Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-03-29
TIE CAPITAL.
ADDITIONS TO THE STOCK OF
JUDICIAL TIMBER.
Funeral of the Late Chief Justice
The Telegraph Inquiry-Cali-
fornia Marble.
ESPECIAL DISPATCHES TO THE RKooRD-usuos. !
TELEGRAPH MATTERS.
The Western Union Not Opposed to Coy
ernment Control.

The Western Union Not Opposed to Coy
ernment Control.
WASHINGTON, March 2Sth.-Dr. Norvin
Green, President of the Western Union
Telegraph Company, addressed the Senste
Committee on Interstate Commerce on the
interstate telegraph bill. He said he did
not appear to oppose q fair and reasonable
enao nent for the regulation of the tele-
gral If the telegraph was commerce in
the Institutional sense, and the Supreme
Court had decided that its business is COM
merce, then there could be no question of
the power of Congress to enact law such
as that proposed.
Ordinarily his company would desire to
be let alone, but under the circumstances it
was not averse to such an enactment as
proposed, with certain Objectionable feat
ures stricken out. He was led to this con-
ciusion from the fact that his company
owns and operates perhaps seven-eignths of
all the telegraph lines in the United States.
and Is therefore an apparent monopoly,
while in point of fact it has no exclusive
franchises, and no legal privileges that any,
body else cannot get. But the telegraph
had drifted into a combination, not from
the grasping efforts of any one man or set
OF men, but from the necessitous laws of
trade. Rates were cheapened and business
greatly improved in its facilities and in
promptness of service.
SOME POPULAR ERRORS.
He said there were gross popular errors
regarding the maintenance of telegraph
property. The Government could not send
messages for ten cents and make the lines
self-supporting. He said he believed the
Western Union property could not be dupli-
Gated for its cost
Senator Cullom-"Do you mean to say
that your property cost $50 ,000,OOO?"
DR.. Green-"Yes, mean to say that it
could not be reproduced for that sum.
There was another popular error as to
THE sANcTITY OF MESSAGES.
The idea that any one man had access to
message passing over the Western Union
wires was too absurd to discuss. Coming
to what he described as the Objectionable
features OF the bill reported by the Post
office Committee, he first took up the arbi-
trary section relative to the handling of
messages according to the time of their re-
ceipt. He believed that the section should
be qualified by the addition of the words
''as near as possible"
The general scope of the section forbid
ding discrimination in forwarding messages
also sufficiently covered the case, without
specific requirement. AS to the long and
short clause, he said, in answer to cues
ton. that no higher tariff was charged be-
tween points on lines from New York to
Omaha than between the terminals.
DR.. Green continued to discuss the bill at
great length, and in conclusion addressed
himself to the Anderson bill requiring the
Pacific railroads to maintain and operate
their own telegraph lines, and criticised
some of its features. The effect of the
measure, he said, would be to decrease the
revenues of the road. By such legislation
the railroad companies would be losers
the Government would be loser, and no.
body would be benefited.
General Swain, of counsel for the West
ern Union Telegraph Company, followed
In an argument against the Anderson bill.
WESTERN UNION RIVALS.
Colonel Robert g. Ingersoll, representing
the Postal and united lines, said to the
committee that these lines are now SUBJ
stantiaily under one management. They
met the Northern Pacific road at ST. Paul,
the Union Pacific at Omaha and the Santa
Fe at Kansas City. At these points the
lines here represented had to stop. The
lines over the Pacific railroads were all
operated by the Western Union. Conse-
quently the only contention was whether
the lines of the company which he repre-
sented should have equal facilities over the
roads built by the people under the various
Pacific Railroad Acts. or whether they must
pay tribute to the Western Union from
these terminal rl0ints ha ha5 naroad