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Show j.nu C(ATH CALLS THEODORE VAIL lser ointsident of American Telephone System Sys-tem Succumbs at Seventy-five. Baltimore. Theodore N. Vail, chalr-in chalr-in of the board of directors of the hp nerlciin Telephone f Telegraph coin-. coin-. a ny, died at Johns Hopkins hospital Jt(.,,iril Hi, of a complication of cardiac (iid kidney trirtbles. As president of the American Telc-lone Telc-lone & Telegraph company, Theodore 'ewton Vail was the head of the larg-st larg-st telephone system In the world. He ni i THEODORE N. VAIL 3SI Sh , f .' ; "'-'c'-'-''-"''! 'C - ' " 1 . r ' : ' :' t : . i -, , 1 v-.y . -v ' "r -'v. :y.:.-. ' ! 9 v . I Theodore N. Vail, head of the American Ameri-can Telephone & Telegraph company, who closes notable career at age of 75. was not only Its nominal head, but he was from the first the genius that promoted pro-moted the popular use of the telephone, Ihe first man to establish long-distance communication by telephone, and, when past 70 years of age, he was still the initial, ve head of a system that numbered num-bered id-ie million telephone subscribers subscrib-ers nnd represented an Investment of a billion and a half dollars. Mr. Vail was 31 years old when Alexander Alex-ander Graham Bell invented the telephone, tele-phone, and, notwithstanding his age, he was filling the responsible post of general superintendent of the railway mall service. Still earlier, however, he had been a telegraph operator, and, interested in-terested in the possibilities of electrical electri-cal communication, he had visions that Hell's "toy" would some day be a great factor In American life. |