Evening star., 1898-02-04
General Sentiment Aroused Against
the Telephone Company.
N CONGRESS- and TIE COURTS
High Charges and a Policy of Die
tation.
A FEW FACTS OF INTEREST

The business men of Washington who are
compelled to use telephones in the trans
action Of their daily affairs are watching
with intense interest the result Of the
questions affecting the policy Of the Chesa
peake and Potomac Telephone Company
which are now pending in Congress and in
the United States court Of the District of
Columbia.
Among these users of the telephone there
Is hope expressed also that Congress will
adopt the amendment to the District ap
preparation bill providing a new scale of
prices to be charged for the uses of the
telephone in the District, and that in the
case of the proprietor of the Fredonia
Hotel the courts may decide that the tele-
phone company has no right to dictate
what character of messages in a business
sense shall be sent over telephones that
are rented at specific sums annually.
Business Injured.
The installation of public pay telephones
in drug stores, hotels and other public
places had the effect OF seriously injuring
trade among the business men Of Washing
ton because the majority Of them had put
telephones in their own establishments
more for the purpose of receiving orders
from customers living throughout the city
than for the sending of messages relating
old system it was only necessary for per-
sons living in the vicinity of a store which
had telephone to go there and order
goods not obtainable in their immediate
neighborhood from down town merchants.
These persons would have made no objec-
lion probably to paying moderate charges
Tor the privilege of sending such messages
in the manner indicated, but in nearly all
OF the public telephones it is necessary to
put a ten-cent piece in the slot in order
TO send such q message.
Mr.. Bryan's Timely Illustration.
1t will be seen by this, say the mer-
chants, that it requires the expenditure
for the privilege of talking over half
mile of wire for instance, of two and half
times as much as 1t does to ride nine miles
on street railway, whose construction IS
more costly and. more expensive to operate
than the telephone company's equipment.
President Samuel M. Bryan of the Chesa-
peake and Potomac Telephone Company
has claimed, too, they say, that telephone
call costs the company about the same as
the average cost to street railroad OF
carrying passenger. Instead of charging
four, and one-sixth cents for the telephone
privilege, however, which is the rate charg-
ed on local street railways, ten cents is
charged generally. Business men, who ap-
plaud the action brought by the -proprie-
tCrs of the Fredonia, have been getting
more ana more incensed at the telephone
company and its management ever since
the new system or schedules went into eff
feet, because the telephone company in
ssts that 1t shall be the sole judge of the
character of the business transacted by the
renter of a telephone.
The Public Telephone.
The drug stores now having public tele-
phones were until recently allowed to tran
sact their own business over the public
phones without charge to them. Most of
these drug stores were agencies for laun-
dries, express companies and similar con-
up by telephone.
The agency for such concerns was part
and parcel Of the business of the drug
store, as the proprietor received a per-
centage on the orders sent, just as he made
a profit on the drugs sold on orders re-
ceived over the telephone. The telephone
company. however, announced that it was
the sole judge of the real business Of a
telephone renter and that all such mes
sages must be paid for and also decided
that a proprietor of drug store or other
place having telephone could not call up
a customer for any personal purpose. The
company engaged in pursuance of what
it claimed was the intention to prevent
the common gratuitous use of the tele-
phone has gone in the opinion of more
than nine-tenths of the leading business
men Of Washington in the opposite direc-
ton and is now indulging. in imposition
on its own part, and the opinion prevails
and is very strong that it should be called
to a halt both in the amount of it's charges
and in the dictatorial feature Of it's present
policy