Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-01-15
TELEGRAPHIC TOLLS.

This Monster Corporation.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 13.-Dr. Norvin Green,
president of the Western Union Telegraph
company, appeared before a subcommittee
of the house Judiciary committee by invi-
tation and discussed the provisions OF the
bill recently introduced by Representative
joyce for the regulation of telegraph and
cable companies. DR.. Green said 1t had
become fashionable, and by many people
was thought to be popular, to attack the
Western Union Telegraph company IN
every conceivable way because it was a
large corporation, but could scarcely be
termed monopoly, since it had no prlvi-
Ieges granted by congress or By any state
that any other company or persons could
not avail themselves OF if they desired
50 to do. II had no less than four
competitors of greater or less dimensions
actively in the field of competition. 1t was
a large corporation, he admitted, having
nearly 100000 miles of wire-enough to
cirdle the earth fifteen times, and 1860
Offices scattered in every state and terrific
" Of the Union, and in the provinces of
Canada, from the borders of NewfoUnd-
land. at the gulf of ST. Lawrence to Puget
sound in British America. 1t also had
cables to London, so it now required
more than nine hours for
the sun to rise on its wires, and the feat
had been performed of publishing in San
Francisco morning papers quotations and
transaction of closing of London ex-
change at ) o'clock the same day. He re-
liz of =
resolution recently offered in congress
inouiring as to the best steps to be taken
to improve and reduce the cost Of tele-
graphic service. He asserted now, and
when it became necessary would be
nrenared to prove that the
Western Union company was
performing better Geographic service than
was being done anywhere in the civilized
world, and, taken all IN all, at lower rate
of tolls. There was, perhaps, in England
and in some of the governments of the
European continent, larger areas Of the
twenty-five cent rate, but the Western
Union had considerable area of fifteen and
ten cent rates, which those countries had
not, and a fifty cent rate covered
much larger territory than any of
the compound rates of England and the
continent. No where in the world could
a message be sent the distance Of from
Boston to Portland, Oregon, for $3.50 the
rate Of the Western Union between those
points. New York banker had told him
that when he was in London he could
get messages from New York or Chicago
a great deal quicker than he could from
Paris, and the experience of distinguished
advocate Of postal telegraph in the United
States. Gardner G. Hubbard,
had corroborated the experiences
of Others that he could
obtI lin no such service in the old world as
he could over the Western Union lines,
and that, except for large area of the
shilling rate, it was at higher prices. Re
ferring more specifically to the bill under
consideration, Dr.. Green said, the first
section contemplated precisely what the
telegraph and cable companies were now
doing, had always done and required to do
by state legislation. Messages transmit
ted in part by any telegraph company and
handed over to the Western Union or
any cable companies were taken and for
warded without discrimination. But the
second section assumed to compel the
Western Union to take free of charge GER
tain words necessary to perfect the mes
SAGE which it did not take free of charge
from ANYBODY. Rule 4 of the company
limited free words of a message to the date
and address, within certain prescribed
bounds, and the signature; also
with the limitations as to title.
The free signature was limited to no more
than two words in addition to the name,
and the date was limited to the place at
which the message was received by his
company, whether it came from a tele-
graph company or an individual. He in
stanced the case of a message sent from
New York, but dated Albany, and said that
the date was additional matter which
had to be paid for. If congress
had the right to make these two or three
additional words free of toll, it had the
right to make the whole message free of
tolls, and give over to the adversaries of
the Western Union what was really at
tempted in this bill, the right to use its
lines to run in competition with it. The
bill also sought to compel his company to
receive from the opposition companies
messages which they could not send
a foot of the way. In the in
terest of public service, 1t was
right this should not be submitted to, as
there was always delayin transferring bust
ness from one company to another, and it
was fraud upon the customer who did not
know that the company with which he en-
trusted his message could not send it to its
destination. In addition to being fraud
on the customer, it was forgery to mako
the customer sign a contract with a COM
pany which he never intended to contract
with. The committee was proba-
bly, aware that by decisions
of most states the printed
heading on which the Western Union mes
sages were received was held to be a con-
tract limiting the responsibility of the
company for errors, delays or misdeliver-
les. It had not, however, been the uni
form ruling of courts that the company
should identify senders of messages, but it
had been held that it must exercise due and
reasonable caution to see that they were
genuine. When messages came through
an agency which the company knew to be
unfriendly it felt it could
not vouch for their genuineness.
1t was complained by gentleman who
appeared in advocacy of this bill that his
company had been compelled to send some
of their messages back to customers, who
were very angry. He (Green) fancied their
anger was with the company that received
their messages without informing them
that they could not be sent. He did not