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Show !taM5fbR 10 Certs; Telephone Calls! Cent Each. jfFirst Steps Already Taken for the Post-Office to Run the II Bv RENE RACME , 7 , j rp HE fight for government own-' own-' , '4 1 ershlp of our telegraph and . - telephone lines Is to be i -irlcd in Congress very shortly. Ik I trill probably have tho backing of the jj' Administration. What is understood to be the first ; step In this new departure has al-j al-j ready been taken by making arrange- i ments for the transfer to the Post ' Office Department of the government-f government-f .owned telegraph and cable system covering Alaska, and connecting ft that Arctic province -with the United f States, which hitherto has been un-; un-; I dor the management and . control of V the army. This ByBtem has been : -t conducted with an efficiency so ad- jnlrable as to afTord the best imag- inable illustration fit what TJnclo Sam is able to do as a manager of telegraph business. a An Act of CongreBB will be re-' re-' jWQUired to accomplish the transfer tn : M'qnestlon, but beyond a doubt it will ! Wile passed. The Washington-Alaska i system, as It is called, will then i & become a part of the regular postal service. And, after a while, when the government shall have taken over all the telegraphs in this country, it will become as much a matter of courso to transmit messages by wire !i through the post offices as to send letters. t The resulting advantage to the people will be enormous. For one thing, it will mean cheap messages. Telegraph service will cost half, or ?' lesB than half, what it now does. In (, addition it will be much more reli-f reli-f ble. i Every civilized country in the .world, except the United States, wM,Cffns and controls Ub own tele-yjy tele-yjy frapha the first government to ao-31k ao-31k Quire such ownership having been 4 that of Belgium in 1862. All over m Europe the cost of telegraphing is leBB than nan wnac it is uera, auu j the service in some instances is in-, in-, J- oomparably better. In any Instance 1 where it may happen to be unsatls-i unsatls-i i, factory, somebody can be called to i) account for the fault. In our own : ft country it is commonly unreliable, and the person who suffers has no ' redress. He may complain, but he a ugets no satisfaction. S I Take England, for example. Tn i' London the wire service is so cheap !j that if a person is to be asked to S dinner the invitation is as likely as not to bo sent by telegraph. The i coat of the message is only sixpence for twelve words. In England nearly near-ly 60 per cent of all the messages . dispatched by wire are social to (use the term in its broad sense, means' mean-s' Ing non-oommercial. But in the ? United States people cannot afford 7 to use the telegraph much in Buch ! ways; -it is too expensive. Less than (.1 per cent of the messages In this t. country are social, and more than '( 60 per oent relate to the stock mar-' i. ket and racing. V It should be explained, however, that this small rate does not apply f merely to the city of London. One may send a telegram for sixpence i (twelve cents) to any part of Eng-T Eng-T land, Scotland or Wales a message, that is to say, of twelve words. ;i If the government takes over our v own telegraphs, we shall soon have IT ten-cent messages in all likelihood for such distances as are covered ; to-day by the twenty-five-cont rate. This will make the wire service an every day convenience to the people f generally, instead of a luxury to be used only once In a while or when It" necessity compels. Quite posslbly m f klegraph operators may be picked H c out for appointment aa postmasters ' I in small places. It' The Washington-Alaska system t was built by the United States gov-$ gov-$ ernment a few years ago for the pur pose of establishing and maintaining maintain-ing communication betwoon military posts. It has 2,621 miles of submarine sub-marine cable, 1,064 miles of land telegraphs, and 10 "radio" stations. The cable, which connects Seattle with Sitka and Valdez, cost over ?1.000,000. A branch runs from Sitka to principal points in southeast south-east Alaska. At Cordova the cable connects with the navy chain of "radio" stations. In order to provide against possible possi-ble breaks in the overland telegraph across Alaska, a chain of "radio" stations is maintained from Cape Nome, on the shore of Behrlng Sea, to Fort Egbert, on the Canadian boundary, where the wire service Telegraph and Telephone Business and Reduce the Cost as the Cheap ' -0 Parcels Post Has Done A Nation's Telegraph System Can Be of the Greatest Service to Its Armies in Time of War. This Photograph Shows British Soldiers Attaching a Wireless Apparatus to a Telegraph Pole. connects with the telegraph system of the Canadian government. Thus practically the whole of the Arctia province is in electric touch with the rest of the world. The Washington-Alaska system of telegraphs compares favorably with any In the United States. All of its lines are well built and erected on right of way owned by the government. govern-ment. Its total receipts for commercial commer-cial and private messages are about 9180,000 a year, and, in addition, $200,000 worth of offlclnl messages mes-sages pass over its lines in a twelvemonth. The system transmits trans-mits money and performs all other function-3 of a fully equipped equip-ped telegraph service, The messages mes-sages it handles are not cheaper than in the United States, but this is becnu'so the expense of maintaining the service in that remote and relatively lnaccessl- ble reeion is 30 much greater. It may be presumed that the acquisition ac-quisition of telephone lines by our government will soon follow the absorption ab-sorption of the telegraphs. The two things naturally go together. France, Germany and England own and con trol their telephone business. Switzerland Swit-zerland likewise, and in that country all telephone messages are paid for by the call. It is a measured service, serv-ice, like gas or electricity, and the cost is 0110 cent per call. People In the United States pay from two to three times as much for telephono service as is charged in Germany. This statement applies, however, only to local calls. For Thus it would seem that government ownership own-ership of telephone lines must be of far greater importance 'in the long run than government ownership owner-ship of the tele-grnphs. tele-grnphs. At the same time it is likely that the telegraph will always al-ways be cheaper than long-distance calls we s pay eight times as f much. This interur- 13-' ban service is the ZV "big graft" in our VTl? :Lir country, yielding a C(V W-r preposterously large v'-x JVo profit to the com- C'-' - rno oat wnicn Uarnos a rew. of Men y &nd Down the Yukon River, Malung Repairs , to - the Government Owned Telegraph and Cable Lines in Alaska panics. Here it costs six-tenths of a cent per measured mile for telephoning tele-phoning over long distances. In Germany one may have three minutes' min-utes' conversation over a distance of 700 miles for 48 cents. In the United States this would cost $4.20. The rateB in England for local telephone service are about half of ours. One reason why telephoning costB so much more in thlB country than aoroaa is mat we use almost exclusively exclu-sively the so-called "manual" system, sys-tem, which refuses the help of mechanical me-chanical devices. Such devices, which make connections, etc., automatically, auto-matically, effect a great saving in labor and expense. They are now beginning be-ginning to bo used in tho State of Ohio. It is beyond question that telephones tele-phones are destined in the future to develop much faster than tele-graphs. tele-graphs. For purposes of communication communi-cation they are vastly more efficient and they are more generally useful. Anybody can use the telephone, while a special education is demanded demand-ed to enable one to use a telegraph Instrument. The tolophone Is In-i In-i Btantaneous, and tho user does not have to wait for an answer. We cannot look forward to the time when there will be a telegraph instrument in-strument in every man's house, whereas the telephone already is installed in-stalled in most residences, as well ub in practically all businosB houses. A the telephono service over very long distances. dis-tances. One rather curious thing to be considered consider-ed is that the cost of telephone service increases in-creases with the number of persons to be served. One might say this was a mat- ' v A MaP of the S. Goveramen 1 Own Telegraph, Cable and II S I Wireless Systems in Alaska. n I "The systems include 2,261 miles of sub- SlTKA tM I f' marine cable, 1,064 miles of land 'tele- yuC. 8j f& HJaphf and ten radio stations." $ K Tho U. S. Government Cable Office at Cordova, Alaska, Where Con- I ' nection Is Made with the Navy's Chain of "Radio" Stations, 1 1 ter of course. But the point is that the greater tho number of persons served the higher cost per subscriber. subscrib-er. Where gas or electricity or groceries or whatever else one chooses to think of is concerned, the cost of distribution goes down as the number of users goes up. It Is exactly ex-actly the opposite way with telephoning. telephon-ing. And the reason why is easily understood when It is realized that each additional subscriber 'must be placed in communication with all the others. Any schoolboy can see how It works by doing a sum on his slate. Nevertheless, when the government govern-ment takes hold of the telephones we shall have two-cent local calls and eventually probably one-cent calls. And it is likely that we shall pay no more than 50 cents for a conversation con-versation over a distance of 500 miles. Where the mails are concerned the PoBt Office Department affords a mag- niflcent illustration of the possibilities pos-sibilities of a service for all the people at a very cheap rate. It is even now affording a new object lesson les-son in this lino, through the recent establishment of a parcel post which Is taking the express business of tho country out of the hands of the robber rob-ber express companies, whose profits, described in a Congressional report as "utterly egregious and out of all proportion to Investment," have been derived from charges averaging fifteen fif-teen times, the regular freight rates of the railroads employed to transport trans-port the goods. There 1b no imaginable reason why the government should not accomplish ac-complish for tho telegraph and telephone tele-phone services what It already does for the malls, with a corresponding reduction of cost to tho people. A few years from now when anybody wants to Bend a telegram he will go" to the nearest post office or branch post office for the purpose (just as people do at the present time In England), Eng-land), or perhaps he will telephone his message over the wire. The telephone tele-phone exchanges will be moved into government buildings, so that there will be no rent to pay. In place of a post office superintendent, a tele- j graph superintendent and a telephone ' superintendent, there will be one ' man to hold all three jobs. With minor officials it will be the same :'H way one Job, ono salary. There will be no dividends to be paid out on watered stock; no buying up of ; little competing lines at small prices. ' with a view to unloading them upon f the government (as now upon the '-H corporations) at big figures. In short, these great publlo "utlli- ; ties, the telegraph and the telephone, j will be, a few years from now. prop- ( erly organized as Buch. and placed fH under the control of the government, so that like the mails to-day, they t'H will be equally at the service of all tho people at a minimum cost. In H taking over the Washington-Alaska -H telegraph system the Post Office De- partment will make its first Btep llH toward one of the most Important reforms ever accomplished in the iil management of tho nation's affaire. iH |