The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-06-04
He Addressed Independent Con-
vention Here Today.
OPERATORS MUST GET MORE
They Should Receive Pay OF
Teachers. Speaker Says.
Reports of Committees Made
This Afternoon.

Cooperation between employees, a
greater realization of the Importance
OF their individual work and greater
coordination resulting in better serv-
ice to the public was the urgent appeal
made this afternoon by J. w Berry.
Of Jewell City. in his address to the
members of the Kansas Independent
Telephone association assembled here
for their annual convention OF three
days.
Berry was on the program for next
Friday morning. but a message from
J. r. Shipley. of Ottawa, who was to
have spoken this afternoon, stating
that he could not be present today.
led to the change in the program.
Shipley will be here Friday to deliver
his address on the Telephone Plant
as a Business Proposition" Severat
hundred delegates to the convention
have arrived in the city. The meeting
this afternoon was held in the, audi
forum.
Higher Rates Are Needed.
Berry pointed out that the telephone
companies OF the state in general are
in need of higher rates When the
systems were originally installed, he
said, it was with the superstition that
they were there forever. but it soon
became evident that wires rusted,
poles rotted and switchboards became
obsolete. Scientific study estimates
Il1GI~l the ~ IluSI DC &
placed new on an average of once
every ten years. With the revenue
enjoyed by some of the companies this
cannot be done, Berry said, and the re-
suit was destruction.
He pointed out that when one goes
into a store and asks for a standard
brand of tomatoes or canned fruit, or
quality of the article is never ques-
toned because it Is already well
known Telephone service should be
conducted on the same basis. he de-
cIared.
The relation of operators and other
employees to the telephone exchange
was made clear in his talk He i'm
pressed upon his hearers the absolute
Importance Of every operator when
she answers a call, every lineman
when he spices a wire and every man
who instaIls a telephone. bearing in
mind the relative importance OF his or
her work to the whole system. The
game of passing the buck" IS played
too extensively among telephone peo-
Pile he said, the universal custom be-
1 ing to shift the blame for poor service
onto someone else
/ The school for operators which viii
! be one of the fea lures of the conven-
/ ton. was also organized this after
noon, its purpose being the profess
: sionalization of operators with the
! view of giving better service. Barry
in his address, pointed out that the
| intelligence of the school teacher. and
| the refinement of a Nassar graduate
| are required of the operator. but that
| she receives the pay of kitchen girl
! They must be paid at least as well as
| the school teacher, he argued, or
/ there will soon be no girls in the
country who will accept the job Of an
opera tor. regardless of the dignity OF
| the position.
Reports of Committees.
The meeting this afternoon includes
the reports of officers and commit
tees. an address of welcome by Mayor
H. J. Corwine and a response by ].
D. Waters. OF Bonner Springs vice
president of the association.
Tomorrow morning there will be a
general conference at which J. G.
Crane, district chairman of the Kan
sas and Missouri groups Of telephone
companies, will preside. The tele-
phone men are invited to bring all
their troubles to him He will speak
on Government Control and the
| Operation of Telephone Properties.
/ The Value of Publicity to the Local
/ Telephone Exchange" will be tho sub
/ ject of an address by Keith C1evenger
I of Salina