The Seattle Star Newspaper, July 29, 1925, Page 15

WEDNESDAY, JULY CREUN RE GE RE EDGE | FERC EO CH EG RE Ob Re | HE UE TG AE UL GE wee FE HERE ERTL ER te Fe SE © bie Leis i peg 83 8s oe eos a oN EN Oe At the Command of Visiting Knights And of All the People in the State When Sir Knights of old set forth toward the to the Holy Land they undertook a mission of aspirations of mediaeval times. ast on long pilgrimages service expressive of the Now the Sir Knights of the present, in a similar spirit of service, ex- press and perpetuate a great ideal by gathering in Conclave on this western border of the Western land. In that former period the swiftest means of communication was as a messenger might travel on horse or perchance on boat propelled by sail. The going was hard, the beaten paths but few and rough, the dangers of travel were great. And yet, with all the perils that beset their way, the Knights of those days dedicated themselves to the spirit of service. America was. unknown. The world was flat, Centuries were still to pass before science and invention would bring the mechanical age to har- ness the hidden forces of steam and of electricity and thus enhance the ower of man over nature so that he might add to his comfort, increase his speed of travel, and command swift communication. Today the Sir Knights assembled on this shore of the Western ocean may look still farther Westward, acrosg the Pacific and beyond, toward that Holy La which their forefathers could reach only by laborious journey to the East. While the earlier Knights beheld in the Mediter- ranean the scene of ¥ yas due to pass as the center of the world’s commerce, the Knights of 1925 may here witness the beginning of an era of world trade between Occident and Orient which will surpass any- thing known in olden and in modern times, * * eee From East and North and South, standing on the farther edge of the continent that was unknown when the Crusades were under way, the Knights Templar of America, devoted to a lofty purpose, find. at their command a service undreamed of in mediaeval times. Yes, even fifty y ago, within the lifetime and the memory of many a Sir Knight now present here, it would have been the wildest fantasy to suggest that the day would come when one on far off Puget Sound might in an instant speak with his home wherever that might be, even in the uttermost corners of this vast land, much a reality fervid minds of the visual evidence of this Telephone system in the to constitute a modern But the wild fantasy of a half century ago is now as as is the continent which was undreamed in the early Crusaders. The illustration above gives reality. It presents the buildings of the Pacific State of Washington, grouped as they might be city. Each building in the group is owned by the Telephone Company and is devoted entirely and exclusively to the magic of communication. Each and all of them together, with fifty-four additional buildings rented by the Company, are a part of the service that provides a channel of speech from one telephone in this city or elsewhere in the commonwealth to any other telephone within the same city, and that connects Voice High- ways from any telephone in this Northwesterrnmost State to any other of the. 16,000,000 telephones reached by the Bell System throughout the length and breadth of the Union. rats Meaty ce These buildings give visible evidence of a part of the vast physical resources required in providing telephone service to the people of the State of Washington. They furnish space for switchboards and other central office equipment. They are centers of.the avenues of speech. Substantial and numerous as they prove to be when assembled into one imaginary city such as appears on this page, they constitute but a single item of the plant devoted to telephone communication, In value they are less than one-tenth of the property and facilities of the Pacific System within the state. With the lands on which they stand their cost amounts to $4,272,000. This figure of cost applies to sitas and to structures alone. It does not include a single piece of the apparatus which they are built to house. That apparatus is worth more than twice the buildings themselves. The equipment installed within the buildings represents a larger investment of the yings of people than was necessary to erect these products of the architect and engineer which are here grouped by the artist that they may at one sweep be comprehended by the eye. And, although the equipment they shelter is worth more than the buildings, and the buildings and lands are worth more than $4,000,000, the equipment and the buildings combined comprise but a minor frac- tion of the plant of the Pacific System to place the residents of each community within speaking range of each other and in turn to enable them to callepeople of other communities and other states. * * * * A City of Service, the buildings may be called. It is an imaginary city only in the grouping of the units which compose it. They are, in actual fact, widely scattered throughout the state. But they are also, in actual fact, as closely associated through the magie of communication as they appear here to be in physical proximity. This city suggests the magnitude of the investment dedicated to the transmission of the speech of the people of Washington. It can only suggest, however, for it does not inclile any of numerous other build- ings rented for telephone equipment in various parts of the state. And, extensive as are the buildings that appear in this imaginary city, and substantial as is the equipment they shelter, the buildings and the equipment would be useless for the purpose they serve if it were not for much greater investment in the wire and the cable, the conduits and the poles, the station equipment, telephone instruments, and the countless outside items which are required to make up a telephone ystem. These many items, essential in connecting one unit with another and all units with the vast number of telephone subscribers, cannot be visual- ized as a whole in a manner that is graphic or concrete. But they are vital elements in the telephone system and they are provided only through the thrift and the confidence of thousands of people whose sav- ings have gone into the material and the work that have built and installed this means of making a neighborhood of town, of common- wealth, and of Nation. * * * * Nor does this picture of the City of Service reveal the four thousand men and women—all residents of the state, each a citizen of the com- munity in which he or she lives—*?.o construct, maintain, and operate the telephone system, who give life and reality to the service. Day and night, year after year, without interruption, alert young women and skilled men are on duty in these buildings to connect calls and to insure that your spoken message is successfully transmitted. Outside of the buildings, under the ground, along streets and high- ways, through mountains and countryside, into skyscraper and modest cottage, men trained in numerous specialized occupations developed with the progress of telephony are engaged in building, extending and im- proving the system of spoken communication for which the central of- fices serve as nerve centers. Were all of the people employed in The Pacific Telephone System in the State of W. ashington to be assembled in one community— ich as in this imaginary grouping of telephone buildings—and were thgir depend- ants to be assembled with them, they and their families Would alone make a city about theisize of Olympia, the Capital. ® The homes in which they live, the stores%rom which they buy, the banks in which they deposit their individual accounts, the professional people whose services they require, the amusements thé¥ patronize, the churches and institutions they help to support, the civie activities in which they engage—all would in turn require other buildings and houses making a far larger city than is suggested by the picture of telephone buildings or than would be produced in counting as population merely the telephone men and women and their families.