The First Words

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20023, 23 August 1939, Page 15

The First Words

IT seems a little incongruous that amid so much dramatic excitement the first words spoken on the telephone were the inventor’s 5.0.5., “Mr. Watson! Come here! I want you!” excitedly shouted by Alexander Graham Bell when laboratory acid burned a hole in his pants! It was heard by his assistant, Thomas A. Watson, who was so impressed by the importance of the event he immediately set it down in his notebook among a myriad of diagrams of experimental ’phones. Bell’s is a story that, belongs to America- —the obscure young scientist. his discouraging struggles, his invention of the telephone, his desperate battle against public ridicule and powerful opponents, and his ultimate triumph. So intense was the struggle against poverty, disappointments, and powerful opponents—a struggle which pre-

vented his marriage to the girl he loved, that Bell halted On the thresho'd of his invention ready to sacrifice i- in order that he might Hnri happiness with Mabel Hubbard. To her, in his darkest hour, he wrote;— “Ever since I held you in my arms, tv known My invention must be given up. This is little enough to do if it weans that I may call you '•weetbegrt and wife! The telephone v;ill be born «bme dav —and I do

not care one bit who gets the glory so long as the world gets the benefit. . .” But the courageous Mabel spurred on the dreamer who believed men could talk through a wire. It was their romance that gave the world the power to span Oceans and continents with the human voice.