The Hawaiian gazette., 1907-09-03
THE TELEGRAPH
STRIKE AND NEWS
(Mail Special to the Advertiser }


The strike of telegraphers, inaugural
ed a week ago, has not materially at-
fected Washington, although it is the
greatest telegraphic news center in the
country. The government now does an
enormous telegraphic business, which
costs hundreds of thousands of dollars
annually. But government business IS
almost always given the right of way
over telegraph lines and there has been
no disposition on the part of the
strikers to prevent the sending of gov
ernment messages, except in so far as
their refusal to work has that effect.
In all its departments the govern
ment maintains telegraph offices. 1t
pays its own operators who are on the
rolls at stated salary, considerably
more than either the Western Union or
the Postal pays it's employees. In the
Postofiee Department, for instance,
there is so much telegraphie business
that both of the companies keep a
wire "set up" all the time. from there
to New York, with arrangements for
quick wire service to other points.
These departmental offices are very
like those that are maintained in the
White House offices, although not on
such an elaborate scale. Yet some of
the departments have much more busi-
ness to put ON the wires than does
the White House.
The War Department now has one
of the largest annual telegraphic bills
of any of the departments, because of
its extensive cable business TO the
Philippines and to the Isthmus of Pa
mama Since the intervention in Cuba,
it is doing quite a cable business with
Havana. The Government has special
rate on all domestic and cable business
but the total aggregate cost is very
large. The State Department does a
big cable business in communicating
with ambassadors, ministers and con-
suls the world over and has a compare
lively small bill for 'telegraphing with
in the boundaries of the United States.
The navy has large telegraphie and
cable bill. Numerous messages have
to be transported to different quarters
of the world for the ships on various
stations and likewise to officers at navy
yards on both coasts.
Thousands of government messages
pass almost daily on almost as many
kinds of business. There is now an
army of special agents in the field for
the various departments. Frequently
instructions go to them by telegraph.
There are inspectors for the Postotfiee
Department, special agents for the Gen
eral Land Office, the Indian Office and
the Pension Bureau, all under the In
terror Department, Treasury inspectors
of several designations, special agents
of the Department of Justice and of
| the Department of Commerce and La
Dor and so on through long list.
If the strike had come at the height
of the busy Washington news season
it would have seriously crippled about
200 newspaper workers stationed here
for fully 100 leading newspapers of
the country. Some of this business,
amounting to hundreds of thousands of |
words daily, is on toll basis, ranging |
from a small fraction of cent to as
much as two cents a word, according |
to the distance from Washington. Some |
of it goes over wires that the news |
papers lease at compensation of about |
$40 per mile per year for night service.
The dispatch of news on the toll |
basis has been tied up considerably by
the strike. As the typos, who operate
the typesetting machines, have strong
union, the newspapers have been un-
willing to ''rat" their offices by re-
eeiving messages from non-union tele-
graph offices sent by non-union oper-
AhS NdhSCA VI ludI HdS re- |
allied at the very start and efforts
made to avoid it.
But newspapers that had leased wires
to Washington were quick to agree to
pay the operators the wage scale de-
manded and therefore thus far the
leased wires have been open every
night and the special news service has
not been particularly crippled. But at
this time of year Washington is not
much of news center and the mil
lions OF newspaper readers are paving
little attention to the Washington date
line. As a center for commercial tele-
graphic business Washington is of COM
paratively small Importance, although
lts corps OF press operators is the
largest and the most expert in the