New-York tribune., 1910-01-30
PHONE BILL SOON
HUGHES MEMS PLAN.
Committee Expected to Favor
Only Partial Supervision.
by Telegraph to The Tribune. I

by Telegraph to The Tribune
Albany, Jan. 29.-Dissatisied with what
they believe to be the plan of the special
legislative committee regarding state su-
perVision of telephone and telegraph COM
panies, certain friends of Governor Hughes
are preparing and will have introduced a
bill placing those companies under the
jurisdiction of the Public Service commits
sions. This measure will give to the COM
missions not only powers of supervision and
regulation OF these concern regarding
vice and charges but also powers of su-
perVision of the financial affairs Of the
companies.
Inc plan of the special legislative COM
mlttee which has been investigating this
question contemplates giving the commits
sions supervision of matters of telephone
and telegraph service, it is understood but
not of financial affairs. The latter phase
or the subject is considered by many to
De far more important at present than Ques-
tons of service, in view of the American
Telephone and Telegraph Company West
ern Union merger and other financial trans
actions.
Hushes men expect to introduce their
DILL which will handle this proposition ac-
ccrdlns to the Governors wishes, that the
half-hearted supervision which II Is be-
leved the legislative committee will pro-
pose may be shown clearly Thus they
mink the issue will be made plain and
put squarely before the Legislature. Its
course then will be controlled largely by
the Assembly organization under Speaker
Wadsworth and Assem- plyman Merritt. Two
years in succession Speaker Wadsworth
has declared for this legislation but one
of the Assembly committees has strangled
1t. The Speaker Is supposed to have un-
usually good control of affairs in the lower
house of the Legislature
Legislators expect the report of this
special committee to be presented soon.
Senator Davis, of Buffalo, now acting as
temporary president of the Senate, and
Assemblyman Merritt, majority leader Of
the lower house, chairman and vice.
chairman, respectively. The committee has
held several hearings in Buffalo and New
York. has taken up some complaints as to
service and what telephone subscribers
considered overchargeS, particularly as to
10 and Is cent calls between Brooklyn and
Manhattan. and has gone into the recent
large merger in a sort of superficial way
This committee has not Investigated the
work of either ublic Service Commission,
as some anti-Hughes legislators declared
last year it would do. either to ascertain
whether they could handle this new work
or to furnish material for criticism of their
present labors
The committee was considered a body
hostile to the Governors recommendation
for state supervision of telephone and
| telegraph companies when It was first ap-
pointed. The reason for it's existence was
to afford delay in meeting this issue made
by the Governor. and anti-Hughes legis-
lators said somewhat exultantly, that the
committee would put an end to any such
scheme. Now it seems likely to report for
state supervision, but supervision in name
only, leaving out the important financial
feature,
Legislators who fought for real state
pervisfon of these companies last year are
considerably aroused over this reported at
uuude of the committee.
They'd pull the teeth of state super
vision as effectively as the railroads and
lighting corporations tried to do with the
original Public Service commissions law"
declared one man. 'I have always be-
lievsd that 1T was the financiers who have
been juggling telephone and telegraph
stocks who were responsible for killing
this bill the last two years. don't know
what argument they may have made TO
the committee. but the Legislature will
have to go into that subject fairly this
year. and unless the machine in the AS
senbly wants to help the Republican party
commit suicide there must be no strangling
of the matter in committee again.
Representative Parsons in his charges
regarding the alleged Cannon Raines- Grady
combination to affect legislation at Albany
and Washington and save the Cannon
rules indicated that this telephone and
telegraph legislation was to be killed.
part of the general scheme. 1t is reported
now that certain political and financial in
f1uences at work for the same purpose
and through some of the same influential
Republican politicians who were concerned
in the game last year. The fight over this
recommendation of the Governors will be
bitter again, but Hughes men say the pro-
posars adversaries already have yielded
some ground, and must yield all