In 1935

«(...) and wondered just way it was that Up-to-Date Americans like Philip always used the long-distance telephone rather than undergo the dreadful toil of dictating a letter a day or two earlier. It didn't really seem so efficient, the old-fashioned village editor reflected, to spend seventy-five cents on telephone call in order to save five cents' worth of time.»

Sinclair Lewis, It Can't Happen Here