Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1919-05-19
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Postmaster General Burle-
son Outranks all Strate-
gists, Including Hind
enburg.
THE DEN0UEMENT
- ----
"Before and After Taking"
Still After the Pub
fishers.
DENOUEMENT
BY ], u. HOMES,
Before and After Taking"

Before and After Taking.
Postmaster General Burleson, after
having promised to. outriyAl Moore's
Utopia in the government management
of telegraphs, telephones and cables, has
changed poets and prophets, and his
haste to drop the pokers he heated t !
the purpose Of branding government
ownership onto the wire lines is not
eclipsed for speed and fertor by the an
cient whose prowess is recorded in
these lines:
"Then Ajax seiz'd the fragment Of
rock,
Applied each nerve, and, swinging
round on high,
With force tempestuous, let the ruin
fly.'
General Burleson Outranks all stra-
tegists--including Hindenbnrg in riot
Gus retreat. But he does not do it with
any degree Of grace. The whole climax
sums up in the decision that all wire
lines are to be returned to their owners.
On July "a of last year, Mr.. BurlesOn
stated: ut will be the purpose of the
post Office department to broaden the
use of the service at the least cost to
the people, A little later, in his an
nnal report, he observes: 'The exper-
fences as result of the present war
have fully demonstrated that the princi-
pie of government ownership of the
telegraphs and telephones is not only
sound but practical"
Last summer the newspapers carried
the implied promise that an automatic
telephone service would be installed in
the District of Columbia, and that tele-
phone service would be supplied to
subscribers at about one-half the rates
then in force. AS the days went by,
this, automatic cheer automatically
ceased. Then came the "big idea" Of
Coordination and cooperation Of the
systems. Mr.. Burles0n made the "uni-
ficatiOn of services" an important fea-
ture in magazine article in the Re
view Of Reviews All telephone COM
panies were to be made over into a
single concern-just like that! The
small companies refused to approve
and the postmaster general tried to
throw ''sop" to them by releasing TO-
600 of them from government opera
ton, when the storms Of disa pprOyal
OF his administration began to thfcken.
In April the head of the post Office de-
partment midst have forgotten that he
said in the previous December: with
the same overhead, maintenance and
operating charges, the government
could SO extend the service, at a lower
service charge, as to operate at full
capacity" Following out this same the
DRY, six months ago, Mr.. Bu2leson at
tempted to prove cOnclusively that "any
objection to government ownership OF
the systems based upon COST can be
met by the application of serial-bond,
or partial payment plan" To cut his
explanation short-he would buy pro-
perties for the government ION time
paying for them out Of their profits OF
operation. At the same time he would
'cheapen the cost to the public. In
his own words, he would buy the pro-
perties out Of .'the earnings Of the SER
vice, the revenues being augmented by
expansion and economics of operation
The Denouesnent.
So far as Mr.. BurlesOn is personally
concerned, it is not important that he
has made mess Of things. He perhaps
has done cas- well as any other rash
speculator would have done In the
same circumstances. On the whole,
MIR. Burleson has perhaps performed a
useful public service in making so thor
ough demonstration OF the fallacies Of
public ownership, without. having ac-
tiially committed fhe nation to so un-
sound an undertaking. Once before
the post Office department Voluntarily
relinquished operating the telegraph
lines, resulting in the extension Of the
system to all parts Of the land
In his requiem Mr.. Burleson states
that he recommended" to the president
the immediate return Of the cable
lines, and of the land wires las soon
as legislation can be secured from con-
gress safeguarding the interests OF the
owners in every way that 1t is possible
to safeguard them"
Alas! Bring on the wreaths anu
flowers
Burieson Still After Publishers.
The postmaster general evidently
does not believe there is any just
ground for all the criticism that is fly
ing about his cabinet" OF course he
has raised telephone and telegraph
rates-instead of lowering them as pro-