New-York tribune., 1905-04-10
BELL TELEPHONE COMPANY FORCED TO SURRE NDER.
FARMERS OF IOWA WIN THEIR TWENTY YEAR FIGHT
AGAINST MONOPOLY

Sioux City, Iowa. April (speciaD.-The Amer
lean Bell Telephone Company. for twenty years
the most naughty and uncompromising monop-
oily in America has been forced by the farmers
of Iowa to an unconditional surrender. After
a warfare that has been in progress for two
decades and in which investments Of many
millions have been made. and both sides have
sustained losses probably aggregating millions.
the Bell company has been beaten and forced
TO acknowledge the fact.
The same warfare has been in progress all
over the country. but nowhere else has it been
fought so determinedy. The character of this
hand -to-hand struggle may be imagined from
the fact that it has developed in Iowa the most
remarkable telephone business possessed by any
state in the Union. One-third of all the farm
ers' telephones in the country, and one-fourth
OF all the mileage of wire connecting them are
credited by a recent census bulletin to Iowa. 1t
is the direct result of the telephone fight
In the beginning the Bell company claimed
that no other instrument could be used without
irfringen2ent of its patents After time ad-
yenturous manufacturers began putting out in
struments that they insisted did not infringe;
they guaranteed to protect users of them; and
the readiest market was found for them in
Iowa The Bell company started a great IN
fringement action, and the my stery of why it
stopped short when it had fully established its
contentious IN the supreme CouIl VI llc CIA4tSN
States has never been explained
This much, however, is certain: that the Bell
Z people secured what is popularity supposed TO
! ba a complete establishment of all their claims.
The decision was handed down about ten years
! ago in a case that had long been pending. 1t
was Ions. involved and technical, but lawyers
| and electricians and patent experts agreed that
/ it was a sweeping victory for the Bell patents.
At that time there were already thousands Of
! miles of anti-BeI lines and scores Of anti-Ben
! exchanges in Iowa. They all used other than
/ pell apparatus When the decision was handed
/ down there was panic. 1t was expected every
independent would be compelled forthwith to
! choose between paying royalties for past in
| fringements and contracting to pay them in
future and going out of business The two
meant about the same thing 10 most of the in
dependent telephone people for they had not
been very profitable as investments.
Then the Bell people did a strange thing.
| They did nothing at all. When it was expected
the iron fist of despotism would close on the IN
| dependents and squeeze the life out of them
nothing whatever was done Nobody ever knew
! why. When they could have driven every anti
! Reu instrument out of the State, or at /. st
have forced payment of hundreds Of thousanCs
Of dollars in royalties the Bell managers did
not take a step 1t took year or two for the
| independents to get over the shock. They could
! not understand it. Months and years passed.
| and they finally decided. that there must be a
| technical weakness in the Bells victory which
the Bell people alone understood. and whlch
| made them fear to press their advantage.
From the time when the independents de-
cided that they were not to be prosecuted for
infrincements their expansion was resumed.
| To-day there are almost three hundred thou
sand miles of rural and toll lines in Iowa aside
from the city and town systems. Almost all
| This business outside the cities and towns is
| controlled by the anti-BeH people, while in the
cit;as there are almost always two exchanges
| Reu and ant-Bell. The Bell exchange con-
meets with the Bell SYSTEM of toll lines the anti
Fau exchange connects with the anti-Bell toll
lines The Bell people have always made it an
! ironc,ad rule that they will not connect their
Exchanges with anti Bell toll lines; and to Offset
This the "antis' organized an ironclad agree
roent not to permit any company using Bell In
strunents TO exchange business or connect lines
with them.
Thus in time it came to the point where al
,,os, everybody In Iowa owned stock in a tele-
hone enterprise Of some kind. The cities built
their mutual exchanges, every user OF an III
strur,ent beinR a stockkoder: and in the cOun-
- the farmers did the same Town cOun-
10 the home without telephone Is far more
rsre in Iowa than the home which has two OF
them hanging side by side. almost all busI-