National Republican., 1883-08-08
A SUBSTITUTE FOR rELEeRApHY.
what May He Accomplished by the Tele-
phone I'm Cases OF Emergency Like the
Present

What May He Accomplished by the Vele-
phone I'm Cases OF Emergency Like the
Present.
81 see the stock market is still going down."
said REPUBLICAN reporter to Mr.. II. ID.
Cooke the banker, yesterday.
"Yes; but l think the bottom has been
reached" was the reply. "The market may
linger down for few days, but it will then
take an upward tendency, and think there
will be q number of bear failures"
~ suppose the strike of the telegraphers
causes the present depression in stocks"
"The stock market anticipates the move.
ments of the strikers, and the uncertainty of
the result of course keeps stocks down.
One of the most alarming features evolved by
the telegraphers strike now in process is the
fact that the means whereon fifty millions of
people are dependent for their instant inter-
communication can be so controlled and in
fluenced by ten thousand men as to paralyze
trade and dismember business and social rela-
tons by dcpriving communities of their tele-
graphic facilities. In this case 1t is true that
the telegraph companies are to certain ex-
tent filling their obligations to the public,
but the existing partial paralysis demonstrates
the fact that ut some other time they may be
totally disabled it being only a question of
degrees of inability. Telegraphing is now such
an absolute necessity in the everyday life OF
any man that even the remote possibility of
its being cut off entirely becomes most
serious question"
"What would you suggest as preventive
of n recurrence of the present condition OF
ailars?'
"Many have suggested that the govern
mcnt should own and control all telegraphic
| lines This expedient, besides being objec-
tionable from the immense patronage and in
fluence it would give to any party in power,
would not remedy the true evil of the exist
| ing system. The real fault lies in the fact
that although the volume of telegraphing
has increased many hundred fold since its in
| PRODUCTION, the manner of transmitting it has
remained virtually the same. In other words,
| the demand is for some simpler method OF
| sending our thoughts and wishes to o distance
"a method which does not require skilled
| labor and which can be utilized and operated
| by any person of ordinary common sense"
"Can this demand be suppliedW
Fortunately, this demand need not remain
unsupplied. Its complement is the telephone.
| Hero is the means by which er-communi-
cation of the most perfect nature can be had
| by persons of any intelligence at any distance.
| Already large portions of Pennsylvania, New
England, and many other areas are inter-
locked in teephonic circuits. From New
York one can talk to Chicago, and, coming
nearer home, Washington and Baltimore have
been put within speaking distance, and verbal
| intercourse can now be had between the two
cities at a moderate toll, not doled out at
so much per word, but as many
words as one chooses to crowd into
the space of time allotted to each
talk. Consolidation of local lines into inter-
urban or trunk lines, seems to be the order OF
the day in telephone circles throughout the
country, and it will not be long before wide
spread and comprehensive system will have
grown up-a system in which each man will
be his own operator and in which there car
be no cry of oppressed employees and no danger
of strikes"
"Will the telephone ultimately supersede
the telegraph" ?"
mo- except for short distances; but in the
case of an emergency like the present the
telephone can be brought into active requi
sition and bridge over any difficulty. In cas-
the railroad operators strike telephone com
munication from one station to another could
readily be made and the trains move as regu
larly as now"