Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1914-01-15
GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP
DESIRABLE AND INEVITABLE

fully provided a specific method Of
fair, legal purchase of "any or all ex-
isting lines" and their operation for
the benefit Of the people as the post
office is.
Rates were to be adjusted to provide
a reasonable profit to pay off the gov.
ernment bonds issued at popular sub.
scription to buy the telegraph or tele-
phone systems.
A stand-pat republican congress re-
garded Mr.. Hearst 3 bill as dangerous,
If not revolutionary.
1t was neither dangerous nor revo.
lutionary, but only new--like the Pan
ANA canal, election of United States
senators, direct primaries, income tax,
and so many other things that Mr..
Hearst advocated long in advance of
their realization.
Mr.. Hearst 8 bill Of eight years ago
was reintroduced in substance in the
Sixtieth and Sixty-first congresses.
Two years ago Postmaster. General
Hitchcock, republican, recommended
it in a report to President Taft and to
congress.
Today a democratic postmaster.gen-
eral makes the recommendation the
principal feature Of his annual report.
President Wilson approves it in prin-
ciple, although he has not passed on
any bill in detail.
Representative Lewis, of Maryland,
to whose energy and persistency we
owe the parcel post law, is at work
on the bill for early presentation to
congress. 1t will first be submitted
to the democratic caucus Whether
approved this winter or not, it is sure
to become law.
The telegraph, the telephone, the
mail, all owned by the government, all
operated together, united in one sys-
TEN.
The United States has thus talked
government ownership for eight years,
but England has-since Mr.. Hearst Is
biz was introduced in congress-actu-
ally accomplished it. The method
adopted was substantially that sug-
gested in the Hearst bill. The govern
ment of Great Britain. took possession
Of all the telephones last year.
Competition is impossible between
telephone companies, There is no more
excuse tor two telephone or two tele-
graph companies in the same place
than for two postoffices side by side.
Duplication Of offices is wasteful |
The telephone now reaches more re-
mote and more numerous places than
the telegraph, The postoffice is even
more universal, Every postoffico can
be the communicating nerve center Of
every cOmmunity-with the choice al.
ways at hand of the slow mails, the
quicker telegraph or the telephone
capable of annihilating both time and
space,
The combination is inevitable It's
realization is much more difficult now
than il would have been when Mr..
Hearst first advocated it, because
much more expensive, Representative
Lewis estimates the cost at nine hun
derd million dollars. Where will the
money come FRONT All the money cen
tors of the world could ont furnish so
great sum at the present iuncture,
even for the richest nation Of the earth.
The development Of the telephone
has been pushed in the past decade by
men Of great genius who have spent
more than $5OO,OO0,OOO and made il as
asy for the New York business man
TO sit at his desk and talk to Chicago,
Kansas City or Denver 1000 miles
away, as TO the man in the next room.
The chief telephone system now has
50026 stockholders, and the stocks and
bonds outstanding amount to S6S7 500
27S. The independent telephone COM
panies not identified with tho Ameri'
can Telegraph and Telephone have
stocks and bonds amounting to $685.
956,5Ss more, according to the census
figures
The total 5000, O,555,SSG Of tho tele.
phone securities alone Excluding all
telegraph lines) exceed the total pres
ent bonded debt Of the United States,
which on December was 5000, s2S,4 400
The rate charged for telephones In
New York city ($ls minimum for
private house or Officer ia more than
in London $500, but is less than in
Paris (iOO francs or about $780, Lon.
don and Paris telephones arc now both
under government control
Tho problem of administration Ia
as certain to DO overcome, in time, as
tho obstacle Of first cost, Our floetcst
battlcehips are those built by the gov
crnment not by tho private shipyards,
and our Panama canal could not have
been finished under private engineers,
even at government expense. IL took
a government engineer to do IL,
The government can employ or train