Government by telephone! This is a new idea that has already arrived in the more efficient departments of the Federal service.

And as for the present Congress, that body has gone so far as to plan for a special system of its own, in both Houses, so that all official announcements may be heard by wire.
Garfield was the first among American Presidents to possess a telephone.
An exhibition instrument was placed in his house, without cost, in 1878, while he was still a member of Congress.

Neither Cleveland nor Harrison, for temperamental reasons, used the magic wire very often.

Under their regime, there was one lonely idle telephone in the White House, used by the servants several times a week.

But with McKinley came a new order of things.