Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1903-03-19
BETTER TELEGRAPH WORK.
Operators of To-day Are More En-.
Client and Thorough Than Those
of Ten Years Ago.

Are the telegraphers of the present
day less careful and accurate than
those of years ago? Ought they to be
well informed on the news of the day
merely because this news is largely
discussed in the kilograms which they
send and receive?
Both questions were answered. says
the Chicago Inter Ocean, in the af-
hrmative recently by a writer who
stated his opinions as follows:
There is not a class of individuals
IN this country more deserving of the
emolument they earn than the telegra-
pliers; but 5 any of them are of that
peculiarly iIliterate or mechanical
class that errors are constantly made
of what would prove to be plain legi-
bility to a thinking man.
Their is no excuse for bulled mes
sages. A telegrapher should be thor
oughly conversant with the topics of
dGy and well up on every subject upon
which he is called to pass Judgment,
and this means o than whatthe or
binary man keeps in touch with; still,
when it is considered that the telegra-
pler must handle stocks, grain quota
lions, horse races, news matter and
comment of every sort it should de.
volve upon him to become proficient
as much from an intelligent standpoint
as from a mechanical.
He may claim that his hours are too
arduous; but that is begging the CUES
ton. His work, should, in a measure,
keep him in touch with current events,
and when he uses hismemory it should
be altogether to the good.
These statements were shown the
other day to one of the high officers of
one of the big telegraph companies.
That" said the officer of the tele.
graph company, sis all wrong. The
man who wrote it doesn't know what
he is talking about, or has a grievance
which prevents him from telling the
truth. Instead of retrograding, the
telegrapher of to-day is much better
than he was ten or twenty years ago.
1--WE have undoubted proof of this
assertion. Through the main office of
this company there are daily transmit
ted $4,000 messages on an average.
VI course that number by no means
represents the total number sent bv
all our men all over the country.
Now, everyone of ourmessage blanks
the name of the president of
the company, and to him, quite natur-
ally. are sent almost all the complaints
of our patrons, We scarcely ever re-
ceive more than five complaints in one
day.
Almost all of these complaints are
o the way messages are delivered
by our messengers and not about the
way in which they are sent or received
by our operators. As Il matter of fact,
te~leSraphers nowadays make very few
mistakes that cannot be traced direct
~ to the faulty handwriting of the
senders.
Lots of people are careless about
writing out their messages.
Cautiously enough, the sender of a
telegram is always very careful to
spell out the name of the person ad-
dressed, but often only scribbles off his
name, and that is always an i'm
oortant part of the telegram. Many of
messages we get would take a
handwriting expert to decipher..
Now, it is impossible for a telep-
raphertoabsorbmuch of what goes out
IN as messages. He is kept busy
readlng out the words before him.
The men know that they are employed
% send the messages correctly and not
% learn what is in them so that they
man be able to repeat the contents"