It had paid out its first million for legal expenses by 1886; began first to send a million messages a day in 1888; had strung its first million miles of wire in 1900; and had installed its first million telephones in 1898.

By 1897 it had spun as many cobwebs of wire as the mighty Western Union itself; by 1900 it had twice as many miles of wire as the Western Union, and in 1905 FIVE TIMES as many.

Such was the plunging progress of the Bell Companies in this period of expansion, that by 1905 they had swept past all European countries combined, not only in the quality of the service but in the actual number of telephones in use.

This, too, without a cent of public money, or the protection of a tariff, or the prestige of a governmental bureau.
By 1892 Boston and New York were talking to Chicago, Milwaukee, Pittsburg, and Washington.

One-half of the people of the United States were within talking distance of each other.