The Washington times., 1918-07-08
STATISTICSON
PHONESASKED
BY UTILITIES
COMMISSION
BY BILL PRICE.

Tomorrow morning the Public Utili-
ties Commission will make one more
effort to extract much-needed light
on the telephone situation in this
city.
1t will seek from experts of the
Bureau of Standards valuable infor-
nation these men have collected on
the cost of installing and operating
automatic and semi-automatic tele-
phones as compared to the cost as
applied to the manual system, which
is the one used here and which the
New York owners positively state
they will not change regardless Of
what orders the Utilities Commission
may give.
There will be present, Of course,
the able lawyers and experts Of the
telephone company who may or may
not bother themselves to contradict
the testimony that will be offered by
Government experts.
Phone Lawyers Present
These people have already an
nounced to the commission that no.
body can give reliably approximate
costs Of this talked of replacement of
old with new equipment, and. being
from New York. where the books OF
the telephone business are kept, they
may not wish to contradict mere Gov
eminent workers or submit them
selves to q questioning that might
reveal how much or how little these
New York books yield as to many
things
For be It remembered that the
telephone business of Washington is
conducted from No. Is Dey street,
New York, where there are conferred
the executive and legal forces of the
Bell interests and the one billion of
capital that Is invested in these in
tsrestA There the books might
show, II any public service commits
sion could get at them, many things
that the locally kept books do not
show In Warrington
AZ things now go, whenever the
Utilities Commission Of the District
wants to know too many details that
might let in light Dey street comes
along with the answer that the
books do not show these things.
How II La Done.
Any citizen of the District who
makes complaint to the Utilities Com
mission about alleged overcharges or
later obtains an answer from the
commission, which gets its answer
from 10 Dey street. not from Of
ficiaIs of the company in Washing
ton. Upon the receipt of this COM
plant II is forwarded to the Wash
ngton office, which sends its repre-
sentatives out to make q report and
seek to placate the writer. The re-
port this representative makes and
the recommendation the Washing
gAon office writes are forwarded to
Dey street, where the lawyers and
experts paid to soften and assuage
individual and official wrath pass
upon it all, and write the final re-
cision to the Public Utilities Com
mission of the District.
In other words, Dey street, New
York, formulates the policies of the
telephone business in the District.
without being in the atmosphere of
the District or in intimate contact
with citizens here. Should the Wash
ington office recommend one thing,
the Dey street office may decide upon
another.
Dey street cares little for public
utilities commissions, because these
concerns have not the slightest au-
thOrtty TO investigate DOCKS there. II
commissions become too inquisitive.
threatening to try TO inform them
selves too fully, the facts are not to
be had from the books. The books
are simply not kept that way.
Cannot AppOrtiOn Things.
This is illustrated in the answers
received a few days ago TO questions
asked BY the Utilities Commission of
the District
In conformity with the insistence OF
the public and OF this newspaper to
know how much Of the heavy expen-
ditures by the company here are le-
ultimately chargeable to the Wash
fnEton public, the commission partic-
ularIy sought to have the company
reveal facts that would make the dis
tinction-
The facts wanted were substan-
TALLY these:
How much OF your revenues are de-
rived from the Washington public
and what Is the cost OF giving this
service?
What are your revenues from the
Federal Government. and what does
the service to the Government cost
your