Evening star., 1900-05-11
A Necessary "LuaurY."

The president of the Chesapeake and Po-
tomac Telephone Company. in the course OF
his letter to Senator Proctor. declining to
make concessions to the public of Washing
ton. advances the argument that the tele-
phone is necessarily a costly device and
that 1t is not intended that it should come
within the reach of the person of moderate
means. In other words, he seeks to prove
that the telephone is yet luxury, for
which luxurious prices must be paid. Moth
ing less likely to evoke approval from the
intelligent legislator is to be imagined than
this plea. The telephone has become a vir-
tual necessity of modern business and social
life. 1t is no longer costly experiment
novelty. a scientific toy. 1t has been de-
veloped until it stands alongside the electric
car. the printing press. the telegraph, the
talking machine the typewriter. At one
time in the course of their perfection these
devices have been luxuries. intended only
for the use and convenience of the welLto-
do 1t Is within the recollection of living
men that even railroad travelling was once
too expensive for others than the very
wealthy to enjoy it.
The telephone is now capable of cheap
production and maintenance. The processes
of manufacture have greatly lessened in
cost Patents have expired. Rival devices
have been perfected until there Is little or
no ground for the pretense that the mechan-
ism of telephony is dear to the user. SO
widespread is the of this method OF
communication that the average electrician
who is readily TO be found in any group of
skilled workers. is capable after slight
study of equipping a system. AS well, in
deed might it be claimed that the telegraph
IS still luxury because it involves i'm
provements over the original Morse con-
struction and is more intricate in its mod
ern equipment
1t is of course, to the interests of tele-
phone companies to instil this thought Of
the luxury of telephony into the public
mind. Many people are willing TO pay high
prices for that which is represented
costly and rare But Washingtonians
not fools as a rule. They read news
papers and books. They have travelled
They have heard of and many of them have
visited large communities In this country
and in Europe where almost every house
is furnished with q telephone, where neigh
bors talk with each other over distances of
many miles, where whole series of farms
are connected by telephone. and all at
rate that makes the prevailing local scale
here resemble the extortiOn of the dealer
in the rarest gems. The telephone is not
q luxury fit only for the millionaire out in
Indiana and Illinois, where these conditions
just described prevail. II Is not the toy of
the plutocrat in Stockholm, where the ho-
tells are fitted with phones in the guest
rooms al an insignificant cost, or In SwitZer-
land, where the rates are low enough to
tempt even the peasantry
These conditions are too we'll understood
here. both by the people and the legislators.
to warran. further references to the neces-
sarily high cost of the luxury of telephony.
The fact is clear that the local company
will not reduce it's scale of rates, that an
other company stands willing to undertake
the service at a very low price and that
several thousand citizens Of the capital
have engaged to subscribe to this service
upon Its installation. thus insuring that the
new company, If chartered. will start busi-
ness with larger patronage than the old
one ever commanded. There Is no sugges-
ton of the exclusiveness of the telephone
in this state of affairs.