The needs of the new business attracted other men with good ideas who
entered our service, such men as Emile Berliner and George L. Anders and
many others. Every agency became a center of inventive activity, each
with its special group of ingenious, thinking men—every one of whom
contributed something, and sometimes a great deal to the improvement of
apparatus or methods. I remember particularly Ed. Gilliland, of
Indianapolis, an ingenious man and excellent mechanic, who improved the
generator of my magneto call bell, shortening the box and making it less
funereal.
He did much also for central office switchboards.
This was the beginning of the great wave of telephonic activity, not
only in electrical and mechanical invention, but also in business and
operative organization, which has been increasing in its force ever
since, to which men in this audience have made and are making splendid
contributions. To-day that wave has become a mighty flood on which the
great Bell system floats majestically as it moves ever onward to new
achievements.