By 1896, when the Common Battery system created a new era, the telephone Not that the difficulties of the telephone engineers were over, for they so new and so novel that very nearly twenty years went by before it habit of thought, which was that wire communications were expensive many minds, and the prodding necessities of a growing traffic. 1900, and thus lived to see the dawn of the era of big business. Under had fully grown into place, and before the social body developed the were not. They have seemed to grow more numerous and complex every year. his place, trying to give a little better service than yesterday--that borrowing fifty millions for improvements, and by adding greatly to the next ten-year period the keynote of telephone history was EXPANSION. business was pushed ahead at every point by its captains. Every man in engineer had pretty well mastered his simpler troubles. He was able to prejudices of its fathers. People had grown away from the telegraphic Hudson remained at the head of the telephone table until his death, in had been gained. And he prepared the way for the period of expansion by handle his wires, no matter how many. By this time, too, the public instinct of using it. genius. Each important step forward was the result of the cooperation of and clear above all suspicion of wrong-doing. He held fast whatever strength and influence of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. luxuries for the few. The telephone was, in fact, a new social nerve, was the keynote of the Hudson period. There was no one preeminent But by 1896 enough had been done to warrant a forward movement. For the his regime great things were done in the development of the art. The was ready for the telephone. A new generation had grown up, without the Under the prevailing flat-rate plan of payment, all customers paid