Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1914-06-26
1.-THE Dead Hand OF Government
Ownership


Editor of the Sentinel -
In your last issue is clipping from the Bal
timore News, largely composed of excerpts
from the London Spectator, in which the
failure of government ownership of teie.
graphs in Great Britain is asserted and a
gloomy picture of government operation in
general is drawn. Allow me to say few
words in reply.
In the first place. the Spectator is Conser-
vative journal opposed to the present Liberal
government. Moreover, it circulates among
a class of people such as formerly held
stock in the National Telephone Company
and drew dividends from the same. Under
government ownership the telegraph rates
are considerably lower than they were
under the old company, entailing deficit
which is largely made good by taxes levied
upon the class to which the former owners
belonged. 1t thus happens that to this
particular class what was formerly source
OF income is now an additional expense,
and il is not surprising that from their point
OF view government ownership should be a
failure.
| do not know how much truth there is
in the Spectators accusation that the
British POstOffice tried to crush the tele-
phone on its first appearance lest its own
monopoly be interfered with, but, were this
the case, it does not justify the fulsome
praise of private ownership which follows,
since in buying up and suppressing patents
threatening their business corporations
have done what is practically the same
thing. There is often too much red tape
and not enough pliability in government
management, but proof is lacking that the
dead hand" is necessary accompani-
ment of it, and in many respects it is much
less pernicious than the all-too- much alive
hand of some of our public service corpora
tons. II should certainly be easier to call
to account an institution in the manage
ment of which those whom it serves have
voice than to do the same by concern
fortified behind endless court proceedings.
Our own government has long run its
mail service without assistance from any
of these efficient" corporations. 1t is run
ming railroad at Panama. has completed
a great interoceanic canal, strung hundreds
of miles of telegraph wire in Alaska, and
undertaken smaller enterprises in all parts
of the country. Have our failures in these
lines. and more recently in the parcels
post and the postal savings banks, been
so conspicuous as to occasion us serious
worry regarding our ability to handle tele
grams and telephone messages alsoP
In another column of your paper you
have clipping relative to the dawning of
a new era for one of our express compa-
MES by the establishment of an Order
and Food Products Bureau" to bring pro-
Queer and consumer closer together. Is il
not strange that this idea failed to pene-
trate the efficient" minds of express off
Gals until the dead hand" of government
ownership had been laid upon a large
percentage of their business and our De-
partment of Agriculture had practically
shown the way?
While the Spectator article may have
been copied in perfect good faith by the
Baltimore News, as am sure it was by
your esteemed journal, it looks suspiciously
like one of the products of that campaign
now being waged by the Bell Telephone
Company to head off government intrusion
into its own particular field If the aver
age citizen is not convinced that service
pure and simple can be rendered cheaper
than can service plus dividends, let him
reflect whether it might not probably be
rendered cheaper than service plus divi-
dends plus advertising expenses of the
extensive character now being undertaken
by the Bell interests
JOHN X. SWANTON,