The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1901-12-09
WESTERN UNION
IMPROVEMENTS
General Superintendent CloWry
Visits Salt Lake.
RELAY STATION REMOVAL
COLONEL CLoWRY's OPINION OF
NEW SYSTEMS.

Colonel R. c. CIowry, vice president
and general superintendent of the
Western Union Telegraph company, ar
rived in the city yesterday on a tour
of inspection. He came from the
coast and was met in Salt Lake by ].
J. Dickey, superintendent, and B.
Brooks, assistant superintendent Of
the western division.
Colonel Clowry also met Manager J..
NJ. Herbert of the Rio Grande system
ana several local men.
The general superintendent of the
Western Union confirmed the an
noUncement recently made in The Her
aid that Salt Lake viii be made the
principal relay station for the wires
passing through Utah to the Pacific
coast, A transfer Of the relay facil-
tiles from Ogden viii be made, al
though enough operators will be left
in the Junction City to handle the
regular business outside the through
messages.
Il am on a general tour of inspec-
tion.'' said Colonel Clowry. Il have
been on the coast, and now 1 am
working my way back east. 1t is
our intention to improve the facilities
Of the Salt Lake office and to prepare
for greater growth Of business in the
future"
In response to the suggestion that
the company might be fOrestalling ap-
preaching competition on the part of
the Postal company, the colonel re-
marked that the talk of competition
isn't worrying us at ALL"
New Telegraph Devices.
The Western Union has been keep
ing close watch on all the new inven-
tons aimed to increase the speed pos
sibilities in sending and receiving mes
sages, but Colonel Clowry says he has
not been very favOrably impressed
with any Of them.
Granted that some Of these ma
chimes may send and receive some 1000
or 5000 words a minute he said, what
practical advantage is there to us in
that? There might be an advantage
if every message came in ready to be
put on the sending apparatus, but in
these new appliances the message has
TO be punched into a tape before it can
be sent. While the message is being
punched for transmission, it could have
been sent, and perhaps a reply re-
ceived under the present system. You
see, the business in a telegraph Office
comes in a little at a time, and while
1t sometimes gets piled up, under Ordi-
nary conditions the business could be
handled better under the present sys-
( tenn than the other. For example, a
man comes in with an order to buy
10000 bushels Of wheat. That must be
sent instantly. At present, an operator
sits down and clicks it off at once.
Under one of the new systems, he
would have to punch it out before he
could send it, resulting in the end
in a losing Of time, although the mes
sage would not be so long on the wire.
In order to determine the practical
bility of the new devices for rapid
transmission, I had careful account
kept of the number of words on file at
our Office at once during one Of the
national conventions, when the tele-
graphic rush reaches its maximum. I
found that the greatest number on file
at one time was 1000 words, which was
not too much for the operators we
had there to handle. Of, course, it
kept coming in, but the operators kept
along with it. On the whole, the only
occasion where any Of the rapid trans
mission devices would have a great
advantage would be when the wires
were disabled for a time and business
piled up. The messages could be
punched during the delay and rushed
off as soon as the wires were open.
We are at present using the Wheat
stone and Morris systems for such oc-
casions."