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Show All Sides of the Telephone Question, Clipped from Pocatcllo Advance. Patrons of the local exchange of the Bell Telephone company, havo evidently evi-dently concluded that patience has ceased to be a virtue and have taken steps to register vigorous objection as the following protest which is being be-ing circulated will indicate: Tothe Bell Tel. Co., Pocatcllo, Idaho We regret to inform you that for some time past tho telephone service in the city has been so bad that instead in-stead of being a convenience to patrons it Is nothlngshortof a nuisance. Calls are frequently neither answered promptly nor at all. Frequently after spending valuable timo In futile attempts to get "central" It has to bo given up and the applicant for telephone service has to go on errands himself or send a messenger, after having lost his time and his temper as well. Again and again It has been given out from central, In answer to inquiries, that trains on time were late and that trains lato were on time; that persons wanted were out of the city when they were at home and this, too, in urgent cases, where the person wanted was a doctor and had a phone. This stato of things has been represented re-presented again and again without any good results untlll wo have now arrived at a point where patience ceases to bo a virture. In the words o( President Roosevelt, tho situation is intolerable, and we do not propose to tolerate it much longer either. Briefly the situation Is this: Wo aro willing to pay for good service, but we will not much longer endure such service ser-vice as wo Jiavlng been getting for some time past. If we are to havo no service, or such a service as we cannot rely on, there is no uso in paying for It. Wo do not know whoso fault it Is nor do wo care. What we want Is cfllcicnt service and not excuses why we don't get It. For tho foregoing reasons we take this method of in-formlngyourcompany in-formlngyourcompany that we request some promise and assurance from you that you will sco to It that In th6 future we get a proper and efficient telephone scryicc, such promlso to bo followed by satisfactory fulfillment within a reasonable time, and falling In tills we hereby pledge ourselves to have your 'phone removed from our residences and places of business without with-out further parley. Furnished by the Bell Co. From the Worlds Almanac 1003 The following are the latest statlslcs made .public by the American Bell Telephone Co.,which at present practically practi-cally monopolizes the Telephone business busi-ness of tho United States. Either the world Almanac has made a bad mistake or tho so-called Utah Homo Tclephono Co. has misrepresented. "On Jan. 1, 1002, 3,005 exchanges nud branch exchanges had one million, twenty thousand, six hundred and forty seven subscribers." Tho year 1002 shows the greatest growth ever experienced by the Bell Co. It is difficult to reconcllo the statement of facts with tho letter of the Utah Homo Tclephono Co. of Feb. 14, wherein they say there arc moro than 0,000 independent tclephono exchanges In the United States, having hav-ing moro than 3,000,000 subscribers. |