The record-union., 1892-03-19
POSTAL TELEGRAPH AND TELE-
PHONE.

PHONE.
A few days ago we considele ed the
proposition of the Postmaster General to
contract with telegraph and telephone
lines as carriers OF messages for the
Postal Department, and found the scheme
to be commendable and warranted by
the laws and the custom of the Nation
under which it has abandoned the stage
coach and saddle-bags and availed of the
railroad and steamboat as better agencies
for transportation of mail matter at
uniform rate for the service.
Hon. Walter Clark, Associate Justice
Of the Supreme Court of North Carolina,
has contributed to the Arena a paper in
advocacy of the new proposition, which
is a statesmanlike and lucid presentation
of the whole subject. Promising that the
uniform postal rate system has demon
restriction preventing the employment
by the Postal Department of every i'm
provement in the carriage and trans
mission of letters and messages between
the people, he finds the questions re-
naming to be simply those of means and
timeliness.
There would seem to be no special rea-
son why the scheme of the Postof1ice De-
partment should not be tried now. as
well as at a later date. All other civilized
Governments have carried the telegraph
into the postal system; why we should
be the last to do it is not easy>to ex-
plain, since we are usually foremost in
the adoption of new devices and means
to serve the business and convenience of
the public.
Fit is ever to be done, the telephone
should soon be put into every Postoffice
and related to the nearest railroad and
general stations. The patents upon the
telephone all expire in March next. and
we ought to be ready on the expiration
OF the monopoly to bring this great con-
venience into use at uniform postal
rate. The communities most to benefit
by IL will be the rural populations. 1t
will relate them to their attorneys, mar
kets, physicians, tradesmen, depots of
carriage and freight and mechanical CEN
ters so closely, that rural life will lose
much of its present discomforts, and be
spared a great deal of its time and labor.
Justice Clark contends that it would be
the means also of saving crops by en-
ployment of the telephone in dissem-
mating news of frost waves, and the ap-
proach of storms.
An argument against the adoption of
telegraphic service by the postal depart
ment is, that the Government has so long
neglected to do SO, that to adopt it now
would be trespass upon private and
vested rights. If similar delay is per-
mitted in the case of the telephone, like
plea will be set up; but it is impossible to
do it now, since all rights in it expire by
limitation in March, 1898.
Justice Clark finds that the arguments
against use of the telephone and tele-
graph by the Postal Department are, that
while 100000 would use these agencies,
100000 would have to pay the cost; that
the number of Federal employees would
be vastly increased; that the expense of
delivering the messages would be too
great. The reply to these objections are.
n their order: That telephones supple
menting the telegraph would throw the
latter open to the rural population, and
thus the rural masses would be users of
1t as we'll as the business masses of the
cities and towns. AS to the increase of
employees, the same objection equally APP
piled to the employment of carriers on
the establishment of the delivery system,
But the telephone will greatly reduce the
need for employees. For all the distances
under 200 miles. the present Postmasters
or their present clerks can serve them.
At few telegraph centers to which all
long-distance messages would be sent,
there would have to be special corps of
employees. The annual increase of Post
masters and postofice employees, by rea-
son OF increased service, is from 5000 to
5000. 1t may well be doubted if the tele-
graph and telephone service added to the
postoffice would add more than the pres
ent natural increase of a single year; the
increase, being chiefly at centers, would be
made of the civil service appointees, and
hence bipartisan. As to the cost of de-
Gvering telegraphic messages, that would
be almost eliminated by the telephone
service, and where carrier systems OBJ
tain, delivery would be in great part ac-
complished through that agency.
THE MAYOR AS AN EXECUTIVE.
l.