The talking machine world (Jan-Dec 1912)

16 THE TALKING MACHINE WORLD. Looking back one year at the Columbia progress ought to make it easy for you to look ahead one year and make a pretty shrewd guess. Columbia Phonograph Co., Gen'l. Tribune Building "Nevir York AN EARLY EDISON EXPERIENCE. Walter P. Phillips Tells of an Interesting Incident in the Life of the Great Inventor. Walter P. Phillips, who was himself a telegraph operator at an early age and an inventor of telegraphic improvements, formed an acquaintance with Thomas A. Edison more than forty years ago, long before Mr. Edison's brilliant characteristics had acquired national renown. Mr. Phillips is not only a telegrapher and an inventor, but has had wide experience as a newspaper man. He possesses an easy, facile pen and his reminiscent sketch, "From Franklin to Edison," makes interesting reading. He says : "When Edison was twenty-one or twenty-two years old he came to Boston and was employed for a short time as an operator. He was regarded as a good-natured, but hair-brained chap, and my impression is that he was finally discharged from the service for inattention to business. He was fairly punctual at all times, excepting on pay days, when he would come straying in an hour late and blandly ask some of us to lend him half a dollar with which to get his supper. When reminded that he had received half a month's salary that day, he would smile, and taking a brown-paper-covered parcel from under his arm, he would display a Ruhmkorff coil, an expensive set of helices, or something equally useless m the eyes of his comrades in the office ; from which we were led to infer that the salary for the preceding half month had been exchanged for these apparently useless instruments. He spent a great deal of his time, when on duty, in making diagrams to show how wires could be operated in a multiplex way, and he held forth with undeniable eloquence on every conceivable subject excepting that relating to the prompt dispatch of such messages as the company then had on file for transmission. The office boys came and hung message after message on the little row of hooks in front of him, but Edison's interest in them generally carried him no further than up against the proposition that if by a system of rheostats, polarized magnets and batteries of different potentiality he could enable one wire to carry four sets of signals, two each in different ways, those troublesome messages, when intrusted to other hands than his, could be disposed of with increased rapidity.And so he used to sit and draw and dream, and let the business hang, until reminded by the chief operator that he must attend to his work. I did not even know his name at first, for some had referred to him as Victor Hugo when he made his appearance, and it was by that name that we generally spoke of him. "Every device was employed to thwart his soarings after the infinite, and his divings for the unfathomable, as we regarded them, and to get an amount of work out of him that was equivalent to the sum paid per diem for his services, and among them was that of having him receive the press report from New York. He did not like this, the work continuing steadily from 6.30 p. m. until 2 a. m., and leaving him no time in which to pursue his studies. One night about 8 p. m. there came down an inquiry as to where the press report was, and on going to the desk where Edison was at work, Night Manager Leighton was horrified to find that there was nothing read? to go upstairs, for the reason that Edison had copied between fifteen hundred and two thousand words of stock and other market reports in a hand so small that he had only filled a third of a page. Leighton laughed in spite of himself, and saying, 'Heavens, Tom, don't do that again !' hastened to cut the copy up into minute fragments and have it prepared in a more acceptable manner. While this was occurring Edison went on receiving, and the frequent trips of the noisy dummy box which communicated with the Associated Press rooms on the next floor gave evidence that he was no longer gauging his handwriting with an ultimate view to putting the Lord's Prayer on a gold dollar. But all at once there was a great noise, and it was evident that Press Agent Wallace, a most profane man, was coming down the stairs, swearing and shouting as he came. "Everybody grew excited except Edison, who was, perhaps, dreaming of the possibilities in some of the realms of electrical endeavor in which he has since won renown. But we did not have long to wait to know the cause of Wallace's visit. Kicking open the door, he appeared to us, but he was speechless. The last note of his voice, and the last remnant of a vocabulary of blasphemy which was famous throughout the city, was gone. Standing there with both hands full of small, white pages of paper, he could only beckon. Leighton approached him, and tenderly took the sheets of paper from him, to find that Edison had made the radical change from his first style of copy to simply putting one word on each sheet, directly in the center. He had furnished in this way several hundred pages in a very few minutes. He was relieved from duty on the press wire, and put on another circuit, while the much-tried Leighton devoted himself to bringing Wallace back to a normal condition, admitting of the use of his voice and the flow of his usual output of profanity." AN AGE OF ORGANIZATION. Says John Kirby, Jr., president of the National Association of Manufacturers : : "We are living in an age of organization ; an age when but little can be accomplished except through organization ; an age when organization must cope with organization ; an age when organization alone can preserve your industrial freedom and mine ; and the sooner all business men learn the lesson that the preservation of their industrial and commercial rights is dependent upon organization the sooner will those rights, which are novr hanging in the balance, be assured to them*." The quality of the salesmanship depends upon the energy which the salesman can generate, how he conserves it, how he expends it, and how he uses the time— a short period of which is his for use. NOVEL RECORD PATENTED. Has for Its Object the Production of a Perforated Strip or Ribbon Which Will Operate a Piano and Can Also Be Used in a Talking Machine — Some Details in This Connection Which Will Be Found Interesting. A patent has just been granted on a musical record (No. 1,013,519) to John C. Sherman, Brookline, Mass. This invention has for its object to produce a record containing perforations corresponding with the notes of a piece of music by the employment of which a piano may be mechanically played and which perforated strip or ribbon shall also contain a record by the employment of which in connection with a phonograph or like instrument the music of another instrument or of the human voice may be reproduced so that the sounds by both instruments shall be in proper musical relation to each other, that is so that they shall be reproduced in the same relation as when they are produced together by skilled artists. For the production of a record embodying the invention, a ribbon or flexible strip of metal is preferred and perforations formed therein corresponding with the piece of music to be played by the piano but so arranged that the strip must travel faster than do the ordinary perforated strips or records which have hitherto been employed in mechanical piano-players. This quicker movement of the record is desirable because of the greater speed at which it is necessary for a phonographic record to move, which is ordinarily greater than the speed of the perforated record of a piano-player. The increased speed, however, at which it is necessary to move the piano-player record is compensated for in said record by properly locating and forming the perforations. PUBLICITY A TRADE PROMOTER. Fred G. Loefner, the progressive talking machine dealer of Union Hill, N. J., has been featuring the talking machine in very striking advertisements in the Hudson Theatre News. He transacted a very large holiday business, and this may be ascribed in a large measure to his very well conceived publicity. It is worthy of note that those dealers who took pains to introduce themselves to the public by means of carefully prepared advertising transacted the largest volume of business during the holiday season. If this policy were pursued, not merely during the holidays, but all the time, it would be found a profitable investment. The latter, of course, does not refer to Mr. Loeffler, for he is a great believer in publicity and its value, and has never failed to receive beneficial results. JUST A QUESTION. Did you let that last customer get out with only the records he asked for, or did you show real salesmanship and persuade him to buy some extra ones?