The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1911-02-18

l
NEW YORK, Feb. 1S.-Witf
the surplus which the American
Telephone G Telegraph company
had kindly taken from telephone
users in every one of the locali.
ties it controlled, it bought out
the interest of George Gould and
Mrs. Russell Sage in the Western
Union Telegraph company.
This telegraph company, which
had been made up of small tele-
graph companies, was always
known as being chock full OF
water.
And on its imense capitallza-
tion the public must pay dividends
of 8 per cent.
There is little wonder that
American cities see little hope OF
getting the rates of telephone SER
vice reduced.
AS matter of fact, the tele-
lphone company officials admit
that the larger a city grows the
higher rates must be charged foI
telephone service.
The New York charge for bust
ness phones today is about 800
year. Philadelphia has about
the same rate. Boston pays $162
a year. The Chicago rate is about
$126. The lowest Tacoma rate for
non-party business phone is Sc
month or S48 year.
When an official of the tele-
phone trust was asked why the
rate grew with the growth of a
city, he said:
why, that's simple. There
are many more miles of wire at
your service in a large city than
in a small one. In New York
you can get any one of four mil
lion people. In Minneapolis you
can get any one of 100000. It's
what the telephone service can
do for you that we charge for
After the A. T. G. T. had taken
over the telegraph company It be-
gan to seek how TO capture the
Independent companies. With its
enormous wealth it worked in de-
vious ways.
Here is where J. Pierpont Nor
gan did his greatest work for the
wire trust. Working alone Vail
could never have been able to
bring about such an enormous
combination as the American
Telephone & Telegraph company.
But somewhere in his career-no
outsider can tell exactly when
Morgan, the money king, heard of
Vail and his dreams OF a huge
wire trust, and Morgan, having a
peculiar fondnes for any sort of
trust, the bigger the better, lent
his aid to Vail, and though Wallis
trust was growing before the
king entered into it, it 1ncreas-
ed by leaps and bounds as soon
as the name of Morgan began to
be associated with it.
AS far as the federal govern
ment is concerned, this trust will
be free to charge as it pleases for
telephone rates.
1t will be only the individual
cities or states that can success
fully demonstrate against extor-
tionate rates.
This rebellion of the cities has
already set in. 1t will not be long
before every city will either have
a telephone war or bow the neck
to the trust.
Boston is demanding lower
rates.
Denver has had telephone
battle.
In Wichita, Kas., the city is
fighting an increase in-rates.
In Seattle there is every indi-
cation that the independent and
the trust company have already
merged, and intend to increase
rates.
In Danville, ILL.,, the home of
Speaker Cannon, the telephone
trust is uncommonly kind to sub
scribers. There it charges only
$50 year for business te1e-
phones, the lowest rate IN the
SOhhIiy.
In many cities the citizens are
fighting the small extortions of
the trust. In Evansville, Ind, the
public is aroused against remov-
al charge of 50. 1t had also to-
fight against the establishment of
an unjust pay station system.
In the Ohio river valley and
south of it the truth is disguised
under the name of ''the Cumber-
land Telephone company" In
other localities other ouphonious
names partially clothe the claws
of the phone monopoly.
1t Is as though each grasping
tentacle of the octopus assumed
different names that they might
not be so easily identified as a
part of the whole.