The western sentinel., 1897-02-04
ELECTROMAGNETIC.
A Business Mans Account of the
Meeting in Room No. 1S.

| A Business Mans Account of the
| Meeting in Room No. 1S.
| Editors Sentinel
| AS you had NO reporter at this eel.
l ebrated meeting of much vital inn.
| porJance to the general public, have
| thought it would be well to give you
| a short account of it.
A few mornings since, two gentle
men, neither of whom l knew, called
at my place OF business, when the
younger Of the two introduced the
older one as Col. Mcclure, Superin-
tendent Of the Bell Telephone Co.
The Colonel, in very few words,
explained that his time Was valuable;
that he wished to meet the leading
business men of Wtnston-Salem to
discuss telephone matters, and as he
could talk and explain the matter to
single individual, asked me to attend
meeting in room No. Is, Phehix
Hotel, at $3.50 O'Clock The young
man having kindly said to me, In
case you should happen to be late
come right up to No. 49," promised
| would do so.
In pursuance of this Invitation /
U.
uteS late and was greatly surprised to
find myself one Of so very few Of the
leading business men Of Winston-Sa-
lem, with only one other yet to ar
riye-Mr. Hanes, whose coming was
impatiently awaited as was evidenced
by the Colonel's frequent looking at
his watch aud inquiry If the gentle
mar was known as 1.-The late Mr.
Haues"? on whose final coming the
Colonel proceeded with his talk, plans,
propositions, etc etc.
However his talk may have i'm
pressed others, it struck me in about
this shape: Il have called you gentle
men together, not because l have SO
much TO say, but because l can saw it
to all of you at once and cannot afford
to talk to Tom, Dick and Harry sep
arately. We are the telephone peo-
pie, than whom, there is none other.
We can (if we want to?) give you long
distance service, connection with
timore, Philadelphia, New York and
indeed anywhere, if we want to (?).
We are immensely wealthy. We are
fully aware that, in spite of my advice
to the contrary, your Chamber Of
Commerce did an exceedingly foolish
thing and invited the Iuterstate'>
people TO establish plant here. We
know you are sorry for 1t and on that
account / am not disposed to remem
Der it against you. Your contract
with these people. which, by the way,
has not been lived up to any TOO
loyalty, is about ended. Now act
wisely. Give US your business, which
if materially increased, we will in like
ratio increase our rates. Wipe out
the Interstate people and give US full
and undisputed possession OF the field.
l. is not likely that we will increase
our rates to over $40 per phone per
annum We promise nothing! II we
want to ~ when we want to (?) we
will give you long distance service, at
long price
So ended the celebrated meeting in
room No. Is l have never seen a
more thoroughly disgusted lot of the
leading business men of Winston Sa-
lem. Col McClure's caudor is simply
wonderful and to say the least is COM
mendable. II the Interstate's people
are driven from the field, the people
of Winston-Salem know well just
what to expect. BUSINESS MAN
In extenuation OF it's failure to re-
port the proceedings Of the Room
No Is Meeting" THE SENTINEL can
only say that it was not mum bered
among the invited conferees and did
not know until this morning that such
a meeting had been held