The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1885-03-29
THE TELEPHONE STEAL.

A day or two ago news item in THE
HERALD stated that the American Bell
Telephone Company. of Boston, had de-
clared its regular quarterly dividend OF
per cent. This is the parent company
the owner of the patent for the tele-
phone, and the dividend, large as it APP
pears, is much larger in fact than it
shews, for the reason that the stock is
dripping with water" The dividend is
the on face value of the shares, whereas
the actual investment was nothing like
the par of the stock. The company,
with an -impudence that is startling, re-
ports that for the ten months ending
December 31st last. its earnings
GENE is the proper term-were 81, O67, :
544, and It's expenses for the same time
aggregated 1851, 1873. Thus, 81. 2SO, 1856
was proGt and interest on the insignifi-
cant amount o. capital invested. The
dividends during the ten months aggre-
gated $1,.449, 315. In the preceding year
the dividends reached nearly so per
cent. of the gross earnings,
and for the ten months
indicated above they were nearly three
fourthg of the total receipts. When
subscriber pays his telephone bill he
can knew that 20 per cent. of the money
that reaches the parent company goes
to pay-extravagan dividends on water
ed stock.
0ne.might be excused for suggesting
that the company simply advertises its
own infamy by publishing thesefgures.
1t advertises to the world that it is a
soplless robber, plundering and despoil-
ing helpless people who have been
placed at,its mercy by ill-advised and
unjvst patent laws. = Whenever The
Herald calls attention to the extortions
by the Bell people it is told that it
simply hurts the local company and
does it an injustice; that the Rocky
Mountain Bell Telephone Company is
making no money, and that if we think
it offers an opportunity for remuner-
alive investment, we can get all
the stock we want. All of which is
childish, and has nothing to dc with
the evil against which THE HERALD is
striving. We have no fight against the
local company, as has frequently been
asserted; but every fair and honest man
necessarily has fight against the own
ers OF and those who control the tele-
phone monopoly. If the city associa-
ton makes no money it can charge its
failure 10 the boss robber at Boston
which leases the telephones, fixes the
charges and gobbles the profits. 1t is
this spirit of opposition to the monopoly
that causes people to welcome every
thing that promises relief, to offer en-
Gouragement to competing associations
and to sorrow when the Bell giant
brushes one after another of the COM
panies that come up to the assistance of
the plundered public. We do not
believe the company in Salt Lake is
getting rich; on the contrary, if it is
holding its own, it is more than it should
do, considering that i'll order. to do so
mitch it must enforce the orders of its
heartless master to plumber the COM
munity TO the last cent that can be
extorted from it, and turn the loot over
to the eastern highwaymen.
Unfortunately the little opposition
that promises to show itself in the near
future is struggling with the dis
advantage of any day having its pins
knocked from under it, just as the pins
have been knocked from under the other
opponents to be Bel, by the patent laws
which are enforced in the interest of
grinding monopoly. The course that
Bel has pursued with the invention
should lead to the enactment of laws to
prevent the extortionate taxing of the
public for devices of general utility and
necessity, at the same time encourag-
ing inventive genius by fairly reward
ing the persons who produce any ma
chine, implement or device that benefits
mankind.