The San Francisco call., 1905-04-05
POLE CHORPINC
ACT DELAYED
Supervisors Committee Gives
Corporations Plenty of
Time to Bury All Wires
HEWITT is CENSURED
Result of Agitation May
Be the Ordering of Lines
of ALI Sorts Underground

Nobody need get up early this morn
ing in expectation of seeing Chief Hew-
lit of the City Electrical Department
with his coat off chopping away at the
bases Of telegraph poles, or his inspec-
tors busily engaged in the cross arms
picking off insulators and clipping
and sniDs twigs.
The joint committee of the Super
visors' Finance and Electricity Com
mittees, Brandenstein in the chair, held
an investigating session yesterday and
granted the companies that are main
tanning poles nearly a year to get them
down-time enough for the whole mat
ter to be forgotten unless improvement
clubs are active.
The features of the session were a
verbal passage between Superintend-
ent Jaynes OF the Western Union Tele-
graph Company and President Goodall
of the San Francisco Electric Protec-
tive Company, which owns the Pinker-
ton burglar alarm system, and the re-
buking of Chief Hewitt by Chairman
Brandenstein for giving permission to
the Goodall company TO string over
head wires when 1t was granted a
franchise on the agreement that its
wires should be underground.
Goodall accused Jaynes of instigating
the crusade against overhead wires in
order TO establish a monopoly for his
own burglar alarm system, which uses
the Western Union underground serv-
ice, and OF using the Board of Super
visors TO carry out the design. Jaynes
promptly denied this and called upon
the members of the committee to bear
witness TO the fact that his company
had said nothing about wires being re-
moved. In defense of his company he
went on to say that Hewitt had or
dered it to put its wires underground
and then had granted the protective
company permission to place wires
overhead on the ground that it was on
the same basis as a messenger COM
pany.
Hewitt hotly denied that he had is-
sued such an order TO the Western
Union Company. The most he had
done was to express the opinion to Mr..
Jaynes that all wires should be placed
underground, he said.
The result of the agitation will prob
ably be that the committee will recon-
mend to the board the placing of all
wires, including those Of the messenger
and burglar alarm systems, under
ground.
Inc point OF Q1nerenCe between Ine
burglar alarm and messenger services
was also a subject for discussion.
Jaynes said there was much difference,
because the burglar alarm service was
much more costly and carried a higher
voltage. Goodall said that the only
difference was that in one case by the
ringing of a bell you brought six
foot man and in the other four-foot
boy. The wires used by his company
carried a low voltage, he said.
A communication from the San Fran
cisco Gas and Electric Company in
I which ii expressed a willingness to put
all wires belonging to 1t underground
/ as soon as the city got its wires off the
/ gas company's poles were read. S. L.
! NaphtaIy, superintendent of the COM
pany, promised that it would have all
wires in districts /, and 8 under
ground ninety days after the city
buried those belonging to it, and that
| those in district by March l. Chief
/ Hewitt said he thought the city could
get its wires down by June 80, except
I in district 4, where the work might
take longer. T. V Halsey of the tele-
phone company said that corporation
would get it's poles down likewise.
The committee will meet again Fri
day afternoon and adopt resolutions to
! be presented to the board.
F. l.. Turpin, w. F. Perkins and r.
]. Hancock. representing the Ellis
/ street Improvement Club. were present
and got a promise for the immediate
removal Of certain poles on Ellis, be-
(, tween Powell and Mason.