is when people actually have a sense of passion order energy about what they want to write about. >> thanks so much. it has been fantastic to chat with you. >> thank you. ..

>> he used to this claim in sort of to buck this own legitimacy as a corporation. it is quite a tangled story. samuel morse did not invent the telegraph and he did not invent

it at all. >> how did he invent that? how did alexander graham do that? >> he became part of a competitive struggle in the 1870s involving western union, which was then the leading dominant telegraph network provider. there was a promoter who had behind him a very small, effective, for his purposes company. you have two companies that are competing with each other. for inventions that they can turn into patent rights and use in this competitive struggle. bell one of that, but his primary backer wanted him to develop what we now call a broadband telegraph. in fact, it was only one he did develop such a device that his backer hovered and permitted him to do his research on the telephone. had that telephone not been part of a bundle that became part of

the american bell, which was at&t, we might not have heard about and are content alexander graham bell. the inventors are operating in a very distinctive political economy in which their own inventive genius is only part of the story. and indeed, a relatively a part of the story. >> richard john, how would you compare samo morris for alexander graham bell to steve jobs or bill gates today? >> they are very different. morse was an unsuccessful entrepreneur, bell did not wish to be an entrepreneur. bill gates and steve jobs are very successful as entrepreneurs. he very much wanted to rely on the last generation's templates for how to organize it. to rely on the federal

government. the government provided the kind of protection he needed in order to pursue his business. in the case of that -- in the case of bill gates come he famously had a very great good fortune to stumble upon the telephone and computer and software business at just a moment the moment that ibm was looking for a developer. ibm gave him the kind of running room that the federal government didn't give morse. >> are you saying that telecommunications in the u.s. has been regulated since day one? morse was the regular. mutations networks have been regulated in this country because they have been regulated in different ways.

in the case of the telegraph, the original idea was for the telegraph to be coordinated like the post office. morse tried for seven years to sell his patent rights to congress. and only when congress refused to purchase those patent rights did he go on and develop his own unsuccessful network of telegraph companies. in the case of the telephone, it developed in a very difficult way. the rules of the game the matter and they differ for the telegraph and telephone. in case of the case of the telephone, the rules of the game mandated that you had to establish a municipal franchise company. by doing so, you are obliged to follow all kinds of rules and regulations. were successful telegraph companies, the second generation, not morse, the generation that followed morse, they operated in the political economy with minimal rules, but there were still rules. there always have been rules and there always will be rules. it is just too important and too bound up with all kinds of

property rights. eminent domain, patent rights, for it ever to be like the case in the past and that is really one of the main themes of the book. is the extent to which the political structures within which communications networks evolve, and shape the business strategies. >> professor, how does the internet fit into that regulation structure today? >> contrary to all this, the internet was not invented in anyone's garage and neither was the world wide web. the internet was a federal government project. what is remarkable about the internet, if you think about it, was that nor corporation would have taken it off, or you're trying to economize on scarce computer processing space.

so you have cheaper, long-distance telephone lines and have computer processing space. and you need this computer processing space because you are trying to compete with the firings. so that is the impotence that led these cold war scientist to put together these are marble networks that didn't have commercial rationale. that is the wonder of it, without a particular business model in mind. we've had since 1990s to develop a successful business model, which is part of the part of watching it develop. highly regulated from the beginning, remains highly regulated today. even the idea of creating a level playing field is a particular set of regulatory arrangements. i think it is important that all content not only those of us who care about the history of communications, but those of us who care about the tradition network in general, recognize

the relevant issues, there are different kinds of regulation. and also different kinds of regular to promote different kinds of innovation. that is the story of network mission. who sounded western union. western union, as the name implies, was a sort of combine a small, telegraph lines that were in the midwest between new york, ohio, and michigan. if there was to be 10, one central figure, was hiram sibley. he really did two things. he was able to convince a number of merchants and capitalist people in what seemed to be failed inventions.

the telegraph corporation almost never was making money. he convinces these rochester, new york buddies from the man who helped him when he was a poor boy, he had been helped by these wealthy merchants and they're very skeptical. he convinces them to put a lot of money into the corporation that became known as western union, which he was then -- he would use the capital to buy out the number of companies. the second key insight or key innovation besides a certain amount of capital. like all the capital that is raised, at one point in time -- the other two innovations of sibley's was he figured out a way to get a monopoly in a political economy in which state governments were encouraging the establishment of lots of telegraphing. established exclusive rights contracts with individual railroads. if you can get an exclusive

contract, say between detroit and chicago along a particular railroad line, you are able to maintain that line at a much cheaper cost than roads and bushwhacking away across the country. railroads got very cheap. by establishing those arrangements, those unusual contractual arrangements, the courts were very reluctant. by doing that, he was able to get around the limitations that state lawmakers have placed on telegraph companies through the anti-monopoly telegraph laws. those laws have been enacted as a response to morse. you have morse who failed because of the state, and the monopoly law, hiram sibley

succeeds by using the railroads to create the kind of monopoly that the state loves there. >> with at&t and verizon, can you explain how this is related. >> local conditions had been just opened up. the idea of different services and operating companies. in fact, we have almost precisely the opposite. we ended up with two dominant telecommunication firms. at&t, which was sbc, which if you go back, it was the chicago telephone company in 1900. the second biggest in the world. and then you had verizon, which was new york telephone company, which was the biggest telephone operating company in the world. this is precisely what happened in the late 1870s. congress was intent upon

preventing western union from dominating the telegraph market. to encourage competition, it does precisely the opposite. get out, -- >> that aspire to kind of horror and disgust that part of the business community saw, that they would be hard to envision no one was reviled as gould was. he takes it over as an anti-monopolist. he was going to use and not relying on special privilege and he was simply able to use his own commercial ability to move ahead. and he doesn't away that had

immediately set off alarm bells. he is the most notorious financial buccaneer of the age. the notorious buccaneer. and he is now in control of the western union. it is very important if you are a speculator because it is a relationship of newspapers, he was also able to, you know, so it was feared as a considerable justice -- the critics were right come to actually plant stories in newspapers. there's this marvelous cartoon by jay gould in 1887. he said in a respected. why does he ever speculate? because it was western union, because he controls newspapers, because he controls and has a lock on the associated press. and they pertain him sitting inside of a stock ticker, which is sort of a jar, a stock ticker

is -- that's a machine that would generate the tape to put the stock prices up. remember the ticker tape parades and support. see that jay gould is actually regulating the stock prices. that is the kind of power you could get in the 1880s by taking advantage of any monopoly law. and we have similar concerns today. i think warranted concerns about market consolidation and the power of murdoch and google and apple. but he really wasn't -- the concerns in the 1880s were more focused because of the ability of one individual to control both conduits for the circulation and the content itself. that is the kind of control that lawmakers have historically

found. he wanted to say great segregates mutations markets. you can take that as is a lesson. i'm not writing this with advice to lawmakers today, but we do have a long tradition of encouraging the segmentation that communication networks. that has been a remarkably effective, regulatory strategy that is promoting innovation and it's made the united states the envy of the world in provision of tradition and telecommuter -- telecommunications. >> was this a tradition for the telegraph? >> yes, certainly. the post office was certainly an extremely important precursor. it was a template. the post office -- under federal

law, in 1792 -- they prescribed anyone other than a specific well-defined group that were opening any letters. the very concept of privacy is closely linked with this postal policy. the term of privacy. and the idea that there is something you have a right to do with the government does not have a right to do or inaccurate. what happened to the concept of privacy would be electric telegraph. the technology is very different. in fact, when you send a message by telegraph to me have to permit telegraph operator to write out to send or transcribe electrically. so that operator knows within the code. what if you are a government official, and you are a concerned person about the

content of messages? well, you have the subpoenas in the 1860s and 1870s where congress calls up tens of thousands of telegrams. it is from the present point of view and it is an extraordinary invasion of privacy. it led to the end of the presidential prayer because it was some of the telegrams -- some of the more quite embarrassing. what is interesting historically as there was little dragnet -- they were actually moving these messages. the telegraphs in this country were dominated by commercial providers. if you get western union,

seeking privacy legislation and you get western union saying the telegraph standards should be the standards of the post office -- they should be the same. the government is not necessarily the best bargain of privacy and citizenry. i think that is less than we can take from the history of the 1870s and the sage. >> samuel morse died rich from his invention. >> samuel morse died risk content rich because he had the good sense to invest in western union. even though western union was in effect the great rival. western union saw the value of morse for the new technology, and they actually were behind the eruption of samuel morse.

one of the first such is ever elected to it a living american. morse was still alive. by linking him with western union, they create for themselves is sort of heroic mythology that is really completely false to the history. but it is one too helps to associate a corporation which had a heroic inventor -- by investing in western union, morse died rich as did cornell, who uses the money that he gets from investing in western union to found the great university of cornell university. one of our ivy league schools is a beneficiary of telegraph finance in the 1860s and 1870s. >> where it is alexander graham bell go in his career after inventing the telephone? >> he has a fascinating career. he had no interest in business whatsoever. he also became a poster child

for bell. they tried him out when the bell engineers try to figure out how to send a transcontinental voicesignal. it put tom at watson at the other end of the line and him at the other end -- it is a different fellow who was an early part of this. they put them at each end of the line, and it is like if the bell publicists are saying if you want to have a heroic inventor, we will give you bell and watson. but it had absolutely nothing to do with the transcontinental telephone. bell could have had a very fine group of engineers who they could've looked it up and made national heroes and everything. they didn't want to do that. they didn't want to emphasize rote individuals.

between 1879 when he becomes a rich man and when there is an agreement between western union until, in 1915 come he becomes an independent inventor and gets involved in the airplanes and various electrical traditions. his great passion was as a teacher of the deaf. that is why he was interested in a telephone. he was trying to enable and figure out all the spirit he is a pure inventor that really has a distinguished inventive legacy. he was a talented man, but his career was a painter. there wasn't much money in that, and that explains why he got into the telegraph business.

they had very different careers and personalities. but the book is not they are in there, but it is really about the promoters from the entrepreneurs, the financiers, the performers from the lawmakers, the innovators, invention is not innovation. if you care about the development of mutation and networks as i think we all should today. >> shouldn't be argued that without jay gould, what would recommendations networks be like right now? >> jay gould is a remarkably effective entrepreneur who took advantage of the rules of the game. the telegraph network that he committed in that 1880s was extraordinarily un- innovative. there is a lesson there for us. it isn't rules fall. the rules of the game encourage competition.

you have a hothouse. jay gould competed. phonograph and electric power off and on and a couple of years. of those innovations, they do not rebound to the benefit of the promoters themselves and executives running the telegraph network. they use the rabin. the telephone is so different. they these are highly regulated from the start. bell labs is the crown jewel, arguably the most important thing we'll cited innovation in world history. tightly regulated. regulation gives you innovation businesses would have a much narrowly focused mandate, but

you don't have the kind of correlative innovation would make the telephone system in the mid- 20th century the end of the world, and to this date, a backbone of the internet. >> thomasson edison, does he figure into your book? >> of course. thomas edison is one of those adventures who was competing with bell in the 1870s to invent something because it was patented and sold to jay gould and western union. thomas edison, the money that he used today in the laboratory, came out as the telegraph. he was a telegraph inventor before he became an electric and electrical inventor. that is not controversial, but my contribution is to show how the rules of the game in

18701870, shows how he could make a great deal of money. he sold a quarter plextor western union, and with that money come he was able to build his laboratory which comes to be extraordinary important for the united states in the world. >> do we have the right to few predatory framework to encourage us? >> i have two lessons from history. one is that regulation is inevitable. people can get access at relatively equal terms. the communication network worked very well. that was the case of the telephone and not the telegram. as late as 1890, the president

of western union would tell anyone who would listen that it sent a message over long-distance, use the post office. long-distance is not for you. the telegraph was not intended to be a mass media for the entire population. it was a medium for its exclusive clientele. the telephone started out that way, but as a result of regulatory pressure, including the very real threat of extortion from corrupt city officials, there are changes in the embrace an extremely expansive vision of universal service, which by about 1907, creates a presumption that anyone living in the big city or a small town has the right to make a local telephone call at a very reasonable cost. that is one of the key points. if you have regulations that

promote an even playing field and access, that can create a sort of cone of innovation that can have benefits that rebound. there is a second lesson. that lesson is that in the american tradition, we have a very effective, long-standing presumption that one can mutation medium should not dominate another. newspaper did not control the post post post office for the post office did not control the telegraph. telephone did not take public radio and video did not control television. television do not control the media and as follows. none of that could be determined on the basis of technological economic considerations. it is a political fiat. we made a series of decisions -- wise decisions, to sort of let you can mutation media

developing their own way, to encourage the kind of rivals. two distinct between, for example, the providing of content and the conflicts within stream can mutation and messages. messages are transmitted. that has served us well in the past. it seems that that is the legacy we have had an extraordinarily innovative communication and to structure the last 200 years. that is the lesson we should bring to their delight and think about the issues. >> we have been talking with richard john, professor at columbia university and author of this book, "network nation", inventing american traditions. thank you very much, professor. >> thank you. >> you are watching the tv on c-span 2. forty-eight hours of nonfiction authors and books from every