43/44 Forbes now picked up the load that had been carried so long by Sanders. As the son of an East India merchant and the son-in-law of Ralph Waldo Emerson, he was a Bostonian of the Brahmin caste. He was a big, four-square man who was both popular and efficient; and his leadership at this crisis was of immense value. It brought the heroic and experimental period to an end. From this time onwards the telephone had strong friends in the financial world. |