The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, August 26, 1918, Page 4

The Wires to the People Economy and Efficiency Will Come From Government Operation of the Telephone and Telegraph Systems Washington Bureau, Nonpartisan Leader NOTHER plank in the old Popu- list platform, ridiculed by the special privilege press and poli- ticians of a quarter of a cen- tury ago, has become the law of the land. Another of the fundamental principles of the National Nonpartisan league has been vindicated. The government of the United States now has in its hands the telegraph and telephone systems! Do you realize what that means? It means that we are at last to have a real postal system of communication in this country—a sys- tem which embraces the mails, the telegraphs and the messages spoken over the telephone wires. These services are to be conducted as one service, and they are to be conducted at cost. Every econ- omy that can be effected by combining their equip- ment, their buildings, their schedules, their office and field force, will be made for the benefit of the public. The cost of the use of the telegraph should be reduced within a year. The cost of the use of the telephone should be kept as low as at present, and in due time this also will be lowered. Cheaper service means greater use of the service. As a nation we are going to use the telegraph and telephone more than we have used them. We are going to live in a world of bigger radius, since we are to be able to keep in touch with people and events at greater distances from home. WILL BRING AN IMMENSE SAVING The president has issued an executive order tak- ing possession of the entire properties of the tele- graph, telephone and radio companies and placing them under the control and operation of the post- office department for the period of the war. There- upon the postmaster. general named David J. Lewis to take direct charge of the operation of this wire service, and to bring about its close co-ordination with the mail service of the country. Every big telegraph company, and every small telegraph company, will turn over its plant and Here in the postoffice department at: Washington, D. C., is' now managed not .only letter mail, but all communication by telephone and telegraph. Under : ‘ government' operation the'day may yet come when, just as a letter reaches any house in the country, so a telephone message - will be ‘able to reach to the humblest home. i its organization to the postoffice department. The Bell telephone system will be taken over, and so will the multitude of independent telephone sys- tems, city and rural. It may be that some of the smaller or rural exchanges will be left in the hands of their present owners for a while. But the user of a farm telephone will soon be able to talk to the last user of a city telephone, anywhere within long- distance toll connection. : Now as to economies of public operation. There are about 3,000,000 miles of telephone toll lines in the United States. There are also some 2,000,000 miles of telegraph wires. All the telephone wires can be used for the send- ing of telegraph and telephone messages at the same time. At least 600,000 miles of the telegraph wires can be used for sending telephone messages while telegraphic use is going on. That is to say, on the day that the government postalizes the wires it will add 150 per cent to the available tele- graph lines, and 20 per cent to the available tele- phone toll lines, without spending a penny beyond the instailation of a few switches and connections! STAMPS TO SIMPLIFY ACCOUNTING Telegraph office rental amounted, a few years ago, to something over $4,000,000 a year. That item "can be saved, net. For every telegraph office and branch telegraph office in the average Amer- ican city there are four or five branch postoffices. Instead of keeping the telegraph business in cen- tcred downtown headquarters and in a few in- efficiently operated branches, as has been the case, the postoffice department will install the telegraph operators in the main and branch postoffices, in every part of the city, and in postoffices in ail the smaller towns. They belong there, just as much as the stamp window and the parcel post depart- ment belong there. And that leads to the next logical economy of the postalization of telegraphs. Payment for mes- sages would be made’ in stamps! Yes, stamps. 2 You would buy stamps at the postoffice, and when you sent a mecssage costing 34 cents or 96 cents or $2.50 you would pay for it by putting the right = amount of stamps on .the message when it went - into the office. This would apply to messages sent “collect,” also, in that the mes- senger delivering that message would sell and take payment for the requisite amount in stamps from the per- son receiving it. Stamp-payment would do away with the whole expense of ac- counting, which forms total cost of handling a message. David J. Lewis, the foremost American authority on telegraph and telephone management, recited to congress some years operations in the book- accounting of a single telegram. The affixing of a stamp, or a half dozen stamps, would save those 47 different items of handling the account. - The saving would go to reduce the rates for telegraph service. The possibilities of economy in handling of telegraphic business along with mail busi- ness are endless. For example, night-letter telegrams are delivered by messenger at some hour before noon, usu- ally, in the-cities ‘and - ‘PAGE ' FOUR so large a part of the- -ago the 47 separate ' towns of the whole na- 9 R This is the main office of the Western Union Tele- graph company in Washington. = This corporation has maintained a higher rate for its services than exists in any other first class country. It has fought organized labor and has lobbied in legis- lative bodies. The government is now man- aging its affairs, and this political in- fluence is at last-at rest. tion. These would be delivered by the letter car- riers on their early morning rounds. The public would be better served, the cost of operation would be reduced, and the public would feel more readily disposed to increase the wages and reduce the hours of the postoffice employes. WHAT OTHER NATIONS PAY K “With the single exception of Japan,” said Lewis in a speech to the house in 1914, after years of investigation of the whole field, “our postage rates are the lowest among all countries, and these rates are now more than paying the cost of the service. This under the rule of postal monopoly and of the public financier. There is no real occasion for the lowering of our postal rates. “But’ we rank fourteenth and last. among the nations whose service is postalized, as to the tele- graph rates. And we rank only ninth in resulting social service from the telegraph. We have but 1.1 telegrams per capita as against eight in New Zea- land, a country whose social conditions and wage levels compare with ours about as one state in our republic compares with another.” The minimum rate telegram in France at that time cost less than 10 cents, with 1 cent for each additional word. In Sweden the minimum message rate was 13 cents, with 1.3 cents for each additional word. In the United States the minimum rate for a message was 35 cents, with 2 cents for each ad- ditional word. Yet France, poor as her people are, used 50 per cent more telegrams per thousand of population than did the rich United States. Our private telegraph companies were shutting off our people from the use of the wires. % ) In more than 100 American cities and towns the extorticnate ‘charges of the Bell monopoly have forced the citizens to-install competitive telephoné systems. In these cities each instrument, whether Bell or “independent,” represents only half a tele- phone, since it is not connetted with the rival exchange. TELEPHONE DUPLICATION IS AT AN END When Uncle Sam takes charge, a few switches will be connected, and at once the two systems will become one. The citizen who has two instruments in his house or office can"have one of them taken out. Those instruments can then be used for the extension of the telephone service, the growth of- which has been made almost impossible during the war. Exactly as in the case of the telegraphs, every economy will bring a greater use of the service, with corresponding increase in revenues. The public will share this increase in revenues with the men and woiden employed in the postalized wire service. ; - : 3 Did you ever look up the comparative cost of telephone calls in this country and in Europe, where the governments run the telephones? A three-minute conversation over the -Swedish ‘-postal telephone costs 4 :cents, within the 25-mile ~zone. In France it costs 5 cents, and in Italy and e e e N o e .