Telegraph company

“ Telegrams between the several departments of the government and their officers and agents, in their transmission over the lines of any telegraph company to which has been given the right of way, timber, or station lands from the public domain shall have priority over all other business, at such rates as the postmaster-general shall annually fix. And no part of any appropriation for the several departments of the government shall be paid to any company which neglects or refuses to transmit such telegrams in accordance with the provisions of this section. ”

“ The telegraph company was organized in 1851, and immediately thereafter began the work of constructing and operating telegraph lines. Its system extended throughout the United States and Canada, and connected with lines in Mexico and Central and South America by means of submarine cables, and with telegraph systems of foreign countries. ”

“ But the use made by the telegraph company is, in respect to so much of the space as it occupies with its poles, permanent and exclusive. It as effectually and permanently dispossesses the general public as if it had destroyed that amount of ground. Whatever benefit the public may receive in the way of transportation of messages, that space is, so far as respects its actual use for purposes of a highway and personal travel, wholly lost to the public. ”

“ The first attack upon the young telephone business was made by the Western Union Telegraph Company. It came charging full tilt upon Bell, driving three inventors abreast—Edison, Gray, and Dolbear. It expected an easy victory; in fact, the disparity between the two opponents was so evident, that there seemed little chance of a contest of any kind. "The Western Union will swallow up the telephone people," said public opinion, "just as it has already swallowed up all improvements in telegraphy." ”

“ The possibility that, by reason of an increase in the population and business of New York and Philadelphia, the use of a telegraphic wire between those cities could, in time, be sold for more than $600 per annum, was, of course, present to the minds of those who were interested in the telegraph company, and to whom were intrusted the negotiations for the relinquishment of the contract Harrison Bros. ”

“ But the statute can be fully carried out and obeyed without in any manner affecting the conduct of the company with regard to the performance of its duties in other states. It would not unfavorably affect or embarrass it in the course of its employment, and hence, until congress speaks upon the subject, it would seem that such a statute must be valid. It is the duty of a telegraph company which receives a message for transmission, directed to an individual at one of its stations, to deliver that message to the person to whom it is addressed with reasonable diligence, and in good faith. ”

“ No telegraph company shall consolidate with, or hold a controlling interest in, the stock or bonds of any other telegraph company owning or having the control of a competing line, or acquire, by purchase or otherwise, any other competing line of telegraph. ”

“ It employs an alternating current and four transmitters and receivers can be used in connection with one wire. There is a mechanical keyboard somewhat similar to that of a typewriter, while the signals are received and printed on a tape or upon ordinary letter pages in ‘typewriting’ characters.
In the United States the telegraph is entirely in the hands of private companies. The first company was organized in 1845 under the name of the Magnetic Telegraph Company by Morse's supporters and associates. ”

“ The control of the telegraph company's instrumentalities and its offices and operators is in a 'competent joint superintendent of telegraph,' in whose appointment the railroad company has a voice, and whom it also may discharge. ”

“ The cost of clearing a line for one official flash, involving the suspension of service over thousands of miles [Pg 61] of wire, and the attention of scores of men, is borne by any telegraph company over whose line it goes. There is a tacit understanding between the telegraph companies and the White House that the wire service will be free for all events of sufficient importance to merit the president’s attention. ”

“ The statistics of the business before the recent reduction in rates show that more than eighty per cent of all the messages sent by telegraph related to commerce. Goods are sold and money paid upon telegraphic orders. Contracts are made by telegraphic correspondence, cargoes secured, and the movement of ships directed. The telegraphic announcement of the markets abroad regulates prices at home, and a prudent merchant rarely enters upon an important transaction without using the telegraph freely to secure information. ”

“ It is also covenanted to save the railway company harmless and indemnify it against loss or damage from neglect or failure in the transmission or delivery of messages 'for any person doing business with said telegraph company, or on account of any other public or commercial telegraph business' for which the railway company was to account. ”

“ But it does not appear that the defendants were limited as to the use of the lines owned by the Western Telegraph Company, although the points on their lines were shortest. Each person, in using a telegraph line, is free to select his own conveyance. There are several things which recommend telegraphic lines. The machinery should be kept in proper order; strict attention should be given to the transmission of messages, and competent persons engaged in the office. Where there is much competition, great energy is required ”

“ In the sphere of telegraphy the progress has not been less marked. Unlike Canada and the United States, but as in the mother country and most other countries, the telegraphs are under the control of the government, and administered by the postmaster general. Until 1901, this was not the case. By a concession granted by the legislature in 1854, the Anglo-American Telegraph Company obtained the exclusive privilege of communicating abroad by telegraphy, and of erecting and operating lines within the colony. ”

“ What food for speculation each person affords, as he writes his hurried epistle, dictated either by fear, or greed, or more powerful love!—for we have not yet got into the habit of employing the telegraph, like the Americans, on the mere every-day business of life. Every message—and of these there are 350,000 transmitted by this Company yearly for the public, and upwards of 3,500,000 for the Railways—is faithfully copied, and put by in fire-proof safes, those sent by the recording telegraph being wound in tape-like lengths upon a roller, and appearing exactly like discs of sarcenet ribbon. ”

“ Although intercourse by telegraphic messages between the states is thus held to be interstate commerce, it differs in material particulars from that portion of commerce with foreign countries and between the states which consists in the carriage of persons and the transportation and exchange of commodities, upon which we have been so often called to pass. It differs not only in the subjects which it transmits, but in the means of transmission. Other commerce deals only with persons, or with visibl and tangible things. But the telegraph transports nothing visible and tangible ”

“ Although it is hard to see how telegraph companies can have 'machinery employed in any branch of manufactures,' unless they make their own machines, yet railroad corporations, which are coupled with telegraph companies in the statutes in question, as well as other corporations embraced in those statutes, might have such machinery. ”

“ Those lines are free to transmit any messages that may be forwarded on them. But the complaint seems to be, that at the points where the operations of the Western Telegraph cease, whether it be east, north, or west, the messages are not forwarded by the Western Telegraph, but they are, by the means used, diverted from those lines, and sent by circuitous routes, or at least by lines of increased length. ”

“ Special rates were offered for press messages, the news being supplied by the agency of the intelligence department of the telegraph companies. [798]
The earliest proposal for government ownership of the telegraphs seems to have originated with Thomas Allan, the same Allan who was later instrumental in establishing the United Kingdom Telegraph Company. In 1854 he submitted arguments to the government through Sir Rowland Hill in favour of the change, arguments which met with the approval of Lord Stanley, the President of the Board of Trade, and Mr. ”

“ It must be expected that great competition will exist in the transmission of intelligence, where telegraphic lines have been established throughout the country. But it would be difficult to find a remedy for these evils, whether real or supposed, which are not founded on contract. ”

“ Saward wrote to him on July 5th:
“Vast improvements in everything relating to the structure of telegraph cables are constantly being made, and inquiry upon the subject is very active. We are becoming much more hopeful of a good time for the Atlantic company.
“Two very favorable events for telegraphy have taken place this week. First, Glass, Elliott & Co. have laid without any check or hitch, in a very perfect condition, a cable for the French government between Toulon and the island of Corsica ”

“ The Telephone Company, Limited, was formed in 1878 to acquire Bell's patent, and in 1879 the Edison Telephone Company of London was formed. By this time it was being generally discussed whether these people were not poaching on the manor of the Postmaster-General. 184That official asked Parliament to insert a clause in a Telegraph Bill which was under discussion declaring that “the term 'telegraph' included any apparatus for transmitting messages or other communications with the aid of electricity, magnetism, or any like agency.” ”

“ In the case of telegraph and telephone companies doing business in this state: The franchises, rights of way, poles, wires, pipes, conduits, cables, switchboards, telegraph and telephone instruments, batteries, generators, and other electrical appliances, and exchange and other buildings used in the telegraph and telephone business and so much of the land on which said buildings are situate as may be required for the convenient use and occupation of said buildings.'
'Sec. 3666. * * * 1. ”

“ At the time that the telegraph brought the news of his death, I was on the Pacific coast. I was a fresh new journalist, and needed a nom de guerre; so I confiscated the ancient mariner's discarded one, and have done my best to make it remain what it was in his hands—a sign and symbol and warrant that whatever is found in its company may be gambled on as being the petrified truth; how I have succeeded, it would not be modest in me to say. ”

“ Already the cable companies have been affected considerably, and there is little doubt that they will feel the competition much more seriously before long. The general public, always conservative in such matters, have not yet grasped the fact that telegrams can be handed in at any telegraph office in the British Isles, and at most telegraph offices in the United States and Canada, for wireless transmission across the Atlantic, via the Marconi stations at Clifden and Glace Bay. ”

“ It had tried to operate a telephone system on telegraphic lines, a plan that has invariably been unsuccessful, it had a low idea of the possibilities of the telephone business; and its already busy agents had little time or knowledge or enthusiasm to give to the new enterprise. With all its power, it found itself outfought by this compact body of picked men, who were young, zealous, well-handled, and protected by a most invulnerable patent.
The Bell Telephone now took its place with the Telegraph, the Railroad, the Steamboat, the Harvester, and the other necessities of a civilized country. ”

“ Wires are watched very closely so that it is hard for an outsider to do any monkeying. Many men understand telegraphy who do not work at the business, and it is for this reason that all the instruments in the bucket shops and stock exchanges are turned so low that no one outside of the operating room can hear a sound. When it is realized that transactions are made, and fortunes won or lost in a fractional part of a minute, it will be seen how very careful the great telegraph companies must be. ”

“ Wild competition between news agencies was thus encouraged (even in the cases of some already known to be bankrupt) to the extent of credits of a quarter or half a million dollars on telegraphic tolls. The rapid spread of long-distance telephone lines further contributed to this tendency to make the whole continent a whispering gallery for the press. Every great paper had both telegraph and telephone wires run directly into its newsroom. ”

“ Wireless telegraphy is part of the established order of things. The wireless telephone is practical for limited distance, but is not a commercial rival of the telegraph. Great distances are claimed, but they are matters for proof and speculation.
There is no immediate possibility that wireless telephony will take the place of local exchanges. If the time ever does come that it in any way tends to supplant the line telephone for some uses, it is more than probable that each subscriber must have his own generating station and call up direct. ”

“ In general, the lesson in Europe is this, that the telephone is what a nation makes it. Its usefulness depends upon the sense and enterprise with which it is handled. It may be either an invaluable asset or a nuisance.
Too much government! That has been the basic reason for failure in most countries. Before the telephone was invented, the telegraph had been made a State monopoly; and the tele-phone was regarded as a species of telegraph. The public officials did not see that a telephone system is a highly complex and technical problem, much more like a piano factory or a steel-mill. ”

“ What has thus been achieved in developing the technical side of telegraph operation must be attributed in part to that impulse toward improvement which is constantly at work everywhere and is the most potent factor in the progress of all industries, but in large measure it is the reflex of the growing—and recently very rapidly growing—demands which are made upon the telegraph service. ”