It was the final result of ten years of invention and improvement.
While this epoch-making line was being strung, Vail was pushing his "grand telephonic system" policy by organizing The American Telephone and Telegraph Company.

This, too, was a master-stroke.

It was the introduction of the staff-and-line method of organization into business.
It was doing for the forty or fifty Bell Companies what Von Moltke did for the German army prior to the Franco-Prussian War.

It was the creation of a central company that should link all local companies together, and itself own and operate the means by which these companies are united.

This central company was to grapple with all national problems, to own all telephones and long-distance lines, to protect all patents, and to be the headquarters of invention, information, capital, and legal protection for the entire federation of Bell Companies.
Seldom has a company been started with so small a capital and so vast a purpose.