Chicago eagle. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1889-19??, 1911-11-18

EDWARD
Leader In the Business, Polite
York City, and to give to the citizens
the beneft Of telephone competition
and Of actually cheap service.
The idea Of cheap telephone service
IL going to grow in the United States.
and eventually It is going to he real.
ICED, despite the power Of any mon.
opoly or the profits Of any group Of
individuals.
It costs less, or under proper man.
agement would cost less, to send q
telephone message than to send .
letter.
There was time in the United
States when private individuals ex.
plotted the mails and when the citi.
zen writing a letter paid from ten
cents to q dollar or more to have
II delivered. Government ownership,
economical, busineeslike methods,
have reduced the price Of sending let.
ters to two cents all over the United
States-even In the Klondike. where
the letters are carried on dog sledges.
And sane. businesslike administra.
ton Of the telephone system Of this
country, with the latest up.to.date au.
tomato methods. would make tele.
phoning az cheap as writing letters,
and cheaper.
That will not come at once. but .
very great Improvement will come.
and right away.
The price charged by the Bell mon.
opoly 10 eposterous-there 10 no
worse form Of extortion among all the
extortions In the United States.
A man who lives In the suburbs
thirty miles from q big city gets q
communication ticket. The railroad
carries his two-hundred.pound body
back and forth twice day for
twenty-five cents q day. II he wants
to talk to his house twice . day the
telephone company charges him sixty
cents. and charges for the wire be
sides.
In other words, the telephone mon
opoly charges more than twice %
much to carry over Q wire . human
voice, which weighs nothing, % the
railroad charges to carry q two.hun'
dred.pound man over thirty miles Of
solid steel rails.
And the railroad has to have ter
minals. and locomotives. and power;
whereas, with the telephone. the
mans own voice Is the chief power
involved.
Armour OF Chicago 10 . man who
could give the people Of this country
the beneht Of cheap telephone service
If he should make up his mind to Dc
It. Hc has proved his ability % an
organizer; he 10 q man OF great
wealth and Of unusual industry and
application. It is notorious that hil
working hours are from seven In thu
morning until ok in tho evening. and
that work . his only amusement
The idea = not visionary. for Ar
mour. associated with others-with th'
Hartman estate. with Kennedy Todt
and De Forest of New York, and will
the receivers Of the Chicago subwa!
as a body-has already begun tn
work of giving genuinely cheap ant
efficient telephone service to the cit!
Of Chicago.
In Chicago the receivers of the sub
way have installed already more thai
twenty-five thousand automatic tele
phones. They give an unlimited serv
ice for sS5 a year-about one.half tn
charge OF the Bell monopoly. The,
| eiu tnA tn1 4
private families for less than thirt,
dollars a year. With full extension
Of their system even the poorest fam
lilies will use the telephones. and b.
better of at the end OF the yea
through the saving Of carfare.
The charge for pay stations witt
this new system, which Is backed b.
Armour and the others. is three cent
per call, and the intention Is to lowe
this rate eventually from three cent
to one cent. At one cent the prof
would be enormous, with the econC
mics Of the automatic telephone an
sufficient number of subscribers.
The right plan would he, of course
for the business men Of New Yorl
| "ho pay tOlIS W thO SOtS
phone monopoly to get together. L
bind themselves to take new servic
an automatic cheap service wit
certain guarantees - and througl
pressure OF public opinion compel tn
granting Of franchise to an auto
matte company charging the loves
possible rate.
But 1t is dificult to get bushes
men to unite; difficult to make ther
resent effectively even the most pa
pable extortion.
The chief hope lies in the courage
energy and business knowledge Q
such a man as Armour. who has tn
money, who is not frightened by tn
power Of monopoly. and who might
II he chose, be remembered as one Q
the real benefactors of the countr
by breaking down the telephone NOR
opoly and making of the great tell