People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1895 — POSTAL TELEGRAPHY. [ARTICLE]

POSTAL TELEGRAPHY.

EXPRESSIONS FROM EX-SENA-TORS EDMUNDS AND PLATT. Openly Declare in Favor of the Government’s Owning and Operating Its Own Telegraph as a Part of Postal System. The Voice of New Y'ork gives the following interviews: “I have for many years been a hotfoot supporter of a government postaltelegraph system,” said ex-Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, to a Voice correspondent the other day. “I believe intelligence should be communicated, the same as our mails, through the post offices of the country. Some twelve years ago I introduced several-carefully prepared postal-telegraph bills.” In answer to the question, “Have your views changed any since then?” the ex-senator replied every emphatically, “No”; and to the question, “Have your opinions grown more strongly in favor of the proposition,” he answered, “They couldn’t be any stronger.” The records of Congress show that the proposition for a government postal telegraph has been repeatedly before both houses of that body since the time spoken of by Mr. Edmunds, only to be drowned in the interest of the Western Union Telegraph monopoly. The Voice of December 21, 1893, gave the utterances of many postmasters-gener-al in favor of a government telegraph, from the very introduction of the invention down to the last administration.

Senator Edmunds spoke strongly in favor of a postal telegraph system in the Senate on January 20, 1883. The post-office appropriation bill, which proposed a reduction of postage from 3 to 2 cents, was under discussion. Senator Edmunds said: “What the United States, in regard to its postal affairs and the welfare of its people, needs more than anything else is the construction of a postal telegraph, beginning moderately between great points in the country and all intermediate points, and then extending it, just as we have the mail system, as the needs of the community and fair economy would require, until every post-office should have or be within the reach of a postal telegraph. That is what ought to be done, and what will be done within a few years beyond all question. “But I beg the stock operators in New York not to sqppose that I for one am in favor of the United States buying out any telegraph company anywhere. I am in favor of the United States building its own postal telegraph and managing it in its own way, and leaving the gentlemen who are engaged in private pursuits to pursue their operations in their own way as private pursuits. “We introduced into the postal system not long ago a provision for carrying merchandise, but we did not think it necessary to buy out the operations of the Adams Express Company or the Southern Express Company, or the Union Express Company, and the United States Express Company, and so on, although what we did very seriously diminished their profits and impaired their business. Everything that the United States does operates in that way upon the interests of its private citizens —everything except the appropriation of money directly. “I propose the initiation of a postal telegraph for the United States that involves the simple proposition of authorizing the postmaster-general to buy thq poles and the wires and the machines. and set up its lines, first, along the great post routes of the country, north and south, and east and west, and then, as time goes on and economy will' warrant it, the extension of them to every hamlet In the country. “Electricity is just as much i n?.rt

of the forces of nature and of this world for the transmission of intelligence as a locomotive is, or as the old post-horse was; and it is too late at this day to say that, because the world has advanced In the means of disseminating intelligence the telegraph, under the constitution of the United States, is not an appropriate means of the postal system just as much as it is to transmit letters.” Hon. Orville H. Platt, United States Senator from Connecticut, in the same debate, January 10, said: “I cannot understand how it is that a government like ours, that professes to be in advance of the world, that boasts of its progressive spirit and tendencies, that boasts of its inventions, that boasts of the utilization of the arts and sciences within its borders, should fall back on the slow railroad and steamboat for the transmission of its messages, and allow quick transmission to be in the hands of a single corporation, substantially, in this country. “I said the telegraph to-day was the rich man’s mail. The transmission of letters and messages is a government function; it pertains to the government, and it ought never to have been suffered to go out of the hands of the government. We ought just as much to utilize the telegraph as to utilize the sending of letters by the railway. ♦ ♦ “If the government, as it ought to have done under the statute of 1866 authorizing it to do so, had taken control of the telegraph system of this country, it would have saved last year >7,000,000 to the people of this country.” Senator Edmunds introduced his bill for a postal telegraph December 4,1883. Other bills looking to a similar purpose were introduced during the same session by Senator Hill, of Colorado, and Senator Dawes. They were all referred to the Senate committee on post-offlces and post-roads. That committee was also authorized by the Senate to investigate the affairs of the Western Union Telegraph Company, and hearings were held at which the company was represented by its president, Norvin Green, Counsel William M. Evarts and others. Senator Edmunds’ bill proposed to have a board composed of three heads of departments to establish four leading trunk lines —north, east, south and west —the actual building to be carried on by the corps of engineers of the War Department, branches being established from the main line from time to time as money should be appropriated and as there should be use. Compensation for right of way and for the purchase of materials should be fixed by the secretary of war, subject to the approval of the president; the right of eminent domain could be exercised where post-roads were not used; all claims thereafter for land damages, telegraphic instruments, patent rights, etc., should go to the Court of Claims at Washington. In support of his propositions, Senator Edmunds said to the committee, January 14, 1894: “I am perfectly satisfied that Congress has the constitutional power to do what is proposed, and in any one of the forms that are proposed under several constitutional heads —commerce, war, post-office, and I might add finance —on the same principle that the Supreme Court held that the old national bank law was 'constitutional, although all that the constitution said was that Congress might borrow money, might have a treasury department, and might levy taxes, and therefore 'presumably Congress mukt have the power to provide the means to carry on the fiscal operatidns of the government. If a bank was thought to be wise for that purpose, it was conSo that I think tue constitutional question is the ' range of fair dispute.”. ... ' Work like a slave, live like a dog i and vote like a fool.