Arizona republican., 1902-08-16
PHoENIx, ARIZONA, AUG. 1s, 1902
Pacific Cable Plans.

Failure in congress last winter to em- bark the government in a scheme of Pacific cable enterprise in no wise halted the plans of the powerful lobby organized to promote the undertaking. There will be strong and constant pres sure from this direction as long as the lure of speculative profits shall attract exploiters of the public treasury. Once in possession of a trans-Pacific cable laid at public expense shrewd promot- CTS and syndicate managers would find it an easy matter to extract the kernel and leave the shell. Fortunately, how ever, private capital and enterprise have interposed effectively, to all ap- pearances, to prevent the engrafting of a new phase of commercialism upon the republics administrative system.
 There is no doubt of the crying ne- cessity for cable communication with our insular possessions in the broad Pa cific-Hawaii, Guam and the Philip pines. The intimate and complex com mercial and administrative relations of the United States with these newly ac- quired territories and with eastern Asia are too voluminous and important to be left to the hazard of slow steam communication. The situation has chal- lenged our captains of industry, and their reply is embodied in a proposition to open cable communication over the broad Pacific purely as matter of business, with only such incidental re- lations to the federal administrative affairs as might be properly sustained by any independent private corpora. tion. The financial sponsors for this vast undertaking want no government backing, no inflated subsidy. no per manent monopoly nor exclusive privi- leges. They ask only for landing rights in United States territory, and the use of soundings, profiles and other Par ciflc ocean data now in the possession of the navy department.
 In return for these official conces- sions it is agreed that the proposed ca ble shall be an exclusively American line, that government business shall have priority of dispatch; that the gov ernment may take possession of tho cable in time of war, and shall have al all times the right to purchase it at an appraised value. Other provisions of the proposed concession safeguard ef- fectively the equal rights of citizens to the use of the cable in the transmits sion of messages and in regard to the charges of service. The executive sion presents, in effect, an object les son in public regulation without public ownership. Every advantage of com mon possession is secured, while the drawbacks and dangers of government interference with private undertakings are shrewdly avoided and dispelled.
 Should this arrangement with the ex- ecutive department be approved by congress, the Pecific Commercial Ca- ble Company would be placed in a po- sition to break all previous records of cable construction. The profound depths of the Pacific ocean between Guam and the Philippines; the enormous distance between stations; the peculiar construc- tion necessary to endure the enor- nous pressure miles below the surface these and other obstacles once seemed so formidable and almost insurmounta- ble would be reduced in the alembic of modern science to a meagre and negli- gible minimum. It is task that might well inspire enthusiasm in it's inception and arouse national pride in it's con- pletion.