No matter where a new idea was born, sooner or later it came knocking at the door of the Western Electric to receive a material body.

Here were the skilled workmen who became the hands of the telephone business.

And here, too, were many of the ablest inventors and engineers, who did most to develop the cables and switchboards of to-day.
In Boston, Watson had resigned in 1882, and in his place, a year or two later stood a timely new arrival named E.T.Gilliland.

This really notable man was a friend in need to the telephone.

He had been a manufacturer of electrical apparatus in Indianapolis, until Vail's policy of consolidation drew him into the central group of pioneers and pathfinders.