Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1899-06-26
SEVERE CRITICISM
OF the Late Action of the Council Com
mittee on Ordinances.
WHEEI INC Luna 0Hth 1900

WHEELING, June Goth, 1899.
To the EDITOR OF the Register.
Sir: Anent the recommendation to
the Council for passage, made by the
Ordinance Committee, of the franchise
to the National Telephone Company,
there are several matters worthy of
the profoundest consideration of the
people of this city,
The City Solicitor, able, honest and
fearless in the discharge of official
duty, among his recommendations to
the committee, which they saw fit to
ignore, suggested that the ordinance
should state specifically whether the
system is to be overhead or under
ground, or in what parts of the city it
is to be overhead and in what parts
| underground, and that the city should
retain the right to compel the company
to change from one system to the other
upon such terms and at such times as
the Council shall in future determine.
These recommendations were treated
with less than scant courtesy and fell
upon deaf ears.
The weighty argument convincing
the minds(D of the majority of the
Committee, advanced by the attorney
and one of the corporators of the Ma
tional Telephone Company, was that
/ his company should be permitted to
place poles and wires in our business
streets without let or hindrance be-
cause away back in the early history of
telephones, when the business was in
its infancy, the present telephone COM
pany was permitted to have wire and
pole system in the business section of
the city, i. e.. on Main and Market
streets between Tenth and Sixteenth
streets. He calmly claimed that his
company should have every privilege
accorded the present company, but I'M
accompanied by the burden of con-
structing conduits in the business sec
ton, so necessary for the preservation
of property, the convenience of trade
and the efficiency of the fire department
in case OF conflagration.
The friends of the franchise upon the
committee are blind to the reasons
which impelled the city authorities to
compel the present telephone company
to construct its underground conduits.
The growth of telephone business had
been such that the business portion of
the city was INSTRUCTED with poles and
wires to the inconvenience of mer-
chants and to the danger of property
In a comparatively short time the fran
chise of the Central District and Print
ing Telegraph Company (present tele-
phone company was to expire and as a
condition of a renewal of its life the
nuisance was required to be removed
and the wires put underground.
Will the people interested tolerate a
forest of poles and tangle of wires
again On Main and Market streets from
Tenth to Sixteenth streets?
If the National Company can avoid
the necessity of constructing modern
telephone plant and litter up the
streets of this city, as if the metropolis
of West Virginia was a country vii
| lGge, then the Home Telephone Com
pany and every other similar company
should have like privileges. 1t is
needless to ask what the condition Of
| these streets would be.
Then there are divers and sundry
electric lighting companies who want
room for their poles and wires. Verify
the business man must ship, receive
and deliver all his goods through the
back door until even it is closed against
| him by the companies forcing each
other off the front streets and into the
| alleys. Then in the name of all that 5
| good, what will he do?
! The merchants are entitled to no
| consideration when the interests or de-
sires of franchise seekers are under
| consideration.
1t is TO be sincerely hoped that the
! Council will justly rebuke the commit
tee which has so failed in performance
| of its duty, and sustain its law officer,
who seems to be distinguished for those
| talents and virtues, which every city
| official should possess, but which are
not so common in this city government
| that their possessor cannot be readily
| recognized from among his brethren.
CIVIC VIRTUE.