The Portland daily press., 1900-10-16
The Telephone War Has
Now Commenced.
And No One Knows When 1t
Will BE Rung OFF.

Aldermen held a special meeting to give
a hearing on the petitions for rights for
new telephone company In this city. All
OF the mem bers of the board were in at
tendance and the room was well filed
with citizens who have taken consider
able interest in the quenstion of pole
rights
Hon. Charles f. Libby appeared for the
Eastern Telephone company, and said he
hoped he would be able to show that a
new telephone company was necessary for
the city of Portland. He called as the
first witness Maynard S. Bird OF Rock
land who spoke for several minutes. He
stated that he was the general manager
of the Eastern Telephone company. The
people interested in the company include
many prominent citizens of Rockland
and vicinity. In operation the system has
about $50 miles Of poles and covers com
pletely Knox and Lincoln counties and
good part of Franklin county. The
money has been paid in by the owners.
1--WE propose to build a first GLASS CEN
trail energy construction, he said. 'The
battery powers wouldbe supplied from. the
central office. We would contine our
system almost wholly to conduIts. The
present system in Portland is metallic
system, When we obtained our rights in
RockIand the New England Telephone
company had l47 telephones. We now
have over 400 telephones Of our company
in that city. Our coming in reduced the
rates and improved the service. Our in
crease OF 1899 was the biggest of any
year. We propose a reduction of rates in
Portland. There are about 15OU telephones
in Portland, great deal less according
to the POPULATION than in Rockland. We
were preparing last spring when the
Dir1go company asked for right in
Portland TO present petition of our
company. There are about 250O cities in
this country having the Independent tele-
phone system. In Rookland the two sys-
TENS have worked very satisfactorily.
We reach much Of the territory In this
state that the New England company
does not. Then we have Installed a sys-
tenn of lower foliage, We have been In
vited to go into the city Of Gardiner and
install our system. The citizens there
have taken hold of the matter themselves.
We furnish the city OF Rockland with
telephones Ne shall intend If we come
IN here to connect the Portland system
with other systems in the state and out
OF the state. We would push it to vigor-
Gus execution and in good faith we could
carry out all of our propositions
In answer TO ArdOn W. Coombs, Esq,
counsel of the Dirigo Telephone company,
Mr.. Bird said his company would estab-
lish different rates among business houses
and residences. The maximum rate for
residences would be $24,
In answer to Clarence Hale, Esq. at
torney for the New England Telephone
company, he said that his company had
the rights in Lewiston but had done
nothing towards construction In that
city. In Rockland at one time the rates
OF the old company had been as high as
$50. There has been quite drop of rates
since this. The Eastern company would
get long distance connection with other
companies.
u. S. Holbrook of Boston, president of
the Massachusetts, Telephone company
and director in several others, was next
introduced. One of these companies IS
the United States Gable company, which
controls one sixth of the systems of the
Bell company in this country. The Mass
achusetts company is company for the
acquiring of franchise of other compan les
in that state. This company has estab-
<F
streets of Boston. Good progress has been
made in the State OF Massachusetts, and
the city of Boston. have discussed with
many boards in Massachusetts the ad-
Visibility of two systems being estab-
lished. The Independent company is
America has been cursed by three things:
Men who didn't understand their busi-
ness; lack OF means, and poor instru-
ments. In Cleveland today there are 30,
600 telephones in place Of 5000 which used
to be the total number. The rates are no
higher now than formerly. In HaverhiIl,
Mass. the people are getting twice as
many phones for the same monys as they
used to have. Regarding two different
systems a committee from the Massachu-
setts legislature went to Haverhill and
came back and reported that all of their
bills had been paid by the New England
but that two systems were not
a nuisance, The capital stock of the New
England company is over s1S, 600, 600, and
their bonded debt Is over So, 700, 600. They
are Handicapped by these new men by S12
a phone interest on their stock. They
say that the expense Of repairs has been
one-third more than the value of their
property. Their taxes are So a phone
more than on a new company. The New
England company in controlled by the
Bell Telephone company. The royalty of
the New England company is about 81
phone.