Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1911-09-30
Telephone SYSTEMS AND Their REGULATIONS
of Hon. T. Bangs Grand Forks Before Sixth Annual
Convention Independent Telephone Association

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ing the manner in which We must
conduct our business with it are quite
unreasonable But, we realize the
enormous sum required to construct
even q short piece of track and our
unquestioned inability to build and
equip railway line, so we nurse our
grievance, real or fancied or both,
and content ourselves with loud de-
nunciations, but continue to ship over
the same line, pay the same rates
and comply with the same rules, as
OF yore.
But when you reach the telephone
business there is wonderful change
in the scene. If an operator is short
in her answers-if crowded with work
and unable to secure fresh air and
exercise that she should, her head
aches and her mind is little slow
If while feeling thus, in answer to
some bluffing, clustering subscriber
she makes a retort that sounds in
the least bit impudent, Immediately
our blusterer starts down the street,
relating the outrageous treatment
that has been accorded him, his
story enlarging and the injustice
deepening at every recital, until
finally someone suggests, if not he
himself, that it is time a few men
interested in the welfare of the town
put in an opposition telephone and see
if they cannot get better treatment.
They then read in one or more of
the business disturbing sheets, many
of which are published in the coun-
try, of the great profits that have
been made out of the telephone bust
ness, and few over jealous and mis-
guided men put their money into a
local telephone plant in town al
ready well supplied, with the result
that in the struggle for business, each
plant cuts its rates until it is unable
to secure sufficient money to main
tain it's equipment at anything like
proper standard or to pay salaries
sufficient to employ competent assist
ance to the decentralization of the
service and the loss Of the stock hold
ers.
The illustration just made is not
overdrawn and is put forth only as
one of the many which might be pre-
sented showing the sensitive char:
acter of the business and the abso-
lutte necessity for its maintenance at
high standard of efficiency in order
to keep what should be paying in
vestment from becoming a drag and
a loss. There is nothing quite SO
efficacious in securing and holding
business as good service, and when
good service is furnished at a rea-
sonable rate it amounts to an insur-
'ance against competition.
One of the first agencies spoken of
as necessary to the operation of a
telephone plant is good equipment.
l may not be scientific in my termin-
ology, but in speaking of equipment
1 mean to include every part of the
material plant and working appara-
tus. And l want particularly to draw
your attention to outside construction.
We have all read of the excellent
service rendered by some farm line
by the use of the top strand of q
barbed wire fence. We have heard
of telephone construction where sap.
lings, fence posts and other make
shifts took the place of proper poles
and cross arms and 1t is not Unusual
for the enthusiastic promoter to as.
sure his prospective victims that
No. II iron wire for their purpose
is just as good as No. copper wire,
neglecting however, to explain that
when the times comes that it is de-
sired to use the line in contemplation
for part of the medium of long
distance conversation that they will
find that a telephone line is serious
ly reduced in efficiency by the use
of a light and insufficient wire, the
seriousness depending for it's degree
upon the proportion of the insufficient
to the insufficient. And so, while it
would not be advisable for a small
company, not only small in means
but in extent, to burden itself with
heavy copper yet it is advisable be-
fore stringing wire to consult with
some thorough telephone man who
has sufficient knowledge of the busi-
ness to look for a few years at least
into the future and then use wire
that will afford fair degree of effi-
cheney to the end of its prospective
life. The same argument can be ad-
vanced with, respect to poles. Many
thousands of dollars are annually
thrown away in this state by mex
perienced owners of telephone prop
erty in buying and setting what they
are pleased to term cheap poles, al.
ways light and lacking in resistance,
very frequently crooked and all too
often unsound at heart In reality,
an unnecessary expensive pole rather
than inexpensive, in fact, they may
we'll be designated by the term 20
often used Cheap" and cheap in
every way.
BY the exercise of a little judy
ment and the use of some little time
and energy in an investigation OF
conditions and the history of other
plants, much money can be saved
in the installation of a new plant
on the two items of poles and wires.
One destructive sleet storm. such as