The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1884-12-04
4 poSTAL. TEIEtslsA5'll.

IA view of the power shown by Jay
Gould over tic Wrateru Union Teles
graph Company AID the Associated
Pre- 5. and the manifest disposition
on his part to use it in behalf Of his
fayorite Presidential candida,e, the
following utterance Of Senator Win
dom, Of Minnesota. just before lis
appoint Dent to be Secretary of the
Treasury is exceedingly apropos:
The channels Of thought and the
channels Of commerce thus owned
and controlled by one man: or hy q
few men, what is to restrain corpo
rate power. or to fix q limit to its ex.
actions upon the people ? What is
then to hinder these men from de-
pressing or initiating the value Of all
kinds Of property to suit their ca
price or avarice, and thereby gather
ing into their own Golfers the wealth
of the M ion ? Where i the limit to
such power as this? What shall be
sai i Of the spirit OF i free people who
will submit without protest to be
thus bound hand and foot.
With o postal telegraph on the
plan propo led to the last Congress
b, Congressman Sumner, Of Califor-
MIA. and Senator Edmunds, Of Yer
mont, coupled with Civil Service
system. which would place the tenure
Of office beyond partisan CONTROL ,snch
q danger us that above mentioned
would be obviated. Referring to the
existing situation, the ". Y. Times
says:
For the past forty eight hours Mr..
Jay Gould has been using the West
ernUnion Telegraph to spread abroad
through the UnitedStates false infor-
nation as to the result of the election
in the State Of New York. The proof
of this is well-known to every intel
ligent journalist in New York. Mr..
Gould did the same thing in October
with reference to the election III Ohio,
when not one specific statement cap.
able OF vcrifcation or exposure was
allowed to pass over the Western
Union wires for more than thirty
hours, and when the statements that
were sent were shown within two
days to be conspicuously and inten.
tionally false. As to the vote of New
York the plot has been nearly identi-
cal and has been carried out with
more persistence. The returns have
been sent out in Jumps Of election
Districts which are not named and
cannot be identified, and the publica.
ton Of these has been made in a.
mounts and at times to suit the
schemers. Occaaionsl pronunciameu.
tos from the Blaine Committee have
shown that returns from comparative
ly remote points have been used
promptly, while those from points
within an hours ride Of the Western
Union Building have been held back.
y n
mir. Gould'z performances during
the past forty eight hours have made
a Government postal telegraph q ne.
cessity."
Electricity is the quickest, and
therefore the most valuable. means Of
conveying intelligence; The people
Of the United States paid foF con-
structing the first line Of telegraph
for Prot. Morse between Baltimore
and Washington, thereby demonstra-
ting the feasibility Of using electrici.
ty TO convey intelligence, Instead of
adding it to our postal system it was
allowed to pass into the hands OF
corporations, which have used it as a
means Of taxing the people rather
than to give them its service at the
lowest practicable cost. If it had de.
veloped with our posta! system, ex'
perts estimate that we would now be
sending messages at a cent a word
throughout the length and breath OF
the United States. Does any one sup
pose that If our present postal sys'
TEN had been run for corporate pro-
fit rather than for pubic benefit, that
postage would have been reduced
from shilling per letter to two cents?
AS regards the integrity of manage
ment, it must be placed somewhere,
and does any one suppose that it
would not be safer in the hands Of
the Post Office Department, directly
responsible to the people, than in the
hands Of q corporatian responsible to
no one7 Republicans like Senator
Edmunds and Democrats like Con-
gresham Sumner,of California, think
that it would be safer in the hands OF
A..