THE TELEGRAPH MONOPOLY.
Reading edition
BY PROF. FRANK PARSONS.
XIII.
10. The Union of Telegraph and Post is needed for the Interests of the Post as well as for those of the Telegraph. It will elevate the skill and competency of postal employees. When mails do not arrive on time, it will inform the public thronging the post office, not merely that the mail has not arrived, but when it will arrive. It will permit the employment of the telegraph in tracing a missent letter or package, rectifying an erroneous address, discovering the whereabouts of an absentee, etc. It will permit the more rapid extension of the free-delivery system by affording a larger basis for its sustenance. It will multiply many fold the rapidity in transmitting letters across the continent.
In times of pestilence the telegraph will save the post office from embargo. A letter from Port Gibson, Miss., says:
The infection does not travel on an electric wire, and if the post office possessed the telegraph, its business would go smoothly on in spite of the plague, instead of being brought to a dead standstill throughout the region of disaster at the very time when hearts are breaking for daily news, and communication is of the utmost importance to alleviate the quarantine.
The operation of the postal-telegraph system would result in a speedy termination of this alliance [between the telegraph and news association, and groups of favored papers], and will be a very important step toward the freedom of the press.
Sen. Rep. 577, 48-1, p. 16, says:
The bill [for a postal telegraph] will lessen the danger of a concealed censorship of news whereby it may be colored and distorted so as to subserve political purposes, to mislead public opinion as to the merits or demerits of men and measures, to pervert legislation, and to favor schemes of private gain.
The press of the nation will not be forbidden to criticise the news, nor will any paper be excluded from equal participation in the benefits of the telegraph service—equal rates to all, special privileges to none. Moreover, the rates will be greatly reduced for all press despatches, and papers will be able to buy the world’s history every day for a fraction of what they pay now for imperfect and garbled reports.
13. Discrimination will receive a serious blow. No more telegraph rebates of 20 or 40 or 50 per cent to favored individuals and corporations. No more telegraph blanks for legislators, politicians, and lobbyists. No more delaying B’s despatch until the rival message of C is sent. No more precedence for bucket-shops and gamblers over honest business and government despatches.
14. Gambling in government stocks will cease, speculators in wheat, corn, pork, copper, oil, and other products of industry will be unable to control the wires for their uses, or even secure a precedence over the lines, and the Louisiana Lottery and similar frauds will no longer find a refuge in the telegraph as they do at present. The post office has been taken away from the gamblers; it is time the telegraph were taken from them also. The telegraph in the hands of cunning men may be the means of abstracting millions of money from the producers of the country, and may even become a potent factor in the causation of panic and depression. On page 3 of his Argument for a postal telegraph, Mr. Wanamaker says:
The measureless body of producers, in order not to be manipulated and robbed by the speculators, need to be nearer the consumers; and the measureless body of consumers, in order not to be manipulated and robbed by the same speculators, need to be nearer to the producers.
Take the telegraph away from the speculators and give it to the producers and consumers, that they may come into the closest possible relations.
15. Political corruption will lose an able contributor when the telegraph ceases to belong to a private corporation (See Part VII, Arena, July, 1896).
16. A Postal telegraph will be a step toward a fairer distribution of wealth and away from the congestion of power and wealth in the hands of a few unscrupulous men, which is one of the chief dangers threatening the future of the country (See Part VIII, Arena, August, 1896). On this ground alone the establishment of a national telegraph would be justified, were there no other reason in the case.
17. The public safety demands a national telegraph, not merely as a precaution against corruption, speculation, and panic, congestion of wealth and power, strikes, and duress of the press, but also as a military measure and a valuable addition to the police power of the government,—a means of strength in time of war, and a conservator of law and order by aiding in the capture of criminals and in the general enforcement of the law. We have already quoted the opinion of Mr. Scudamore that the postal telegraph “will strengthen the country from hostility from without, and the maintaining of law and order within the kingdom.” Let us call attention here to the weighty words of the New York Public, cited in Wanamaker’s Argument, pp. 206-7:
The Government itself absolutely needs a telegraphic system for its own protection. This will not seem the language of exaggeration when it is considered that the ordinary enforcement of laws, the capture of offenders, the success of fiscal operations, the protection of the country against domestic insurrection and foreign invasion, have come to depend in these days upon the instant transmission of intelligence with certain and absolute secrecy. It may at any time come to pass that the private interests of those controlling a telegraph system shall require the non-enforcement of the law, the prevention or delay of a financial operation, or the partial success of a domestic outbreak or foreign inroad. It is nonsense to say that this cannot happen. If Mr. Gould could suppress for a few hours or days, news of an outbreak on the Pacific coast or of the capture of a hostile ironclad from Europe, he could make millions by it. The Government has no certainty that he would throw away millions. It has no certainty that its orders bearing on great financial operations may not be betrayed and its aims thwarted. When the Government was hunting for the Star Route offenders, how many would have been caught if its despatches had been secretly betrayed? An important witness happened to be a Government director of the Union Pacific Railroad, and it has always been a mysterious fact that the officers in search of him could never catch him.
18. It will be a step toward civil-service reform. Every increase of public business brings us nearer to thorough civil-service reform, because it enhances the importance of that reform, impresses the need of it more strongly upon the people, and deepens their sentiment in its favor. This has been the experience of European cities and states. A good reason why they are ahead of us in civil-service management, is because they are ahead of us in the public ownership of railroads, telegraphs, telephones, etc.
In the case of the telegraph there are special reasons to expect that government control would carry with it an extension of the civil-service principle. In the opinion of Mr. Rosewater the postal telegraph “would be an entering wedge for the greatest possible success of the civil service.” He says:
Prof. Ely says:
One of the strongest arguments in favor of a postal telegraph, is that such a telegraph would carry with it an improvement in our civil service. It would increase the number of offices in which civil-service rules would be applied, even according to existing law, and it would be an irresistible argument in favor of the extension and elevation of the civil service. Some want to have us wait until the civil service has been already improved, but the purchase of the telegraph lines would inevitably carry with it the improvement of the civil service.
Let us now see what the defendants have to say; that means the Western Union, for, as Mr. Bell said to the Senate Committee on Post offices and Post roads, May 20th, 1896: