 Since these events, more than 56 years have passed. By the end of 1878, Professor Bell had returned to his other scientific work. I myself have been out of the telephone company for 50 years. But I've always been keenly interested in everything that each successive generation of telephone men and women have been accomplishing. And what a change they have made. On March 10th, 1876, there was an entire world, but one telephone that could transmit an intelligible sentence. And only two men in the world who would ever talk through a telephone. Today, in the United States alone, there are over 20 millions in daily use. And that first telephone line, which was less than 100 feet long, has been extended into a network covering the continent with millions of miles of wire and making conversation possible among all the people of our nation and beyond the seas with the people of an ever-increasing number of nations. There is one of the models of telephone achievement I have seen that must always hold first place in my memory. I participated in it. For the day, I was again an active telephone man. That was the transmission of speech for the first time from the Atlantic to the Pacific. On January 25th, 1915, the New York San Francisco line was dedicated to the public service. Dr. Bell and I were invited to take part in this dedication. On this occasion, the voice of the chief magistrate of the nation was, for the first time in our history, transmitted from the White House at Washington, 3600 miles to the shore of the Pacific. Over this line, the words of President Wilson were carried with the speed of light across rivers, plains, and mountains to San Francisco, where in clear tones, I received the president's message of appreciation. I also heard him converse with Dr. Bell in New York, congratulating him on the consummation of his long labors and distinguished achievements. On that day was accorded to Bell, the privilege so often denied to those who advanced the world by their discoveries. He had lived to see the full triumph of his great idea. Here is the wire, through which 40 years before had come for the first time that message to me from Dr. Bell. It is a priceless relic, for it is the first telephone line. During all the ceremonies of the dedication in 1915, it was made a part of the Great Transcontinental Circuit so that after many years, it again carried to me the words of that first sentence. On that day, though separated by the continent, Bell and I talked to each other. I recognized the familiar tones of his voice and understood without difficulty every word he said. And even when he spoke into a reproduction of his first telephone, his voice brought clearly to me the words of that now historic first sentence. Mr. Watson, come here, I want you. It was a thrilling moment to me when I realized that Bell's first crude telephone, again bringing his voice to me across the continent with that first sentence ever transmitted by electricity and faith decreed, those words he ever spoke to me. Alexander Graham Bell brought his sixth to ever greater triumphs, the work which he began. And as long as man exists, the art which Bell will endure.