The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1872-01-29
HOUSE.

Mr.. Palmer, Of Iowa, in the chair and
a few memb .rs in their seats.
Mr.. Beck made speech against the
postal telegraph scheme. He said he
had been member Of the select COM
mittee of the last Congress on the SUBJ
ject. lie then opposed both the schemes
reported and when neither party ven
tured to lay their project before the
House he had thought that both had
been abandoned. Neither the President
nor his Postmaster General had recon-
mended governmental control Of the
telegraph system when this Congress
met on March 4th. Now it was urged
as a necessity. The Senate committee,
too, was urging a pet scheme known as
the Hubbard bill which a minority OF
the House committee had endorsed.
The report to the Senate claimed that
all those who have investigated the
matter favored governmental control
in some way. He denied that and
showed that the House committee on
Postoffices and Post Roads in the For
tieth Congress had reported against
them all, and that the House select
committee of the last Congress had re-
pudiated the scheme which the COM
mittee of the Senate then and now
recommended that he had as mem
Der of that committee opposed all those
schemes, and it was because the silence
of the minority, of which he was one,
was now being tortured into consent
to propositions to which he was utterly
opposed, that he proposed, in advance
of the action OF the present committee,
to lay before the committee OF the
House the results of his investigations
so that they might 90 Tor what they
were worth along with the printed bills
and report referred to; he contended
that the whole scheme was an effort to
still further centralize and consolidate
all the power in the hands OF the Gov
ernment officials at Washington; that
the present Postmaster General was an
unfit depositary for such enormous
power as he recommended and urged
Congress to confer upon him; that his
scheme would cost the Government at
least $1,000, 900 OF an outlay to begin
with and an additional tax OF 81 100000
to sustain it. 1t would add at least
$4,000 employees to the $4,000 or iO,OJO
now drawing salaries directly from the
treasury as the official register showed.
These men would be compelled to be
political tools to the Post
master General, obey his orders, pay
their political assessment and do his
dirty work or be discharged. He
and in other countries had been mis-
stated and concealed by the Postmaster
General to induce Congress to confer
this honor coupled with great banking
systems on him. He showed that
already in England censorship had
been established over teIegrdphic com
and contended 1t would be
done here whenever political or other
purposes required it. He claimed
that the proposed system might SUIT
in the government of Europe, where
the railroads, stage coaches and all
were owned by the Govern
ment lie contended that the Govern
ment might as well take control OF the
railroad and express companies a. OF the
telegraph lines, as the abuses were a
Great and the monopolies as dangerous
He reviewed the testimony Of Orton,
Hubbard and others as to the manage
ment and cost OF the system in Europe
and showed that, when fully considered,
it was very little cheaper than our
present system, notwithstanding the
Government officials who were paid Tor
other services did much of the work.
He instauced Belgium as the best man
aged and most economical OF the
European systems, and showed that
while the uniform charge In Belgium
was 10 cents for an ordinary message, the
average cost OF each message to the
Government for distance OF fifty miles
was Ia cents, vet in Belgium the te!e'
graph was self.sustaiuing, while the
annual excess OF the expenditures over
the receipts in the whole European
system was only S40O0,OJO. IT mes
sage was sent from point in Belgium
to q point in France, ten miles distant,
Belgium charged % cents, and II 1t
crossed her territory from one country
to another she charged 20 cents. France
charged 10 cents tor mesgages any,
where in her own country, but charged
80 cents il it crossed her line a mi'e
and so did other countries. lie con
tended that it was ignorance or an
attempt to deceive which induced the
Postmaster General TO say that mes
sages could be sent from New \ ork TO
San Francisco for 20 cents without the
enormous taxation on the pfopIe to
sustain the telegraph for the benefit ol
not over 25O,000 OF our S9,OOO,oo3 OF
neople, and these generally specu'
Iators or men able to pay.
He insisted that there was nc
demand for change by the people now
using the telegraph, that the service
was generally we'll performed, aud that
the proposed change would break up al
the teleg graphs along the great lines o.
railroads, or force the Government tc
build new ones at an enormous cost
The railroads were all run by telegraph
orders, and their lines could not bI
used if secret, as all American opera
tors now receive by sound; so that II
Government line touched railroad
station the message would be under
stood bv the railroad empioye. lie
urged that the present arrangement;
would all be broken up by the Govern
ment system; bankers, brokers, stock
boards, national reports. all the specie
interests now accumulated would be
destroyed, all of which are a part o
the system Of commercial business
which is unknown in European coun
triea. He examined the bill II
| Iu sbov;ny that IL was