The only time the Bell Company has had no competitor, Mr.
Vail has said, was at the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876.

Some of this competition has benefited the public but much of it has accomplished little except to enrich many not over-scrupulous promoters.

Groups of farmers who frequently started companies to furnish service at cost did much to extend the use of the telephone.

Many of the companies which, when the Bell patents expired in 1895, sprang up in the Middle West, also manifested great enterprise and gave excellent service.

These companies have made valuable contributions, of which perhaps the automatic telephone, an instrument which enables a subscriber to call up his "party" directly, without the mediation of "central," is the most ingenious.