New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1892-02-23
TELEPHONE AND LEGISLATIVE

To discover that you have been warming
a serpent in your bosom is grievous experience.
The sensible thing to do as soon as you have
made the discovery is 10 diminish the selTents
capacity for further injury and annoyance. We
commend this obvious truth to the attention OF
members Of the Legislature, who are about TO
have the opportunity of dealing with the Metro
politan Telegraph and Telephone Company, not
exactly according to its deserts, but greatly to
the advantage Of the community. The telephone
service, in comparison with what it ought to be
and easily might be, is miserably inefficient and
outrageouSly costly. By everybody who uses it,
whether much or little it is vigorously and right
eorsly cursed. The owners relying upon an
absolute monopoly and careless Of all honest OBJ
legations to the public deliberately give as little
as possible in return for the enormous privileges
and patronage which they enjoy. Other mo-
nopolies are frequently and forcibly criticised in
this land of free speech, but it is safe TO say that
they are one and all popular idols as compared
with the telephone. We hear great deal in
dspraise Of the Standard Oil Company, for ex-
ample; but we are willing to stake our reputa-
ton for veracity on the assertion that discrim-
mating citizens would rather vote pension OF
a hundred thousand dollars year TO every officer
and empoye of the Standard Oil Company than
to give these telephone people SO much as one
word of frigid approval.
And the reason for this universal detestatlon
is lust and sufficient, it being understood that
we are not considering the telephone magnateS
in their private relations but as public purveyols
Probably they love their wives and children, and
do their share toward feeding the hungry and
clothing the naked but in their control of vast
business and exercise Of q superlativc franchise
they are mean selfish and rapacOus. If every
possibility of bringing the telephone to periec-
ton had been eagerly cultivated so that to-day
the service was the very best that science and
money could produce, the charges imposed upon
subscribers would nevertheless be extortionatc,
and the Legislature could be Justly called on TO
reduce them But what is the fact? BY pur-
chase and manipulation, and by all the sinister
devices known to lawyers, the owners Of the
telephone have persistenty fought against its
developments believing that their private advan-
tage lay in stunting its growth and retaining as
many of its original imperfections as possible.
We believe that they have blundered, as every
corporation or individual blunders that refuses
to absorb the spirit and adopt the means of prog
ross. But their motive is plain, and they have
steadfastly adhered to their purpose. The con-
sequence is that the telephone service, instead Of
being easy, prompt, rapid, accurate and pop
ular is laborious, tedious, slow, sovenly and
detested.
And now to these familiar deficiencies and
impositions is added the rank offenc- OF great
increase in the charge for service. Surely the
managers are not anxious to conceal their con-
tempt for the public that they profess to benefit.
They have had little reason hitherto to doubt