Homme- jIPMTKK# The Telegraph : a more rapid method of Carrying the Letters of the People. THE POSTAL TELEGRAPH. A LECTURE BY CHARLES A. SUMNER, Delivered at Dashaway Hall, San Francisco, Oct. 12th, 1875. H' .?■ WITH APPENDIX. Sketch of early Telegraph Construction_The beginning of the Western Union Telegraph Company_Definition of a Postal Telegraph_Increase of patronage consequent on reduction of tariff—The Iiritish Postal Telegraph : its wonderful success as an accommodation for the people and an investment for the Government_How the stock of the Western Union Telegraph Company has been watered_The alliance of the W. U. Tel. Co. and the Associated Press—Illegitimate profits of Western Union Telegraph Company “ring:” the little wheel of speculation within the big globe of monopoly — Antagonism of the Telegraph Monopoly to practical improvement m the Art — The only sure and lasting remedy for the extortions of the “ Western Union “ competition will not avail.” — The Tableof Net Profits, by the Queen of England’s Postmaster General — Why we have no morning Democratic daily in San Francisco_The monopoly’s lawyers’pet objection for their lobby and their flunkies in Legislatures—“ a Paternal Government”—duly considered and disposed of One of the tricks of misrepresentation on the part of the telegraph monopoly’s officers — Testi¬ mony of Postmasters General, who have investigated the subject... .The fact of monopoly and the power for government construction of telegraphs, stated by most conservative Democratic states¬ men_Monopoly intimidation at Washington_Sham Postal Telegraph bills_Our comparatively greater need of a Postal Telegraph_Actual cost of a two-wire overland line ten years ago — Illustrations of actual amounts of extortions by the monopoly... .The present infamously partisan control of telegraphs in the United States : emancipation from it by Government management_ Why printers should favor a Postal Telegraph ... .What the telegraph monopolists consider a “menace.” — Insolence of the monopoly officers at Washington_The comparison with the Mon¬ treal Telegraph Company_The way in which the monopoly frown down new inventions : decrjdng Duplex and Automatic telegraphy_Actual cost ot battery acid — Specimens of audaciously false figuring by the monopoly’s creatures_A net revenue-in part re-stated, to confront a monopoly “ argument ” and aggressively commend the system of Postal Telegraphy. SAN FRANCISCO : BACON & COMPANY, BOOK AND JOB PRINTERS, Corner Clay and Sansome Streets. 1879. \ \ ST. AUGUSTINE’S COLLEGE, BENICIA, CAL. RT. REV. BISHOP WINGFIELD, - - PRESIDENT. Military training under West Point Officers. Boys fitted for business life or the Universities. Send for circulars. R. S MACBETH, PHYSICIAN AlIsTD STJUGEOUNT Office al the Health Lift Rooms, N. E. Corner of Kearny and Pine Streets, $an Y ran ciseo. DISEASES OF CHILDREN A SPECIALTY. WILLIAM HAKN-EY, 410 CALIFORNIA STREET, SAN FRANCISCO. DOANE & HENSHELWOOD, OF THE CITY. S. E. Corner of Kearny and Sutter Streets. -"L TT\YOU WISH mm A Ty CORKER of Cm &m£MjSCfMZ. /{ccurate-prompt- treasonable. A PLAIN TALK ABOUT THE POSTAL TELEGRAPH, By CHARLES A. STJMNER. The speaker was introduced by Mr. E. T. Batturs. Mr. Sumner said:— I will venture now to remind you that when I last had the honor of addressing an audience in this place, I incidentally and indirectly alluded to the subject which I shall bring forward somewhat in detail to-night: the Postal, Telegraph. I am not about to speak to you at length of’ the commonly adopted meth¬ ods of telegraphing, or even to recapitulate the main facts in the history of the invention. I can allude to one or two important points in that history, and offer congratulations for the present time, for the age and generation, which they evidently should mark for us, day by day; and then pass to the consideration of what I must contend ought to be the still vaster popular benefits of the discovery and application of the electric telegraph. The change is indeed wonderful: which has been wrought by the genius and perseverance of Prof. Morse. The majority of this'audience undoubtedly remember the beginning of practical telegraphy. You and I, sir, remember it, as it was in the days of our boyhood ; when the railroad car was superseded as the deliverer of the Governor’s message and other important documents, once carried on rival routes to metropolitan newspapers by express trains from the capital of the State at which the inaugural or other formal gubernatorial address was promulgated. And perhaps a little before that time, the Eakir man connected with his ventriloquism and his double cups and platters a spec¬ imen battery and register,-—working between himself and his attendant who was stationed at the hotel relay to receive and respond. It was but yesterday. We remember well when the first telegraph poles were planted and the first wires strung in our respective sections of the country ; and well we remember those delicious, precious old jokes about the poor rustic woman who insisted on ascertaining from the operator how the letters were sent through the insu¬ lators,—those charming anecdotes of the same substance, but of infinite va¬ riety of dialogue, that endured for ten years or more without apparently losing any of their properties as good newspaper fodder for the funny column of all the village and literary journals of the land,—(and I think they have hardly passed out of service at the hour we celebrate). We know that many politicians of prominence and some men of scientific attainments in our country have a sorry record with respect to the efforts that were first made for the establishment of the magnetic telegraph as a common carrier of intelligence; but not so sorrowful, I am sure, as some of the latter day, who have, by indifference or direct combat, opposed the establishment of a Postal Telegraph. The incredulity with which Prof. Morse’s confident assurances were re¬ ceived in the halls of Congress, and the reluctance with which the pitiful sum ■ « 36405 2 of $30,000 was finally appropriated by our National Legislature for the Balti¬ more and Washington line, are now causes for livelier emotions of astonish¬ ment than are created by reading of the popular indifference and contempt to¬ wards the inventor who ultimately achieved great success in any other depart¬ ments, or towards other philosophers whose discoveries revolutionized science and art. It is a singular fact that, as near as we can ascertain, the invention of which we speak was simultaneously the work of different men in widely separated countries. But it is certain that for Prof. Morse the claim of abso¬ lute independence and originality is unimpeachable. And for various reasons the civilized world appears to consent, without question, to his pre-eminent credit as the suggestor and the practical deviser of the magnetic telegraph. The focus of our discourse to-night guides our inquiry and our statistical information in a certain channel, within which we must try and keep our words ; because the time is short, and we feel that the burden of the message ought to lose nothing on account of the introduction or the tolerance of matter irrelevant to the issue. Immediately upon the successful inauguration of magnetic telegraph communication between Washington and Baltimore, there was a period of telegraphic mania—of wild speculation in the construction of lines through¬ out the Eastern States. Within the following year the principal cities of the Northern and Atlantic States were connected by the intelligent throbbing wire. Within two years the principal cities of the Union were linked together by a like nerve of communication ; and then commenced the harvest for telegraph company speculators. Two out of every three New England and New York villages were visited by enterprising gentlemen of the wooden-nutmeg pedler style of biography, who announced themselves in the character of ‘‘tele¬ graph constructors ” ; and who proposed, on condition that a certain amount of stock was subscribed for their so-called companies, and a certain amount of clean cash paid down thereon, to bring their wire into the town and connect the hitherto isolated Podunk with New York or Boston by the instantaneous electric flash. The offer was very seductive. You and I remember that the most miserly inclined inhabitant relaxed his purse-strings under the captivating representations of Sir Plausible, the telegraph-builder ; while the proverbially public-spirited portion of the community, in not a few instances, tossed their entire saving store into the corporation wallet. The usual result was as follows: The wire was brought into town, and the clerk who attended Sir Plausible in the van of construction, on the opening night Transmitted a series of salutatory addresses from the selectmen or town council to prominent town or city officers along the route, and up to the capi¬ tal or metropolitan city in the State. This was glory enough for one day ; and the second or third installment on the stock (the last paid) was handed over on the following morning by the enthusiastic subscribers at Podunk with alacrity and positive delight. For a few days, and until the edge of novelty was worked off, there was considerable patronage from the sample town we have named. And very likely the close-fisted farmer or squire, as he began to take thoroughly sober views of his investment, judged that while the promised twenty-five per cent, per an¬ num might be rather a steep calculation of the dividend for the first year, twelve or fifteen per cent, on the stock (costing not over seventy-five cents) was a most reasonable expectation. Now some of you remember the conclu¬ sion of the business; and others will suspect in advance the revelation we will have to make to them. In nine cases out of ten the enterprise proved a failure. With the line flimsily constructed from one proposed point to the other, and with the two, three, or four out of the six installments of the capital stock paid in, Sir Plausible took his departure for new territory and fresh dupes. The line did not pay. It was left with hardly a shadow of management, and as a physical structure as well as a financial venture it went to the ground in short order. I undertake to say that there are newspaper men in this country who have a chronic habit of mourning over the losses they have sustained on ac- 3 count of the alleged mismanagement or misrepresentation concerning mines on this coast, who themselves in connection with telegraph companies in the East have defrauded honest folks out of more money than was ever sunk by speculation in any wild-cat corporation in California or Nevada. There was a heartless fleecing of the people in the Eastern States by these telegraph build¬ ers ; and I know of prominent men in this city against whom to-day there are pending in Massachusetts indictments for getting money under false pre¬ tenses, through the very machinery I have described. It was tin inauspicious commencement for the great practical art and business of telegraphy. And naturally enough—inevitably—there was begot¬ ten a popular distrust in the rural districts, of everything in the shape of tele¬ graph stock subscription. And hence it was that a broad foundation was laid for the most gigantic monopoly of the land. I refer, of course, to the Western Union Telegraph Company. This corporation shall have its due share of credit from me It began operations with a fair proportion of capital for its business. Having lines between the principal cities, on direct routes, it commenced the purchase of the old dilapidated material which passed by the collective name of “ a tele¬ graph,” connecting side and subordinate places. Its early business management was systematic and judicious. Its stock rose legitimately from about $400,000 to $4,000,000 ; although for this aggregate there were many so-called lines included at their original cost, which were not worth one-sixth the sum named in the company’s public catalogue of assets. It was claimed that the purchases, up to this amount, were actually at the figures set down. B*ti^ from this aggregate, the process of purchase and water inflation went on with palpable and increasing dishonesty and audacity unto the latter portion of the ledger work. I shall assume that you are familiar with the general facts, and with some few details, respecting the life and character of the Western Union Tel¬ egraph Company’s Monopoly. It now claims [1875] to have over 150,000 miles of wire in the United States, and it boasts a valuation of over $40,000,000. THE OUTRAGEOUS IMPOSITIONS OP THE WESTERN UNION TELEGRAPH CO. In order that you may realize the benefits which are certain to flow from the establishment of a Postal Telegraph in this country, I shall name with emphasis some of the outrageous exactions and deceptions which are in the daily record of this tremendous monopoly. In the first place, it has as a whole the most poorly constructed lines that were ever given the name of a telegraph in any country. So, when its man¬ agers declare that they could not do the business which a Postal Telegraph would gather, they may be correct; but correct principally on account of the fact that their material or mechanism is exceedingly inferior or defective. They claim a valuation of $40,000,000. Competent telegraph engineers have recently, and time and again, formally declared that better lines could be constructed for less than $17,000,000; one of the most careful estimators—a millionaire capitalist of Boston—placing the cost of a good, and therefore a better set of lines, at not more than $10,000,000.* Now with an actual investment of not over $20,000,000 at the outside, this monopoly extorts from the people a yearly revenue equivalent to the mininum sum at which their wires and poles and instruments and oflice furniture has been valued by competent appraisers. WHAT IS A POSTAL TELEGRAPH? What are the actual and relative advantages which it proposes and will in¬ sure ? In what manner and at what expense is it proposed to establish postal telegraphy in the United States ? I will endeavor to give you some clear, succinct, and indisputable replies to these inquiries, which I trust I have awakened and encouraged in the minds of many citizens of California. * Hon. Gardiner G. Hubbard. 4 We have the definition of Postal Telegraphy best presented in a sketch of its operations in other countries. In all European nations at the present time, and indeed in all other civil¬ ized countries except the United States and the Canadian Dominion, the tele¬ graph is worked as a government institution. It has always been so on the con¬ tinent of Europe. Quite recently—and here we have our great example—the government of Great Britain and Ireland has assumed control over the tele¬ graph wires, and attached the same to their post-offices, and made all the post¬ stations offices of the Postal Bureau. , The Postal Telegraph by its name correctly signifies : a more rapid method of sending letters by the government mail agents. And when you .shall have reflected upon the subject, you will admit intrinsic cause for astonishment at the failure of our own or any government to adopt this method of transmitting the communications of the people from one post-office town to another. Until very recently, the newspapers in the interest of the Western Union monopoly contended that only a certain class of business communications and correspondence would seek the celerity of the telegraph. The experience in Belgium touched and tapped this pretense. I give the following statistics, showing the increase in the aggregate and in certain classes of dispatches, con¬ sequent on the reduction of rates. In Belgium, before the reduction of rates, only thirteen per cent, of the messages related to private or social matters. Now, fifty-nine per cent, of all messages sent in Belgium are of a private or social character. This demonstrates that with us social and private messages are not more generally transmitted by telegraph because the rates are too high. Now in Great Britain and Ireland the domestic dispatches exceed sixty per cent, of the whole number. Such dis¬ patches as : “ Coming home to dinner with a friend,” “Will you go to opera to-night?” etc. Witness the quotations from a table of monthly averages of different kinds of .messages in Belgium, before and after the great reductions in rates: In 1853, when the tariff was high, the number of commercial mes¬ sages averaged fifty per cent, of the total 5,799 messages. In 1868, when tariff was reduced fifty per cent., the number of messages rose from 5,800 to over 100,000. And of this number 59 per cent, were private or social. The commercial messages increased at the rate of ten to one; the money messages increased to the rate of four to one ; the press and Government messages increased to the ratio of fifteen to one ; while the private or social messages increased to the ratio of eighty to one. Here was an increase of over 90,000 annual messages ; and of this number the private or social messages, which in 1853 had been 754 out of 5,800, rose to over 60,000. This is a specimen experi¬ ence following upon the reduction of rates in all European countries. And I refer to it at the outset of my statistical notice, as a warrant for the introduc¬ tion of the topic here, especially—exhibiting a popular patronage so soon as the prices are brought within a reasonable tariff table. THE BRITISH POSTAL TELEGRAPH. It was undoubtedly owing to the great success which attended the efforts to popularize the use of the telegraph in Belgium, that Mr. Ives Scuddamore, of London, was induced to inaugurate systematic and, as it proved, irresistible movements toward the establishment of Postal Telegraphy throughout Great Britain and Ireland. He commenced his labors by placing before the public, in newspaper correspondence and in a variety of publications, the ben¬ efits which he conceived would be derived by his countrymen from the adop¬ tion of a new, uniform, governmental management of the telegraph. His first publications were met with derision. But he was not a man to be scoffed down by the interested parties who were already deriving extraordinarily large profits from the existing telegraph companies. He persisted in his publica¬ tions, and very soon obtained the cordial support of many influential gentle¬ men both in and out of the British Parliament. And now, mark you: Mr. Ives Scuddamore did not have it within his province to say that he was battling against a great and oppressive monopoly. 5 As compared with the prices for telegraphy under which our people are ham¬ pered and plundered, the rates of the English companies were exceedingly low. And indeed, the great argument employed by Mr. Scuddamore was uni¬ formity—uniformity of rates ; greater regularity in the workings ; and closer proximity to the people in the several districts and villages and hamlets, by a multiplication of offices and carriers. It was not in Mr. Scuddamore’s original programme, that rates should be re¬ duced immediately between some of the principal points ; although a large ulti¬ mate reduction was contemplated and promised, and, I may as well add, antici- patingly, has been obtained. I need not go into anything of detail concerning the history of this movement in Great Britain, other than what refers directly to the objections in opposition to a similar movement in the United States ; and in doing this we have to sum up, very briefly, a long row of successes. The general objection was raised, that all enterprises of this character are more properly conducted within the domain of private business investment. The reply came at once upon the first principles: Telegraphy is only a more ‘rapid method of transmitting letters. And if the mail department of the Gov¬ ernment has proved to be preferable to private expressing, then there is really an end to that part of the contest. Mr. Scuddamore inquired—and let the question be put before our own people to-day:—would you relinquish your governmental post-office system for the competition of private expressing? The question gathers still stronger emphasis in our own country. It was objected that there would be enormous and wasteful expenditure by the Gov¬ ernment in assuming and managing telegraph lines. But it was replied, that this was a bold accusation in advance against the integrity and business capacity of the gentlemen who did or who would, with the new connections, manage the postal bureau. It was answered still further by an aggressive declaration *> that economy would necessarily be the comparative characteristic in the man¬ agement under the proposed regime. The items of office-rent and messengers were particularly noticed in this response. [See Appendix A—very important.] It was insisted by the opponents of the Reform—for this movement is more than entitled to that name—that the conclusion of the whole effort, if it pro¬ ceeded so far as to secure a trial of the scheme, would be a great burden on the habitual patronage of the telegraph, on account of theMeficient accommoda¬ tions, etc., and a tremendous burden on the kingdom, — to meet the ex¬ penses in the operating of the several lines. Now what has been the result of the movement ? You have read a hundred times in the San Francisco Alta and Call and Bulletin , that the English Postal Telegraph was a failure. The people of this city have been congratulated by the journals I have named, be¬ cause our government had not adopted a similar plan. [See Appendix B.] The English Government purchased the existing telegraph lines at a very liberal appraisement; and under the direction of Mr. Scuddamore immediately set to work to make the system thoroughly efficient and perfectly satisfactory. It was not expected that there would be an actual profit from the undertaking for a period of five or six years. Most of the wires that were purchased ran along the line of the railroad, and were frequently one, two, and three miles distant from large towns and villages named as on the railroad route. Branch lines were at once constructed to all such places from the railroad depot. This involved an immediate expenditure of some £20,000 sterling. But the en¬ hanced accommodation to the people was very great; and the patronage which by this means alone was forthwith obtained, proved within six months to be more than sufficient to meet the outlay which at that time had been made on this account. When the government assumed the control of the lines the maximum charge was fixed at one shilling for twenty words. [It had been twice that sum ; and even that was one-fourth our present transcontinental telegraph dispatch charge !] Mr. Scuddamore had said that he believed that it would prove good policy, in a financial point of view, for government to considera¬ bly reduce this rate within a year from the date pf assuming governmental control of the wires ; and he made the prophecy that within six years after assuming control of the telegraph the government would be able, with an 6 assurance of a margin of profit, to reduce the charge of twenty words to so low a figure as sixpence. ASTONISHING RESULTS. Now let me state in a sentence the more astonishing results. Within the first twenty months the government actually made a profit on the capital in¬ vested of £70,000 sterling ; when there was, as some of the London journals stated, a deficiency expected in that time of at least half the amount which I have named. And the fact of superior accommodation is so palpable and so great, that all the newspapers in Great Britain and Ireland which originally scoffed at or opposed the movement are now making loud and repeated apologies to its progenitor—a degree of candor on the part of the British press which I hope we may see emulated by our own journals a few years hence, when we shall be rejoicing at a similar emancipation and convenience. There is no qualification to the success of the English Postal Telegraph. There was infinitely less cause for its origin and its urging—as I shall prove to you—than there is for a similar change and establishment in the United States. As an example it is perfect; as an argument it is overwhelming.’ Let us see. , HOW THE WESTERN UNION STOCK HAS BEEN WATERED. The "Western Union Telegraph Company is one of the greatest, and it is the most exacting, the most extortipnate, the most corrupt monopoly in our land. I have given it all due credit. At least as early as 1855 its history as a swindle began. Its original capital was $360,000. This was watered in 1855 and 1856 to twice the amount, each time; and the capital in 1857 was $1,500,000. In 1858, *this was again watered to $3,000,000 In 1863, it was again watered by again doubling the number of shares to $6,000,000. In 1864, its stock was further increased, on a purchase and extension of lines, $5,000,000, making $11,000,- 000 in all. In 1864, the whole stock was again doubled by issue to stock¬ holders of an exact gift of $11,000,000, in stock dividends. This would make the stock amount to $22,000,000 ; but the figures of the Western Union Tele¬ graph Company are $21,355,100* During 1865, the stock was increased by exchanges to $21,485,400. In 1866, the stock was again watered $472,300 by an issue of a stock dividend ; and soon after, by consolidation with the U. S. Telegraph Company and by issue for the U. S. Pacific lines, further increased $7,179,100—making $29,156,800. In 1866, by stock in exchange for American Telegraph Company’s stock, there was an increase of $4,000,000; and by a grand watering process—by an issue of stock bonus of $7,818,800—the stock was increased $11,818,800, making it $40,955,600. The length of their line being given then as 50,760 miles, with 97,416 miles of wire. [See Appendix C.] In 1869, the Company proposed a sale to the government—according to the statement of some of their organs—in case they could not prevent the pas¬ sage of a Postal Telegraph measure—they proposed a sale for $80,000,000. At that time there was really not $15,000,000 of capital actually invested in their whole concern ; and good lines could have been constructed on all their routes, with the same amount of wire, for $10,000,000 or less. You remember the completion of the overland line in 1861 ? Cyrus W. Field declared that the receipts on that line for one year paid the cost of con¬ struction. The Western Union Telegraph Co., for itself and by inheritance, has received direct from the Federal government and from the State of Cali¬ fornia, bonus sufficient to pay for the entire cost of constructing the “ over¬ land line ! ’ ’ And yet you have to pay $2 for a ten word message from here to New York.* Since this matter of Postal Telegraph was agitated in a lively manner in this State, the monopoly has systemized and reduced its rates somewhat; and there is a shadow of a shade of competition between it and the railroad line,f ♦For several years the ten-word tariff was $5. And before that, $7.50. t Now no more in competition ! 7 the latter being built absolutely with the money of the people, in like manner as its predecessor. I shall not dwell on all the particulars of extortion which should hare been manifest to you all, long ago. But I wish, before I speak of the remedy, to solicit notice for some other matters of broader significance. The present telegraph monopoly stands in the path of legitimate newspaper enterprise. [See Appendix D.] The Western Union Telegraph Co. has a twin connection with ANOTHER INCORPORATED THIEF AND HIGHWAY ROBBER, KNOWN AS THE ASSOCIATED PRESS. They are banded together in the strong bond of mutual work of plunder and rapacity against the people. As a business man, in the market sense of the term, or as an intelligent, active citizen, you wish to obtain the news of the day at as early an hour as possible. Now you must take the associated press newspapers into your count¬ ing-rooms or your houses, in order to obtain the latest intelligence by tele¬ graph. And you have forced upon you and your household, journals published by some of the meanest specimens of mankind,—simply on this account, and by this process. The legitimate and honest workers, possessed of the education of printers and journalists, have comparatively small prospect of success in their endeav¬ ors to establish a new and worthily edited paper in our midst. The shame which belongs to this condition of affairs is grievous and undeniable. But there is more than this. It has been often asked why the prices for telegraphing overland are not reduced, if it is the fact that the profits would be equal or greater under a lower tariff. I will explain. If instead of your being required to pay $2.00 for a* ten-word message from here to New York, twenty-five cents only was de¬ manded for that service, the revenue to the Company would within a year be largely increased from that source. It is THE ILLEGITIMATE PROFITS Which induce the Company more, perhaps, than anything else to adhere to its present high figures. The tolls are too high for every merchant and every broker to have his dispatches in cipher. So, the Company’s ring maintains for itself an exclusive knowledge (for hours, and for days if necessary) of the fluctuation of prices of money, of wool, of wheat, of hides, and of other sample commodities. I give you a specimen illustration. In the spring of 1869, the coal-oil refining works at Hunter’s Point, near the city of Brooklyn, N Y., were destroyed by fire. At that time, the S. E. Herald was receiving 500 words daily in cipher (amounting to 2,500 words, when the sentences were extended). The Herald published the tidings on the morning succeeding the conflagration. Of course, by reason of the dispatches coming in cipher, the telegraph managers did not know that the Herald had this news until they read it in that paper, to their sorrow, during the succeed¬ ing day. It transpired that early in the forenoon of that day on which the Herald published this dispatch, every wholesale merchant and many retail mer¬ chants in this city that dealt in coal oil, were approached with an offer to purchase their oil stock at the maximum figure of the day preceding. Every such merchant who was accustomed to read the Herald , and who did read its dispatches on that morning, saved a large profit for himself by declining this offer. The coal-oil works at Hunter’s Point supplied most pf the refined arti¬ cle for this Coast at that time. It was estimated by a competent commercial reporter that on the occasion to which I have referred, the Herald cheated the telegraph monopoly ring out of not less than a quarter of a million dollars ! This probably intensified the animosity of that monopoly towards a paper from which it exacted fifteen cents a word for press dispatches, while it furnished the S. E. Bulletin and Alta, and Sacramento Union with news matter at the rate of half a cent a word for each paper. 8 Is it not an extortionist and a swindler ? Why should not every merchant in San Francisco be able to have his private market dispatches, as do the mer¬ chants and brokers in Europe ? And have I not probably given you one instance out of ten thousand ? And may they not manufacture reports of prices ? Is not your market of staples absolutely at the mercy of this monop¬ oly ? May they not mislead our farmers and commission merchants for days and weeks as to the prices of grain in the East and in Europe ? The efforts of this very same monopoly to break up the business of an honest broker in Cin¬ cinnati, show that my interrogations are founded on facts. [See Appendix E.] An iniquity less personal but wider in its range and aplication is yet to be noticed. This monopoly has STOOD IN THE PATHWAY OP SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS And practical improvement in the art. It has discouraged and prevented the adoption of numerous and extensive improvements in telegraphy, long ago brought into practical service on the Continent of Europe and in the Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It is a fact that a large number of valuable inventions have been perfected in this country, with the expectation on the part of the inventor that they would be gladly taken up by the great organi¬ zation which virtually controls telegraphy in the United States. In numer¬ ous instances inventors have been assured from the office of this Company that there was no merit in the patent offered or proposed ; and hence the caveat was not followed by the completing papers for a patent right, or the patent was purchased by some .agent of the Company for a mere pittance, and con¬ cealed and absolutely suppressed in that manner. * To show how far we have been kept behind the age I will give an instance. Telegraphing simultaneously in opposite directions on the same wire has been practiced in Europe and by the English operators in India for ten years past. And yet, in the year 1874, one of the Associated Press papers in this city de¬ scribed the method as a new invention, about to be utilized by the Western Union Telegraph Company ! By the method of duplex and quadruplex telegraphing the expenses of a line, enjoying a large and pressing patronage, may be very materially reduced. The Western Union Company have rarely procured and put in operation the best style of instruments, except it was under the stimulus of a temporary but a real and active competition. That you may not suspect I am unsup¬ ported in these assertions—and time forbids the full statements which I would otherwise make—I will beg your patience for one or two quotations from the very highest authorities, directly bearing on this point. [See Appendix F.] Mr. E. B. Washburne declares as follows : “ The telegraph has made less progress towards perfection, and has been practically of less value to the masses of the people in our country than in any other civilized country on the • globe.” Mr. Gardiner E. Hubbard declares that the reason why the new automatic telegraph, which admits of dispatching at the rate of five hundred word8 per minute at least, is not in use in this country, is because the Western Union Telegraph managers have persistently refused its introduction on their own lines, while claiming patentee rights acquired in such a manner as to frighten competing companies from an attempt to put it or continue it in oper¬ ation. [See Appendix H.] And now, my friends, the question is at this moment: Is there an effectual remedy for the evils and burdens of which we complain ? If so, what is that remedy ? It is legislative; IT IS THE POSTAL TELEGRAPH. r Such a measure ought to be passed, I submit, at the next session of Congress. We can all contribute something towards the securing of so desirable an ob- * Since this lecture was delivered the W. U. Tel. Co. have found it to their interest to bring one or two inventors into their employ,—with the intention of preventing anyone else from utilizing some inventions to the possible great disadvantage of the monopoly. At ope time Prescott and Edison were not friends of the W. U. T. Co., and the former expressed simi¬ lar views to those here given as to the suppression of inventions, etc. 9 ject. All the papers in this city and in this State, which are not in partnership with the Associated Press or bound to the batteries of the Western Union Mo¬ nopoly, should lend their earnest efforts in this direction. Why should you pay two dollars for a dispatch from here to the Eastern States ? This overland line, the original line from Sacramento to Omaha or St. Joseph, has been paid for by the State and Federal Government. If the Postal Telegraph was adopted and the price of a ten-word message from here to New York reduced to thirty cents—which is twice as much as it would be soon after a Postal Telegraph was fairly established—with a provision for night messages at the rate of one cent per word, in how many thousands of instances would this glorious invention be patronized, where the tardy mail now has to be depended upon ? * My friends, this glorious invention was vouchsafed to mankind, that we might salute and converse with one another respectively stationed at remote and isolated points for a nominal sum. A wicked monopoly has seized hold of this beneficent capacity and design, and made it tributary, by exorbitant tariffs, to a most miserly and despicable greed. COMPETITION WILL. NOT AVAIL. Experience has shown this. There will be momentary and partial relief under competition, and then a return under the dominion of the devil of ex¬ tortion more outrageous and relentless than before. One straight blow of legis¬ lation, and the Reform is inagurated, established,—rendered as enduring as the Republic itself. Our eyes have been scarcely lifted from the newspaper page on which was printed (to rouse our righteous anger and action) violent denunci¬ ations of monopoly. And yet the very journals that yesterday pleaded with you and me against extortionate corporations owe their relative and over¬ shadowing prosperity to the fact that they are either partners or proteges of the most iniquitous and intolerable and burdensome monopoly that ever cursed our land. Legitimate business enterprises, mercantile pursuits, the advance¬ ment of our people in the domain of science and the practical arts, reasonable personal convenience, the enhancement of social and domestic pleasures and affections, have all been brought under the heel of this UNPARALLELED MONOPOLY. The truths in regard to the matter have been and now are studiously and per¬ sistently suppressed, and falsehoods the most unblushing, and prevarications the most contemptible, have been and now are regularly resorted to by the church¬ going, psalm-singing, prayer-mouthing hypocrites that run the Associated Press in this city ; in order to conceal from the people the light of liberty and privilege which shows what belongs to us all from the boon of Telegraphy . There is no more sense or reason in your paying $2.00 for a ten-word message from this city to New York than there would be in requiring a dollar stamp to-morrow on every half-ounce letter by mail. There is no more per¬ sonal propriety in the howl of the Associated Press papers, or any of them, about a railroad monopoly, than there would be propriety in Vanderbilt instituting a newspaper campaign against the telegraph monopoly. And the reason why this city is cursed to-day beyond any other on the face of the globe with exist¬ ing and corporation extortions is because the leading press for the last twelve years has maintained its general and excluding circulation, and consequent power and authority, by means of the INFAMOUS combination which has been the topic of my discourse this evening. There can be generated in a lady’s thimble a battery-power sufficient to telegraph your letters to-night, instantaneously, to an Atlantic city. The cost of the acids is nominal; and the compound resulting from the battery used has sometimes been sold for more than the cost of the original simples. [Appendix G.] In Switzerland and in France, and in all the monarchical governments of Europe, a citzen or a subject can telegraph from one end of his country to the other—be the same great or small—for from six to twelve cents a message of twenty words, exclusive of address and signature. In all those countries, the 10 material—wires, poles, and instruments—are superior by fifty per cent, of cost, and more than fifty per cent, of intrinsic worth. And yet every one of those telegraph lines yields a very large net revenue to the government. By means of the automatic telegraph, every citizen in Europe can tele¬ graph a letter or other document at press rates during certain night-hours— not over half a cent per word. Such a privilege should be connected with our ^ Postal Telegraph. The very fact of increased distances renders this method of communication vastly more desirable in this country. A convenience which cannot be measured by my words to-night should be within the call of every citizen who can now afford the patronage of a street car or the recreation of the society excursion. , And ultimately, as the people become accustomed to its use, it may be expected to supersede the letter by mail. With the simple disguise of a cipher, the message of business, or the letter of the maiden to her lover, can be conveyed more secure from prying eyes than it is to-day under the chances of misdirection, careless mail-sifting, and the accidents of railway and steamer travel. A multitude of arguments and anticipations rise up in behalf of this great reform, and beg for utterance. Above all: the demand for a FREE press, conducted by honest men, is the sternest emphasis in the cry and the chorus for a Postal Telegraph jubilee and era in these United States of America. ( APPENDIX A. Some prominent men who have—at a not very remote date—come out of the old Whig Party into the Democratic fold, have signalized their advent by a fanaticism of speech against what they term “ a paternal Government.” For two or three of these men I have great personal respect. Their “ revulsion ” from Protection doctrines and Paternalism in Government is sincere, and has flung them to extremities of political advocacy where they do not appreciate their illogical and impracticable position. For most of these men I have a not very well disguised contempt. They occupy high places ; but they are never¬ theless ignorant and venal—both of which adjectives they earn for themselves by their speech, and their notorious companionships and intimacies. As I have very recently had occasion to illustrate : Suppose serial naviga¬ tion should be suddenly perfected. Suppose air-cars should be invented that would easily and safely make the trip from San Francisco to New York in one day. And then suppose that some one had the effrontery to suggest that the mails be sent by the same route taken by the passengers? And the reply should come : “ Why, no ! The Government has a contract with Stanford & Gould for the transportation of the mails by railroads, and the six-days’ trans¬ continental trip is sufficiently rapid. Besides, to shift the mail-carrying from the cars on land to the cars in air would be adopting, in the Postal Depart¬ ment, a Paternal Government policy.” How absurd ! This cry of A Paternal Government as against Postal Telegraphy is a cheat. I am sorry that some good Democrats have been swept into echoing the cry, before they had time to study and reflect upon the subject. We are entitled to claim for Postal Telegraphy in this country, good origi¬ nal Democratic, suggestion and argument and outline. In 1846, Hon. Cave Johnson, Postmaster-General, made a report from which I extract the subjoined : “ I deem it my duty to bring to your notice the fact that the subject of telegraphic communications in their fullest extent, as made available by means of this extraordinary invention, (Morse’s Telegraph) is forcing itself upon the public. The proprietors of the patent, securing the exclusive use of the tele¬ graph, have, since the last Congress, taken the most active measures to estab¬ lish lines of communication between the principal cities of the Union. Their success will introduce a means of communicating intelligence amply sufficient for a great variety of purposes, and greatly superior in dispatch to the public mails, and must secure to itself much of the business that has heretofore been transacted through them, and to that extent diminish the revenue of the De¬ partment. “ It becomes then a question of great importance how far the Government will allow individuals to divide with it the business of transmitting intelli¬ gence — an important duty confided to it by the Constitution—necessarily and properly exclusive. Or will it purchase the telegraph and conduct its opera¬ tions for the benefit of the public P******** “ In the hands of individuals or associations the telegraph may become the most potent instrument the world ever knew to effect sudden and large specu¬ lations [what a mantle of prophecy was on the old Democratic Postmaster- General, of Polk’s Council, when he wrote this!] ; to rob the many of their just advantages and concentrate them upon the few. If permitted by the Government to be thus held, the public can have no security that it will not be wielded for their injury rather than their benefit. * * * * * “ Its importance to the public does not consist in any probable income that can ever be derived from it, but as an agent vastly superior to any other ever devised by the genius of man for the diffusion of intelligence, which may be accomplished with almost the rapidity of light to any part of the Republic. Its value in all commercial transactions to individuals having the control of it could not be overestimated. 12 “ The use of an instrument so powerf ul for good or evil cannot with safety to the people he left in the hands of private individuals uncontrolled by lavj. ,} Every word of prophetic import in the above extract from a Report of the Democratic Postmaster-General of Polk’s Cabinet, has been met in the solemn and afflictive fact of experience during the past fifteen years. The fact that forty or fifty thousand young men and women, boys and girls, would be ultimately brought into the service of the Government by the adoption of a Postal Telegraph system is another ground for opposition by the men whom the Western Union Telegraph Company Managers and the Asso¬ ciated Press Managers laud in their dispatches to the press. There are many conclusive, and as it seems to me, very evident ways of answering this point of hostility. If Telegraphy is that which Cave Johnson said it would prove to be, if it is that which all experience in Europe has shown it to be, then it should be utilized as a Government institution, or our whole mail carrying system should be done away with. It should be what it was intended to be— a more rapid letter-carrier. And whatever force is necessary to conduct the business of Postal Telegraphy should be employed. I think it is an argument for the system— this particular “ objection.” Here would be employment, in a Department that ought to be, for thousands of skilled workmen ; and a proper Civil Service Reform would necessarily be inaugurated in the business of National Government, so far as this Department was concerned. Inevitably so. “ If there was one subject that the framers of the Constitution conceived the Government should have control of more than another, it was that relat¬ ing to the transmission of intelligence. As early as 1775, in the Revolutionary Congress, before we had any Constitution, before we had a right to a position among the nations of the earth, this subject was brought to the attention of Congress by the following resolutions. On the 25th of May, 1775, Congress declared: ‘ ‘ ‘ As the present critical situation of the Colonies renders it highly necessary that ways and means for speedy and secure conveyance of intelligence from one end of the continent to the other, “ ‘ Hesolved: That Mr. Franklin and others be a committee to consider the best means of establishing posts for conveying letters and intelligence through¬ out the continent.’ “ And in 1782 an ordinance was passed establishing the Post Office Depart¬ ment, which utilized every means then existing, which had for its object the transmission of intelligence. It is true that at that time the country was new ; we had not advanced in science; the lightning of heaven had not been utilized for the purpose of serving the interests of man ; but the simple machinery of the stage-coach, and the ordinary post-road was taken up by Congress and employed for the purpose of transmitting intelligence through¬ out the length and breadth of the country, and posts were established, as his¬ tory tells us, from Maine to Savannah, and every means was adopted by the Government to facilitate the transmission of intelligence among the people. “ At the time our Constitution was adopted we had no steamships ; we had none of the fast-sailing vessels that ply the ocean at the present time; and yet it must be admitted that the words that we find in the Constitution giving to Congress the power to regulate commerce take within their scope every means of commerce which the ingenuity of man has been able to devise. The steam vessels stand upon the same footing as the old hulks of former days. The magnificent cutter that makes ten or fifteen knots an hour falls within the same principle that regulates the slow-motion vessel of former days. And no¬ body will pretend to say that because by experience and ingenuity and mechan¬ ical power we have improved the means and methods of commerce, this consti¬ tutional power in regard to that subject will not take them all in. Will anybody pretend to say that if the telegraph had existed at the time our Con¬ stitution was adopted it would not have been taken up by the Government and utilized for the benefit of the people ? Everything that we are able to know on this subject by analogy teaches us that it would.”— Hon. Charles W. Jones, Democratic U. S. Senator from Florida. From Speech Delivered February 21s£, 1879. 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It is an old trick of the agents of the Western Union Telegraph Co. to misreport lecturers or testimony on the subject of Postal Telegraphy, and then parade a dozen paragraphs of contradiction. That trick has been re¬ peatedly played against me. One paper would misreport the facts and figures 1 gave, and then another one of the monopoly’s organs would come out with a long communication from some one of the flunkies of the Western Union Telegraph Company, (anonymous communication, of course,) challenging and correcting the statements falsely attributed to me. I recently tried to reply to such a communication in the Call , in which paper appeared the arraigning letter from the Western Union Telegraph Co.’s office ; but my very mild disclaimer was not allowed to appear in that cat¬ footed monopoly journal. I should mention that I offered in that rejected communication to meet Mr. James Gamble, or any respectable representative of the Telegraph Com¬ pany he might name, in any public hall in this city, and discuss the question of Postal Telegraphy before an audience. I suggested that he could then expose my ignorance and exhibit his enlightenment, to my shame and the triumph of his corporation, in an argumentative sense—or otherwise ? But my letter of disclaimer and aggressive propositions was not printed in the Call ,—that now-a-days “champion of the workingmen!” [good Lord deliver us!]—that crawling, sneaking, lying pismire of San Francisco mo¬ nopoly newspapers, the Morning Call. The real hostility of this company’s organs to the interest of the laboring man, should be noted in this appendix. The Call and Bulletin frequently print tables of wages of labor in Europe, with an evident purpose to justify and encourage monopoly employers in California in reducing the wages of labor here. Of course, wages of labor are higher here than in Europe, and they ought to remain so. The Call , more particularly, is always complaining of high wages in official stations,—knowing that reduction of wages there means, inevitably, reduction of wages in corporation employment. APPENDIX D. • To what is to be attributed the fact that there is no first-class morning Democratic paper in San Francisco ? Certainly it is a surprising fact;—so mentioned by strangers; so conceded by a majority of our people. Here is a city of 350,000 inhabitants, situated by bay-waters around whose shores four other cities and ten towns of considerable size are also located. In the aggre¬ gate of city and vicinity population, no doubt ten thousand heads of families would rejoice to welcome on their doorsteps each morning a sterling Democratic paper of San Francisco print. The dispatches of the Western Union Telegraph Company and the Asso¬ ciated Press are in the interest of the party which the Western Union Tele¬ graph Company and the railroad monopolies own —the Republican Party. And the more we think upon it the more the wonder grows. Why is there not a good Democratic morning daily in San Francisco ? Many competent persons have studied for causes. The first and principal reason is, that intelligent Democrats of means know full well that if they should combine to start an excellent Democratic newspaper and thoroughly Democratic journal, the Central Pacific Railroad Company, soon after the first issue of such a daily, would begin the publication here of a so-called Democratic paper that would be as much subject to the editorial dictation of the lawyers of the Central Pacific Railroad as is the Record-Union 15 or the Bulletin or Call or Alta, And money would be poured out like water to give the railroad and telegraph monopoly “ Democratic ” organ superior advantages as a local newspaper, and—so far as possible and consistent with the freezing-out plan in view—unrivaled excellence as a telegraph dispatch news¬ paper. So it is that when appeals are made to genuine Democrats of wealth, who really wish to have a true party daily in San Francisco, the reply often comes: “What’s the use in throwing away money on such a project? Stanford & Co. would set up an opposition daily ‘ democratic ’ paper—leaving the anti¬ railroad and anti-telegraph monopoly part out—in less than a month after the first daily issue of your proposed journal.” If we had a Postal Telegraph there could be procured such full and accurate dispatches from original sources that honest Democratic editors and publishers in San Francisco would make a success of such an enterprise as is referred to—for which there is such supreme moral demand in the State of Cal¬ ifornia—in spite of railroad monopoly “Democratic” competition for Demo¬ cratic patronage. As—I may remark incidentally—as I have elsewhere argued—it would be vastly to the advantage of our communities if we had political party-papers in place of blackmail “ Independent ” journals that prefer democracy or confess (true admission) radicalism, according as it suits the mercenary purposes of the cold-blooded, principleless managers. Above all other curse of curses, the State of California (and especially the city of San Francisco) has been afflicted by a so-called Independent Press. The dispatches to the San Francisco Herald, in 1869, showed how very far superior, in all respects, would be the telegraphic news columns of our papers, if we had a Postal Telegraph, and were completely disenthralled from the yoke of the twin monopolies,—the Western Union Telegraph Co. and the As¬ sociated Press. The Herald.I, on main items of interest, was frequently from 12 to 24 hours in advance of Simonton’s bureau dispatches. Every reader of the Herald will remember that fact. [The Herald was destroyed by the deliberate breaking of a contract, on the part of the W. U. Tel. Co.] And now look at the grossly partisan character of the telegraphic dis¬ patches. What indisputable testimony they are to the fact that the Demo¬ cratic party, as a national political organization, is anti-monopoly;—no matter how many railroad lackies may get into office in California, while falsely pro¬ fessing Democratic sentiments. Most indubitably, the telegraph monopoly dreads a national Democratic victory; and most anxious is it to foist the nomina¬ tion of a no-account presidential candidate on the Democratic Nominating Con¬ vention of 1880. To this end, the New York World, (Jay Gould’s so-called “ Democratic ” organ,) and the San Francisco Call and Bulletin, avowed rail¬ road and telegraph companies’ organs, are making every possible effort of cajolery and cursing, to induce the Democracy not to re-nominate the greatest Jeffersonian statesman of the age, the President elect, Samuel J. Tilden. When there is a Democratic victory, it is made to appear insignificant. Maine is represented as Republican by a popular vote; and the fact to the contrary transpiring, that fact is half-way confessed, or mentioned not at all. When Chicago goes Democratic by 4,000 majority, the fact is not stated in dispatches to the Pacific Coast until 24 hours after it is known in the Lake City ; and then it is leaked out in a most obscure sort of way, in a diminutive paragraph; while, in the meantime, “NEWS” is telegraphed in the shape of flatulent editorials from Jay Gould’s and Simonton's New York sheets,— opinions, by the yard, from the monopoly organs, founded upon misrepresenta¬ tions of current political events. In Europe, the weekly papers have the very latest news telegraphed by the column, specially, from metropolitan and other cities. They can afford it, 16 under Postal Telegraph news-dispatch prices. So it should be with us; and our Sonoma Demoo'at, Stanislaus News, Mountain Democrat, Colusa Sun, Santa Clara Argus, Downey Outlook, and other excellent interior weeklies, should have their telegraphic columns loaded up to the last hour of type¬ setting. APPENDIX E. The Western Union Telegraph Company broke up H. L. Davis’ Commer¬ cial News Agency, at Cincinnati, because he destroyed, in that city, the mo¬ nopoly of telegraphed commercial news. It was one of the most aggravated cases of business-theft by a corporation—as against a single individual—ever put on the indisputable record. APPENDIX F. The Telegraphed' —organ of the Telegraphic Fraternity—October 31st, 1874, says: “ In treating of automatic telegraphy, we regret to notice that Mr. Orton seems not as yet to have made any material progress towards an appreciation of its merits and advantages. He does not attempt to argue the question, and only states one objection, and that very old, and at first sight, plausible one, relative to the time occupied in preparing messages for transmission. * * * We are not personally or pecuniarily interested in any automatic system or patent, but believing that automatic telegraphy [by which 500 words a minute can be telegraphed] can alone completely solve the problem of cheap and profit¬ able telegraphy in the future, we had had hoped that Mr. Orton would have received some new light on the subject since the preparation of his previous official documents.” Unless the Western Union Telegraph Company can control a patent—and for a long time it suppressed inventions, practically, by sneering them down, as in the case of duplex telegraphy—»the managers cannot “see” any benefit in them. So it has been the case that for years Europe was enjoying duplex and automatic telegraphic facilities, while the Western Union held its opera¬ tors (at constantly falling wages) to the original one-current system of com¬ munication. Since delivering this lecture I have received numerous communications from “ operators ” who “did not wish to be known ” as my correspondents, lest they should lose their places in the Western Union Telegraph Company, in which communications nil my statements have been corroborated, so far as they came within the writer’s line of personal observation. As I was a telegraph operator as early as 1850—having had charge of an important junction office when a boy—and as I have kept up my interest in telegraphy since that date, I can speak with definiteness and precision in the premises. I know that the charges of the Western Union Telegraph Company are extortionate, and that that Company has labored to suppress inventions which it could not buy for a song. Now I chance to run across this paragraph in a letter signed * ‘ Quien Sabe,” in looking over a file of The Telegrapher of the date of Febuarv 13th, 1875 : “Itis a singular fact that every improvement in the cost of telegraphy 17 which has been brought out in the last seven years has been developed upon opposition lines; and whatever of them the Western Union Company have acquired was first contemptuously decried. Even now, with all this painful experience, an employee of the Western Union Company (and in their service is some of the best telegraphic talent in the world) cannot obtain a fair hearing and trial with any improvement which is counter to ante-diluvian notions, but is forced to convey his brain-work, much against his will, to the enemies of his employer for development, or defraud himself of honest recompense. ’ ’ Of course, when the Western Union has found a competing line cutting into it badly, it has frequently bought it out or off at a high figure—new pat¬ ent and all! For all which the public has been made to suffer. The communication from which I have quoted above is editorially ap¬ proved by The Telegraphed', which, although friendly to the monopoly’s offi¬ cers, was compelled to confess the truth of “ Quien Sabe’s ” arraignment. I take this from the editorial: “ It is essentially necessary that the Western Union, as the great telegraph company of the country, and by all odds the largest telegraph company in the world, considering the extent and importance of its lines, should be kept well up with, if not in advance of, the progress of telegraphic invention and devel¬ opment. While it could not reasonably be expected that it should adopt every so-called improvement and invention that may be presented to it for examina¬ tion, yet all such should be carefully, candidly, and intelligently investigated, and if found to be really of value and importance the inventors should be fairly and liberally dealt with, and the benefit thereof secured to the company. That such has not been the case hitherto, all who have sought to demonstrate their inventions, with one notable exception, have found, to their discourage¬ ment ;—delay and red tape intervene until the inventor is discouraged, and is compelled to seek elsewhere for a purchaser, among those who are inimical to the interests of the company.” The Telegrapher of April 24th, 1875, editorially says : “ The introduction of the Duplex apparatus, which was decried by Western Union officials, and declared by them to be valueless, but subsequently adopted and as extravagantly lauded by them as it had been previously decried, was an important step in the right direction.” Bear in mind that the Duplex system was in operation in Europe many years before it was introduced into this country ; but no sooner had quadruplex telegraphy been invented in this country (or the most practical method been devised by 'American patentees) than it was adopted in Great Britain and on the Continent. This shows the difference between the managements. However pushed at this time to take inventors into its employ, the West¬ ern Union Telegraph Company for years and years did all it eould to directly suppress improvements. I wish to sustain my assertions on this point by quotations from authorities that are personally friendly to the Western Union Telegraph officials in New York ; as this is a point on which there has been and still is much lying on the part of persons and papers claiming to represent the Telegraph Monopoly—as a liberal and beneficent corporation !—to the people of California. I undertake to predict that within one year after the adoption of a Postal Telegraph in the United States, our telegrams will be flashing across the continent at the rate of 500 words per wire per minute, and at a cost to the sender of not over 25 cents for a 20-word dispatch ; and within five years after the complete establishment of a Postal Telegraph in the United States the tariff for messages from one side of the continent to the other will not exceed ten cents for a 25-word dispatch. Such reductions must follow, even with present inventions utilized by a Governmental Telegraph Department in this country, so sure as day follows dawn. 2 18 APPENDIX G. In 1869, twelve tons of sulphuric acid, costing $480, supplied the current for the electric telegraph wires in Great Britain (85,000 miles) for one year.— Quadruple the quantity and cost of the acid for the Western Union Telegraph Company—conceding that they have over 300,000 miles of wire—and the entire cost of this acid for that Company for one year will he $1,920. Say that the acid costs twice as much in the United States as in Great Britain, and you have an outside estimate of $3,840. If the Western Union Telegraph monopoly do not use sulphuric acid, then they employ cheaper battery ma¬ terial. At one time, in Boston, the compound, after the electric force was ex¬ hausted from the batteries, was sold for more than the original simples cost! You can form some faint guess from this statement of the enormous profits of the telegraph monopoly. The Almighty evidently intended that by the electric telegraph we should be enabled to salute one another from the uttermost ends of the earth at a nominal cost. And yet here we are paying from four to ten prices over and above a reasonable tariff, to the most corrupt and corrupting monopoly on the face of the earth. How long? APPENDIX H. The Western Union Telegraph officers have time and again made a loud hurrah-sneering noise in derision of the automatic telegraph.cheap tele¬ graphy would break up their rings.Recently, some of the telegraph monopoly’s agents and officers in this city derided the idea of 500 words a- minute by the automatic. * ‘ Ridiculous. ”. In alluding to a forthcoming article in one of our popular magazines, the New York Churchman, the princi¬ pal organ of the Episcopal Church in America, and a journal of the highest character—in its issue of September 20th, 1879—has the following: “ This system is the little known automatic telegraph which for a year was in opera¬ tion between New York and Washington, and attained the marvellous speed of SEVERAL THOUSAND words per minute, hut has now disappeared in the litigation of rival companies V-— In other words: has been suppressed—as Mr Hubbard declares—by the unscrupulous cunning of the Western Union Telegraph Company. APPENDIX ODDS AND ENDS. (1) Under date of April 20th, 1879, Hon. Montgomery Blair, Lincoln’s Post¬ master-General, and son of “ old man Blair,” a Democrat by inheritance, wrote me: “ I am with you on the telegraph question, and whilst Postmaster-General advocated the Government’s taking the business. * * * I was in favor of the Government taking hold itself; but if that could not be done, then I was in favor of Government aid to a company to break down the monopoly.” (2) Mark the fact, that many Postmaster-Generals who have had their atten¬ tion especially directed to the subject, have come to the same conclusion. Postmaster-General Randall said, in 1869 : “ The ruling principle held by 19 the continental governments has been, that telegraphic correspondence is an¬ alogous to other correspondence. The importance of possessing permanent and reliable means of telegraphic communication is considered to be even greater in degree than the necessity of an efficient postal (mail) service. Throughout the whole of continental Europe the telegraph is under the exclusive control and mangement of the respective governments.” (3) During the debate in the United States Senate, February 24th, 1879, Senator Bayard—proverbial for his extreme cautiousness—said : “ I do not deny the wisdom and usefulness of free telegraphing. I do not deny that much exists in the way of a monopoly. A power so great that it can absorb almost all the smaller independent particles of power, necessarily becomes too enlarged for public safety .” Never spoke man more truly up to this point. Any reliance on State action or on competition to break down this tremendous and dangerous monop¬ oly is vain. (4) As to the power to construct independent Governmeut lines, I have the opinion of Reverdy Johnson, then acting as Assistant Attorney-General of the United States, given under date of April 6th, 1874 : “I am clearly of the opinion that the Government may construct a line of its own, and transmit all messages which it may have occasion to transmit, and that the same will in no respect whatever interfere with any rights of the existing companies.” The a fortiori argument certainly runs from this opinion in favor of a general postal department control of the telegraph. (5) The Associated Press and the Western Union Telegraph Company’s agents at Washington make it very clear to members of the National Legislature— U. S. Senators and Congressmen—that any sincere effort for the adoption of a Government Postal Telegraph system will be at peril of public and pri¬ vate reputation. Of course, of course, these associated robbers have sham bills for Postal Telegraphy introduced and paraded, and quietly laid to sleep in their little committee beds, by the A. A. Sargents, etc., of the capital. [But these sham and heading-off bills do testify loudly to the inherent and incontest- ible merits of the Postal Telegraph scheme.] They are introduced because the authors want to set in the pigeon-hole a “record” for the surely coming by-and-by, when the people will call for this Reform with almost one voice ; but more particularly they are introduced to head off honest and earnest immediate effort on the part of national legislators, in the direction indicated. This is understood by those who are watching events at Washington with a view to promote the scheme for which I am contending. (6) Let the people of California be apprised of the facts. We need a Postal Telegraph more than any other people on the globe. It is bad enough for our Senators to oppose such a scheme openly, defiantly. It is worse for them to oppose it in the interests of the greatest monopoly on earth, by introducing sham bills, and for a moment pretending to be a friend of such a measure. Sincere men do not introduce bills in a legislature and then let them sleep the sleep of the dead without summons or protest. (7) Electrician Field furnished the San Francisco Herald office, in 1869, with an itemized statement of cost of a two-wire line from San Francisco to Omaha. He put the total cost at that time of a two- wire line from S. F. to Omaha at $370,000. _ (8) In his report, submitted in the winter of 1869, Postmaster-General Randall said : 20 “ A thorough examination oP the postal telegraph subject has satisfied me that the Department can arrange for the reception and delivery of messages, the furnishing of stamps, and keeping the accounts, without any great increase in the number of clerks; that the business may be made a source of revenue to the Government; and that the efficiency of the country postmasters may be increased by employing them in connection with the telegraph.” Of course, Beck’s statement that 50,000 additional clerks would b& imme¬ diately required is an exaggeration. But suppose it was so ordered. As suggested elsewhere : the convenience to the people would be, in every sense, ample compensation for the additional employment. (9) You pay two dollars for a ten-word dispatch from here to the Atlantic States, when you should not pay the Western Union Telegraph Company one-fourth that amount; when the U. S. Government would make money if it had the monopoly of sending dispatches at the rate of ten cents for twenty- word dispatches from San Francisco to New York, and other points in propor¬ tion. In California, we pay four to ten prices for telegraphing. The cost of a ten-word dispatch from San Francisco to Sacramento is forty cents. Govern¬ ment, by a proper postal telegraph system, would make money on a charge of five cents for a twenty-word dispatch from San Francisco to Sacramento. Just as you are robbed of ten cents every time you pay the Central Pacific Company fifteen cents for a ferry and car ride to Oakland, so are you robbed of thirty to thirty-five cents every time you pay 40 cents for a ten-word dispatch hence to the capital of the State. And so throughout the State, in due propor¬ tion. (10) It is said by some of the managers and talkers for the Telegraph monopoly, that if Government obtained control of the Telegraph the messages would be under party espionage, etc. Now this is rich speech from the Western Union Telegraph Company’s office! There cannot be a more dishonest, partisan con¬ trol of the wires than that of the Western Union Company. As a matter of fact, the only way to lift the telegraph from partisan control is by establishing a responsible Government management. With governmental control we will have sworn government officials, under the pains and penalties that command efficiency and honesty in our Postal department. (11) Mr. George, in his recent work on political economy, says : “And just as Buckingham’s creatures, under authority of the gold-thread patent, searched private houses, and seized papers and persons for purposes of lust and extortion, so does the great telegraph company, which, by the power of associated capital, deprives the people of the United States of the full bene¬ fits of a beneficent invention, tamper with correspondence, and crush out news¬ papers which offend it.” (12) The Printers’ National Union, in 1869, adopted strong resolutions in fa¬ vor of a Postal Telegraph, even at the risk of grievously offending employers. Why ? Because the Western Union Telegraph Company and the Associated Press form together a society for suppressing newspaper enterprise, which ac¬ tion lessens the demand for printers and reduces their wages. But the monop¬ oly has managed to suppress any such action, from such a source, since the date mentioned—so far as I have observed. (13) So enormously in excess of a just tariff are the charges of the Western Un¬ ion Telegraph Company, that “ competition ’ ’ is constantly springing up be¬ tween main points ; and there is a temporary reduction on competing lines, and then a sell-out by the new company, and then a re-establishment of extor¬ tionate prices. A new line is in process of building in the Eastern States, 21 between main points on the Atlantic seaboard, at this date—September, 1879. It is safe to prophesy the old, old story of brief rivalry and then harmonious unjon of forces, and the old schedule of prices, or nearly that—perhaps a little higher, perhaps a trifle lower. (14)Jhe Western Union Telegraph Company has cut down the wages of the workers in employ as telegraph operators, etc., fifty per cent, since it obtained piactical monopoly of the telegraph business. The Operator , “A Journal of Scientific and Practical Telegraphy,” in issue of December 15th, 1877, refer¬ ring to this matter, says: “ Increased net profits and another dividend, but not a word about reinstatement of operator’s salaries.” The Railroad and Telegraph monopolies practically own the Republican party, and they fee so-called Workingmen’s Agitators to promote division in the Democratic Party. So are Workingmen lead by the nose to aid in work of reducing the wages of labor. (15) In 1870, the Montreal Telegraph Company reduced their rates to twenty- five cents for a ten-word message, and found the reduction paid. Says the Tele¬ grapher , November 4th, 1874: “At the time this reduction was made it was regarded by telegraph managers this side of the line [i. e., in the United States] as a hazardous one, but the result has proved that the Canadian Com¬ pany acted intelligently, for the reduced rate has proved not only satisfactory but profitable— the revenues having steadily increased .” Proportionate rates in this country—proportionate to Canadian rates as far back as 1870—would set our tariff from San Francisco to New York at fifty cents for a ten-word message! Just think of it: the length of time during which we have been suffering from most indisputable extortions from this insolent part proprietor of the Republican Party of the United States—the Western Union Telegraph Company. Oh! but it costs more to build and maintain telegraphy in the United States. Quite to the contrary. It costs more in G-reat Britain and in Canada to build and maintain telegraphic lines than in our country. The Telegrapher, of above date, goes on to say : “It should be remembered in this connection that the territory covered by the Company is much inferior, telegraphically, to that of the principal United States companies.” (16) “The reason that residents of Nevada are compelled to pay as much freight from the East as though their goods were carried to San Francisco and back again, is that the authority which prevents extortion on the part of a hack driver is not exercised in respect to a railroad company. * * * There is the same reason why the Government should carry telegraphic messages that it should carry letters.”— From George’s Progress and Poverty. (17) The illegitimate profits of the inside ring managers of the Western Union Telegraph Company must be enormous. One of these managers died in 1871, or thereabouts, and left a splendid church edifice in Washington. The church is said to be haunted. On stormy nights, when there is thunder and lightning, it is said that goblins may be seen officiating at one end of the nave, immers¬ ing candidates for membership in watered stock. (18) On page 33 of one of President Orton’s pamphlet reports, he said that the Western Union Telegraph Company’s monopoly was “menaced” by “ con¬ stant agitation of various schemes for the construction and operation of Gov¬ ernment telegraphs.” That'was ten years ago. He added: “We trust that the subject will be effectually settled during the present session of Congress, and the incubus which has so long rested on this important enterprise—[that is, the “menace” of a Government telegraph]—be removed.” Was ever inso- 22 lence like this ? And in the same spirit, Orton and his successor have talked ar # towereCKever since 1869. In the winter of 1875, I was in Washington, and was called upon to testify before the special committee to whom a bill affecting telegraphic matters had been referred. For several minutes after my examination opened, I thought that Orton—whom I had never seen before—was chairman of the committee ! He certainly “ run ” the meetin’. He denied the truth of many sti^pments which I made, without any hesitation ; rolling his eyes, and keeping time with “ O ! ” “ O ! ” “ O ! ” O ! ” exclamations ; and in unison with a gross beast of a lobby “lawyer,” so-called, overflowed and overflowed with amazement at my audacity, etc. What I had to say, and what I did say, was matter of notoriety in San Francisco; and, for the most part, was founded upon or con¬ nected with a certain printed protest—printed in circular and in the columns of the New York “Herald,” five or six years before I put in this committee ap¬ pearance. Orton denied that there ever was such a protest. The author of the protest referred to, (Henry George,) afterward telegraphed to the commit¬ tee from San Francisco a complete confirmation of my testimony, (and more). Some of the members of the committee told Hon. J. K. Luttrell that “ your friend Sumner was too well posted for old man Orton,” etc. Richard Lam¬ bert, correspondent of the “Evening Post,” told me subsequently, that the phonographic report of my testimony was “ cooked and cut down ” to suit the W. U. Tel. folks, and that he had so remarked to Jim. Simonton. I give the above as an indication of the overbearing insolence and the defiant rule and rascality of the telegraph monopoly management—as repre¬ sented at the seat of national legislation. (19) In an “argument”—so-called—by James Gamble, of San Francisco, General Superintendent Western Union Telegraph Company, presented to a committee of the Assembly, March 18th, 1878, James made the subjoined state¬ ment. I copy from his written “ argument,” submitted over his signature : “ The British Government Telegraphs, it is a well-known fact, do not pay expenses even with its (sic) great population. In 1873, the total receipts for telegrams in the United Kingdom was $5,024,665; expenses, $6,145,414; showing a loss of $1,120,749. In 1876, the total receipts were $6,565,535 ; expenses, $7,741,650 ; showing a loss of $1,176,115. This being the case, how can it be expected, etc.” Now the Queen’s Postmaster-General does not agree with Gamble ; and I submit that the Queen’s officer is as apt to know the true figures, and as much disposed to state the truth about the revenues of the British Postal Telegraph as Gamble : Gross Revenues from Messages and from Wires Rented by Cable Companies. Total Revenue Net Collected. Revenue. 1873. $6,530,275 $7,005,385 $574,875 1876. 7,367,385 8,119,190 1,225,580 Instead of a loss of $1,120,749, as represented by Gamble—the San Fran¬ cisco jiggerer for the Western Union Telegraph monopoly—we have in 1873 a “net revenue ” of $574,875—a discrepancy against Gamble of $1,695,624 ! And for 1876, we find Gamble is $2,401,695 distant from the truth ! 23 After indulging in this trifling misrepresentation of four millions of dol¬ lars, in the aggregate of figures, the inflated Gamble devotes most of his re¬ maining space for “ argument” to sneering at a party by the name of Jack- son, who, it doth appear, was once in the employ of the monopoly, but who had the impudence to testify before the Assembly Committee in favor of cheaper rates in California. Biit seriously meditate upon the actual audacity of the monopoly’s agents, as illustrated by the above discrepancies. Gamble undoubtedly never dreamed that any outsider would see the figures we have quoted — buried, as they were, in the belly of his “argument ” ; and probably pointed out and emphasized before unsophisticated members of a Cali¬ fornia Assembly Committee. Do you not suppose that if Gamble’s figures, as given above, were correct, they would have been conspicuously paraded and paraded and paraded in the editorial columns of the beautiful brace of monopoly flunky organs, the Bul¬ letin and Call f Of course, of course, if the British Postal Telegraph did cost a deficiency appropriation of one or two millions of dollars—or pounds, even,—every year, the money should not be and would not be begrudged. Often have the United States paid millions for annual Postal Department deficiencies, and no one citizen ever thought of complaining. A million, two millions, or even three or four millions of current deficiency for and during the establishment of a Postal Telegraph in this Nation, would not provoke one word of regret or ob¬ jection on the part of any intelligent, disinterested citizen, who was brought into a practical realization of the convenience and civilizing force of the system. Of course not. But mark the falsehoods of the monopolists,—slyly slipped into manu¬ script “argument.” Falsehoods of algebraic, plus and minus, magnitude. (20) The Monopoly makes a great hurrah when from their ten-times-too- much prices they take off a few cents. But just imagine that you could to¬ day telegraph to the old folks at home for twenty-five cents per ten-word message. Just resolve to contribute your share of work and influence towards securing the establishment of a Postal Telegraph, and you will have such a luxury at such a price; and with every added two years of such a Department Life in the United States you will witness a further reduction, until your ample letter will go by lightning from California to the Eastern States at pres¬ ent postage rates! (21) The Western Union Telegraph Company has a con venient way of “ fix¬ ing ” Senators and Representatives in Congress—as the lobby calls it—by “compromising” the honorable gentlemen. Thus, Senator Conkling, a bitter opponent of a Postal Telegraph up to date, is one of the monopoly’s lawyers. He appeared as such as early as 1872 ; and as late as the 22nd of February, 1879, he went out of his way to express in the Senate his hostility to such a system. (See Cong. Record, 45th Congress, 3rd Session, page 1763. Any Senator or Representative who dares oppose the monopoly will be sneered at in the dispatches ; any Senator or Representative who will keep still on this subject—or introduce a sham-bill—will be puffed, puffed, puffed in the dispatches. You can hardly realize, without personal observation at Washing¬ ton, what a tremendous power this is, in the way of intimidating or seducing national legislators from their duty. (22) I shall be pleased to attend and lecture on Postal Telegraphy at any place not over two hours’ travel from San Francisco, when suitable arrangements for an audience shall have been made, and due notice given. ■ ' ’ . ARTHUR RODGERS. CAMERON H. KING. ’ KING & RODGERS, Attorneys and Counsellors at Law, 207 SAN SOME STREET, Between California and Pine, SAN FRANCISCO. R. EL CA.lSrAcV.A_Nr, Dealer in Real Estate, OFFICE, SAFE DEPOSIT BUILDING, S. E. CORNER CALIFORNIA AND MONTGOMERY, ROOM 3, SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. A SAN FRANCISCO DAILY. ONLY 15 CENTS A WEEK. Weekly Examiner, $4/00 a Year; $2.00 for Six Months. An ably edited evening journal. Democratic in politics. Lectures on Shorthand and Reporting. knowtedged by the Profes¬ sion to be the “best compendious historical statement respecting the Art, its mastery and benefits.” “ Full of practical information and counsel.” For sale by Andrew J. Graham, 63 Bible House, New York City. Price for the two lec¬ tures, 20 cents, pp. 11 111 II P T> ^^ PnPtlU! ®y Samuel B. and Charles A. Sumner. 500 pages. With ulllliliuiu I UOllllJ. engravings. Price, $3.00. For sale at I. N. Choynski s Book Store, No. 34 Geary Street, San Francisco. GRAHAM’S STUDENTS’ JOURNAL. A Monthly issued by the Author of Standard Phonography. SHOULD BE SUBSCRIBED FOR BY EVERY PHONOGRAPHIC REPORTER OR STUDENT. Send for specimen copies to A. J. Graham, 63 Bible House, New York City. PIERRE DREYDEMI, ■ . W a 11 ® w i 332 Sutter Street , near Stockton. I do recommend Mr. Dreydemi as a conscientious workman, prompt in his engagements, and very reasonable in his prices. DPQ1 T pCJtjniH! anc * Lessons by Mail in Standard Phonography, by Charles A. Ulul JjUPuUiiu Sumner. Address P. O. Box 1982, San Francisco.