Iditarod pioneer., 1914-03-07
GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP
 TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHO

1 applies, however, only to local calls For long distance calls we pay eight times as much. The interurban service is the ''big graft" in our country, yielding preposter- it costs siX-tenths of cent per measured mile for telephoning over long distances. In Germany one may have three minutes con versation over distance of 700 miles for AS cents In the United States this would cost S420 The rates in England for local telephone service are about half of ours.
 One reason why telephoning costs so much more in this country than abroad is that we use almost exclusively the so-called manual system, which refuses the help of mechanical devices Such devices, which make connections, etc, automatically, effect great saving in labor and expense. They are now beginning to be used in the state of Ohio
 It is beyond question that telephones are destined in the future to develop much faster than telegraphs. For purposes of communi cation they are vastly more efficient and they are more generally useful Anybody can use the telephone, while special edu- cation is demanded to enable one to use 8 telegraph instrument. The telephone is in stantaneous, and the user does not have to wait for an answer We cannot look for ward to the time when there will be a tele graph instrument in every mans house where as the telephone already is installed in most residences, as well as in practically all business houses.
 Thus it would seem that government own ership of telephone lines must be of far greater importance in the long run than government ownership of the telegraphs At the same time it is likely that the telegraph will always be cheaper than the telephone service over very long distances.
 One rather curious thing to be consid cred is that the cost of telephone service increases with the number of persons to be served. One might say that this was a mat ter of course But the point is that the greater the number of persons served, the higher the cost per subscriber. Where gas or electricity or groceries or whatever else one chooses to think of Is concerned the cost of distribution goes down as the num- Der of users goes up. It is exactly the op- poste way with telephoning, And the req son why IS easily understood when 1t Is real ized that each additional subscriber must be placed in communication with all the others Any schoolboy can see how it works by doing a sum on his slate
 Nevertheless when the government takes hold of the telephones we shall have 2-cent local calls and eventually probably l-cent calls And it is likely that we shall pay no more than 50 cents for q conversation over distance of 500 miles.
 Where the mails are concerned the post office department affords a magnificent il. lustration of the possibilities of a service for all the people at very cheap Ta;e. IL is even now affordng new oD!ect lesson in this line, through the recent establish ment of parcel post which is taking the express business of the co@ptry out of the hands of the robber express companies, whose prohtst, described in 9 congressional report as utterly egrcgious and out of all proportion to investment have beer de rived from charges averaging times the regular freight rates of tHc railroads en- ployed to transport the goods.
 There is no imaginable reason why the government should not accomplish for the telegraph and telephone services what 1t | already does for the malls, wlta 6 c""re- spending reduction of COS. to the people. A few years from now, when anybody wantS to send telegram he w,ll go to the nearest postoffice or branch posto:Gnc for 1be pur pose (just as people do at the present time in England), or perhaps he WlIl telephone his message over the wire. The telephone exchanges will be moved into government buildings, so that three will be no rent to pay In place of a postofflce superintendent and a telephone superintendent there will be one man to hold all three jobs. With minor officials it will be the same way-one job one salary. There will be no dividends to be paid out of watered stock; no buying up of little competing lines at small prices, with view to unloading them upon the government las now upon the corporations) at big figures
 In short, these great public utilities, the telegraph and the telephone, will be, few years from now, properly organized as such, and placed under the control of the govern ment, so that, like the mails today, they will be equally at the service of all the peo- pie at a minimum cost In taking over the Washing Alaska telegraph system the postof1ice department will make its first step