Even in that day of small things, and amidst the confusion and rough-and-tumble of pioneering, he worked out the broad policy that prevails to-day; and this goes far to explain the fact that there are in the United States twice as many telephones as there are in all other countries combined.
Vail arrived very much as Blucher did at the battle of Waterloo--a trifle late, but in time to prevent the telephone forces from being routed by the Old Guard of the Western Union.

He was scarcely seated in his managerial chair, when the Western Union threw the entire Bell army into confusion by launching the Edison transmitter.

Edison, who was at that time fairly started in his career of wizardry, had made an instrument of marvellous alertness.

It was beyond all argument superior to the telephones then in use and the lessees of Bell telephones clamored with one voice for "a transmitter as good as Edison's." This, of course, could not be had in a moment, and the five months that followed were the darkest days in the childhood of the telephone.
How to compete with the Western Union, which had this superior transmitter, a host of agents, a network of wires, forty millions of capital, and a first claim upon all newspapers, hotels, railroads, and rights of way--that was the immediate problem that confronted the new General Manager.

Every inch of progress had to be fought for.