I don't believe that quote that purports to be a Western Union memo on the telephone. I don't think that 19th Century businessmen put words like "idiotic" into

I don't believe that quote that purports to be a Western Union memo on the telephone. I don't think that 19th Century businessmen put words like "idiotic" into business communication, and I don't think that they used phrases like "the technical and economic facts of the situation," as the word "economy" at that point was much more strongly meaning "being thrifty at home" and much less about economic systems. This blog post claims that the quote is fake: http://blog.historyofphonephreaking.org/2011/01/the-greatest-bad-business-decision-quotation-that-never-was.html http://blog.historyofphonephreaking.org/2011/01/the-greatest... Slate says it "may" be fake and is awaiting verification: http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2014/01/02/why_people_thought_telephones_would_fail.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2014/01/02/why_p...