The Lake County times. [volume] (Hammond, Ind.) 1906-1933, 1913-11-25
MAY TAKE
|RATEUP WITH
COMMISSION

Hammond through it's Chamber Of
Commerce went on record last night
demanding the establishment of tho
old 20 cent party tola call to Chicago.
and appointed a committee to confer
with East Chicago. Indiana Harbor and
Whiting committees this evening to
work to this end.
The telephone companys counter
offer and ultimatum. gave the patrons
their choice OF either the fifteen cent
number only service. or the old service
system at twenty-five cents per call
between Hammond and Chicago, under
which the company agrees to put q
particular party on the wire or make
no charge
Messrs. Fred Fife, chairman of tho
civic committee OF the East Chicago
Club and Robert Freeman a member
OF the committee were at the Hammond
Chamber of Commerce meeting last
night and extended an invitation to
the latter body TO send representatives
to East Chicago this evening. Judge
Reiter appointed John E. Fitzgerald,
Attorney ID. J. Moran, F. c. Deing and
Attorney W. J. WINERY to go to East
Chicago, this committee having made
the investigation for the Hammond
Chamber of Commerce regarding tho
merits of the fifteen cent number only
service system.
With the exception OF a letter from
0. A. Krinbill district manager for tho
telephone company. the latter had no
defender at the Hammond meeting.
Mr.. Krinbill sent his regrets saying
that 1t. would not be possible for him
to be present His letter stated that a
statistical record of the exchange
\ -
calls were for numbers only, twenty
per cent for particular parties. and
that in only five per cent of the calls
wAs 1t necessary for a subscriber to
put in more than one call tc, get into
communication with his party.
Upon the Invitation of President
Reiter for discussion Attorney d. j.
Moran who started the fight OH the raw
rate in Hammond gave a riathr- ex-
haustive and 4caustic exposition Of the
new rate from the subscrsbsiss stand
point He argued that the fifteen cent
lparty only service. while held out to
lthe public reduced rate was not
only more expensive. but that 1t left
the telephone company which is an in
lterstate public service corporal ton with
out any responsibility toward it's sub
scribers. He said that he had found
the sentiment in Hammond practically
unanimous against the fifteen cent
number only system He cited in
stances in which subscribers paid any
where from thirty cents to dollar
and half to get their particular party.
| whereas under the old system, this
service would have been secured for
twenty cents. He ridiculed the COM
pany's explanation that the reduced
system had been inaugurated to save
money to the subscriber.
IF under the old twenty cent rate
eighty-th ee per cent OF the calls were
for numbers only as the company says
they were argued Mr.. Moran, and sew
tenteen per cent of the calls were lost to
the company because they could not
locate the party. the company would
still be the gamer at that rate as COM
pared to the new fifteen cent party only
rate even though the company collects
on a hundred per cent of the latter
He said that there must be 'nigger
in the woodpile" for the apparent re-
ducticn.
W. q Paxton also advocated the taxi
ing of steps to force the company to go
back to the old rate il possible. He
pointed out that his company had been
raised on their private line service be-
tween Hammond and some of the Calu-
met region cities. and gave 1t as his
opinion that the Indiana cities were
being diescriminated against as COM
pared to Cook county cites in the same
radius.
The East Chicago representatives
stated that their organization would
be glad to contribute to fund to press
the question before the Interstate COM
merce commission.