Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1896-02-26
POSTAL TELEGRAPHY.

able discussion by Lyman Abbott ap-
pears in the Arena wherein are given
the principal advantages of a postal
trOlled by private corporations. It is
worthy of publication and more worthy
of careful review by the earnest
knowledge seeker. A portion is CIV
en- below:
The Western Union Telegraph must
pay an interest of FIVE to ten per cent
on watered stock to its stockholders.
The United States Government would
have to pay an interest of two and a
| half or three per cent on the actual
cost OF construction. If am rightly
informed, this alone would make a
difference of not less than five per cent
| on not less than fifty millions of dollars.
The Western Union Telegraph Com
pany must pay an Office rent and an
operators salary in every town and vii
lage. In all the smaller places the
postoffice would afford ample Office &C
commodations for the telegraph and
the postmaster or his assistant could
operate the telegraph with little or no
increase of salary. In England twelve
cents is the minimum charge for a
message to any part of the United
Kingdom. 1t is said by experts that
twenty-five cents as minimum charge
for message to any part of the United
States would pay the interest on the
Investment and the cost of administra-
ton. 1t is not important to determine
whether this estimate is accurate or
not. 1t is certain that the cost of tele-
graphing could and would be greatly
reduced.
AS result the use of the telegraph
would be greatly increased. 1t is now
the privilege of the few; it would be-
come the convenience of the many. A
uniform rate and reduction of expense
would operate exactly as it has operat-
ed in the postoffice. Messages would
be multiplied as letters have been null
tiplied. Popular communication would
would be- by electricity. Lightning
would become the servant of the peo-
pie; it is now the servant only of a
moneyed aristocracy. Every postoffice
would be telegraph office; for in re-
mote hamlets to which the wire did
not reach there would be telegraph
banks, and the stage coach would carry
the message to the nearest telegraph
Office whence it would be forwarded BY
wire.
That this is no fancy of dreamer is
shown by the experience of Great Brit
ain. Within three or four years after
the English government assumed the
control and ownership of the telegraph
the offices had increased thirty per
cent, the messages fifty per cent, and
the number of words sent two hundred
per cent, while the cost to the people
had decreased forty per cent. 1t is
true that the government telegraph in
Great Britain has not always been self
supporting, as the postoftice in the I'm
tied States is not always self support
ing. But this is partly due to extrava-
CANT prices paid by the English gov
eminent for private telegraphs in the
outset, and partly due to a laudable
but excessive ambition to increase pub
lie facilities more rapidly than the pub
lie income fully justified.
The thought-intercommunlcation of
a nation ought never to be left subject
to the control of private parties. 1t is
generally believed that in many in
stances the intelligence flashed oyer
| the WirQa Of tho w oSforD TTo,oxo ToIo
graph Company has been effectually
used for purposes of private specula-
tion before it reached the parties for
whom it was intended. In one notable
instance it was generally believed that
the returns of presidential election
were kept back until interested parties
could avail themselves of the knowl-
edge privately obtained for specula-
tive purposes. II is not necessary to
determine whether these suspicious
were well grounded or not; it is suffi-
Gent to note that they exist, and that
the public has no means of protecting
itself against the preparation OF such
wrongs so long as the telegraph is In
the hands of private parties. If the
telegraph is department OF the gov
eminent the public can hold the gov
eminent responsible for its admins
tration and need not wait for legal
proof Of an abuse in order to correct it.
The whole matter may be sumed up
in one brief paragraph. There are GER
tain public functions absolutely neces-
sary to the life of the nation. Govern
ment is one, but only one, of these func.
tions. Popular education is anoth-
or; the carriage of the mails an.
other; and the transmission of tele-
graphic messages has become still an
other. Whether the government shall
itself perform these functions or leave
them to be performed for 1t by pri.
vate enterprise is a question to be
determined wholly by a consideration
of another question, namely, In which
way will the public welfare be best
served? Theory and experience com.
bine to answer that, as the public can
better transmit its own mails, so 1t car
better transmit its own telegraphit
messages than by leaving either to be
done for it by private enterprise.
| ----------------
ANY money whose function is spec