The midland journal., 1946-03-22
News 81
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Bxc PAUL MALLON "
Released by western Newspaper Unio
COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS
OPERATION COSTLY
By PAUL MALLON :,

OPERATION COSTLY
WASHINGTON. - The degenera-
ton of the superior American eff
cheney in business into something
like Europe before the dictators-
where trains did not run on time,
telephone service was whimsical and
telegraph messages and airmail
might be expected to arrive two or
three days late-was observed pain
fully by me in my trip down through
the southeastern states.
The railroads are not yet q
monopoly in this country, per-
haps the people are getting
from them as good service as
the deficiency of materials and
men will permit-or reason
able approximation in general
thereof. However, telephone
service Is a monopoly. II the
citizen cannot get service on one
line, he cannot walk across tho
street and try another. The COM
pany has a monopoly Of the
business; the workers have
monopoly of the work with their
unions. This imposes upon them
public responsibility beyond
other businesses and other
workers, to perform their public
service efficiently.
I am NOT now considering the
strike threat issue. / have not in
vestigated merits or demerits Of OPP
posing contentious. Yet your house
may burn to the ground causing you
great and needless loss, if fire calls
are not handled promptly because
of strike, negligence, inefficiency or
any other reason. Deaths may be
caused by delays of few moments
in ambulances, operations or blood
transfusions. Robbers may make
good escapes. All the property as
well as the very life of the citizen
rest heavily upon the efficiency of
this single means of swift communi-
cation between people. No company
and no group of workers have the
right to cause damage and death
among the people as a whole for
any reason, whether just or unjust.
To do so is violation of every ma
tural law of man and common de-
cency. With the right of monopoly
in business and/or work (closed
shop) goes a public responsibility
which cannot be ignored or avoided
for any human purpose.
MONOPOLY DOES NOT
IMPROVE VITAL SERVICE
was forced to muse upon these
serious considerations of vital lin
alienable?) rights, by my minor ex-
periences of trying to handle my
comparatively unimportant busi-
ness through telephone, telegraph
and airmail while away from my
office for few weeks. found the
telephone and airmail wholly unde-
pendable. The airmail, of course, is
government monopoly and ineffi-
cheney is to be expected from past
experience. But ! found that airmail
special delivery letters, mailed at
the same time each day at the same
point of origin, would arrive at their
destination on schedule only one
time out Of three. The other two
times, the mail would be from one
to two days late. I understood then
why so many newspapers were COM
planning about late arrival of mail
copy. The post Office has plainly
failed to recover yet from the war.
Telephoning became an idle
but interesting amusement.
Each occasion furnished some
thing novel. Out Of 10 calls to
Washington, / eventually got
three through. One was prompt.
The other resulted from an hour
Of effort to get supervisor,
who put it through for me, after
my original call and the opera
tors promise to "can you back
in 20 minutes" Both had become
lost so deeply that no one
around the exchange had heard
of it. The third call in the after
noon was completed the follow
ing morning. The others never
got through for reasons which
are not reportable authoritative
ly by me, but was told varie-
ty Of things: "There will be q de-
lay Of 30 to 40 minutes" or "y0ur
line is busy" and then a few
seconds later: ''it does not an
swer." I could never find out
why it could be busy and then
in a few seconds did mot an-
swer. I soon found out complain
ing accomplished nothing. Elec-
trical noises would erupt in the
phone and deafen my ear II I
even suggested such thing to
myself. The only way yOu could
get a supervisor was to work
through a friendly operator on a
private switchboard who could
make just as loud noises as the
telephone monopoly.
The sending of telegram I found
to be less of an adventure, and
could be done in less than day. In
fact. I have only one complaint