Whoever is rich enough and rash enough may enter the field.

But it has all the immeasurable advantages that come from long experience, immense bulk, the most highly skilled specialists, and an abundance of capital.

"The Bell System is strong," says Vail, "because we are all tied up together; and the success of one is therefore the concern of all." The Bell System! Here we have the motif of American telephone development.

Here is the most comprehensive idea that has entered any telephone engineer's brain.

Already this Bell System has grown to be so vast, so nearly akin to a national nerve system, that there is nothing else to which we can compare it.