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HENRY A. BOGARDUS- or "Old
Bogy," as he was known to practically every
telegraph operator in America - who died in Chicago a few
years ago, had a nomadic career that has never been
equaled by any other member of his profession. He had
crossed the American continent twenty-eight times, twice
walking the entire distance from Omaha to San Francisco.
He had visited every city of any importance in the United
States, and had paid short visits to Mexico, Canada, and
Cuba. It was said of him that he had not accepted a
regular position since the death of his wife and two
children at Rochester, New York, in 1869. At that time,
being left alone in the world, he began the wanderings
which gave him the reputation of the greatest American
telegraph tramp. "Old Bogy" was an expert
telegrapher, and was at one time superintendent of the
Dominion Telegraph Company at Toronto. He had also,
before the death of his family, held various telegraph
managerships, and during the Civil War was an operator in
General Fremont's headquarters and later With General
Halleck. He was transferred to General McClellan's
command in time to take part in the seven days' retreat.
He had been in railroad accidents without number, always
managing to escape without injury. In the Ashtabula
railroad disaster he was pulled through a car-window
after it had fallen from the bridge over one hundred feet
into the creek, covered with ice and snow. He had
accompanied aeronauts in over one hundred voyages to the
clouds, and had many times gone down in diving armor,
exploring the depths of the sea.
Without Money and Without
Price.
"Old Bogy" scorned railroad transportation
as he scorned a regular job. He knew trainmen on every
railroad in the United States, and he generally traveled
in a passenger coach Should the passenger conductor not
prove accommo- dating, and "Old Bogy" be
reduced to the necessity of riding on a freight train,
lie generally succeeded in getting over a division
without trouble and then resuming his journey as a
first-class passenger. When hunger drove him, lie stopped
at the nearest telegraph office, and, calling the
operator aside, informed him ever so confidentially that
"Old Bogy" was financially embarrassed and
would appreciate a short-time loan with which to purchase
a hot meal or a bed. Nine times out of ten he would get
the necessary amount. After he had been
"staked" to the price he had requested he would
talk ably on any subject but one - his family. Being a
great traveler, he had met with varied experiences and
many people, and he would regale the interested
telegrapher with anecdotes until that gentleman felt that
he had been well repaid for the expenditure of fifty
cents or a dollar that he had given the aged
globe-trotter. But when it came to his wife and babies,
who were buried in the same year, his attitude would
change. He became instantly uncommunicative. It was the
one memory that was sacred to the old fellow.
When "Old Bogy" began a tour of the
continent, say at Jersey City, he would first call on one
of the operators there for a chat and a small loan.
During this operation he. would inform the operator as to
his intended route. The operator would flash the news to
Washington, Baltimore,. Pittsburgh, Chicago, and other
places en route that "Old Bogy" was to
be expected. Although he might always be expected to call
for a little "margin," telegraphers welcomed
his appearance for the stories he could tell, and no
budding youth entered the profession who did not feel
that an acquaintance or a sight of "Old Bogy"
was a part of the experience that would make him a
first-class man. When he died the news was flashed to
every telegraph office in the country, and there was
mourning among telegraphers who knew him for his better
qualities and were content to remember him for the good
there was in him.
OFFICE-BOY TO CABINET.
Or Robert J. Wynne's Rules for
Frequent Resigning
as an Aid to Success in Life.
ROBERT J. WYNNE, office-boy at five
dollars per week for a Philadelphia telegraph company,
paid three dollars of his stipend for board, one dollar
for laundering necessary linen, twenty-five cents for
candy, twenty-five cents for the peanut-gallery every
Saturday night, and fifty cents for odds and ends;
studied in his spare moments and learned telegraphy,
finally became Postmaster-General of the United States,
and is now United States consul at London.
Mr. Wynne was born in New York City, and received a
public-school education. He was thrown into the battle
for existence suddenly and with no preparation, by the
death of his mother and consequent breaking up of his
family, in 1865. Necessity begat thoughtfulness on the
part of the lad, and he began to study and practise
telegraphy soon after his coming into the position of
office-boy. His first position as an operator paid thirty
dollars per month, but he fell among good companions, who
placed him in the way of books on travel and biography
and the works of classic authors. Excepting that Saturday
night in the peanut-gallery, young Wynne studied
assiduously.
Finding employment with opposition companies at
gradually rising salaries, he moved about until he became
chief operator of the Pacific & Atlantic Telegraph
Company in Philadelphia at the age of nineteen. Eight
years of this tired Wynne of Philadelphia, and he moved
over to Washington, where he thought to find a broader
field, and he did. His skill and speed as an operator
were acknowledged, and when General Henry B. Boynton, the
well-known newspaper correspondent, wanted a man for his
Cincinnati leased wire, Wynne was selected. The
assignment brought heavy work, for he frequently
transmitted a night's press report and then put in the
following day doing routine newspaper details. General
Boynton kept the boy under his eye, however, and lost no
opportunity to assist him. Soon Wynne was given newspaper
work exclusively, and became an expert whose services
were sought by many papers.
Shaking Up the Post-Office
Department.
In 1891 he accepted the position of private secretary
to Charles Foster, of Ohio, who was Secretary of the
Treasury under President Harrison. Wynne's knowledge of
Ohio and acquaintance with the politicians of that State
gained him the position, which he filled successfully.
After the Harrison administration had passed into history
Wynne returned for a time to newspaper work. In 1902 he
was given the post of First Assistant Postmaster-General,
and his vigorous work in unearthing post-office frauds
was still causing cold chills to permeate the department
when Postmaster-General Henry C. Payne died. Mr. Wynne
was at once promoted to the head of the Post-Office
Department. He is the third telegrapher who has seen
service in the Cabinet - Marshall Jewell having been
Postmaster-General in President Ulysses S. Grant's
administration, and Colonel Daniel Lamont Secretary of
War under President Cleveland.
One of Wynne's recipes for getting up in the world is
a set of rules that he used during his term as
Postmaster-General.
"Going to resign, are you?" he asked an
indignant person who had been pouring grief into his ear
by the cubic yard. "Can't stand it another minute,
eh? Put up with it as long as you could, and now you're
going to throw up your job and tell your chief what you
think of him? Yes, I know. Last straw, and all that sort
of thing. Uh-huh! Did you ever see my set of rules for
resigning? I framed them up years ago, when I was in the
newspaper business, and I have used them ever since. I
have resigned often since then, always in the way
prescribed in these rules. Perhaps they will be of
service to you. Here they are:
"Rule 1. After receiving the last straw, don't do
anything for two hours. Above all, don't write anything.
"Rule 2. At the expiration of two hours, write
your resignation, and make it as hot as you can. Relieve
your feelings, and say everything you have been penning
up in your breast. Scorch the scoundrel.
"Rule 3. Then go home.
"Rule 4. The next morning, immediately upon
arising, read over your resignation and tear it up.
" Rule 5. Go to work at the usual hour.
"Take a copy of them," concluded Mr. Wynne,
"and you will find that they are absolutely
essential to any man who expects to resign frequently and
still continue to rise in the world."
OUR NATIONAL DETECTIVE.
John E. Wilkie's Progress from
Reporting Crime
to Discovering It for the Government.
JOHN E. WILKIE, chief of the United
States Secret Service since 1898, spent his early youth
around newspaper offices, and gained his present position
through the "nose for news" that a newspaper
training gave him. His newspaper and telegraph experience
developed his executive ability and endowed him with a
knowledge of the world's sharp turns that have made him
the successful head of the quietest but most far-reaching
department in the government service. to 1877 he became a
reporter on the Chicago Times. Three years later
he was sent to London on the staff of the same paper. In
1881 he returned to Chicago for the Tribune, and
was put to "doing the police" on a night
assignment.
During the long hours of the "dog watch" he
picked up a knowledge of telegraphy from two old
operators who were then in the fire-alarm service of
Chicago. That knowledge permitted him to make a
"scoop" during the great car-works fire at Blue
Island in 1883 that made his rivals wish that they too
had learned the mystery of dots and dashes. It was one
o'clock in the morning when the fire started, and Wilkie
broke open a fire-alarm box, called James Fitzpatrick at
headquarters (one of the men who had taught him
telegraphy), and flashed the news over the
fire-alarm-telegraph wire. Fitzpatrick rushed the copy to
the Tribune office by messenger, and it caught the first
edition.
Many times since then Mr. Wilkie has found telegraphy
a valuable aid in his work, especially when on
assignments that take him to out-of-the-way railroad
stations. A thousand-word telegram is apt to paralyze the
average rural telegrapher, and it is here that Mr. Wilkie
is able to take up the thread and push his story to the
distributing point ahead of his competitors. Since
assuming charge of the secret service he has installed a
private line between his office and home, and carries on
telegraphic business after hours with great facility.
Appointment a Pleasant
Surprise.
Wilkie was covering special Sunday assignments in
Chicago when Lyman J. Gage, then Secretary of the
Treasury, without solicitation or application, selected
him for chief of the secret service, where he has since
remained. There are branches of the secret service
connected with other departments of the government. The
Post-Office Department has its own, so has the Department
of Justice, and the Department of the Interior; but none
of them compare in numbers, magnitude of work, or
extensive ramifications with the Secret Service of the
Treasury, which is considered the main body. In this
department there is no room for stage-thunder,
spectacular plays, or newspaper notoriety. The work is
done silently and well.
While the secret service of the government sometimes
strikes quickly and sharply, the case of a Pennsylvania
cigar manufacturer, who attempted to defraud the
government through bogus internal revenue stamps and was
finally landed behind the bars, shows that it is also
patient and can go slowly when necessary. Chief Wilkie
and his men were pitted against a citizen of high
business standing at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who
possessed brains and money. He commenced his career of
crime by floating great quantities of internal revenue
stamps, the plates for which were made for him by two
exceedingly skilful engravers in Philadelphia. So
skilfully was their work performed that for a time the
counterfeit was not detected.
Emboldened by this the conspirators began turning out
notes of the denominations of one hundred dollars, fifty
dollars, and twenty dollars, which did not arouse
suspicion at the banks or even in the United States
Treasury. Then they planned to go further. Their lines
were all laid to float ten million dollars in counterfeit
notes simultaneously in the leading cities of the
country, when the watchfulness of the secret service
nipped the scheme.
But the suspicious conspirators became alarmed before
the net could be drawn in, and the plates were spirited
away and buried. For fourteen months the sleuths trailed
their quarry, watching them day and night, and patiently
awaiting the moment when they could clap their hands down
on the conspirators and evidence simultaneously. Finally,
lulled to a sense of security through the apparent
inactivity of the secret service, the criminals began
operations again. Then the government sleuths, under
Wilkie, swooped down upon them and landed the last one of
them - including a former United States district attorney
of Philadelphia - behind prison bars.
A PLOWBOY WHO CLIMBED.
Triumphant Course of Walter P.
Phillips the Inventor
of the Time and Labor Saving Code.
WALTER P. PHILLIPS, a Massachusetts
plowboy on his father's farm, resolved, at the age of
thirteen, that there were things to do out in the wide
world that were more congenial and remunerative than
following a plow. On one of the family's very infrequent
visits to the village of Grafton young Walter had heard
the click of a telegraph instrument. It mystified him,
charmed him, and interested him. Then and there he
resolved to become a telegrapher. He did it, and did it
so thoroughly that he ranked with the best in his
profession. Being of a progressive turn, he did not stop
there.
Like many other telegraphers, he turned to journalism
as offering greater scope for his abilities. He succeeded
there as he had in telegraphy. Starting in a subordinate
position and becoming managing editor of the Providence Morning
Herald, he made his way up, inch by inch, until he
became general manager of the greatest press organization
of the day, rubbing elbows with Presidents, cabinet
officers, senators, politicians, and editors from all
parts of the United States and Europe, and finally
bringing about a consolidation of the leading press
associations under what is to-day the Associated Press of
New York.
Through his wide acquaintance with newspaper people,
proprietors and operatives, and his earlier training in
the advertising field, he was selected, after his
retirement from the management of the consolidated press
companies, as the general advertising manager of a great
phonograph company. This position requires a shrewd mind
and a wide knowledge of advertising to properly carry out
the ends of that organization and obtain the proper
position for its multitude of advertisements.
To telegraphers throughout the country Mr. Phillips is
known as the writer of many terse and interesting
telegraph tales under the pen name of "John
Oakum," and as an inventor of the first rank. In
1879 it occurred to him that the system of spelling out
every word that went over a telegraph wire was absurd. He
set about compiling the "Phillips Code," in
which are over four thousand abbreviations and
combinations of words that make the telegrapher's life
easier and permit the telegraph companies to almost
double the capacity of their wires. The "Phillips
Code" is in use to-day exclusively, all over the
United States on press circuits and in message work, in
railroad offices or in brokerage establishments - in
fact, wherever the telegraph reaches. It is also used
successfully for court reporting, the combinations
covering, in some instances, five and six words very
commonly used, of which "Potus," for
"President of the United States,"
'Scotus," for "Supreme Court of the United
States," "Sow," for "Secretary of
War" are fair samples.
The "Weiny-Phillips" repeater is a product
of Mr. Phillips' inventive genius, aided by that of
Roderick Weiny, and that instrument is considered almost
indispensable by the big telegraph companies. What is
perhaps his most important invention, however, is the
Phillips Automatic System of Telegraphy, which was used
successfully during the existence of the United Press,
and which is now being perfected for use by one of the
large commercial companies. By the Phillips Automatic
more than two hundred words a minute may he transmitted
over a single wire, whereas at present the most expert
hand-sender is incapable of maintaining an average above
fifty words.
Breaking the World's Record.
During his earlier telegraph experience Mr. Phillips
performed a telegraph feat which stands to this day as a
marvelous record. Before the advent of typewriters or
"code" in telegraphy he had the reputation of
being one of the best "receivers" of Morse in
New England. To test his ability, it was arranged one
night to have the swiftest "sender" in Boston
man the wire on which Phillips was copying the telegraph
news report at Providence. The Boston swift opened up as
if his life depended on getting off the copy" in
large lumps. After an hour's work the "sender"
was fagged out, but not a sound had been heard from
Providence. Every word had been accurately recorded, and
a new world's record had been established without a
"break" in the proceedings. There were two
thousand seven hundred and thirty-one words in the hour's
work, and even with the present era of speed marvels,
aided by the typewriter and codification, that figure
would stand as a fair average. Professor S. F. B. Morse
recognized the achievement by presenting the young expert
with a beautiful gold pencil and penholder, suitably
inscribed.
In the organization and development of the system of
handling press telegrams Mr. Phillips was given the
distinction, as assistant general manager of the
Associated Press in 1878, of introducing the idea of
leasing wires from telegraph companies for the handling
of news, under the control of the press organization. The
wisdom and value of the experiment became instantly
apparent, and from a small beginning - a wire from New
York to Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington - the
leased wire system rapidly expanded, until now the press
service requires connection, day and night, with every
city and almost every hamlet in the United States.
Old-timers look back to the time of the United Press
under Mr. Phillips' management as the "good old days
of the U. P.," when many of them had their first
experience with a man of their own profession who had not
developed an abnormal cranium through climbing up in the
world and who could be depended on as a friend in need.
DEAN OF THE OPERATORS.
Orrin S. Wood, a Pupil of
Samuel F. B. Morse
and the Oldest Living Telegrapher.
ORRIN S. WOOD, the world's oldest
telegrapher, whose entrance into the profession antedates
by almost a year that of any other living operator, is
still a hearty citizen of New York. Mr. Wood began his
telegraph career at Washington, District of Columbia, in
July, 1844. He was the first student of telegraphy on the
first telegraph line ever erected. He remained with
Professor Morse in the Washington office until March,
1845, when he came with the telegraph exhibit to New
York. The next year he spent in building and operating
telegraph lines in New York, opening the first telegraph
offices at Syracuse, Auburn, Rochester, Buffalo, and
Utica. The New York section of the New York, Albany and
Buffalo Telegraph Company was not completed until the
fall of 1846, when he went to New York and opened the
first office there. This office was located in the Post
Building, which was then on Exchange Place. He was
identified with the telegraph throughout the century
until 1866, when he settled at, Fort Wadsworth, Staten
Island. Mr. Wood was a stockholder in Cyrus W. Field's
first Atlantic Telegraph-Cable Company.
Professor Morse, in writing from Poughkeepsie, New
York, to a brother of Mr. Wood, said:
"Your brother, Orrin S. Wood, was my first
telegraph pupil after the first (the experimental) line
was established between Washington and Baltimore. He will
undoubtedly recollect my predictions at that time for him
that, having accepted the enterprise at its very
commencement and made himself thus early master of all
that pertained to it, he would have an experience
possessed by no other, which would enable him to command
any position he might choose."
YERKES' RIGHT-HAND MAN.
Early Beginning of De Lancey H.
Louderback,
Builder of the London Tube for Yerkes.
DE LANCEY H. LOUDERBACK, son of a New
York State Episcopal clergyman, ran errands and saved his
pennies, nickels, and dimes until he had a capital of
five dollars with which to go forth into a strange world.
At odd times he had learned telegraphy at the little
railroad office of the village where he was born, and at
the age of fourteen made application to the
superintendent of the New York Central Railroad for a
position as operator. He was so diminutive that the old
superintendent looked at him disapprovingly over his
spectacles, and remarked severely: "Young boy, you
should be at home with your mother."
"But I want to get out into the world and be a
man, "replied the youthful applicant, and his
earnest persistence won the heart of the gruff old
superintendent, who gave him his first position as a
telegraph operator at Batavia, New York, with the
admonition: "And now remember, you must not sleep on
duty; if you do, two trains will surely crash together,
and you will be hung."
The emphasis on the "hung" gave young
Louderback a chilling sensation along the backbone, but
it impressed him with the necessity of being wide awake,
and with thirty dollars a month as a stipend he bought
books on electricity and whiled away the long hours of
the night studying electrical problems the solving of
which were to make him one of the most famous of railroad
builders in later years.
Getting Into the Game.
Soon he had attained such proficiency that he was
promoted to the place of train despatcher at Buffalo, and
there he began laying plans for a wider field. Shortly
afterward an opportunity was presented for the opening of
independent telegraph offices in Philadelphia and Chicago
on a commission basis. The enterprise was a pronounced
success, and Louderback became a factor on the
telegraphic checkerboard, which was just then being
played to the limit. His ability to unerringly judge
enterprises, and his unusually good memory and
persistence, won the admiration of General Anson Stager,
then general superintendent of the Western Union
Telegraph Company. He was placed at the head of the
Western Electric Company's sales department in 1876, and
thence promoted to control of the Western Union factory
in New York, where he met H. McK. Twombly (a son-in-law
of Mr. Vanderbilt), who was the leading spirit of the
Western Union Telegraph Company and the telephone
business in opposition to the Bell Company of Boston.
Through Louderback's diplomacy the warring officials
of the two companies were brought together and their
differences settled. As a reward, Louderback was
presented with stock and franchises in various telephone
enterprises, which netted him several hundred thousand
dollars. Later he became identified with Charles T.
Yerkes, after having built or reorganized several Western
railroad lines. The Chicago Union Elevated loop was a
feat of engineering which no one cared to attempt. It
had, in addition to being a difficult hit of engineering,
the opposition of many of Chicago's leading citizens.
Yerkes and Louderback looked over the ground and decided
they could build the loop, and they did. It was
considered one of the best pieces of railroad work ever
accomplished. During the building of the loop a watchman
who had been discharged for inattention to duty and
drunkenness approached Louderback's office with the
avowed intention of killing him. The railroad builder's
private secretary headed off the irate watchman and was
expostulating with him when Louderback, who is a small
man, appeared and asked the cause of the disturbance.
Being informed as to the object of the watchman, who was
a burly fellow, Louderback invited him into his private
office and calmed him into perfect submission with a few
words.
Mr. Louderback's latest enterprise was the building of
the London tube, in conjunction with Charles T. Yerkes.
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