Hello?

Through most of the 3,070 U. S. counties swarm the 95,150,000 miles of wire of A.T. & T.'s mighty Bell Telephone System. Interlacing this giant nervous system are 6,600 independent companies (lineage : some 9,200,000 miles) serving 18% of the nation's 20,820,000 telephones.* They sprang up around the turn of the century after the basic Bell patents ran out, fought A. T. & T. for breathing space, by 1914 were at peace with their corpulent competitor. Clinging to their often profitable franchises like lichens to a rock, these little fellows annually turn in a $130,000,000 gross.

Typical of these stubborn independents is the Moore Telephone System of Caro, Mich. (pop. 2,554). Its 1,500 subscribers, scattered through three farming counties of the sparse Thumb District, pay $2.50 a month for a twelve-party country line, $3.75 monthly for unlimited service in town. For a $5 fee the company will call all of its subscribers, give them any merchant's sales talk. Its 15 "centrals" are pals with their customers, keep them in touch with local gossip. Subscribers grouse at the service and complain that the *Of the rest, 79% are Bell, some 3% mutual system is so lackadaisical about repairs that they frequently have to make them themselves. No less archaic is the company's pole policy. When poles blow down or rot away, line men whack off the diseased portion, resink the stub into the ground. Result is that subscribers sometimes have to stoop to get under the wires.

Typical of nothing is the founder, president, general manager and mechanical genius of this 48-year-old system--leathery, quixotic, aging (65) William James Moore. By geography and heredity Phoneman Moore was addicted to telephones. He was born in Alexander Graham Bell's home town of Brantford, Ontario. His cousin was Elisha Gray, co-inventor of the telephone. Not long after leaving Oberlin College in 1892 he patented an improved telephone transmitter, set about manufacturing it, built telephone lines, organized his own system. Today it grosses some $5,000 a month.

Befitting the owner of a telephone system--and as an example to niggardly one-phone customers--Mr. Moore has 23 telephones, 17 direct lines (seven more phones, 14 more lines than A. T. & T. President Walter Gifford) in his ten-room rococo Caro house. All but one (a living-room extension) have individual listings and numbers in the phone books. Friends acquainted with the phoneman's habits can, by calling Caro, Mich., 583, catch him in Bathroom No. 3. A request for 584 will connect the caller with the Southwest Bedroom; 592 with the Furnace Room; 597 with the Maid's Quarters, and 590 with both ends of the Dining-Room Table. Despite this room-to-room hookup, there is a flaw in the service. If Mr. Moore were in his Den (589) and a friend called him in the Front Upper Hall (593), he would likely as not fail to hear the phone ring, miss the call. From this intense coverage the Moore system is an average $18 a month richer by virtue of Michigan's law requiring utility officials to bill themselves for services received.

When Phoneman Moore married Schoolteacher Mabel B. T. Clark (his second wife) six months ago, her first task was to unravel the mysteries of a front-hall panel studded with 28 pushbuttons, representing the overflow of her husband's mechanical talents and his preoccupation with the front door. Push one button and the door opens long enough to admit one visitor, then slams shut. Push it twice and a party of six can slip in without getting nipped. For crowds, a second button holds the door open indefinitely. For salesmen, truculent folk and enemies, a special button flips the door impudently open, snaps it like a whip in their faces.

No less unorthodox is Phoneman Moore's midsummer method of taking a swim before breakfast. Stepping onto a balcony outside his second-floor bedroom window, he presses a button. From a swimming pool in the yard a model airplane climbs to him on cables. Sitting on a trapeze slung from the undercarriage, he presses another button, the plane heads for the pool. Mr. Moore lets go in time to flop into the water. On the journey back he just hangs on until the plane deposits him on the balcony again.

Confounded by gadgets, Mrs. Moore hopes some day to mistress her home. Until then she must put up with a radio loudspeaker in every room, lights flashing when the front door opens, burglar alarms going off when certain rugs are trod on. An 1899 De Dion Bouton, one of her husband's nine cars, is stored in an attic.

At present Phoneman Moore is heckling the Michigan Public Service Utilities Commission for a 10% rate rise to cover the cost of making his manual system automatic. Last week he was also planning the installation of telephones in Caro's Hotel Montague. Under the Moore plan each room will have a telephone number listed in the book. After calling the room clerk to discover what room his friend has, the subscriber must hang up and rephone the room direct. That makes the contact twice as expensive.

Phoneman Moore wears a red toupee, neither smokes nor drinks. Despite the fact that he has scores of friends and once belonged to every available lodge, club and fraternity in the Thumb District, he thinks he is antisocial. Says he: "I am no company for man or beast."

*Of the rest, 79% are Bell, some 3% mutual

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