The Twin Falls times. [volume] (Twin Falls, Idaho) 1905-1916, 1913-10-21

| throughout territory where the bust
ness could not possibly be self-sup-
porting, the government could 90 such
thing purely as a duty to a part
of the public, when private corpora
tons could not be expected to do the
same thing. And then, of course, there
is always the possibility that the gov
eminent may require the exclusive
handling of wire communications for
purposes Of war. And whether we
concede the economic advantages or
not of such government operation,
there is certain consistency in main
tanning that if the government pro-
vides and operates mail communica-
lions, it ought to provide and operate
all other communications, SO as to
have correlated whole"
| But nobody, The Press continues,
can extract cold reason out Of the
proposition that because the govern
ment has done well with the parcel
post it could do as well with the tele-
|
in the one case it had all the neces-
sary machinery in existence and in
operation; in the other, the whole SER
vice would have to be created, unless
| it took over the whole telegraph bust
ness to help out the government" And
| in this case the same results, as far
as the public is concerned, would be
obtained by having the government UNI
dertake, not to own, but ito control
| the operation OF the telegraph lines
| and a govern their rates and the CON
ditions Of their rendering their SER
vice-to control and govern all this,
| privately owned and operated"
| Yet, despite all objections and the
silence at the White House and the
postoffice department, the Philadel-
phia Public Ledger's Washington COR
respondent believes that the postmas-
ter general will make recommends
| tons as outlined above at the coming
session Of congress and that the pres
ident will support him. Congressman
David John Lewis, of Maryland, is
said to be helping the administration
in the preparation of data, and to have
estimated the cost of the purchase of
the telephone systems Of the country
at about $9O000O,0O0. In the opinion
of the New York Commercial, ''the US
ual objections to government owner
ship, and its practical operation, par
ticularly such examples as England's
losing investment in the telephone
field, may be disregarded as applied to
| this latest suggestion that the key to
government acquisition of the tele-
graph lines lies in obtaining control
| of the long-distance telephone lines"
The Comemrcial's objections to this
latest suggestion" are found in it's
presentation of the existing conditions
of telephone and telegraph owner
ship:
The American Telephone and Tele-
graph company owns the only long
distance telephone wire system In the
|
to acquire this company's wires and
system. Then the telegraph compan-
les will be brought to terms. The Bell
corporation is in a sense transporta-
ton company. 1t licenses local con-
| Germs, holds as rule 81 per cent of
their capitalization, and collects all
| charges for all lOng-distance mes
sages sent over it's lines which connect
the various community systems. There
are more than 5000 local exchanges in
its system, with 14,610,S13 miles of
wires.
1T covers the country like a fish
erman's net. 1t owns practical control
of the Western Union Telegraph COM
pany, and is far more valuable pro-
erty than the Western Union and Mac
kay companies combined Then, too,
it has Canadian rights, and controls
the Bell Telephone company of Cam
ada. How the Dominion government
would look upon American Official
control and operation of it's long-dis-
lance service probably has not been
considered
"The American Telephone and Tele-
graph company has capitalization of |
$343, 993 200 and funded debt of $780, |
$4,000. It's dividends last year total