JOHN ELBRIDGE HUDSON. 561 



As I have said, there was another department of work in which it was 

 practically impossible to interest Hudson, that is to say, work in court. 

 You could hardly drive him to take hold of that. He took no pleasure 

 in it and showed little capacity for it. He was always a shy person, little 

 inclined to put himself forward, and absolutely unwilling to appear in 

 public, if he could avoid it ; and for that reason the breadth and versa- 

 tility of his extraordinary powers were sometimes 'overlooked. Indeed 

 many of those who knew him well and bes^t appreciated his remarkable 

 qualities were surprised at the developments of later years. 



Early in 1880, Colonel William H. Forbes, the President of what was 

 soon to become the American Bell Telephone Company, who had known 

 Mr. Hudson in college and also as a lawyer, invited him to become the 

 Solicitor of the Company. The invitation was accepted, and Hudson 

 entered at once upon his new duties. Five years later he was asked to 

 become the General Manager. To accept such a place as that was a 

 serious step. So far he had not left the law, but this new proposition 

 would plunge him into a career of business, and business of a very engross- 

 ing sort. He came to talk it over with me ; and I had many misgivings. 

 He knew, the Company knew, all his friends knew, what he could do in 

 the law. But this was a new venture. What if all this tremendous, 

 novel, swiftly developing business should not suit him, or should prove 

 too much for him? Was he sure that he could handle it? 



I was greatly impressed by his answer. Oh, yes, indeed ; as to that he 

 had no doubt whatever; he could handle it well enough. As Solicitor 

 he had got a good insight into the nature of it all, and he had no fears 

 on that head. This confidence in his own powers of dealing with the 

 men and the affairs of so great a concern, a confidence fully justified by 

 the event, opened my eyes to a new side of Hudson's capacity. He took 

 the office, without relinquishing the place of Solicitor, filled it to the 

 entire approval of the Company, added to it the next year that of Vice- 

 President, and in 1887 that of President of the American Telephone and 

 Telegraph Company, then known as The Long Distance Company, and 

 two years later became President also of the main organization, the 

 American Bell Telephone Company. These last two offices he held with 

 great success and distinction up to the time of his death ; for the final 

 steps in the absorption of the last named company in the first were not 

 then, and I believe are not yet, completed. 



Of the ability which ]\[r. Hudson showed in guiding and shaping the 

 development of this new and complex industry of the telephone, others 

 VOL. XXXVI. — 36 



