Some Comment On Government Ownership Of Telephone Properties

Author : Frank Hopkins Bethell
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781331094234
Total Pages : 20 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (942 download)

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Download or read book Some Comment on Government Ownership of Telephone Properties (Classic Reprint) written by Frank Hopkins Bethell and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-10 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Some Comment on Government Ownership of Telephone Properties The postal service - the service that is pointed to as the evidence to prove the governments ability to handle the wire service - is, I believe, efficient (some do not agree with me), but what is Postal Service? The Post Office performs but a very small part in the country's mail service. The transportation of the mails is in so great a measure handled by the railroads and steamship companies as to render all other mediums almost if not quite, negligible. In many communities the citizen must go to the post office both to send and receive his mail. The postmaster does little more in getting mail to and from his office than does the messenger boy in collecting or delivering telegrams. The Post Office Department does not own even the post office buildings it occupies; the mail cars belong to the railroads; the pneumatic tubes, in cities like New York, and even the mail wagons, are owned and operated by private companies. The Post Office here at Albany receives mail and delivers it just as the American District office receives telegrams and delivers them. The mail is brought to the post office from distant parts through agencies that the post office neither owns nor controls, just as telegrams come through agencies not owned by the American District. In a word, the Post Office is the A. D. T. of the transportation companies. The Telephone Service. Telephony needs no such auxiliary organization to perfect its service. The telephone itself, at every man's elbow, holds ready for delivery the message that comes over hills, under rivers, across mountains, and through great central offices; or takes for delivery the message and delivers it directly into the ear of the person for whom it is intended. I submit, sirs, that there is nothing in the postal service analogous to this. The Bell Companies alone own and operate, in connection with its business, equipment to the value of $765,000,000. The construction and operation of the vast and complex telephone system is an entirely different problem from collecting and delivering the mail. The telephone, as was pointed out by his Honor the Mayor, is essentially American. It was invented here, has been improved here, and its uses have been developed here as nowhere else on earth. To illustrate the extent to which it has been developed, I direct attention to the fact that though the industry is truly one of the infant industries of the country, it has grown to such proportions that according to reports of the United States Census Office it is the fourth largest industry we have in investment per capita, yielding only to Iron and Steel, Lumber and Timber, and Gas and Heating industries. Such is the magnitude of the industry it is proposed to turn over to the government. Some quarter of a million workers are now enjoying the full benefits of the sick, accident, insurance and pension plans adopted for them by the companies. It is now proposed to transfer these workers bodily to the government pay roll and in the transfer compel them to surrender all the benefits that long and faithful service has brought to them. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.