Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 February 1916 — Many Interested In the Telephone Company Hearing. [ARTICLE]

Many Interested In the Telephone Company Hearing.

Subscribers to the local telephone company’d service are deeply intend ested in the hearing to be held next Tuesday by the Public Service Commission. There were quite a number on hand Tuesday morning, no word having been received here that the hearing had been postponed until too late to get it published in The Republican of the day before. There were a good many at the court house and a number more called at The Republican office for information. The attitude of one ofthe managers of the telephone company is very amusing. One woman had been complaining because a telephone she had ordered was not installed. She asked the local president and general manager and he told her that she could probably get the information she wanted at The Republican office, that they knew more about the telephone business than the proprietors of the company did. Gee, that is frightful sarcasm and mixed with a little truth, too, for we knew that the charge of $1.25 which was being made was illegal and unauthorized and the proprietors of the company either did not know or did not care. As one subscriber was on his way to the court house to attend the hearing,' not knowing that it had been postponed, he met the local president and general manager and asked when the hearing would take place and was informed that it had been postponed and that he didn’t “give a damn” if it was never held. The same official had complained in The Republican office a few days before that the commission had been putting them off about the hearing for months. This same man also said at The Republican office that he would show the subscribers about this matter and that if they didn’t want to pay $1.25 “we will make them pay $1.50.” This attitude on the part of the local president and general manager ia full justification for the subscribers being firmly united a square deal at this time and the question should be settled permanently and with fairness to the interests of the public based upon the showing made at the hearing. At that time there should be a determination to procure a better quality of service, which the equipment, now installed should make possible.