Newark post., 1919-02-12
Vail Wants U. S. To Be Center of
Great international Wire System
Continued

NScfttffdSdJ
be the center of the system for trans
mission in any direction to the limit of
transmission.
Mr.. Wallis second premise is contained
In the following question: Should the
United States become the center of the
cable system commensurate with and
sufficient to fully protect its political and
economic position?"
The worlds system of international
electric communication has been built
up primarily on the basis of connecting
the commercial world with the old CEN
tiers; focusing these world facilities, as
it were, on the old worlds centers Of
finance, commerce and industry. Ma
tional prestige, local interests, competi-
tive enterprise have influenced location,
extension and combinations so that
these facilities are not in all cases ar
ranged to be productive of the maximum
possibilities of either broad efficiency or
the greatest economy.
The United States is connected with
this world system but on one side as a
contributing field to be reached and ex-
plotted, and not primarily as center.
We must give our commerce what it
needs and what the commerce of the old
countries already has. Our international
wire service has become a utility of
necessity" and must be treated accord
ingly.
From the United States to the greater
part of the world electrical intercom.
munication is expensive and roundabout.
By utilizing and unifying the opera
tions of the existing and abundant trans.
atlantic cable facilities, direct connection
can be established with every country in
Europe through some immediate rear
rangement, and as soon as possible some
relaying, relocating, some extension of
the old and the laying of some new cables.
While private property must be re-
spected, proprietary rights should not be
allowed to obstruct this solution any
more than proprietary rights of any
utility should prevent regulated or con-
trolled operation. The constitutional
rights in each case are identical.
The United States must be brought
into the center of a world system of cleo
trical intercommunication. Its ships and
merchants must not depend upon the
gracious courtesy of any other country
to get direct home-wire communication.
This country is spending thousands Of
millions of dollars to build ships to COM
pete for foreign commerce and yet leaves
the very essential to the building up
of foreign commerce-quick, reliable
munication-entirely to private
initiative and to foreign enterprise.
With as many tens of millions and the
cooperation of the existing cable COM
panies controlled in the United States, a
system could be built up which would
put the business of the United States, as
it were, at the front door of every busi-
ness house of the world.
Of what use will be the expenditure Of
money and effort in behalf of American
commerce if there are to be no abundant
available facilities of communication for
the agents who spread that commerce
and if the ships that carry it cannot have
a ready communication without the con-
sent of any foreign nation?
1t is to be regretted that the questions
OF Government ownership and superior
foreign rights have been brought into
this cable question to handicap the solu-
ton of this big and most important
problem which must be settled from an
American standpoint by some co-ordi-
mated correlated combination of Govern
ment authority and private operation or
operation founded on the best traditions
of private operation free from political
interference and combined in a federal
lied corporation.
There must be no question as to the
right or the necessity of the United
States to build up a commercial inter-
national wire system of which the United
States is the center, instead of remaining
at one side of an international system
which centers in the English Channel.
Nor should there be any such spectacle
as an American-owned company OBJ
structing the creation of an all-American
cable system.