[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 114 (Wednesday, September 5, 2001)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1580-E1582]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SPEECH BY PROF. BASILLIO CATANIA
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HON. ELIOT L. ENGEL
of new york
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, September 5, 2001
Mr. ENGEL. Mr. Speaker, recently, I took to the floor to tell our
colleagues about Antonio Meucci, who is one of history's forgotten
inventors. I would like to take this opportunity now to insert into the
Congressional Record excerpts of a lecture of Prof. Basillio Catania
that he gave in October 2000 at New York University. I believe you will
find it very informative and illuminating. I commend it to all our
colleagues.
Antonio Meucci, Inventor of the Telephone: Unearthing the Legal and
Scientific Proofs
For 12 years I have researched the life and inventions of
Antonio Meucci. My research was largely based on original
documents, found in archives located in Italy, Cuba and the
United States. Here I will briefly touch on topics connected
with Meucci's priority in the invention of the telephone,
namely, the Bell v. Globe trial, the United States v. Bell
trial, and the scientific proofs of Meucci's priority.
Regarding the Bell v. Globe trial, it is known that Judge
Wallace's decision, issued in New York on 19 July 1887, ruled
in favor of the Bell Company against the Globe Telephone
Company and Meucci. The report of this trial is at 31 F. 729
(Cir. Ct., S.D.N.Y., 1887). In particular, the Deposition of
Antonio Meucci is also available in many public libraries,
such as the New York Public Library and the Library of
Congress.
However, it must be remarked that, while the Bell Company
had sued the Globe Company and Meucci for patent
infringement, it is largely unknown that the U.S. Government
sued the Bell Company and Graham Bell for fraud, collusion
and deception in obtaining the telephone patent(s). See 32 F.
591 (Cir. Ct., D. Mass., 1887). The U.S. Government set out
to prove that Meucci--not Bell--had discovered the
electromagnetic telephone and that the German Philipp Reiss
had discovered the variable resistance transmitter, later
called the ``microphone.'' In other words, whereas in New
York the Bell Company claimed that Bell, not Meucci, was the
inventor of the telephone, in Washington the Government
claimed the opposite. Here is a brief chronology of what had
happened in Washington, before the commencement of the Bell
action against Meucci.
As early as 31 August 1885, the U.S. Solicitor General
consented to petitions from several parties and authorized
the U.S. Attorney for Western Tennessee to institute a suit
[[Page E1581]]
in the name of the Government to annul the Bell patents.
On 9 September, a bill of complaint against the Bell
Company and Graham Bell was filed.
On 29 September, the Globe Company filed a petition with
the Department of Justice. supporting the action of the
Government and upholding Meucci's priority.
On 9 October, the U.S. Solicitor General suspended the
proceedings, in order to allow the Secretary of the Interior,
Lucius Lamar, who had jurisdiction over the Patent Office, to
launch an investigation of its activity in this connection
and report recommendations to the Department of Justice.
On 9 November, the Secretary commenced public hearings,
with the aim of determining if there was ground for further
proceedings against Bell and the Bell Company.
In January, 1886, the Interior Secretary recommended the
institution of a suit against Graham Bell and the Bell
Company, in the name and on behalf of the Government of the
United States. He accompanied his letter with all reports,
arguments and exhibits put ahead at the hearings.
Now, while the Secretary was holding said hearings, the
Bell Company filed a bill of complaint against the Globe
Company and Meucci in the Circuit Court for the Southern
District of New York. Judge Wallace, who had already ruled
four times in favor of Bell for patent infringement in other
cases, presided over this court. It was, therefore, evident
that the Bell move was more a maneuver to counteract the
attack of the Government, than to sue the Globe Company for
an (otherwise non-existent) infringement. The Bell Company
was confident to win quickly in New York, also to create a
situation of res adjudicata in an eventual trial with the
Government and to hamper the action in favor of Meucci in
Washington. The Secretary of the
The trial in New York against Globe and Meucci went on
swiftly, as expected by the Bell Company, and it came to a
decision in about one and a half years. On the contrary, the
action of the Government, hampered by the obstructionism of
the Bell lawyers, dragged for twelve years, up to the end of
1897, when it was discontinued after the parent(s) had
expired--without settling the underlying issue of who had
priority to invention of the telephone. Moreover, the record
of this trial was never printed and is now only available,
with some difficulty, from the National Archives, mostly in
typescript or manuscript, being spread among different groups
and cities.
We must point out that, in the Bell v. Globe trial, the
counsel for Globe and Meucci, David Humphreys, filed only
nine out of the about fifty affidavits in favor of Meucci
that were formerly exhibited and elucidated in Washington
before the Interior Secretary. Counsel's main concern was to
prove that Globe did not infringe the Bell patents, not
having sold nor operated any telephones.
Notwithstanding, Judge Wallace could not ignore the many
witnesses that had testified to have successfully spoken
through various Meucci's telephones. But he disposed of all
such witnesses by ruling that the spoken words that they had
heard were from a string telephone, not an electric
telephone. As known, the ``string telephone'' is a toy used
by children to talk with the aid of two cans and a rope or
wire pulled stout between the cans. By ruling that way, Judge
Wallace discredited Meucci, as having fooled himself, adding
insult to injury.
The thesis of Meucci's telephone being a string telephone
was advanced in affidavit sworn by one Prof. Charles R. Cross
from MIT--incidentally, a good friend of Bell, Prof. Cross
stated that he had carefully studied Meucci's deposition, in
order to faithfully reproduce Meucci's telephone layouts in
his Physics Laboratory. However, Prof. Cross had omitted to
mention in his affidavit a reel of wire that Meucci always
inserted in circuit to simulate a long distance. There are
three drawings and five different answers in Meucci's
deposition where this reel of wire is clearly shown or
quoted. Prof. Cross may have purposely omitted it. If he had
inserted a reel of wire in his test, the sound could by no
means mechanically traverse distance and reach the receiver.
It could only be electrically transmitted. if any expert had
raised that objection, Prof. Cross and Judge Wallace's thesis
of the string telephone could not but fail.
Another obstacle to be surmounted by the Bell lawyers--and
next by Judge Wallace--was Meucci's caveat ``sound
Telegraph.'' This caveat was filed in the Patent Office on 28
December 1871, many years before the first Bell patent.
Though having expired on December 1874, Meucci not being able
any more to pay the $10 annual fee, yet it was a proof of
Meucci's priority of invention. Prof. Cross testified that
the caveat ``plainly and well describes what is known as a
lover's telegraph or string telephone.'' The Globe Company
called as their rebuttal witness Thomas Stetson, the patent
lawyer who had prepared Meucci's caveat. Surprisingly, Mr.
Stetson's testimony was largely in line with Prof. Cross's,
poles apart from an affidavit, five years before, which is
nothing less than a paean for Meucci as the true inventor of
the telephone.
I took the trouble of comparing Mr. Stetson's affidavit of
July 1880 with his trial testimony; the latter was in sharp
contrast with his affidavit. Thus, Mr. Stetson's volte-face
turned out to be a hard blow on Meucci's defense.
Mr. Stetson's false statements could easily have been
disproved by the written description that Meucci had provided
him in order to prepare the caveat. But Mr. Stetson testified
that he had lost it, together with some important letters on
the same subject that Meucci had written. He also testified
that he did not remember an important drawing, illustrating
Meucci's telephone system, drafted for him in 1858 by a
painter, Nestore Corradi, and accompanying Meucci's
description. Conversely, he exhibited a mysterious letter--
that he said he had dictated but not sent to the Globe
Company--containing his (quite recent) detraction of Meucci's
caveat. He thus enabled Judge Wallace to rule that Meucci's
pretensions ``are overthrown by his own description of the
invention at a time when he deemed it in a condition to
patent, and by the evidence of Mr. Stetson.''
Among others, the Bell Company called as their witness two
Italians, Frederico Garlanda and John Citarotto, who
testified that they owned a quite complete collection of
L'Eco d'Italia (an Italian newspaper of New York), running
from 1857 down to 1881. They stated, however, that their
collection lacked just the issues from 1 December 1860 to the
whole year 1863. We must recall that Meucci's invention was
testified as having been published in L'Eco d'Italia between
the end of 1860 and the beginning of 1861. If retrieved, it
would have rendered null the Bell patents. Those precious
issues of L'Eco d'Italia that lacked from said collection now
lack from all main libraries in the United States.
Judge Wallace added some negative statements of his own
against Meucci. In fact, he stated in the closing paragraph
of his decision that ``his [Meucci's] speaking telegraph
would never have been offered to the public as an invention
if he had not been led by his necessities to trade on the
credulity of his friends; that he intended to induce the
three persons of small means and little business experience,
who became his associates under the agreement of December 12,
1871, to invest in an invention which he would not offer to
[knowledgeable]; men [. . .]; and that this was done in the
hope of obtaining such loans and assistance from them as he
would temporarily require.'' Evidently, Judge Wallace chose
to neglect the following trial evidence:
First, Meucci's invention was offered, in 1861, to the
Telegraphs of Naples, who refused
Second, Meucci offered his invention in 1872 to the
American District Telegraph Company.
Third, the partners of the agreement signed on December 12,
1871, shortly before the filing of Meucci's caveat, were: S.
Breguglia, lessee of the Cigar Stand of the Hoffman Cafe in
Wall Street, A.Z. Grandi, Secretary of the Italian Consulate
in New York and A.A. Tremeschin, a contractor for civil
constructions. This would appear much like agreement that
Graham Bell stipulated on February 27, 1875, with T. Sanders,
a leather merchant, and G.G. Hubbard, an ex patent lawyer and
ex railway businessman. In addition, we must remark that
Meucci's agreement, instituting the Telettrofono Company, was
an event of great historical importance. It recited that the
company aimed ``to secure patent for [Meucci's invention] in
any State of Europe, or other part of the world, to form
copartnerships, to raise companies, to sell or assign, in
part, the rights of such invention.'' It proved that Meucci's
invention, unlike Bell's, was ripe to the point that, in
1871, he had envisaged a worldwide development of the
telephone.
Fourth, no proof whatsoever is found in the record about
Meucci having traded on the credulity of his friends.
From all of the above, we can conclude the analysis of the
Bell vs. Globe trial by recalling historiographer Giovanni
Schiavo's definition of the decision as ``unquestionably one
of the most glaring miscarriages in the annals of American
justice.''
In fact, a few weeks after the New York trial was begun,
the Interior Secretary was writing to the Solicitor General,
recommending the institution of a suit against Graham Bell
and the Bell Company. He attached to his letter three reports
on the hearings, drafted by his two Assistant Secretaries and
the Commissioner of Patents, as well as all arguments and
exhibits presented during the hearings. All three reports
recommended the institution of a suit against the Bell
Company and Graham Bell, charging fraud and
misrepresentation. The Interior Secretary stigmatized in his
letter the inadequacy of patent infringement suits instituted
by the Bell Company: ``In none of these cases has there been
or can there be, as I think, such thorough investigation and
full adjudication as to the alleged frauds or mistakes
occurring in the Patent Office in the issuance of the patent,
as could be had in a proceeding instituted and carried on by
the Government itself.''
Assistant Secretary George A. Jenks stated in his report:
``[. . . ] There is also evidence that as early as 1849,
Antonio Meucci began experiments with electricity, with
reference to the invention of a speaking telephone [ . . . ].
Up to 1871, [ . . . ] although much of the time very poor, he
constructed several different instruments with which in his
own house, he conversed with his wife, and others [ . . . ].
His testimony is corroborated by his wife, and by affidavits
of a very large number of witnesses. He claims that in 1872,
he went to Mr. Grant, Vice President of the New York District
Telegraph Company, explained his invention, and tried
repeatedly to have it tried
[[Page E1582]]
on the wires of the Company. This, it is claimed, was used by
the telegraph company, and was the basis of the contract
between the Western Union Telegraph Company and the Bell
Telephone Company, dated November 10, 1879. [ . . . ]''
Assistant Secretary Henry Muldrow remarked, in his report,
that ``so many witnesses having sworn that the inventions of
Meucci, Reis, and others antedated those of Bell in the
speaking telephone,'' he recommended ``the institution of a
suit to cancel the [Bell's] patent of March 7, 1876.'' It
must be pointed out that Mr. Muldrow explicitly quoted Meucci
and Reis, out of the scores of inventors that had claimed to
precede Bell.
In addition, the Chief Examiner of the Patient Office, Mr.
Zenas Wilber, in his affidavit of 10 October 1885, stated
``had Mr. Meucci's caveat been renewed in 1875, no patent
could have been issued to Bell.'' In his other affidavit of 7
November 1885, he stated that Philipp Reis and Antonio Meucci
were the originators of ``the prototypes of all speaking
telephones.'' If we take into account that the Reis
transmitter was difficult to operate, as it was originally
conceived as a make-and-break device, we may gather from what
precedes that the point of force of the Government's action
was the invention of Antonio Meucci. Obviously, all of these
proofs were available, but regrettably not presented at the
Bell v. Globe trial.
As already pointed out, the U.S. vs. Bell trial dragged for
twelve years, after which it was discontinued by consent, in
1897, after the death of Meucci and expiration of Bell's
patent(s). Here is a brief summary.
On March 23, 1886, following the Secretary of the
Interior's recommendations, the Government refiled its bill
of complaint against Bell and the Bell Company in the
District Court of South Ohio. On December 7, 1886, the case
in Ohio was closed on jurisdictional grounds. On January 13,
1887, the Government filed a new bill of complaint in Boston,
Massachusetts, where the Bell Company had its headquarters.
On November 26, 1887, the court sustained a demurrer by the
Bell lawyers; the Government immediately appealed to the
Supreme Court of the United States. On November 12, 1888, the
Supreme Court reversed the dismissal, finding a meritorious
claim and viable issue, rejecting the Bell Company's
objections to the fraud and misrepresentation charges, and
remanded the case for trial. See 128 U.S. 315 (1888). On
December 6, 1889, the depositions began. Meucci, however, was
deceased on 18 October of the same year. When Bell's second
patent expired, on January 30, 1893, the Government at first
refused to close the
It must be stressed that, as the case was not decided,, the
Bell Company could not claim, from the outcome of that trial,
that Antonio Meucci was not the inventor of the telephone, or
that it was Bell. It could only exult by the astuteness of
its lawyers, who were able to defer so long the decision of
the case, until the question of the patent(s) became moot
when they expired.
We come now to the scientific proofs regarding Meucci's
priority in the invention of the telephone. Among the
exhibits at the hearings before the Secretary of the
Interior, is an affidavit, sworn on 28 September 1885 by
Michael Lemmi, a friend and lawyer of Meucci. It is an
accurate translation into English of Meucci's laboratory
notebook, known as Meucci's Memorandum Book, concerning his
telephonic experiments, including all of Meucci's original
drawings. From an accurate examination of this affidavit, as
well as of Meucci's aforesaid caveat ``Sound Telegraph,'' and
two drawings accompanying the caveat--the remaining original
drawings were omitted by Meucci's patent lawyer, nor were
they presented at the first trial--it can be demonstrated
beyond any doubt that Meucci antedated Bell and/or the Bell
Company in many fundamental telephone techniques, including,
inductive loading, wire structure, anti-side tone circuit,
call signaling, quietness of surrounding environment.
Meucci's priority in the said techniques range anywhere
from six to forty-two years before Bell company development.
My paper ``Four Firsts in Telephony,'' published by the
European Transactions on Telecommunications (Nov.--Dec. 1999)
is more expansive on these techniques.
From this we can gather that when, in 1871, had founded the
Telettrofono Company and was awarded his caveat, he had
already invented everything that was needed to start a high-
quality public service. This is why, in 1872, he asked the
American District Telegraph Company--which later
``misplaced'' all his models and notes--to test his system on
their lines; this is why he renewed his caveat up to December
1874; this is why, after Bell obtained his first patent
because Meucci's caveat had expired for inability to pay the
$10 fee, Meucci repeatedly claimed that the telephone was his
invention, not Bell's.
The recognition of Antonio Meucci's merits in the invention
of the telephone and basic telephone techniques is attainable
today, thanks to sound proofs, largely of the U.S. Government
and embedded in the proceedings of the United States V. Bell
trial. This recognition is mandatory, not only for the honor
of the United States, of which Meucci was a worthy member of
its society, but also for the worldwide scientific community,
regarding a person who has so greatly fostered the
communication among peoples, yet unjustly remains buried in
the pages of American history.
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