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The Stock Exchange force of telegraphers and other employees practically in a body volunteered their services, and those selected were of great assistance in preparing the card index system, which was used and found to be practical and eminently satisfactory.
The incident is curiously revelatory of the character of the man, for it must be admitted that while literary telegraphers are by no means scarce, there are very few who would spend scant savings on back numbers of a ponderous review at an age when tragedy, beer, and pretzels are far more enticing.
The Russian-American Telegraph Company, otherwise known as the "Western Union Extension," was organised at New York in the summer of 1864. The idea of a line from America to Europe, by way of Bering Strait, had existed for many years in the minds of several prominent telegraphers, and had been proposed by Perry McD. Collins, as early as 1857, when he made his trip across northern Asia.
Illustrative of the length to which telegraphers could go at a time when they were so much in demand, Edison tells the following story: "When I took the position there was a great shortage of operators. One night at 2 A.M. another operator and I were on duty. I was taking press report, and the other man was working the New York wire. We heard a heavy tramp, tramp, tramp on the rickety stairs.
He could not understand what words had come over the wires, simply by listening to the clicking of the instrument an accomplishment of all expert telegraphers but he thought he could do quite well enough if he could read the marks on the paper slips, and there was no knowing to what proficiency he might arrive in time. Of course he had no money to buy telegraphic apparatus, wire, etc., etc.
A third and more miscellaneous group are the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, the Order of Railway Telegraphers, the Switchmen's Union of North America, the International Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes and Railroad Shop Laborers, and the Brotherhood of Railway Signalmen. The organizations comprised in the latter two groups belong to the American Federation of Labor.
When the fact of the successful laying of the old Atlantic cable was known, there was no class of people in this country more surprised at the result than the electricians, engineers, and practical telegraphers.
They ordered those who opposed them to be deprived of their food-cards. They published lists of strikers, thus running the risk of having them lynched by the crowds. At Saratov, for example, the strike of postal workers and telegraphers lasted a month and a half.
Hadn't the telegraphers, those silent men who were the tongue of the army, received the good news and passed it on? Some officers who could be spared from duty went to their quarters, where they dropped like falling logs on their beds. To them, after their spell of rejoicing, victory meant sleep for the first time in weeks without forked lightnings of apprehension stabbing their sub-consciousness.
And he must be a man who can keep his head, observe intelligently, and plan for himself and his regiment. Those in charge of the recruiting for the Eaton Battery expressed themselves as well pleased with the type of men secured. Many had seen service before; there were several expert telegraphers, several expert signalers, and one an ex-lieutenant in the British navy.
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