nd devoted the last years of his life to the National Geographic
Society. Thomas Watson, after retiring from the telephone business,
bought a ship-building yard near Boston, which has been successful.

In making this settlement with the Western Union, the Bell interests not
only eliminated a competitor but gained great material advantages.
They took over about 56,000 telephone stations located in 55 cities
and towns. They also soon acquired the Western Electric Manufacturing
Company, which under the control of the Western Union had developed into
an important concern for the manufacture of telephone supplies. Under
the management of the Bell Company this corporation, which now has
extensive factories in Hawthorne, Ill., produces two-thirds of the
world's telephone apparatus. With the Western Electric Vail has realized
the fundamental conception underlying his ideal telephone system--the
standardization of equipment. For the accomplishment of his idea of
a national telephone system, instead of a parochial one, Mr. Vail
organized, in 1881, the American Bell Telephone Company, a corporation
that really represented the federalization of all the telephone
activities of the subsidiary companies. The United States was divided
into several sections, in each of which a separate company was organized
to develop the telephone possibilities of that particular area. In 1899
the American Telephone and Telegraph Company took over the business and
properties of the American Bell Company. The larger corporation built
toll lines, connected these smaller systems with one another, and
thus made it possible for Washington to talk to New York, New York to
Chicago, and ultimately--Boston to San Francisco. An enlightened policy
led the Bell Company frequently to establish exchanges in places where
there was little chance of immediate profit. Under this stimulation the
use of this instrument extended rapidly, yet it is in the last twenty
years that the telephone has grown with accelerated momentum. In 1887
there were 170,000 subscribers in the United States, and in 1900 there
were 610,000; but in 1906 the American Telephone and Telegraph Company
was furnishing its service to 2,550,000 stations, and in 1916 to
10,000,000. Clearly it is only since 1900 that the telephone has become
a commonplace of American existence. Up to 1900 it had grown at the rate
of about 13,000 a year; whereas since 1900 it has grown at the rate of
700,000 a year. The expl