Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-03-12

business. NV experience is, that when the
| tolls are low the messages are longer. More
| small words are inserted. Senders of messages
will not be 80 anxious, will not strive so hard
to crowd out the small words and compress
their dispatches. The consolidation gives the
Western Union almost limitless resources. 1t
can. with its increased facilities handle al
most any quantity of business that can be
| given it. The service is better, surer. more
rapid than ever before.
| THE GOVERNMENT AND THE TELEGRAPH.
How about Government control of the
wires %
'sIf the Western Union should fail in serv-
| ing the public as it ought to be served think
| Government control is inevitable; but the
company will not fail. And the fact is the
Government could not manage the tele-
graph"
"It does SO in England"
"The situation is entirely different The
| British Islands compared with the United
States are small, compact territory Alto
gether they are only as large, scarcely as
! large, as some of our great States. The pop
ulation is dense. There are dozen, if not
more, houses for every telegraph pole Here
we have to carry our wires over mountains
and tracts Of country that are almost deserts,
so far as population goes. The expense OF
keeping these lines in repair, in proper work
| ing order, is enormous. The Western Union
has JOG, 600 miles of poles constantly rotting
and requiring replacement. In England
! there is no such area TO be covered. 1t is safe
| to say that if the Government owned the
wires it would be necessary to have hundred
men where the company now has ten men to
do this work. But there is another view of
the subject to be taken into consideration.
Every change of administration would bring
! in cafa f Tho
would turn out all the Democrats and the
Democrats would turn out the Republicans
In England man once appointed in the civil
service remains in it IS long as he pleases.
provided he is honest. With every change of
administration we have change of postmas-
tiers. General Garfield will probably remove
or decline to reappoint one-half of those put
in by Mr.. Hayes. and if General Hancock
had come in there would not be man of
them left. All this may be an evil or it may
not | know it would be considered an evil
part of the political system of this country,
and do not see how it can be changed under
a republican form of government"
IS IT DANGEROUS?
1.-THE objection is made, Mr.. Gould, that
the possession of so vast power as, say the
control of the Western Union and the whole
telegraph system of the country by one man
or by two or three men, Is dangerous to even
the business of the country, to say nothing
about its liberties"
THAT is stupid. In the first place, it is
not true, as / said before, that immense
blocks of stock are now held by any one man
OF combination of men for any length OF
time. Sometimes it is necessary that they
should be so held. You will find the rule al.
most invariable that the men who are able to
4 mo DO baoytv 70 in
are the men best fitted to manage and de-
velop that enterprise. The public is bene-
flied also. A well. managed line of railroad
is of the greatest possible advantage to the
country through which it runs. A poorly or
badly-managed line is almost worse than
none at all. Travel is slow or unsafe ;
freight is delayed, causing disappointments
in business, the cancelling of contracts, the
loss of trade, which always seeks the easiest
and quickest channels of communication
Railroads and telegraph lines are not toys
Men do not invest in them for fun. They
do so to make money, and the only way to
do that is to make them more valuable, to
increase their efficiency. This requires in
telligent direction, and the higher and the
more Intelligent that direction the better To
secure that combinations of incorporators
are very often necessary. In many cases
they are compelled to combine TO save them
selves from absolute ruin. AS | said, it is a
great mistake to suppose that capitalists are
absorbing the control of the great industrial
enterprises of the country. l think 1 can
safely say that there is not city of any con-
sequence along the investment belt of the
country which does not contain stockholders
of the Western Union"
"What do you call the investment belt %
1.-The line of country feeding and border
ing on the great trunk lines. The great bulk
of the bonds and stocks of the country are
held by the residents of that region of coun-
try a..
is not safe for capitalists to monopolize or at
tempt to monopolize the great commercial
enterprises of the country. l believe all
these interests should be scattered as widely
as possible. To scatter them is, in fact. the
surest and strongest safeguard of capital
Now, as to the telegraph business and N.Y.
self. My share in the whole undertaking is
very small at least, it is far smaller than the
public, if | may judge from the newspapers,
supposes. My position in nearly everything
is greatly exaggerated In it l am simple
passenger-one of the thousands and thou
sands of men,"
The consolidation created good deal of
feeling Mr.. Gould %
Yes-(with smile -smong those who
were short of the stock. General Eckert will,
/ think, soon demonstrate to the business
men of the country that the consolidation
was, for them, the very best thing that could
have happened"
GIRDLING THE GLOBE.
How about the new cables ?"
1--WE shall have them laid in two years. l
was looking over the stock book to- day and
find that nearly one thousand cities in this
country are represented. 1t was the Ameri-
can Union that put the cable idea into my
head. 1 found that we could not get the same
terms for our business that were given to the
Western Union. Looking into the cable
question and the profits derivable from the
business, found that it was a very good and
sure kind of an investment, and / resolved
to try it"
Opening the case referred to in the begin
ming of this article, Mr.. Gould, pulling out
the sample cable lengths, said:
Here are specimens of the English and
French cables now down. The French is
great improvement on the English one. Here
is ours. You can see at glance how much
better ours is than the French one"
Taking down map, he said:
Here are the two cables we shall lay this
summer from Newfoundland to Ireland.
That gives the connection with Europe and
Asia. On the other side Of the continent we
propose to start from San Francisco and put
down cable to the Sandwich Islands.
Thence we shall lay one on this line (point-
ing it out on the map) down to Australia,
and another from the Sandwich Islands in
almost direct line to Japan. And up here
laying his finger on Puget Sound) we pro-
pose to start with another cable, carrying it
across Behring's Sea to Kamtschatka, which
will open up the Russian telegraph system to
u.s. and thence to China. Ia addition, it is
intended to further develop the West India
cable service and connect the east and west
coasts of South America with New York.
That chain of cables. completed with the
heart of the organization in this city, makes
New York the center of the world.
And then p
1--WE shall, as city, start on a grander
stage of our development than any we have
yet seen"
How"
Nearly all the heavy business of the
world to-day is transacted bv the telepral1h