The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1917-11-02
That Poor Telegraph Service

The telegraph service is not al
ways good. There are times whel
people rush around and rave because
their kilograms fail of delivery o.
get delivered after unreasonable de
lays. A man telegraphs to Soda
Springs that he is coming on thu
next train. He goes thru and gets
there before the telegram does. A
man wires to somebody who is sit
ting in the biggest hotel at Sail
Lake. The person addressed stays
right in the hotel lobby or his own
room with telephone in the room
The person who sent the telegram
| does half days work, takes the
train for Salt Lake and gets there
before the telegram is delivered. A
merchant wires to Salt Lake house
to shiR certain goods this afternoon
by expfess, and the goods fail to
come thru on the first train and for
two days afterwards, altho the goods
are.fn stock and shipping clerk is
there to do the work. He wires to
an office in Philadelphia and the
message is delivered the day after.
Somebody at Logan wires to Black
foot that mother is dyingasand to
come quick. Answer. After the
person gives up getting any reply
message comes. A man in Black
foot telegraphs his brother at State
Center, Iowa, that father died this
evening, and says "See letter" The
man at State Center eis we'll known
there and he gets the telegram and
the letter at the same moment. Of
course, he is hurt, and he blames the
telegraph company for being hard
hearted and cruel, and he is prob
ably right. If it is any comfort to
him we will join him in saying they
are a corporation, that they have no
soul, that they are in business for
what money they can make and that
they have lot of employees who
get so they don't care who is dead
or who fails to find it out before
the funeral is over.
A study of the situations men
toned above shows that the great
mass of messages delivered within
the time expected bring forth no
comment from the public or from
the persons served. The kilograms
that cover long distances in a few
moments, are remarked about. A
notable example was President
Roosevelt's message around the
world via the new Mackay cable in
twenty minutes. Another was the
message of President Taft around
the world in six minutes. But the
kind of messages we are talking
about now, get more steady atten-
tion and publicity than any others,
and there is remedy for a great
deal of this disappointment. Like a
good servant of the whole county we
are going to tell you some of the
most likely reasons for failures and
d1sappointments. We get stung our
self, and feel like sputtering around
and cussing something or somebody,
but it doesn't do any good, so let's
sit down and talk it over together
and take comfort as we go.
The man who went to Soda
Springs just happened to hand in
his message when the operator at
Soda was out in the warehouse
handling some freight. By the time
he got back into the office, the oper-
ator at Blackfoot was busy with a
string Of other messages ,and it was
a good while before he got another
chance to raise" Soda. 1t might
so happen that he tried Soda several
times III several hours and that the
man was out Of the office each time
till the man from Blackfoot arrived
by train. We don't guarantee that
this was what happened, but it may
have worked out that way. The
operator at the small town has to
be a man of many parts. including
ticket agent and freight handler.
The person in the well-known
hotel at Salt Lake might be talking
with a friend and not hear the page
call his name, and the telegram
would be placed in his key box, and
a card sent to his room to show
where the telegram was. The card
in the room might be laid on the
dresser by the page. and the person
on going to the room might not see
1t. We don't guarantee this to have
been the case, but the pages were
paging, and the system was work
Ing with good intention.
The merchant who made sure of |
quick service by wiring for goods,
forgot that it was Saturday |
afternoon, and that the wholesale
house closes at / o'clock Saturdays
Monday moring would be the earliest |
Tor delivery of his Saturday message.