The Elk Mountain pilot., 1918-01-03
POSTALIZING OF WIRE SERVICE
Big Discussion by Big Man Public Ownership of Tele-
phone and Telegraph Lines

compare in cost with European communica-
tion at all. They compare with the cost of
Shipping ton of freight 1t costs the Ameri-
can as much to ship his long distance conver-
sation over the wires mile for mile, as it
costs him to ship a ton of freight over the
rails. The railroads get, on the average,
mills a mile for moving the ton of freight.
The telephone system charges mills mile
for carrying the three minute conversation.
Gentlemen. can you realize how weighty their
conversations sometimes are? They weigh
about a ton on the long distance wire.
What is the consequence of these abnormal
rates? Well. sir, it is to reduce the traffic to
a point abnormay low as the rates are
high. Combining the telegraph and long dis
tance messages we find the other countries
use the wire for such purposes from two to
four times often we. While Denmark
shows II such messages per capita and New
Zealand IL, we show less than g. While we
rank first in the use of the letter-1O1 per
capita-we stand but fifth in the combined
of kilograms and long distance messages
the highest rates and the lowest service
rendered among the nations. This is the pen
atty our nation pays for permitting a half
dozen monopolies to squat the postal
domain
Second only to the letter in Importance is
the local telephone call. Perhaps it would be
first if its cost permitted the of the tele-
phone by all the people. In other countries
the average postal rate for the local telephone
call is about a cent a call, or half the letter
rates, while in our cities the rates run from
to 10 cents a call. You can now send four
pound parcel $50 miles for cents, the postal
system making about cent profit. 1t seems
a duty to say that these telegraph and tele-
phone rates are the scandal of publc-service
toe he md To ha rod
with the express rates before the advent of
the parcel post. We rank 29th, the highest
but two among 81 telephone institutions,
the rates for the local call while rank the
lowest but one in the world on our letter
rates. Our measured service rates run from
two to three times the like rates elsewhere,
even in Australia.
You ask what would the postal system do
l answer that just with the letter and now
with the parcel, the American Postal System,
which is the most efficient in the world, much
more efficient than the German, for example,
can give US telephone and telegraph rates as
low as those of other postal systems. And
that means q telegraph rate Of IL cents for
short distances, and 25 cents from coast to
coast, instead of a dollar; ten cents a hun
dred miles for long distance talks instead of
60 cents. 1t means a cent call for local
service. All these are realized by postal sys-
TENS today.
There is a road to every mans house-there
ought to be a telephone on the inside to carry
the communications of the poor, for the doc
tor, as well as the fortunate. And the Amer
ican Postal System will put it there, at coin
box penny in the slot rates. 1t is only ques-
tion of time. The signs of the times, the
movement of events, all testify to its inev-
liability.
These investors and their great captains Of
industrial finance should withdraw from the
postal field. They should go into the true
fields Of private finance, into the productive
industries, where their talents and their cap
ital might be rewarded with the highest and
not the lowest service to mankind.