One by one the telephone promoters learned the limitations of an isolated company, and asked to be included as members of the Bell family.

In 1907 four hundred and fifty-eight thousand independent telephones were linked by wire to the nearest Bell Company; and in 1908 these were followed by three hundred and fifty thousand more.

After this landslide to the policy of consolidation, there still remained a fairly large assortment of independent companies; but they had lost their dreams and their illusions.
As might have been expected, the independent movement produced a number of competent local leaders, but none of national importance.

The Bell Companies, on the other hand, were officered by men who had for a quarter of a century been surveying telephone problems from a national point of view.

At their head, from 1907 onwards, was Theodore N.Vail, who had returned dramatically, at the precise moment when he was needed, to finish the work that he had begun in 1878.