulsion  at  the  point  in  the  receiver 
be  alternately  weakened  and  strengthened  as  many 
times  accordingly  and  mil  therefore  cause  the  plate 
to  vibrate  at  the  same  rate  and  measure.  The  latter 
vibrations  being  communicated  to  the  surrounding 
air,  the  same  kind  of  sound  as  uttered  against  the 
transmitter  fig.  1  will  be  reproduced  at  the  receiver 
fig.  2,  or  in  as  many  other  receiving  instruments  as 
are  situated  within  the  same  voltaic  circuit. 

Part  V.  It  is  not  material  that  the  plate  should 
be  of  metal;  same  can  be  of  any  material  able  to 
vibrate  if  only  at  the  point  of  contact  suitable  ar- 
rangement is  made  so  that  the  current  passes 
through  that  point.  The  plate  may  be  of  any  shape 
or  size  and  may  be  substituted  by  a  wire.  The  ball 
too  may  be  substituted  by  any  other  metallic  point, 
surface,  wire,  etc.  There  may  be  more  than  one 
point  of  contact  becoming  affected  by  the  same  vi- 
brations, and  either  side  or  both  may  vibrate,  al- 
though it  is  preferable  that  only  one  side  should 
vibrate. 

Part  "VT.  If  the  uttered  sound  is  so  strong  that 
its  vibrations  will  cause  a  breaking  of  the  current 
at  the  point  or  points  of  contact  in  the  transmitter, 
then  the  result  at  the  receiving  instruments  will  be 
a  tone  much  louder  but  not  as  distinct  in  regard  to 
articulation. 


312 EMILE  BERLINER 

Part  VII.    What  I  claim  to  have  invented  is, — 

1,  An  instrument  situated  within  an  electric 
circuit  having  two  or  more  ends  of  the  current 
brought  in  contact  with  each  other,  which  points  of 
contact  can  be  loosened  or  tightened  by  vibrating 
one  or  both  sides  of  each  contact,  thus  diminishing 
and  increasing  the  amount  of  electricity  passing 
through  the  contacts  as  many  times  as  vibrations 
occur, 

2,  An  instrument  like  this  one  described  situ- 
ated within  a  voltaic  circuit  and  having  two  or  more 
ends  of  this  circuit  brought  in  contact  with  each 
other,  at  which  point  or  points  of  contact  exists  a 
force  of  repulsion,  caused  by  equal  polarity,  which 
force  can  be  increased  or  decreased  by  increasing 
or  decreasing  the  strength  of  the  current  passing 
through  the  points  of  contact. 

3.  An  apparatus  consisting  of  a  metal  plate  able 
to  vibrate  in  contact  with  a  metal  ball,  each  of 
which  within  the  same  voltaic  or  galvanic  circuit,  so 
that  if,  by  vibrating  the  plate,  the  pressure  at  the 
point  of  contact  gets  loosened  or  tightened,  the 
amount  of  electricity  passing  in  the  current  is  dimin- 
ished or  increased,  as  described. 

4.  Same  instrument  to  be  used  as  a  transmitter 
of  sound-waves,  by  uttering  sound  against  or  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  said  plate  or  its  mechanical 
equivalent,  thus  vibrating  the  plate  and  diminish- 
ing the  amount  of  electricity  passing  as  many  times 
and  as  much  as  the  vibrations  will  loosen  the  pre^r 
sure  of  contact,  as  described. 


APPENDICES  313 


5.  Such  a  similar  apparatus  to  be  used  as  a  re- 
ceiver or  reproducer  of  sound-waves  by  allowing  an 
electric  current  consisting  of  waves  which  are  pro- 
duced as  described  in  Claim  No.  4  to  pass  through 
the  point  of  contact  thus  increasing  or  decreasing 
the  force  of  repulsion  already  existing  between  the 
plate  and  the  ball  at  the  contact  when  a  current  is 
passing.  The  plate  therefore  being  thrown  into  vi- 
brations as  many  times  and  with  an  intensity  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  number  of  waves  and  their  intens- 
ity, the  air  surrounding  the  receiving  plates  will 
also  be  vibrated  and  reproduce  a  sound  similar  to 
the  one  uttered  in  the  transmitting  instrument,  as 
described. 

6.  A  combination  of  two  or  more  of  such  instru- 
ments situated  on  the  same  voltaic  circuit  or  current 
of  electricity  so  that  if  one  plate  is  vibrated  all  the 
others  will  vibrate  at  the  same  rate  and  measure, 
as  described. 

7.  A  system  of  telephony  for  the  purpose  of 
transmitting  sounds  to  any  distance  by  means  of  a 
wire  or  other  conductor  of  electricity,  as  described. 


II 


FIXAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  BLAKE 
TRAXSMITTEE 

[Prepared  far  the  Archives  of  the  American  Telephone 
and  Telegraph  Company] 

IX  Xovember,  1878,  I  left  "Washington  and  pro- 
ceeded to  Xew  York,  where  the  BeU  Telephone 
Company  had  temporary  headquarters  at  Xos.  66 
and  68  Eeade  Street,  sharing  a  loft  ^vith  the  Edison 
Phonograph  Company.  The  personnel  of  our  com- 
pany there  consisted  of  Mr.  Vail,  Mr.  Devonshire 
and  myself.  Mr.  "Watson,  Mr.  Thomas  Sanders,  the 
Treasurer  of  the  Company,  also  Mr.  Hubbard, 
would  occasionally  come  down  from  Boston  to  con- 
fer with  Mr.  Vail. 

Mr.  Francis  Blake,  Jr.,  who  had  invented  an 
ingenius  modification  of  the  loose  contact  trans- 
mitter, was  at  work  in  Boston  trying  to  put  his 
transmitter  into  practical  commercial  form,  but  he 
was  hampered  in  his  work  by  an  increasing  nerv- 
ousness and  he  soon  afterward  retired  to  his  country 
place,  near  Xewton,  where  he  had  fitted  up  a  com- 
plete shop  and  laboratory  for  the  pursuit  of  scien- 
tific research. 

314 


APPEXDICES  315 


On  January  31,  1879,  the  BeU  Company  gave  up 
the  office  on  Eeade  Street  and  we  all  proceeded  to 
Boston.  I  was  requested  to  take  up  the  perfecting 
of  the  Blake  transmitter,  and  the  facilities  in  the 
shops  of  Mr.  Charles  Williams,  Jr.,  who  at  that  time 
manufactured  our  instruments,  were  placed  at  my 
disposal.  Mr.  W.  L.  Eichards  was  assigned  to  me 
as  assistant  and  a  very  small  room  had  been  boarded 
off  on  the  office  floor  to  serve  as  a  testing  station. 

The  status  of  the  Blake  transmitter,  when  I  took 
hold  of  it,  was  briefly,  that  they  could  not  make 
twelve  transmitters  alike  good  and  when  these  were 
adjusted  at  night  they  were  out  of  adjustment  the 
next  morning.  Besides  this  circumstance  the  qual- 
ity of  transmission  was  likely  to  be  ''boomy"  and 
the  transmitter  had  to  be  spoken  into  with  care  in 
order  that  speech  be  universally  well  understood 
at  the  receiving  end.  In  fact,  it  took  a  trained  man, 
one  who  could  judge  the  transmission  by  his  own 
receiver,  to  make  commercial  talking  possible.  Such 
a  transmitter  could  not  be  sent  out  for  use  by  tele- 
phone subscribers  and  for  a  time  during  1879  large 
magneto  box  telephones,  screwed  against  the  wall, 
continued  to  be  used  as  transmitters  in  our  tele- 
phone service. 

The  first  thing  which  I  discovered  was  that  the 
platinum  bead  which  formed  one  contact  electrode 
in  the  Blake  transmitter  would,  when  vibrated  by 
the  voice,  quickly  dig  a  small  cavity  into  the  carbon 
button  which  formed  the  other  contact  electrode,    I 


316 EMILE  BERLINER 

proceeded  to  study  the  electric-arc  light  carbon  rods 
from  which  the  buttons  were  cut.  They  came  from 
Wallace  and  Sons,  of  Ansonia,  Connecticut,  and 
were  of  a  beautiful  even  grain,  but  soft  in  quality. 
We  asked  one  of  the  Wallace  firm  to  come  and  see 
us,  and  I  questioned  him  if  they  could  not  furnish 
us  with  carbon  rods  of  a  hard  quality.  He  said  that 
it  would  mean  longer  baking  and  this  would  cause 
cracks  and  fissures  to  develop  all  through  the  rods. 
Success  in  that  direction,  therefore,  appeared  to  be 
doomed  to  failure. 

It  then  occurred  to  me  that  inasmuch  as  a  very 
hard  and  dense  gas  carbon  formed  in  city  gas  retorts 
on  the  inner  walls,  by  slow  deposition,  why  couldn  't 
we  have  such  deposits  formed  on  our  soft  carbon 
buttons  after  they  had  been  cut  and  finished.  It  did 
not  take  long  to  design  and  have  made  a  small  cage 
of  steel  rods  which  were  far  enough  apart  to  permit 
a  free  access  to  any  gas  but  close  enough  to  prevent 
the  carbon  buttons  from  dropping  out  of  the  cage. 
Several  dozen  of  carbon  buttons  were  placed  in  the 
cage  and,  with  an  introduction  to  the  superintendent 
of  the  Boston  Gas  Works,  I  proceeded  to  their  plant. 
I  was  told  that  city  gas  was  made  in  ** charges"  of 
four  hours  each,  after  which  the  residual  coke  was 
removed  and  a  fresh  charge  of  coal  put  into  the 
retort.  I  was  also  told  that  the  gas  was  the  densest 
on  the  top  of  the  coal  charge.  I  requested  that  my 
little  cage  should  be  placed  on  the  top  of  the  coal 
during  three  consecutive  charges  and  that  I  would 


APPENDICES  317 


send  for  it  the  following  day.  When  I  received  the 
cage  and  opened  it  I  found  my  carbon  buttons  all 
shriveled  up  by  heat,  and  instead  of  a  nice,  smooth 
and  hard  carbon  coating,  they  had  a  porous  and 
rough  appearance;  it  looked  like  failure.  But  I 
rubbed  one  of  the  shriveled  buttons  on  a  piece  of 
emery  cloth  and,  after  rubbing  off  the  spongy  outer 
coating,  I  suddenly  found  the  carbon  so  hard  that 
the  emery  would  not  touch  it.  I  quickly  concluded 
that  what  had  happened  was  that  the  gas  in  the 
retort  had  penetrated  the  carbon  buttons  while  they 
were  red-hot  and  thereby  had  hardened  them,  and 
that  herein  I  w^ould  find  the  solution  of  the  trouble 
with  the  carbon  electrodes.  A  larger  and  stronger 
cage  was  made,  several  hundred  fresh  carbon  but- 
tons were  placed  in  it  and  the  cage  was  sent  to  the 
gas  works  with  the  request  that  it  be  placed  in  the 
retort  for  one  charge  only  and  be  put  lower  down 
into  the  mass  of  fresh  coal.  My  surmise  was  found 
to  be  correct.  The  surfaces  of  these  carbon  buttons 
were  barely  injured  and  when  received  were  in  fine 
hard  shape,  ready  to  be  polished  after  they  had  been 
put  into  their  brass  casings. 

That  process  remained  the  standard  method  of 
treating  the  carbon  buttons  as  long  as  Blake  trans- 
mitters were  manufactured. 

My  next  problem  was  to  purify  the  sound  of  the 
transmission  and  to  prevent  the  ''boomy"  quality. 

The  transmitter  diaphragm  was  at  that  time  held 
in  position  by  two  curved  steel  springs  opposite  each 


318 EMILE  BERLINER 

other  and  pressing  the  loose  rubber  rimmed  dia- 
phragm against  the  iron  casting  which  formed  the 
frame  that  held  the  transmitter  parts.  I  f omid  that 
by  removing  one  of  the  springs  and  substituting 
for  it  a  small  clip  which  pressed  against  the  soft 
rubber  rim  at  the  edge  of  the  diaphragm  the  sound 
was  improved.  Furthermore,  by  reducing  the  curv- 
ature of  the  other  spring  the  transmission  became 
entirely  pure.  As  a  final  step  I  straightened  the  two 
small  springs  which  held  the  carbon  and  the  plati- 
num electrodes  so  that  these  springs  were  parallel 
wdth  the  diaphragm. 

After  reporting  that  the  Blake  transmitter  had 
been  perfected,  orders  were  given  that  two  hundred 
transmitters  a  day  should  be  made  for  us.  These 
were  tested  by  myself  and  Mr.  Richards  and,  once 
adjusted,  they  remained  in  first-class  working  order. 
I  personally  tested  the  first  twenty  thousand  trans- 
mitters and  then  turned  this  branch  of  the  instru- 
ments over  to  Mr.  Richards.  I  devoted  myself  there- 
after to  research  work  and  helped  Professor 
Charles  R.  Cross,  of  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of 
Technology,  in  the  exhaustive  experiments  which 
he  made  for  Mr.  Storrow  to  support  the  latter 's 
legal  work  in  the  defense  of  our  patents  and  in  our 
attacks  against  infringers. 

The  perfected  Blake  transmitter  proved  to  be 
vastly  superior  to  the  Edison  compressed  lampblack 
button  transmitter,  which  the  Gold  and  Stock  Tele- 
graph Company  put  out  for  use  by  its  subscribers. 


APPENDICES  319 


And  this,  I  believe,  was  an  important  factor  and 
helped  the  Bell  Company  to  defeat  the  Western 
Union  Telegraph  Company,  bringing  the  latter  to 
terms  which  ended  the  costly  telephone  fight  be- 
tween the  two  corporations.  It  insured  to  the  Bell 
Company  the  telephone  monopoly. 


Ill 

A  TEIBUTE  TO  EMILE  BERLINER 

N  THE  occasion  of  his  seventy-fifth  birthday 
(May  20,  1925)  we,  the  colleagues  of  Emile 
Berliner  on  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the  Associa- 
tion for  the  Prevention  of  Tuberculosis  of  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia,  in  monthly  session  assembled, 
wish  to  offer  our  felicitations  to  Mr.  Berliner  upon 
his  attainment  of  threescore  and  fifteen  years. 

We  rejoice  in  his  full  possession  of  the  rare  gift 
of  mental  and  physical  vigor  which  he  has  sought  to 
bring  to  others,  especially  the  younger  generation. 

As  a  constant  observer  of  the  Association's 
twelve  Health  Rules,  which  he  was  so  largely  instru- 
mental in  having  drafted,  Mr.  Berliner  is  particu- 
larly an  exemplar  to  all  of  us  in  the  practise  of  the 
precept  twelve,  '' Cultivate  cheerfulness  and  kindli- 
ness, it  will  help  you  to  resist  disease."  Surely,  if 
that  is  the  secret  of  Mr.  Berliner's  "Mens  Sana  in 
Corpore  Sano,"  we  shall  msh  to  thank  him  for 
shomng  us  the  way  of  eternal  youth. 

No  one  but  the  Recording  Angel  ^^^ll  ever  know 
the  number  of  infant  and  child  lives  saved  in  this 
community  by  Mr.  Berliner's  tireless  efforts  to  ob- 
tain for  Washington  a  safe  commercial  milk  supply. 

320 


APPENDICES  321 


Ever  since  1901  and  before  the  movement  against 
tuberculosis  was  organized,  as  we  know  it  to-day, 
Mr.  Berliner  in  season  and  out  of  season  has 
preached  the  danger  of  raw  milk,  especially  in  the 
feeding  of  infants  and  invalids.  After  a  quarter 
of  a  century  of  such  efforts,  Mr.  Berliner  had  the 
satisfaction  of  seeing  Congress  clothe  the  health 
officer  with  power  to  regulate  milk  standards  in  the 
District  of  Columbia,  a  policy  which  he  so  long  and 
untiringly  advocated. 

Mr.  Berliner's  interest  in  health  education  and 
his  belief  in  the  value  of  publicity  and  reiteration 
of  health  precepts  in  the  public  press  and  through 
the  printed  page  are  too  well-known  to  his  colleagues 
of  this  Association  to  call  for  extended  remarks.  In 
the  minutes  of  the  monthly  meetings  of  the  Board  of 
Directors  the  reports  of  the  Chairman  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Publications  bear  permanent  testimony  to 
Mr.  Berliner's  efforts  to  spread  the  gospel  of  posi- 
tive health. 

"We,  the  directors  of  this  Association,  congratu- 
late ourselves  upon  having  had  as  our  president 
from  1917  to  1922,  and  as  a  charter  member  of  the 
Association,  Emile  Berliner,  whose  inventions  have 
brought  happiness  and  satisfaction  to  countless 
thousands,  as  well  as  honor,  fame  and  world-wide 
recognition  to  himself  from  fellow-scientists ;  a  man 
whose  devotion  to  public  health  and  public  welfare 
has  not  been  second  in  interest  to  his  scientific 
attainments. 


322 EMILE  BERLINER 

RESOLVED :  That  a  copy  of  this  tribute  be 
placed  upon  the  permanent  records  of  the  Associa- 
tion for  the  Prevention  of  Tuberculosis  of  the  Dis- 
trict of  Columbia  and  an  engrossed  copy  be  pre- 
sented to  Mr.  Berliner  with  the  assurance  of  the 
esteem  and  affection  of  his  colleagues  of  the  Board 
of  Directors  of  the  Association. 

George  M.  Kober,  M.  D. 
President 
Attest 

Walter  S.  Ufford 
Seal  Secretary 

May  10,  1926 


IV 

A  SPECIMEN  OF  BERLINER'S  ^'HEALTH 
EDUCATION"   BULLETINS 

How  a  Love  Kiss  May  Be  a  Death  Kiss 

(from   the    WASHINGTON    STAR) 

MONG  my  acquaintances  is  a  young  couple, 
who,  at  the  time  of  the  occurrence  which  I 
will  relate,  had  a  beautiful  five-months-old  boy  baby, 
well  developed  physically,  and  particularly  bright 
and  winsome.  One  day  the  child  appeared  to  have 
caught  a  catarrhal  cold.  The  next  day  it  developed 
a  fever  temperature,  pneumonia  set  in,  and  on  the 
following  morning  the  child  died. 

With  the  sadness  of  the  event  on  my  mind,  I  at- 
tempted to  find  out,  if  possible,  where  the  child 
caught  the  infection  that  killed  it.  From  the  father 
I  learned  that  the  apartment  in  which  they  lived  was 
cleaned  with  vacuum  cleaners,  that  their  rooms  were 
swept  with  cai^pet  sweepers,  that  they  were  careful 
at  all  times  to  have  good  ventilation,  and  that  watch- 
ful intelligence  prevailed  in  their  home  in  order  to 
have  it  sanitary  and  well  lighted. 

During  the  funeral,  which  I  attended,  I  heard 
the  mother  of  the  child  repeatedly  cough  in  a  way 

323 


324 EMILE  BERLINER 

which  indicated  that  she  had  a  bad  bronchial  affec- 
tion, and  when  the  carriages  had  returned  it  oc- 
curred to  me  to  ask  the  father  if,  to  his  knowledge, 
the  child  had  ever  been  kissed  on  the  mouth  by  any- 
body. He  said  no,  that  they  never  had  allowed  any- 
body to  kiss  the  baby,  and  only  Katherine,  the 
mother,  occasionally  had  kissed  it,  and  then,  of 
course,  on  the  mouth. 

Needless  to  say,  I  forbade  the  father  ever  to 
tell  his  wife  that  I  had  questioned  him,  but  I  warned 
him  that  if  there  should  be  another  child  that  he 
should  see  to  it  that  no  one,  not  even  the  mother, 
should  ever  kiss  it  on  the  mouth.  I  explained  to  him 
how  such  a  kiss  on  the  lips  of  a  child,  with  its  deli- 
cate mucous  membranes  and  its  low  resistance  to 
disease,  might  easily  set  up  and  develop  an  infection 
of  dangerous  proportion,  even  though  the  patho- 
genic or  disease  germs  that  could  produce  infection 
in  a  child  might  in  the  mouth  of  a  healthy  adult 
remain  harmless. 

It  was  the  late  General  George  M.  Sternberg,  for 
a  number  of  years  surgeon-general  of  the  United 
States  Army  and  a  scientist  of  great  distinction  and 
repute,  who  first  discovered  germs  of  pneumonia  in 
the  sputum  of  a  great  many  adults  who  were  other- 
wise in  perfect  health.  He  found  the  germ  (known 
as  the  pneumo-coccus)  even  in  his  o^^^l  mouth,  and 
also  other  germs,  resting  latent  and  mthout  danger, 
but  ready  to  set  up  serious  infections  should  the 
carrier  of  the  germs  have  had  his  natural  resis- 


APPENDICES  325 


tance  to  disease  lowered.  Such  a  state  might  be 
brought  about  by  various  hygienic  omissions,  by  the 
continuous  breathing  of  bad  air,  by  the  continuous 
partaking  of  impure  food,  notably  raw  milk  and 
cream;  by  excesses  of  all  kinds,  by  morbid  thoughts 
and  by  lack  of  cheer  and  kindliness. 

When  body  resistance  is  thus  lowered,  path- 
ogenic or  disease-producing  germs  may  rapidly 
multiply  in  the  highly  favorable  en^'ironments  of 
the  warm  inner  mouth,  or  oral  cavity,  and  invade  the 
human  organism,  causing  disease.  That  is  the  ac- 
cepted theory  of  general  infection.  Even  of  greater 
import  than  the  disease  germ  itself  is  the  ready  soil 
on  which  it  may  grow  and  multiply.  This  is  what 
we  must  guard  against,  and  progressive  and  specific 
hygiene  teaches  us  how  to  do  so. 

The  warning  which  the  above  occurrence  carries 
need  not  unduly  alarm  healthy  adults,  nor  young 
lovers  mth  their  splendid  vitality,  nor  members  of 
families  in  good  condition  of  health.  It  need  not 
necessarily  impugn  the  safety  of  all  demonstrations 
of  deep  affection  betw^een  humankind. 

But  it  does  most  strongly  apply  to  children,  who, 
on  account  of  their  frailness  of  bodies  and  the  deli- 
cate kind  of  tissue  forming  their  mucous  mem- 
branes, are  very  sensitive  to  infection.  It  also 
applies  to  those  adults  who  are  for  a  time  in  an  un- 
dermined condition  of  health,  in  a  state  of  lessened 
resistance  to  disease,  which  happens  now  and  then 
in  every  one's  life. 

Former  Surgeon-General    Doctor   Eupert    Blue 


326 EMILE  BERLINER 

told  me  at  the  time  of  the  last  influenza  epidemic 
that  he  gargled  twice  a  day  with  a  good  antiseptic 
solution  in  order  to  destroy  such  pathogenic  germs 
as  might  have  got  and  lodged  in  his  mouth  or  throat. 
He  said  that  if  this  was  done  by  everybody  at  reg- 
ular intervals  a  large  amount  of  preventable  disease 
would  be  nipped  in  the  bud  before  endangering 
health. 

There  are  many  antiseptic  solutions  to  be  had, 
some  of  which  are  more  or  less  eflflcacious  in  destroy- 
ing disease  germs.  And  recently  a  pathological 
laboratory  in  Washington  tested  a  solution  made, 
according  to  my  doctor's  prescription,  as  follows: 

Menthol 4  grains 

Alcohol 1  ounce 

Sod.  Bicarb 30  grains 

Sod.  Borate 30  grains 

Dist.  water 8  ounces 

Filter  if  necessary. 

It  was  found  to  be  a  true  and  rather  high-grade 
germicide.  This  solution,  which  can  be  had  from 
any  druggist,  is  cheap,  and  I  personally  have  found 
it  most  efficacious  as  a  gargle  or  a  spray  for  many 
j'ears.  Even  when  diluted  v*dth  water  in  fifty-fifty 
proportion,  it  mil,  when  promptly  applied  several 
times  at  short  intervals,  break  up  a  fresh  sore 
throat  or  it  will  correct  an  infected  or  badly  tasting 
mouth,  provided  the  cause  is  not  in  the  teeth  or  in 
the  stomach. 


APPENDICES  327 


In  times  of  sore-throat  epidemics,  or  of  diseases 
that  develop  in  the  mouth,  or  oral  cavity,  like  diph- 
theria or  pneumonia,  or  when  such  a  disease  has 
entered  the  household,  it  would  be  well  advised  to 
use  an  antiseptic  mouth  wash  as  a  spray  or  a  deep 
gargle  twice  or  three  times  a  day. 

Children  are  so  sensitive  to  infection  that  rooms 
in  which  a  death  occurred  from  any  infectious  dis- 
ease should  always  be  promptly  disinfected,  pre- 
ferably by  a  trained  employee  of  the  health  office. 


V 

THE  SCIENTIFIC  SIDE  OF  MUSIC 

By  Emile  Berliner,  Tresident  of  the  Berliner  Gramophone 
Company,  Limited,  Montreal 

(WKITTEN  FOR  THE  WASHINGTON  TIMEs) 

THE  scientific  side  of  music  which  you  desire 
me  to  deal  with,  is  a  large  enough  subject  to 
fill  a  good-sized  book,  rather  than  a  single  news- 
paper column.  Music  is  rhythmic  sound,  air  pulses 
occurring  at  regular  intervals  and  at  a  rate  of  not 
less  than  sixteen  vibrations  per  second  and  not  more 
than  about  sixteen  thousand  vibrations  per  second, 
which,  in  a  fair  way,  represents  the  limits  within 
which  an  average  musical  ear  can  differentiate  be- 
tween two  tones  having  different  rates  of  vibrations 
or  different  pitch. 

When  several  musical  tones  of  different  pitch 
sound  together,  their  vibrations  or  waves  overlap, 
and  form  compound  waves,  so  that  at  one  instant 
a  fraction  of  one  set  of  waves  predominates,  in  the 
next  instant  a  fraction  of  another  set.  As  these 
different  fractions  follow  one  another  at  a  very 
rapid  rate,  between  sixteen  and,  say,  sixteen  thou- 

328 


APPENDICES  329 


sand  per  second,  we  receive  the  sensation  of  a  chord, 
or  of  a  single  mass  of  sound,  either  of  harmony  or 
disharmony. 

This  is  similar  to  the  manner  in  which  the  eye 
receives  a  motion  picture,  by  the  rapid  projection  of 
several  progressive  photographs  of  a  moving  object. 
Even  if  we  listen  to  a  whole  orchestra,  with  or  with- 
out the  addition  of  singing,  the  ear  at  one  instant 
only  takes  notice  of  that  fraction  of  the  performance 
which  happens  at  that  moment  to  predominate. 

To  prove  that  this  is  the  case  we  can  let  sound 
wiite  itself  down  by  means  of  the  phonautograph, 
invented  by  the  Frenchman,  Leon  Scott,  about  1856. 

One  of  these  instruments  is  in  the  United  States 
National  Museum.  It  consists  of  a  large  cylinder, 
covered  with  paper,  the  surface  of  which  is  covered 
with  soot  from  a  smoky  flame.  A  sound  box,  having 
a  diaphragm  and  a  receiving  horn,  is  provided  mth 
a  slender  bristle  stylus,  fastened  to  the  center  of  the 
diaphragm,  and  which  is  so  adjusted  that  the  stylus 
just  touches  the  surface  of  the  cylinder  sidewise. 
When  the  cylinder  is  rotated  and  passes  the  stylus 
in  screw  fashion  the  latter  traces  a  spiral  line 
around  the  cylinder. 

If  now  sound  is  emitted  into  the  horn  the  spiral 
line  becomes  waves  and  each  wave  represents  a  frac- 
tion of  the  sound  that  caused  the  diaphragm  to  vi- 
brate. 

It  will  then  be  found  that  the  higher  pitched  the 
sound  is,  the  more  rapidly  do  these  waves  follow  one 


330  EMILE  BERLINER 


another,  and  as  the  pitch  is  lower  the  fewer  are  the 
waves  in  a  given  time.  In  the  case  of  an  orchestra 
playing,  the  wave  line  becomes  most  complicated, 
yet  there  is  discernible  a  certain  regularity,  as  sets 
of  waves  repeat  themselves  when  a  more  or  less  sus- 
tained chord  is  recorded. 

Jazz  effects  will  record  themselves  in  waves 
of  striking  or  irregular  forms  and  so  will  all  mere 
noises  which  in  themselves  are  not  considered 
musical. 

If  we  try  to  analyze  the  wave  lines  of  articulate 
speech  by  means  of  a  phonautograph  we  shall  dis- 
cern sets  of  complicated  waves  which  represent  the 
vowel  sounds,  but  most  consonants,  like  r,  s,  sh,  c, 
and  s,  which  are  very  minute  waves,  repeating  them- 
selves rapidly. 

The  tune  or  melody  is  due  to  the  inspiration  of 
the  composer,  but  the  harmony  to  accompany  the 
tune  follows  strict  laws,  which,  while  capable  of  a 
great  variety  of  modulations,  must  be  kept  within 
certain  limits,  prescribed  by  the  science  of  harmony. 
The  highest  musical  art  is  expressed  by  proper 
orchestration,  and  the  finest  compositions  are  those 
in  which  the  inspiration  of  a  lovely  or  artistic 
melody  proceeds  and  stands  out  against  the  back- 
ground of  perfect  harmonj^,  expressed  by  skilful 
orchestration.  Such  is  the  case  for  instance  in 
so-called  grand  opera.  Besides,  we  have  the  works 
of  orchestral  music  itself,  with  an  infinite  variety 
of  leading  melodies,  as  well  as  the  masterpieces 


APPENDICES  331 


of  dramatic  effects  giving  the  musical  background 
by  means  of  which  stage  action  is  illuminated 
or  by  which  emotions  are  expressed.  Then  there 
are  the  immortal  creations  of  piano  and  organ 
music,  instrumental  and  vocal  duets,  trios,  quar- 
tettes and  sextettes,  and  the  superb  compositions  for 
the  violin  and  other  solo  instruments.  Songs  of  all 
kinds  from  the  simple  folk  melodies  to  the  great 
church  masses  and  oratories  form  a  rich  heritage 
bestowed  on  us  by  past  geniuses,  and  which  are 
added  to  without  end  by  living  creations  of  con- 
temporaneous songs  and  harmonies. 

All  these  treasures  of  musical  science  have  dur- 
ing the  past  twenty  years  been  made  more  access- 
ible to  the  great  public  by  the  talking  machine.  In 
this  instrument  the  record  is  not  merely  a  wave  line 
dra^^^l  on  paper,  but  is  a  groove  of  sound  waves  in- 
dented, engraved  or  etched  into  solid  material.  The 
sound  waves  are  either  represented  by  the  varying 
depths  of  a  straight  groove,  as  in  the  phonograph 
and  graphophone,  or  by  a  groove  looking  like  the 
old  phonautographic  record,  of  even  depth,  and 
showing  the  sound  waves  as  an  undulating  groove 
waiting.  The  latter  system  is  that  of  the  Gramo- 
phone or  Victrola  and  is  the  more  perfect  of  the 
two,  so  that  the  great  singers  and  performers  prefer 
that  their  art  be  recorded  by  that  system. 

Sound  is  reproduced  in  talking  machines  be- 
cause the  sound  grooves  move  the  stylus  connected 
with  the  center  of  the  diaphragm  and  the  latter  is 


332  EMILE  BERLINER 

vibrated  by  the  sound  waves  that  are  embodied  in 
the  grooves  caused  by  the  original  sound  waves. 

Like  engravings  for  printing,  sound  records  can 
be  duplicated  without  limit  by  pressing  electrotyped 
reverse  engravings,  called  matrices,  into  a  proper 
material  under  heat  and  pressure.  The  material 
usually  employed  is  a  special  kind  of  hard  black 
sealing  wax,  so  that  a  disk  sound  record  might  often 
be  properly  called  the  seal  of  the  human  voice. 


VI 

WONDERS 

An   Essay 
(written  about  1890  by  emile  beeuner) 

PEOPLE  are  apt  to  look  for  wonders  in  the 
sphere  of  the  supernatural,  in  the  narrative 
of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  in  the  fables  of  antiquity, 
and  in  the  seances  of  so-called  spiritualism,  but  by 
far  the  greatest  wonders  are  every-day  occurrences 
and  lie  around  in  innumerable  forms  in  our  im- 
mediate neighborhood.    Let  me  cite  a  few. 

Here  is  a  piece  of  glass.  It  is  of  so  dense  a  mate- 
rial that  the  most  rarified  gases,  which  would  easily 
pass  through  a  block  of  brass  or  steel,  can  be  held 
forever  within  a  bulb  of  glass,  the  walls  of  which 
are  less  than  a  hundredth  of  an  inch  thick.  Yet  all 
the  vibrations  of  light  emanating  from  the  various 
objects  of  a  landscape  will  pass  unobstructed 
through  a  pane  several  inches  thick,  permitting  the 
picture  to  be  accurately  represented  on  the  retina  of 
our  eye,  and  even  a  block  of  several  feet  thickness 
would  still  permit  a  fair  view  through  it  of  the  forms 
and  colors  behind. 

333 


XU  KM  ILK   I'.KIMJNKI?, 


TuVci  a  rna/i^net  and  a  inouiiicid  iioo(ll(»  of  iron,  put 
l)(!ivv(!(;ii  bolli  a  ^ViimU)  l)loc;k  W(!igliin,i^  H(!Voral  toiiH, 
and  jlio  iKH'dlc!  will  Kl.ili  olx'-y  IIk;  nioliori  of  ilio  mag- 
JKil,  jnsl  as  ir  IIk;  granllu  1)I()('I<  did  iiol,  cxiHi. 

Vou  Tnay  pass  an  ch'clrict  cnnciii  stron,;:,'  (M)ou^Ii 
to  kill  by  Hhock  a  dozen  ox(vn  at  once,  or  to  nut  in  mo- 
tion Tna(diin(!ry  ro[)r(!H(!niing-  a  tlion.sand,liorHO[)ow(ir, 
tliron/^1)  a  small  bar  of  copixu';  ])nt  this  vory  bar  of 
('()pj)cr  will  nol,  allcr  if,s  vv('i.i;lii  vvliib*  llu^  cnrrciii  is 
I)asHin^,  nor-  show  any  onlwjifd  indicalion  \vliai(!V(!r 
of  tlie  trmriundouH  forco  [)nlsal,injL^  tlii-oiigb  ii. 

A  piox'Ci  of  musk  may  ((xliab;  its  i;cn<!tratinjL^  odor 
in  a  larji;'(!  liall  with  ofx'n  windows  for  ton  yoarfl, 
l)nl,  ii  would  rccpiirc  a,  vciy  ddicfito  babiiicf  to  j)i-ov(^ 
that  it  iiiis  lost  in  wci.i^ht  from  (In^  ('Xp('nditni'(i  of  so 
much  odoiifcrons  cncr.^y. 

A  violin  is  pcrfcclly  tuned  ])y  Hk;  liJii'Uiony  re- 
Kullinij;'  from  owe  loius  and  tiu!  fil'lli  following  on  tlio 
rnj;'ular  scnlc,  bid,  if  a,  |»i;ino  would  be  tuned  on  IIk; 
Siirui^  piineiple,  i.  c,  lli;it  every  (il'lli  lone  would 
m;il((;  a  perfect  liarinony  with  IIk;  first,  IIh;  piano, 
(!V(!n  if  pl.'iyed  l)y  a  iJ.nbinstiiin  or  a  Liszt,  would 
give  out  such  fe;irful  <liseords  UH  to  drivo  aw/iy  tlio 
cats  boyond  he.-irin.ii;  distiineo. 

A  s(|n;ii-e  mid  a.  eireh;  ar(!  each  a  most  perf<M't 
geometrical  foi'm  (iiidowed  with  wonderful  possibil- 
iticH  in  tlie  hands  of  a  skilb'd  ma<hem;dici;in,  yo\  it 
IH  imi)ossi])l(!  mathematically  to  calculate!  fi'om  a  cii'- 
ele  ;i  s(|nai('  wliich  would  rei)reH(Mit  the  huuw.  snri'iice 
of  area  as  the  ciicle,  or  vic(r  versn.  The  assutne<l 
diameter  of  a  circle  always  lacks  a  fraction. 


AnMONni(i*:s  'm\:^ 


At  a  distance  of  sovornl  miles  lot  iis  place  a  iiuni- 
bor  of  candles,  (lie  (allow  of  wliicli  lias  been  uiixed 
oacli  with  a  dKTeront  subslanco,  for  instance,  salt, 
iron  dust,  potasaiutn,  uKim-,  ric.  There  will  be  ap- 
parcndy  no  did'erenco  in  the  kind  or  anionnt  of  light 
sliown  by  each  candle,  nor  wonld  a  powerl'nl  (elo- 
st'ope  reveal  such,  bu(.  upon  loekini;-  at  (he  ilauies 
widi  a  small  triangular  block  of  glass  called  a  prism, 
and  which  is  sui(id)Iy  nionnled,  \v(>  can  a(  once  de- 
tormino  what  snbstance  has  been  mixed  with  each 
slii'k  o\'  (idlow.  Based  nj)on  (his  wonder  we  are  able 
(()  deierniintf  the  composition  of  bnrning  stars  many 
bilhons  of  mih's  away. 

If  a  wiri>  be  stretched  five  tinu\s  aronnd  (he  ejirdi, 
an  electric  current  would  traverse  it  in  one  stu-ond, 
and  a.  person  kilh'd  by  lightning  hasn'(  (inu»  enough 
left  to  see  the  (lash. 

A  pu(T  of  air  not  strong  enough  (o  exdngtiish  a 
c;nidl(>  Maine,  when  slowly  blown  across  the  nionlli 
of  a  glass  bodle  will  pi'odncc  a.  (one  lond  enongli  lo 
be  heard  several  hundred  feel  ;  and  a(  (^-ibin  .John's 
l^ridge,  near  Washinglon,  a,  sof(  whisper  will  (ravt^l 
from  end  (o  end  under  (he  arch  which  s(re(ches 
about  (wo  hundred  and  lifiy  feel,  nnd  is  sex'enty-fivo 
f(M'(,  high.  !(  seems  Incredible  llial  a  whisper  wouhl 
have  (hat  nuich  pene(ra(ing  power. 

The  laws  of  graviialion  an^  so  ])(>rfe('(,  (lia(  lh(\v 
cnabl(Ml  Leverrier  to  i)redict  (Ik^  discovery,  ;md 
poini  out  (he  exnci  i)osilion  in  Ihe  heavens,  of  (ho 
l)lai'et  Neptune,  which  was  found  (her(>  a  few  days 


336 EMILE  BERLINER 

later,  and  which  is  two  billion,  six  hundred  million 
miles  away  from  the  sun. 

The  power  of  the  brain  to  recall  by  memory  the 
impressions  received  by  us  years  ago  is  beyond 
doubt  one  of  the  greatest  wonders,  and  is  likely 
forever  to  remain  an  unfathomable  myster^^ 

The  heart  beats  forty  million  times  in  a  year, 
and  the  lungs  inhale  seven  hundred  thousand  gallons 
of  air  in  the  same  period,  and  all  this  and  a  great 
many  other  functions  of  the  human  body,  one  more 
elaborate  that  the  other,  continue  without  undue 
friction  and  disturbance — unless  it  be  'hy  our  own 
trespasses — for  seventy  years,  and  all  that  is  re- 
quired for  us  to  do  is  to  eat  and  drink  the  good 
things  of  earth;  for  the  rest  of  the  organs  of  the 
body  take  care  of  themselves. 

Thus,  and  through  countless  other  wonders,  by 
teaching  humility  to  its  disciples,  Science  assumes 
the  role  of  a  most  potent  religion. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Acoustics 

"acoustic   tiles"    of    Berliner, 

274 
Berliner 's  present  work  in  con- 
nection -with,  273 
Addresses  of  Berliner 

American   Institute    of    Archi- 
tects, 277 
Electro-Technical     Society     of 

Berlin,  204-209 
Franklin     Institute,     45,     171, 

193,  195,  199 
Technical    Society    of    Frank- 

fort-on-the-Main,  215 
Technical  Society  of  Hanover, 
203 
Adler  Cora 

marriage  to  Berliner,  109-110, 
166 
Air  brake  invented,  42 
Alcantara,   Emperor  Dom  Pedro 
de  and  Empress  Theresa,  63 
America 

at  beginning  of  second  century 

of  independence,  42 
immigration  from  Germany,  13 
American  Association  of  Univer- 
sity Women 
Sarah   Berliner   Research    Fel- 
lowship, 302,  304 
American    Bell    Telephone    Com- 
pany 
see,  Telephone  systems 


American  Graphophone  Company, 

181 
American  Institute  of  Architects 

Berliner's  address,  277 
American  Pediatric  Society,  238, 

244 
American     Speaking     Telephone 
Company 
subsidiary   of  Western  Union, 
124 
American    Telephone    and    Tele- 
graph Company 
see,  Telephone  systems 
Architecture 

acoustic  qualities,  273 
Arthur,  Chester 

Washington    at     time     of     his 
administration,   183 
Associated  Charities 

Committee  on  Tuberculosis,  242 

Association    for    the    Prevention 

of   Tuberculosis,  242,  246, 

320 

Atlantic    and    Pacific    Telegraph 

Company,    104 
Atlantic  cable  laid,  54 

Barker,   George   F.    (Professor), 

149 
Barraud,  Francis 

and  "Xipper, "  225 
Bayreuth,  theater  in 

acoustic  qualities,  284 

339 


340 


EMILE  BEELINER 


Behrend,  B.  J.,  40 
Belknap,  William  W., 

resignation     as     secretary     of 
war,  24 
Bell,  Alexander  Graham 

experiments    "with    human    ear, 
•       57 

marriage,  56 
patents  of,  pending,  109 
telephone  invented,  44,  46,  51, 

55,  57 
Volta  Prize  award,  180 
Bell,  Chichester  A., 

Bell-Tainter  graphophone,  181 
Bell  family,  56 

Bell-Tainter  graphophone,  181 
Bell      Telephone      Company      of 
Boston,  105 
see  also,  Telephone  systems 
interest  in  Berliner 's  invention, 
110 
Bell    Telephone    Securities    Com- 
pany, 49 
Bell  Telephone  system 

see,  Telephone  systems 
Berlin  University,  1 
Berliner,  Alice,  235-236 
Berliner,  Emile 

see  also,  Address  of  Berliner 
acoustic  studies,  273 
affiliation    with    Bell    system, 

113,  117 
Americanization  begun,  28 
birthplace  at  Hanover,  2 
characteristics   at   seventy-five, 

272,  288,  295 
child  health  studies,  235-236 
children  of,  296 
citizenship,  184 

first  papers  taken  out,  41,  67 
clerkship  in  Hanover,  8 


Berliner,  Emile,  con't. 
date  of  birth,  1 
departure  for  America,  17 
Elliott  Cresson  award,  194 
essays,  328,  333 
financial  status  in  1877,  89 
first  job,  as  printer's  devil,  10 
gramophone 

Edison-Berliner      ' '  Competi- 
tion," 206-211 
introduced     into     Germany, 

202 
inventions,  168 
patent 

application  filed,  185 
health  rules,  295 
introduction  to  G.  G.  Gardiner, 

106 
inventive  tendencies,  11,  67 
marriage,  109-110,  166 
member  of  New  York  Oratorio 

Society,  218 
microphone 
caveat,  166-167 

Bell  system  control  of,  117 
filed,  88,  97,  125 
text  of,  309 
invention   of,  recognized  by 

Supreme  Court,  154 
patent  application,  97 
patent  received,  140 
microphonic  principle  discover- 
ed, 75,  80 
music 

composer  of,  218 
early  love  of,  7 
New  York 

decision  to  live  in,  31,  37 
physical  breakdo^vn 
in  1878,   119 
in  1879,  157 


INDEX 


341 


Berliner,  Emile,  con't. 
pro-Ally  sympathies,   292 
public  health  work,  234 
salesmanship,   36 
Sarah   Berliner    Research    Fel- 
lowship, 302 
schooling,  8,  9,  288 
telephone,  work  on,  52,  72 
tuberculosis 

infirmary  endowed  by,   249 
tribute  paid  by  Association 
for,  320 
violins,  study  of  structure,  219 
visions  of  the  future,  301 
visit  to  Germany  in  1881,  162 
von  Helmholtz's  visit,  212-215 
Washington,  as  place   of   resi- 
dence, 183 
Berliner  family,  3 
Berliner  Fellowship,  302,  304 
Berliner    Gramophone    Company, 
200 
changed  from 

United    States    Gramophone 
Company,  221 
changed  to 

Victor       Talking       Machine 
Company,  Camden,  220-221 
Victor       Talking       Machino 
Company  of  Canada,  223 
Berliner,  Jacob 

telephone  company  formed,  164 
Berliner,  Joseph,  161 
Binns,  Jack,  261 
Bismarck,  Prince  Otto  von 

unity  of  Germany  under,  7 
Blake,  Francis 

transmitter    or    loose    contact 
microphone,  127 
paper  in  archives  of  Ameri- 
can   Telephone    and    Tele- 
graph Company,  314 


Blue,  Rupert    (Doctor),   325 
Boeock,  John  O., 
author  of  Romance  of  the  Tele- 
phone, 147 
Bourseuil,  Charles 

discoveries     in     speech     trans- 
mission,  175 
early  idea  of  telephone,  52 
Brazilian  Emperor  and  Empress 
at    Centennial    Exposition, 
63 
Brewer,  Justice,  151,  152,  153 
British     Gramophone     Company, 

223 
Broadcasting 
see,  Radio 
Brown,  Frank  Howarth,  72 
Bryan,  William  Jennings 

slogan  of  1896,  33 
Buckingham,      Doctor      D,      E., 

242 
Bunsen  burner  invented,  192 
Burbank,  Luther,  294 

Bureau     of     Health     Education, 
249 

Cabin  John 's  Bridge,  335 
Cabot,  Richard  C.    (Doctor),  305 
Carnegie  Peace  Endowment 

Slosson's  address  quoted,  206 
Carty,  J.  J.   (General),  264 
Casson,  Herbert  N.,  57 

author  of.  History  of  the  Tele- 
phone, 125 
Centennial   Exposition   at   Phila- 
delphia, 42 
Emperor      and      Empress      of 

Brazil  present,  63 
telephone  exhibited  at,  61 
Cheever,  Charles  A.,  104 


342 


EMILE  BEELINER 


Child  health 

Berliner 's      participation      in 
work,  23-i 
publications,   248,   250,    290, 
323 
China 

legend    of    voice    preservation, 

232 
telephone  use  in,  47 
Civil  War 

Eeconstruction    period    follow- 
ing, 23 
Clark,  Alfred,  187 

director  of  British  gramophone 
companr,  224 
Columhian  Anthem 

composed  by  Berliner,  218 
Cooke,  Jav 

banking  house  of,  failed,  32 
CooHdge,  Calvin 

nasal     twang     of,     broadcasts 
well,  267 
Coolidge,  Calvin   (Mrs.) 

interest    in    milk    purification, 
249 
Coombs,  Charles  L. 

Berliner 's    patent     application 

written  by,  98 
called  in  Bell-Berliner  defense, 
150 
Cotton  gin  invented,  42 
"Crime  of  'Seventy- Three, "  32 
Cros,  Charles 

speech  reproduction,  studies  of, 
179 
Cross,  Charles  R.   (Professor) 
defender        of        Bell-Berliner 

patents,  150 
experimental    work,    130,    166, 
318 


Damroseh,  Leopold,  220 
founder  of  New  York  Oratorio 
Society,  218 
Davis,  John  W., 
Democratic  presidential  candi- 
date, 267 
Defense  Day,  1924 

broadcasting  teat,   264 
De  Forest,  Lee   (Doctor) 

Inventor  of  vacuum  tube,  258 
Democratic  National  Convention 
broadcasting  of,  in  1924,  266 
Devonshire,  E.  W.,  127 
Dexter,     William    H.     (Doctor), 

242 
Dickerson  and  Beaman 

attorneys  for   Telephone  Com- 
pany of  New  York,  103 
Dictaphone,  182 
see  also,  Gramophone;  Grapho- 
phone;  Phonograph 
DidasTcalia,  The 

"Electrical  Telephony,"  term 
first  used  by,  53 
Dolbear,  Amos  E.   (Professor) 
association        with        Western 

Uuiou,  124,  135 
inventions  claimed,  137-138 
patents  of,  pending,  109 
Drawbaugh,  Daniel 

telephone     invention     claimed, 
138 

Edison,  Thomas  A., 

association        with        Western 

Union,   124,   135 
device    for    transmitting    voice 

messages,   177 
phonograph 

Edison-Berliner       "competi- 
tion,"  206-211 


INDEX 


343 


Edison,  Thomas  A. 
phonograph,  con't. 

first,  description  of,  179 
transmitter 

patent   application  filed,  96, 

125 
patent  pending,   109 
used  by  Western  Union,  115 
Edmunds,  Henry,  232 
Education 

Guggenheim  Fellowships,   303 
Sarah    Berliner    Kesearch    Fel- 
lowship, 302,  30i 
Electric  lighting 

first  in  Washington,  70 
Electricity 

early  wave   theories,   255 
first  cell  made  by  Volta,  180 
loose  contacts,  action  explained, 

86 
transformers,    first     use     with 
microphone,   94 
Electro-Technical       Society       of 
Germany 
exhibition   of   phonograph   and 
gramophone,  204 
Elliott  Cresson  medal 

awarded  to  Berliner,  194 
Employee   ownership 

Bell  systems,  49 
Engel,    August,    39 
Engel,  Carl,  231 
England,  see  Great  Britain 
Ericsson,  John 

Monitor   invented,   42 
Europe 

gramophone  industry  in,  215 
telephone 

introduction,  161 
present  use  of,  46 


Fahlberg,    Constantine    (Doctor) 
Berliner's  work  with,  37 
saccharin   discovered  by,    38 
Faraday,  Michael,   79 
Financial  panic  of  1873,  32 
Fischer,  Emil 

medal  award  to,  195 
Fisk,   "Jim,"   34 
Fowler,   W.   C.    (Doctor),   249 
France 

first  telephones,  165 
government  o^vnership  of  tele- 
phone symstems,  48 
Volta    Prize    award    to    A.    G. 
Bell,  180 
Franklin,  Benjamin 

lightning   rod   invented,   42 
Franklin,  Christine  Ladd  (Mrs.), 

302 
Franklin  Institute 

Berliner's     address,     45,     171, 

193,  195,  199 
medal  awards  to 
Berliner,  194 
Fischer,    195 
Eayleigh,   195 
Steinmetz,  195 
Fulton,    Eobert 

first  steamboat,  42 

Galvani,  Luigi,  40 

Gamble,   Clarence    (Doctor),   305 

Garland,  Augustus  H., 

counsel    of    Pan-Electric    Com- 
pany,  143 
Gas  appliances 

Bunsen   burner   invented,   192 
George  V 

exiled   from  Hanover,   8 

King   of   Hanover,  2 


344 


EMILE  BEELINER 


Georgetown  University,  235 
Germans 

immigration  to  America,  13 
Germany 

Electro-Technical  Society 
exhibition      of      plionograph 
and  gramophone,  204 
government  ownership  of  tele- 
phone systems,  48 
gramophones 

industry   in,   215 
introduction,  202 
language     defined     by     Mark 

Twain,   35 
Prussian  rule,  14 
pure    speech   of   Hanover,   2 
telephones 

first,  162,  164 
invention  claimed  by,  54 
theaters  of,  6 

toy  manufacturing  in,  216 
unity,  under  Bismarck,  7 
Gifford,  George 

Western  Union  attorney,  135 
Gold  and  Stock  Telegraph  Com- 
pany 
subsidiary   of  Western   Union, 
130,  135 
Golz,  Lieutenant-General,  205 
Goodyear,  Charles 

vulcanized  rubber  made,   42 
Gotthelf,  Natlian,   15 
Gould,   Jay,  34 
Gramophone 
see  also,  Dictaphone;   Grapho- 
phone ;        Phonautograph ; 
Phonograph;   Talking  ma- 
chines 
Berliner's  inventions,  168 
companies    handling,    220-221, 
223-224 


Gramophone,  con't. 
competition,   221 
demonstration  at  Franklin  In- 
stitute, 171,  193,  195,  199 
development,   186,   196 
Edison-Berliner  * '  competition '  * 

in  Berlin,  206-211 
first  discoveries,  175 
"His    Master's    Voice"    and 

"Nipper,"  225 
in  Germany,  202,  215-216 
patent,  application  filed,   185 
records 

lateral  cut  disk,  227 
production  of  duplicates,  199 
use    of    rubber    composition, 
160,   200 
use  in  trenches  in  World  War, 
225 
Gramophone    Company,    Limited, 
187,  188,  223 
munition    manufacture    during 
World  War,  224 
Grant,  E.  E.    (Mrs.),  249,  291 
Grant,  Ulysses  S., 

presidency,  23,  27 
Graphophone 
see  also.  Dictaphone;    Gramo- 
phone; Phonograph 
outgrowth  of  phonograph,  181 
patented,  181 
Gray,  Elisha   (Professor) 
association  with  Western  Union 

124,  135 
inventions    claimed,    135,    136, 

137 
patents  of,  pending,  109 
Great  Britain 

Barraud,  Francis,  225 
government  ownership  of  tele- 
phone systems,  48 


INDEX 


345 


Gramophone  Company,  Limited 
223 
"His  Master's  Voice,"  225 
World   War   activities,    224 
Guggenheim  Fellowships,  303 

Haber,  Fritz 

nitrogen     process     diseoveries, 
206 
Hammonia,  19,  20 
Hanover 

annexed  to  Prussia,  7-8 

birthplace  of 
Berliner,  2 
Herschel,  3 
von  Hindenburg,  3 

George  V,  King  of,  2 

horses,  famous  breed  of,  5 

Institute    of    Technology,    2 

"King's   birthday,"    5 

memories  of  Napoleonic  Wars, 
4,   6 

national  strife  over,  2 

OpernluLus,  6 

pure  type  of  German  spoken,  2 

Schiitzenfest   celebration,   4 
Harlan,   Justice,   154 
Harris,  Isham  G., 

director   of  Pan-Electrie  Com- 
pany,  143 
Hatch,  Wallace,  242 
Hay,  John 

description  of  Washington,  26 
Hays,  Rutherford  B., 

presidential  inauguration,  81 
Health   service,  public 

Berliner's  interest  in,  234 
Hecht,   Herman,   163,   165 
Henry,  Joseph   (Professor) 

interest     in     Berliner 's     work, 
100,   120 


Henry,  Joseph  (Professor),  con't. 

recognition  of  Bell's  telephone, 
65 

sound  vibrations  studied,  176 
Herschel,   William    (Sir) 

birthplace  at  Hanover,  3 
Hertz,  Heinrich 

electrical  experiments,  255 
Hertzian  waves  (electricity),  255 
Hindenburg 

see^  von  Hindenburg 
"His  Master's  Voice,"  225 
Hoover,  Herbert 

quoted  on,  radio,  269 
Horses  of  Hanover,  5 
Houston,  David  F.,  49 
Howe,  Elias 

sewing   machine   invented,   42 
Hubbard,   Gardiner  G.,   61,   102 

letter  to  Berliner  regarding  his 
illness,  120,   122 

negotiations  with  Berliner,  104 
Hubbard,   Mabel 

marriage  to  Bell,  56 
Hudson,   John  E., 

president,  American  Bell  Tele- 
phone Company,  150 
Hughes,  David  Edward 

loose  contacts  studied  by,  117 

Infant  mortality 

Berliner's  interest  in,  234 
International     Eucharistic     Con- 
gress, 275 
Inventions 
American 

first  and  second  centuries  of, 
42,  43 
Berliner's  work  on  the  micro- 
phonic principle,  75 
gramophone  of  Berliner,   168 


346 


EMILE  BERLINER 


Inventions,  con 't. 
micfoplione  of  Berliner 
caveat,  88,  97 
patent  applicatioil,  97 
phonograph  of  Edison,  179 
telegraph   of   Morse,   42 
telephone   of  Bell,  44,   4(5,  51, 

55,  57 
transformer,     continuous     cur- 
rent, 101 
transmitter   of  Berliner,  82 
Inventors 

productive  ages  of,   69 
qualities  essential,  287 

Johnson,   Edward   H., 

associated  with   Edison,   177 
Johnson,  Eldridge  K, 
gramophone,         supplementary 

■U'ork  on,   227-228 
president,  Victor  Talking  Ma- 
chine Company,  222 
Johnston,   Joseph   E.    (General) 
president  of  Pan-Electric  Com- 
pany,  143 
Journal  of  the  Telegraph,  71 

Kaempffert,  Waldemar,  76 
quoted    on,    Berliner's    gramo- 
phone, 201 
quoted  on,  radio,  256 
Kelvin,  Lord 

see,  Thomson,  William  (Sir) 
Kinnan,  William  A.,  191 
Kober,  George  Martin,  (Doctor), 
235,  291 
tribute  to  Berliner  signed  by, 
322 
Krupp,  Alfred 

steel  exhibit  in  London,   2 

La  Porte,  Indiana 

early  telephones  in,  131 


Language,   universal,    300 
Levy,  Max,  199 
Library  of  Congress 

talking    machine    records   kept 
by,  231 
Lightning  rod  invented,  42 
Lodge,  Oliver  (Sir),  253 
Loeb,  Jacques   (Professor),  239 
Lubin,   Isadore,   236 
Luther,   Martiu 

Tefuge  in  castle  at  Wartburg, 
216 
Lyons,  Joseph 

testimony      regarding      micro- 
phone, 92 

Magoffin,  Ealph  ^    (Professor), 

248 
Magruder,   G.   L.    (Doctor),    244 
Marconi,   William 

inventor  of  radio,  256 
Marriage 

Berliner's   views,   299 
Massachusetts    General    Hospital 

heart  beats  recorded,  305 
Massachusetts  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology 

experimental  work  at,  130 
Maxwell,    James   Clerk,    298 

author  of  Electricity  and  Mag- 
netism, 254 
Maynard,   George   C,  70 
Medals 

see  also,  Prizes 

Elliot   Cressoii  award   to   Ber- 
liner, 194 

Fischer,   award  to,  195 

Lord  Raylcigh,  award  to,   195 

Steinmetz,  award  to,  195 
Medical  science 

heart  beats  recorded,  305 


INDEX 


347 


Mclvin,  A.  D.    (Doctor),  2U 
Microphone 

as  laboratory  equipment,  252 
Berliner 's  invention 
caveat,  166-167 

Bell  system  control  of,  117 
filing    of,   88,    97,   125 
text  of,  309 
due  credit  accorded,  154 
patent   application,   97 
patent  received,  140 
Blake's  design,   127 

paper  in  archives  of  Ameri- 
can   Telephone    and    Tele- 
graph Company,  314 
loose    contacts    in    connection 

•with,  87 
radio 

"push-pull"  type,  253 
use  in  broadcasting,  251 
transformer  combined  ■with,  94 
Watson's   examination   of.  111 
Microphonic  principle 

discovered  by  Berliner,   75,  80 
loose  contacts  explained,  86 
Milk 
law  passed  by  Congress,  249 
pasteurization  of,  237 
relation    to    infant    mortality, 

237 
scalding,  defined,  239 
Washington       Post       bulletin, 
238 
Milk    Dealers'    and    Producers' 

Associations,    240 
Miller,  William  H.  H.,   146 
Missouri 

secession  policy,  13-14 
Monitor 
of  Ericsson,  42 


Morse,  Samuel  F.  B.  (Professor) 
memorial  services  for,  99-100 
telegraph  invented,  42 

Music,  Scientific  Side  of 
by  Berliner,  328 

Muzzey,  David 

quoted  on  Grant 's  characteris- 
tics, 24 

Napoleonic  Wars,  4,  6 
National  Republican 

account    of    Berliner 's    inven- 
tion, 100 
National     Tuberculosis     Associa- 
tion 
Silver     Trophy     Cup     awarded 
by,  247 
New  York  Oratorio  Society 

founded  by  Damrosch,  218 
Norris,  James  L., 

patent    attorney    engaged    by 
Berliner,  97 

Oppenheimer,  Simon  and  Gustave 
called  in  defense  of  Bell-Ber- 
liner patents,  150 
Overland  Company,  139 

Paine,  Albert  Bigelow 
author    of,    ''In    One    Man's 
Life,"  123 
Pan-Electric   Company 

organization  and  management, 
142-143 
Paris  Opera  House 

talking    machine    records    kept 
by,  232 
Pasteurization  of  milk 

advocated  by  Berliner,  237-238 
Patents 

Bell-Berliner 
assailed,    143 


348 


EAIILE  BERLIXER 


Patents 

Bell-Berliner,  eon't. 

Supreme     Court     deeision, 
151 
validated  by  United   States 
Supreme  Court,  134 
Ben-Taiater   graph oph one,  ISl 
gramophone  of  Berliner 
application  filed,  185 
"  interf  erenees, "  107 
microphone  of  Berliner 

eareat,  88,  97,  125,  166-167 
BeH  system  eontrol  of,  117 
text  of,  309 
jasaed,  1891,  140 
trangformcr,     continuous     cur- 
rent, 101 
transmitter,   Edison 's   appUca- 
tion  for,  95 
Pershing,  John  J.    (General) 

faretveU  address  to  army,  264 
Philadelphia 

Centennial,  42 
Phonautograph 
deserfoed,  176 
invented  by  Leon  Scott,  175 
Phonograph 

see  also,  Dictaphone;    Gramo- 
phone ;      Graphophone ; 
Phonaatogia^;      Talking 
Tnachinfa 
Edison-Berliner  "  eompeti- 

tion"  in  Berlin,  206-211 
Edison 'e  invention 

first  maehinp  made,  179 
Polities 

dnring  Grant's  administration, 
24 
Pollok,  Anthony,  109 
Postage 

foreign,  in  1870,  23 


Preece,  VTilliain    (Sir),  255 
Prizes 

see  also,  Medals 
Silver  Trophy  Cup,  in  connec- 
tion   -Kith    pnbUe    health 
work,  247 
Yolta  award  to  Bell,  180 
Providence  Hospital 

Berliner,  a  patient  at,   119 
Public  health 

Berliner 's       participation       in 
work,  234 
publications,   248,    250,    290, 
323 
statistics,  241-242 
work  in  schools,  246 
Public  ownership 

telephone     systems     in     Great 
Britain  and  Europe,  48 
Pupin,  Michael 

author  of.  From  Immigrant  to 
Inventor,  211 
Putnam,  Herbert,  231 

Badio 

and  Bell  telephone  system,  48 
as  harbinger  of  p:ace,  271 
broadcasting 

Defense    Day   test   in    1924, 
264 

proper  distance  from  micro- 
phone, 254 

stations,  260 

WJZ  at  New  York,  268 
Dawes  quoted,  306 
future  predicted,  305 
Hoover  quoted  on,  269 
industry,  260 
Marconi,  inventor,  256 
microphone  use,  251 
modem  practise,  257,  262 
national  def emse  through,  265 


IXDEX 


349 


Badio,  con 't. 
outstandmg     aetievement     of, 

263 
ship's  use  of,  261 
talViTig  maeliiiies,  us.e  a:^e«toi 

bT,  221-222 
telephonic  equipment,  9-i 
transatlantic  messages,  262-263 
Taeutim  tube  invented,  253 
Badio  Corporation  of  America 

teusatlantie  station,  262 
Baitroads 

Imiit  im  the  early  'seTenties,  32 
Rathenan,  Emil,  44 
Barleigh,  Lord 

medal  award  to,  195 
Reis,  Philip,  215 

telephone  of,  53,  138 
Be  public 

collision  with  Florida,  261 
Richards,  Alvan  S.,  74,  150 
Biehards,  W.  L. 

assistant  to  Berliner,  130,  159, 
315 
Bociefeller  Instirute  for  Medical 

Besearch,  239 
Bogers,    Agnes    L.     (Professor), 

303 
Boman  CathoUe   Churches 

acoustic    qualities    inadequate, 
275 
Boosevelt,  Hilborne  L.,  104 
Eovalties 

talking  machine 

received  bv  singers,  227 
Eubber 
imitation 

impracticable    for   telephone 

rweirers,  160 
use    for    gramophone   disis, 
160.  200 
ynleanizatioB,  42 


Salt  Lake  City  Taber: 
acoustic   qualities,   2: 
San  Francisco 


47 


Sanders,  Gerrrcie,  290 
Sanders,  Thomas,  314 

influential   in   organizing   Bell 
system,  102 
Sarah  Berliner  Beseareh  Fellow- 
ship, 302,  304 
Saimoff ,  David 

general  manager,    Badio    Cor- 
poration of  America,  269 
Scandinavia 

telephone  use  xo,  46 
Schools 

pubHe  heahh  work  is,  246 
Sehroeder,  Ernest  Charles   ^^Doc- 

tor),  242,   244,  291 
Schun,  Carl,  13,  14 
ScMitsenfest  celebrated  at  Han- 
over, 4 
Seienee 

general  interest  in,  45 
Seientinc  Side  of  Mu»ie 

by  Berliner,  32S 
Scott,  Leon 

discoveries    in    registering    of 

Boond,  175,  329 
phonautograph,  175 
Sholes,  Christopher  K, 

typewriter  invented,  42 
Siemens  and  Halske,  163 
Siemeas-Halske     eketrkal     eon- 

eera,  203 
Siemens-Scliuckert  electrical  con- 
cern, 208 
Silver  currency 
legislation  agaisaf^  3S 


350 


EMILE  BEELINER 


Slosson,  Edwin  E.  (Doctor),  206 
Smee  cells,  70 
Smithsonian  Institution 

exhibit  of  Berliner's  work,  100 
Society  for  Prevention  of   Sick- 
ness, 238,  245 
Solomons,  A.  S.,  99,  100,  120 
called  in  defense  of  Bell-Ber- 
liner patents,   150 
Sound 

acoustic     qualities     of     public 

buildings,   273 
microphonic  action,  87 
produced    by    electric    current, 

first  discovery,  84 
reproduction     in    gramophone, 
176 
Speeches 

see,  Addresses  of  Berliner 
Spottiswoode 

scientist   in   Great   Britain,   77 
Squier,  George  Owen,  258 
Steamboat 

Fulton's  invention,  42 
Steinberg,    Alfred    J.    (Doctor), 

247 
Steinmetz,    Charles    Proteus 

medal  award  to,  195 
Sternberg,   George  M.,    242,   324 
Storrow,  James  J.,  Sr.,  69,  77 
defense   of   Bell  patents,    130, 

318 
patent   lawyer  and   Bell   Tele- 
phone    Company     counsel, 
77,  91 
quoted    on,    Berliner's    caveat, 

91,  167 
quoted  on,  defense  of  Berlin- 
er's patent,  146 
Straus,  Nathan 

pasteurized     milk     distributed 
by,  244 


Suess,  Werner 

assistant  to  Berliner,  192 
Switchboards 

first  use,  102 

Tainter,  Charles  Sumner 

Bell-Tainter  graphophone,  181 
Talking  machines 

see   also,   Dictaphone;    Gramo- 
phone ;      Graphophone ; 
Phonautograph ;        Phono- 
graph 
Edison-Berliner    "competi- 

tion"  in  Berlin,  206-211 
first  use  of  term,  178 
gramophone     companies,     220- 

221,  223-224 
heart  beats  recorded,  305 
phonautograph  of  Scott,  175 
radio,  effect  on,  221-222 
records 

countries  using,  222-223 
files   of,  kept,   231,  232 
lateral   cut    disk,   227 
royalties     received     by     opera 
singers,   227 
Technical  Society  of   Frankfort- 
on-the-Main 
Berliner's  speech,  215 
Telegraph 

Morse's  invention,  42 
transmission       principle       ex- 
plained to  Berliner,  74 
Telephon-Fabrik  J.  Berliner,  164 
Telephone 
Bell's  invention 

development  of,  93,  102 
Berliner 's  work,   52,   72 
Birth  a7id  Babyiwod  of,  59 
Bourseuil's  theory,  52 


INDEX 


851 


Telephone,   con 't. 

exhibited  at  Centennial  Expo- 
sition,  61 

first   message   transmitted,  60- 
61 

first  public   use   of,    by    Em- 
peror of  Brazil,  63 

first  sound  produced,  59 

introduction  into  Europe,  161 

invention  of 

Alexander  Graham  Bell,  44, 
46,  51,  55,   57 

microphonic   principle,   75 

national  statistics  of  use  of,  46 

recognition  of  worth,  62 

Eeis'   work,  53 

transformers,    continuous    cur- 
rent, 96 

Transmetteur  Berliner,  165 

transmitter 

Berliner's  famous   soap-box, 
82 

Watson's  work  with  Bell,  58 
Telephone  Company  of  New  York 

see    also,    Telephone    systems. 
Bell 

Berliner's  correspondence  with, 
103,   106 

Berliner's  visit,  104 
"Telephone   House"    in    Wash- 
ington, 72 
Telephone    Society    of   Washing- 
ton 

Berliner's  address,  69 
Telephone  systems 

American  Bell  Telephone  Com- 
pany 
Hudson,  John  E.  president, 
150 

American   Speaking  Telephone 
Company,  124 


Telephone  systems,  can't. 
American  Telephone  and  Tele- 
graph Company,  49,  50 

Berliner's  report  of  Blake 
transmitter,  129 

Defense  Day  test  in  1924, 
264 

presidents.  Vail  and  Thayer, 
154 
Bell 

see  also,  Bell  Telephone  Com- 
pany of  Boston;  Tele- 
phone Company  of  New 
York 

agreement  with  Western 
Union,  136 

Berliner 's  affiliation  with, 
113,   117 

Berliner,  chief  instrument 
inspector,  159 

"Big  Four"  of,  126 

Boston,  the  home  of,  145 

capitalization  increased,  304 

condition  of,  at  beginning  of 
Berliner 's  service  with, 
126 

employee  ownership,  49 

extent  of,  in  1926,  48 

growth  and  expansion,  105 

importance  to,  of  Berliner's 
discoveries,  122 

organization,  102 

patent  rights  assailed,  143 
Supreme     Court     decision, 
151 

patent  rights  offered  to 
Western  Union,   123 

stock  affected  by  Berliner 
patent,  141,  144 

strong  opposition  encoun- 
tered, 133 


352 


EMILE  BERLINER 


Telephone  systems,  con't. 
Chinese  exchange  in  San  Fran- 
cisco, 47 
first  organization,  102 
France 

first  in,  165 
Germany 

first  in,  164 
Pan-Electric  Company,  142 
People 's    Telephone    Company, 

138 
public   and   private   ownership, 

47-48 
transatlantic    service    planned, 

301 
Western   Union 's    competition, 
115 
Thayer,   H,  B, 
president,  American  Telephone 
and    Telegraph    Company, 
154 
Thomson,  William   (Sir) 
recognition  of  Bell's  telephone, 
65 
Thyssen,  August,  272 
Tilden,   Samuel  J., 

presidency  defeated,  82 
Transformer 

continuous   current,  96 

patent  issued,   101 
first  use  of,  with  microphone, 
94 
Transmetteur  Berliner,  165 
Transmitter 

Berliner 's  invention,  82 
Blake's  design,  128 

paper  in  archives  of  Ameri- 
can   Telephone    and    Tele- 
graph Company,  314 
perfected   by  Berliner,   129 
Edison  applied  for  patent,  96, 
125 


Trend  of  the  times 

general  interest  in  science,  45 
Trophies 

see,  Prizes 
Tuberculosis 

infirmary  erected  by  Berliner, 
249 
Tuberculosis        Association        at 

Washington,  242,  246 
Typewriter  invented,  42 

United  States  Gramophone  Com- 
pany,  221 

United  States,  Supreme  Court 
decision  in  Bell-Berliner  patent 
action,   151 

University  of  Berlin,  1 

Urso,   Camilla,  220 

Vail,   Theodore   N.,   108 

biography  of,   123 

correspondence  with  Berliner, 
114 

general  manager  of  Bell  sys- 
tem,   113,    127 

president,  American  Telephone 
and  Telegraph  Company, 
154 

visits  to  Berliner  in  Providence 
Hospital,   120-121,   122 
Vessels 

radio  equipment,  261-262 
Victor  Talking  Machine 

trade-mark,  229 
Victor    Talking    Machine     Com- 
pany 

Camden  plant  described,  229- 
230 

competition,  221 

outgrowth  of  Berliner  Gramo- 
phone  Company,  220,  221 


INDEX 


353 


Victor     Talking     Machine     Com- 
pany, con't. 
"Victrola  Infringement,"  220 
Victor     Talking     Machine     Com- 
pany of  Canada 
formerly,  Berliner  Gramophone 
Company,  223 

Violins 

Berliner's  studies  of  structure, 
219 
Volta,  Alessandro 

first  electric  cell  made  by,  180 
Volta  Laboratory  in  Washington, 

180 
Volta  Prize 

awarded  to  A.   G.  Bell,  180 
von  Bojanowski,  204 
Ton  Biilow,  Hans,  204 
Ton  Bunsen,  Eobert  Wilhelm,  192 
von   Helmholtz,   Herman    (Excel- 
lenz),  211 

gramophone  demonstration  be- 
fore, 212-215 
von  Hindenburg,  Paul 

birthplace  at  Hanover,  3 
von  Pirquet,   Professor,   244 
von   Siemens,   Werner    (Doctor) 

quoted  on,  the  gramophone,  208 

Wagner   Theater,   Bayreuth 
acoustic  qualities,   284 

War 

influence  of  chemistry,  206 

Washington 

described,  183,   184 

during  Grant's  presidency,  23, 

26 
first  electric  light,  70 
John  Hay's  description,  26 


Watson,  Thomas  A. 

Birth  and   Babyhood    of    tlie 

Telephone,  59 
examination    of   Berliner 's    in- 
vention,  110 
work  -with  Bell,  58,  102 
Western  Union   Telegraph   Com- 
pany 
agreement  with  Bell  Telephone 

Company,   136 
American    Speaking   Telephone 
Company,      a     subsidiary, 
124 
annexation  of  Bell  system  con- 
templated, 123 
Bell  patent  rights   offered  to, 

123 
decision     to     enter     telephone 

field,  115 
first  electric  journal  published, 

71 
Gold     and     Stock     Telegraph 
Company,     a     subsidiary, 
130,  135 
Westinghouse  Company 

radio   station,  263 
Westinghouse,  George 

air  brake  invented,  42 
Whitney,   Eli 

cotton  gin  invented,  42 
Williams,  Charles,  58 

manufacturer  of  telephone  in- 
struments,  315 
WUliams  Factory,  Boston 

maker     of     telephone     instru- 
ments, 155 
Wolfenbiittel,  8,  9,  288 
Wonders 

written  by  Berliner,  333 
Woodward,  Doctor,  240,  241 
World  War 

part  played  by  music,  225-226 


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353    p*    illuss    23    cm* 

74929 


MBNU 


07    NOV    77 


502012       NEDDbp 


26-19127 


s'g'ss's  00074929  8