Year: 1870




nIovoment of tho wos,orn Union Telegraph


Company.


The bill to establish postal telegraph
system reported to tho Senate by Mr. Ram
sey, of Minnesota, docs not reach the standard
of public expectation. 1t provides for tho
organization of telegraph company inde-
pendent Of tho government Post Ofco
Department. and makes that department
subordinate to and amenablc to the
regulations of the company. This Is
the old Western Union monopoly in new,
and, II possible, moro odious form than
1t even now presents. There is nothing In
Ramseys bill to prevent the directors OF tho
Western Union Company from becoming tho
sole managers Of the proposed new postal
telegraph system established upon tho appa-
rent authority and sanction Of the government.
This is not what the public demand. II is
disgraceful attempt to hoodwink the people,
by proposing to execute their wishes and at
the same moment betraying their interests.


There is no reason why tho government of
the United States should not assume the
absolute control Of the telegraph postal
system proposed to DO established. There is
no reason why the government should not buy
up the entire stock of the Western Union Tele-
graph Company, and the stock Of all other
telegraph companies, at market rates, and
fuse them all into ono grand plan Of postal
telegraphy, which will benefit our people
everywhere. It's folly to say that the govern
ment cannot manage this undertaking. It can
do il as well as to run the Post Office Depart
mont, to manage post roads or postal COM
munications to foreign parts. Since the
American post Office system was established
an entirely new order Of things in the way Of
intercommunication between people Of o COM
mon country and peoples Of distant nations
has been established. When the United States
mails were forwarded from Washington to
New York and from New York to Boston by
numbering stage coaches, occupying weeks in
their transmission, 1t was never dreamed
that the pith Of the matter they contained
would be flashed, as it were, in on instapt,
from tho most distant parts Of the country.
The idea Of an Atlantic cable never entered
Lue lmhRludtlOu eVcu OA tuo AucElCuu
calculator, Benjamin Franklin. The necessity
of the government assuming tho control of
this speedy mode Of intercommunicati0n and
of fixing the rate by which messages shall be
transmitted cannot be disputed. 1t thus
becomes corporation of the people themselves
and not monopoly in the hands Of million
naircs who essay to manage the lobbies Of
Congress and boast that they can twirl MEM
bers around their fingers.


The postal telegraph system has worked TO
admiration in European countries where it has
been tried In England it is no longer an
experiment. 1t is q success upon which the
people have stamped their seal. In Belgium,
Switzerland, Italy, it has become fixed
institution. Why, then, should progressive
America be behindhand in adapting to our
commercial, domestic and social requirements
this great engine and agent Of modern civiliza-
ton?


We trust Congress win look carefully into
this bill Of Senator Ramsey's, and if they see
the job or little speokled Western Union
nigger in it squelch it at once and proceed
to pass upon the more sensible postal tele-
graph measure introduced in the House by Mr..
Washburn,