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Show HEADS THE GREATEST TELEPHONE SYSTEM K' VrK- N ' 111 1 Time was. and not so very long ago about twenty-five or thirty years when they called the first long-distance telephone installation in this country "Vail's Folly." This characterization was. originated and-encouraged and-encouraged by certain conservative old gentlemen in capitalistic circles in Boston, who refused to invest in, a project which was being advanced by Theodore Newton Vail, then entering en-tering upon that elusive period of life's span commonly called the "prime," but even then showing possession pos-session of that valuable faculty o grasping a situation in its inception, and looking temperately, but confidently confi-dently into the future, which sent him from a $40-a-month position as a railway mail-clerk to the presidency of a corporation capitalized at $250,-000,000. $250,-000,000. Mr. Vail had the courage of his convictions in those early days oil telephone development, and he had ijong before put all of his money into the business. As a result he is where he is today, while the conservative old Back Bay gentlemen well, they are still on Back Bay. |