The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-03-28
TAKE WIRES
OFF STREETS
Views of Visitor on
Electric Wire
Problem.

Honolulu and the telephone COM
pany would find it the essence of econ
omy to have all the wires of the COM
pany placed underground. -
Mr.. Moore, president of a telephone
company at MarsnalItown, Iowa. and
one of the admirers of Honolulu, for he
has made yearly visits here every year
for five years, speaks thus plainly on
the question of telephone wires. He
aas had long experience and hopes that
Honolulu generally will soon come to
the conclusion that a better telephone
system can be maintained and the city
made more slightly by putting ali wires
into conduits.
Marshalltown is a city of but 10000,
and for years it has had an eve to the
beautiful and unitarian by running all
wires underground. No wires are TO be
seen III the air. Honolulu boasts of a
population of $4,000 people and hardly
wire is underground, except it be in
the ease of the newer business blocks.
You have the advantage here of
having few streets that are paved with
asphalt or flags, continued Mr. Moore
= There we have paved streets and
every time we have to dig trenches it
is costly. Yet we have found that it
IS economy to Keep our wires out oe
sight. Whenever we have a fire in a
building, only the instruments suffer or
are put out of commission. Our con-
nections are saved and only that sec
IC IT nf
above ground a FIRE under similar con-
ditions, always disturbs the general
system.
g Another important thing is that
you get better service all around L
am surprised that this city has not
taken bold stand in this matter and
demanded that wires go underground
In the case of our company we asked
permission to put our wires in under
ground conduits.
The stringing of cables on poles is
costly and the maintenance is costly.
Here s another feature of the local
telephone system that j don't believe
obtains elsewhere to any extent. That
is the free service to say, Waialua. In
this city anybody who wants to tele-
phone to Waialua goes to the nearest
telephone and telephones. That is not
exactly fair to the telephone company.
''Take San Francisco, for instance
A stranger comes into town, walks into
store and asks to use the telephone.
Well, that company has invested mil
lions of dollars to go into the field Of
enterprise, not for its health, but to
make money, and yet anybody who
takes a notion to telephone to Tom,
Dick or Harry, walks in and uses these
wires for nothing, which is not right
1t would be the same thing if people
walked into your newspaper office ana
asked for paper as a gift ] don t
imagine that you are in the business
for your health, and giving away pa
pers does not pay salaries. 1t S the
same in any business. Do away with
some of these features which retard
the telephone development here and
conditions will naturally adjust them
selves to the advantage of all con-
cerned.
Then there's another thing. The
way in which trees are Topped here and
there to allow wires to be strung mars
the foliage. Trimming trees is an art
in itself if you wish to preserve the
beauty of your trees. Some very afro
cious trimming has been done in
Honolulu and it doesn't improve the
appearance of the city.
- In orr citv We ALWAYS exercised