The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-04-10
ARGUMENTS BEGUN IN
 BIG TELEPHONE FIGHT
Continued from First Page.)

prevent stock watering. Mr. Freeman
 referred to the fight the existing com pany had in New London recently, and said the tactics employed by Judge
 Stoddard were such involving an ex- pense of several thousands of dollars in junketing trips and attorneys fees, etc.; that no company wanted to go to
 that expense merely that they might
 take a chance He said that the Bell Telephone company paid all expenses of attorneys and incidentals-it cost
 the Southern New England company nothing; but the amount it would cost
 a competing company would mean nothing short of prohibition It was absolutely impossible, he said, to es-
 tablish, by a preponderance of evil dence, that another company would be a public convenience or necessity, just so long as the Southern New England company continued its present tactics at hearing. People in the country
 towns were willing to invest their cap ital and savings in a company that would give them better service and lower rates, and they should be allow ed to do so. They wanted the principle established that if 2,OOO or 2,500 people in city wanted another company, and so signif1ed by agreeing to subscribe their names to contracts, that of itself should be a finding of public necessity i and convenience, and they would be i willing to argue that 2,500 people in one city had telephones installed and in active service. This would be bet ter evidence, he said, than what could be given by one thousand witnesses. The main question, after all he said, llWas competition versus telephone mo- nopoly Should there be competition? he asked and replied that there should, for the state was the only one in the Union that prevented competition by statutory monopoly Another reason was because the Southern New Eng land company, by reason of it's con- tract with the Bell company could not establish an automatic system if it wanted to, because the Bell company would not allow 1t, as there would be no royalty forthcoming.
 Mir, Freeman further characterized the contract between the Southern New England and the parent company as a flake contract" and recalled the tes- tmony of an official of the company who said that the revenue from outgo- ing long distance calls was $510O0 year and for incoming calls, nothing, and he then added that the witness had dared to say that was a splendid contract MT. Freeman then quoted at length statistics showing what vast difference in rates existed in Connecti- cut as compared with other states.
 He said that if competition was al lowed the number of telephones in the state would increase three fold in five years, especially if the automatic sys- tenn was installed. Mir Freeman refer red sarcastically to the testimony of Expert Pickernell the assistant to the president of the Bell company, and re- peatedly called him "the majestic gen. tleman who paced the floor in front of the committee He said Mir. Picker nell said the automatic system was a failure, but did not prove his case. Why not give the state, said the speaker, the chance to prove that the automatic system is a failure
 In closing Mir. Freeman said: Don't keep capital out of the state when it is knocking at the doors to come in. If you leave the laws of the state as they are now, you are locking the doors to competition and turning the telephone | interests of the state to that public ser vice corporation the Southern New England Telephone company"
 Judge Henry Stoddard replied for the | New England company and after cour- teously thanking the committee said it was his regret that the exegencies of | the case would compel him to meet as sertion by assertion and he further re- gretted that he would be compelled to | go into matters that required an an swer although bearing not at all on the case He said that double tele- phone service could only be character | ized as a public nuisance, for so 1t has been characterized by mankind in gen. eral
 In 1899 in the general assembly the general subjet was discussed by such men as former Governor Waller on the other side. The conclusion reached was that this law should go on the statute goods as the best method of determin- ing and defining a public necessity and convenience. A patient and deliberate | hearing was held previously in New London and at that time it was claimed that the Strojer instrument was a per- feet one. MT. Freeman made the charge that a competing company was dragged about from place to place on an Investigating tour. This was not l true, and Judge Thayer had decided that the automatic system was not a public service and necessity and they might rest there because in litigation it is presumed that when judgment is rendered it should be a final judgment. But two years ago another set of men appeared and the whole subject matter had been gone through and again the general assembly rendered it's verdict. l Judge Stoddard then referred to the investigation by the State Business Mems association of the subject and said that the report of that body was in evidence. The advocates of competition asserted that what was meant by a repeal of the law was war to the knife;