Line by line, he mapped out a method, a policy, a system.

He introduced a larger view of the telephone business, and swept off the table all schemes for selling out.

He persuaded half a dozen of his post office friends to buy stock, so that in less than two months the first "Bell Telephone Company" was organized, with $450,000 capital and a service of twelve thousand telephones.
Vail's first step, naturally, was to stiffen up the backbone of this little company, and to prevent the Western Union from frightening it into a surrender.

He immediately sent a copy of Bell's patent to every agent, with orders to hold the fort against all opposition.

"We have the only original telephone patents," he wrote; "we have organized and introduced the business, and we do not propose to have it taken from us by any corporation." To one agent, who was showing the white feather, he wrote: "You have too great an idea of the Western Union.