The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-01-25
NO RESTRAINT
 SAYS ALLING
Head Of Southern New England Warmly Defends Workings
 Of A. T. & T.
HIS ADVICE IS TO WAIT
Local Company Not Involved in Mat
 ter. Anyway-Telephone Natural Monopoly, He Says.

| New Haven. Jan. 25-John w filling, | president of the Southern New Eng 1 land Telephone Company, in answer to a request for a statement upon the 1 petition filed yesterday with Attor- ney General wickersham for the dis solution of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company on the ground that it was violating the sherman law, 1 said last night:
 Tt is rot given to the ordinary 1 nltnd to comprehend this motion GOT 1 commotion) of MT. Justice Lambert, 1 or his counsel, MT. Duskind. As l ! remember, MT. Duskind was the law i yer who prosecuted case against Dr. 1 Doty, the health officer for very many years of the port of New York. Gov. | Dix seems to have taken stock in that prosecution.
 Tt would seem on the face of this proceeding that this famous Sherman | antitrust statute has the curious wrinkle In 1t, that any person can set it's machinery in motion. True any person specially aggrieved by v1o-a- 1 ton Of that statute, may recover three fold damages, but this is not such | proceeding. Justice Lambert is not 1 a specially agkrieved party. He seems 1 to be animated by a so-called sense of political duty, examples of which seem to be very abundant.
 1T sUspect-and, until I can look up the statute-believe, that all this pro l bert and MT. Duskind have drawn up | a document, quoting from Moody's l Manual of Securities, or some such book, concerning the operations of ihe 1 American Telephone & Telegraph Co.,, and that the press has been very kind ly requested to assist in making the matter sensational and has compiled 1 with the request.
 The wise and sensible thing to do, Is for all persons and papers to wait and see whether the department of justice takes any cognizance of the l matter. If 1t should not, 1t would demonstrate there is nothing in 1t. l ''If it should, then we Shou have some intelligible statement, why such action should be taken.
 ''It would be surprising, however, if after all these years, of open and un- disguised and public activity, on the part of the American Telephone and Telegraph Co., the United States gov ernment, without heretofore giving 1 warning, should now undertake to claim that the operations of the Amer ican Telegraph Company have been and are in violation of the antitrust statute.
 ''There has been no restraint of has never attempted in any under handed way to get control of an in- dependent telephone system. It has required the assent and sanction of the people, through their municipal Governments or otherwise, before talk ing over an Independent system
 The telephone is a natural monop- -oly. and after a community has suf- fered sufficiently from the nuisance of double system, there comes about a desire and the necessity for a sim gle system and in the two states of Ohio and Indiana, where the compe- titidn has been the most violent the result has been a statutory permission for the voluntary merger of the two
 The wonderful development of the telephone business under the magnlfl- cent leadership of President Vail has resulted in the finding out and use of methods by which the telephone and other in the service of the transmits sion of words by the public
 '"The Western Union, by reason of it's vastly more extended system, pre- sented a more valuable alliance than the Postal and the Postal is quite naturally on the war path But tlt gre Is no compIaint of unfair competition methods. The Postal is itself of giant proportions. It has carried on its competition in the larger centers of populat ation-the cream of the business and it cannot and does not com plain that either the Western Union or the American Telephone & Tele- graph company is violating the anti l trust act. At least I have heard or no such complaint in the papers. The Postal with it's immense capital and ! credit says 1t can take care of itself
 and it can and will.
 S. ". P. TEL. co. NOT ENTANGLED
 "So far as Connecticut is concerned { the Southern New England Telephone ! company is free from all complica-
 tions. The Am. Tel. & Tel. Co. owns only about one-third of our stock It has always taken it's pro rata share
 of new stock and so has always con tributed to the capital, ability and l credit of the Southern New England Telephone company. Ia the troub!ous ] times of the past, their contributions !, have been substantially indispensable
 to the successful operations of this
 company in furnishing telephone ser vice to the people of this state.
 But the \. Tel. & Tel Co, has 1 never otherwise bought nor sold a share of it's stock in this company, Nor SO far as I know, does it now
 intend to Go so.
 Tt is incredible that there should | be any present intention to take over
 this company and neither Mir Morap l nor I know anything about it. Our , relations with the directors of our
 company who. so to speak, represent the stock of the Am. Tel. 6S Tel Go and with the officials of that com , 1 pany are very friendly and cordial.
 ''It has seemed to us very amusing
 how the newspapers can try to create l a situation which does not exist.