Evening star., 1904-03-24
LOCAL PHONE SERVICE
Comment 1f Citizens on the
Is fgan
.Senate's Action.
So t ts.ss 81 .ss
|RATEaSTIPULATIONS S
si "a 49,
DEMAND FoH BETTER FACILITIES
AND eRRATER rRoMPTNEss.
Response to Statement Made by an Of
Acial Of the Telephone
Company.
RATE2STIPULATIONS s


The insertion OF paragraphs in the Dis
trict bill, cutting down the telephone rate.
has renewed the criticism OF local people
who use the Ines
.@The telephone service we are getting
now Is atrocious." said Gen. H v. Boynton.
president OF. the board Of education, this
morning. 1T is getting worse and worse.
I am heartily In favor of the propositions
contained In the Senate bill. the only eritt-
cism could make being that the commit-
tee did not make 1t more stringent. have
telephone in my house. and there Is not
day that we do not get four or five calls by
mistake. There does not seem to me to be
any excuse for such poor service, and
/ hope and trust that the Senate will see fit
to pass the bill as it Is now and that the
House will concur in the amendment -
Mr.. Charles B. Pearson. secretary OF the
Standard Brick Company Is one who COM
plains Of the poor telephone service ana
who favors the most stringent measures
against the company.
81 want to see something done that will
improve things" he said to Star reporter
this morning. 1.-THE conditions are worse
now than they have been at any time dur
ing the last twenty years. and there seems
to be no hope of Improvement unless Con-
gress shall take hand and enact law
tI1dC Will nOlQ water. IL IL " cIo POSSipf; "
ge. along without it-that is. If everybody
else would do i'll would throw the tele-
phone out of my Office entirely and revert
to the old system.
People Not Satisfied.
'tMr. Bethel, president of the Chesapeake
and Potomac Telephone Company. seems to
have created the impression on the Senate
appropriations committee that the people OF
the District are entirely satisfied with the
treatment received from his company. The
very contrary is the fact. At no time IN
the last twenty years has the service OF the
company been unsatisfactory, and the
amount taken from the citizens by the COM
paEy of course. Is constantly growing. In
his letter to Mr.. Babcock, printed In the
Congressional Record. Mr.. Bethel says that
the number of telephone subscribers Is now
II, 159. and that the rate averages about
$50 for each telephone. The company,
therefore. has business relations with more
than twelve thousand citizens OF the DIS
trict and collects annually more than $6Oo.-
600. and is giving the poorest service that
1t ever gave. o.
when Mr.. Bethel states in the letter re-
ferred to that the average charge per tele-
phone has been reduced from 500 to $50 he
ought to state whether this is caused by
the large number of telephones connected
with private switchboards for use in large
business houses, and which are not con-
nected with the telephone exchange. These
private telephones are installed by the COM
pany. but the switehboards and apparatus Is
under private management without any ex-
pense to the company. II these be exclud
ed 1t would be interesting to know whether
the rates for exchange telephones have
actually been Increased or diminished since
the act of 1888
The Rate Under the Law Of '08.
"At that time the rate was between sos
and 500 per telephone and 1t Is doubtful
II 1t is much less now. if any. Some busi-
ness houses in the city certainly pay now
as much as 5000 or 81 900 for telephone serv-
Ice annually. and even when the rate is
low so many phones are attached to each
line that 1t is made to yield an enormous
income to the company. For instance, II
four residents In a block take telephones,
which are upon one line, at S38 each the
income to the company is $144 for one Iine
The fact is, the people Of the District
are not satisfied, though they are somewhat
discouraged. 1t seems the telephone COM
pany can neither be controlled by Congress
nor by the courts. and, of course. the citi-
gems individually have no way of control
ling them. When the repeal Of the act of
1903 was proposed In the Senate in Feb
Tuary, 1908. it was stated on the floor
that the company would welcome an IN
vestigation during the present session of
Congress. The way the company keeps
it's promise is to appear before tho com
mittee and oppose the only proposition
that has been made to control its rates. and
instead of meeting the citizens half way 1t
even asks that the House provision shall
he stricken out by tho committee before
the bill is ever presented to the Senate for
consideration.
Comparison Instituted.
Congress requires the railroads in the city
to sell tickets at six for quarter of q