This extremely unsatisfactory condition of telegraph rivalry drifted on from bad to worse until 1854, when, from dire necessity of self-preservation, a few of the more prudent and far-sighted proprietors of telegraph property were induced to combine their interests with some of their competitors and thus avoid the ruinous policy which had been so rapidly exhausting their vitality.  Accordingly the principal telegraph lines in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and some of the neighboring States were brought into fraternal relations and formed the nucleus of the Western Union Telegraph Company.

The new policy soon brought prosperity in place of waste and improvidence.  Profits were devoted to the purchase of additional lines, thus enlarging their domain and strengthening their position.  Prosperity increased with rapid strides; and the beneficial effects of extirpating wasteful rivalry and building up a substantial system with superior facilities and provident management gave the new organization a dominating influence among the telegraph companies of America.  The same general policy has been pursued to the present time [1894], and has resulted in the establishment of a prosperous corporation of magnificent proportions, carrying on a useful and beneficent business under a greater number of governmental jurisdictions, great and small, than any other corporate organization in existence.

For the development of the telegraph enterprise in America no thanks are due to the wealthy capitalists.  As a rule they would not listen to suggestions of investing their money in what was contemptuously termed rotten poles and rusty wires.  They wanted something more substantial and conservative as the basis of their investments.  An early pioneer and builder of telegraph lines, whose name is now held in grateful memory for deeds of philanthropic beneficence visited the city of Chicago in 1847 to solicit subscriptions to the capital stock of a company then engaged in construction of the first line of telegraph between that place and the city of Buffalo.  He presented a carefully prepared prospectus showing an estimated earning capacity of the projected line of one hundred dollars per day.  The merits of the contemplated enterprise were freely canvassed at a meeting of bankers, at which one of the most prominent declared that any man who ever expected to see one hundred dollars per day paid for telegraphing west of Buffalo must be crazy and unworthy of belief.  This oracular declaration prevailed, and the project was ignominiously rejected by the wise men of Chicago.  Fortunately, citizens of smaller towns, like Ypsilanti, Kalamazoo, South Bend, Kenosha, and Racine, took a more sensible view of the proposed enterprise, and the line was built despite the contempt of Chicago capitalists.  Now, however, the men of Chicago pay more than five thousand dollars a day for telegraphing at rates far lower than would have been thought possible in that early day.