_PUCK, January 26th, 1881._
“The telegraph companies have been consolidated, which in simple
language means that Mr. Jay Gould controls every wire in the United
States over which a telegram can be sent,” said PUCK of January 26th,
1881, and the statement was no exaggeration.
The editorial went on to express a fear that this monopoly of
telegraphic facilities might be used for stock-jobbing purposes, as
it made suppression or falsification of price-quotations not only
possible, but temptingly easy. This fear was far from groundless at
the time, although it has since been removed by the enormous growth
of the business of electrical communication, which has now become a
machine too huge to be readily perverted from its proper working by any
one man. It is, however, undeniable that the Western Union wires were
misused for parties and purposes in the doubtful and troublous days
immediately succeeding the Presidential election of 1884. At the time
when this cartoon was published there was a very general feeling that
the federal government ought to take charge of the whole telegraphic
system. This feeling, however, changed when the people realized that
a postal telegraph scheme would practically involve the enrollment
of a new army of office-holders who would be, under our inadequate
and ineffective civil-service reform laws, merely the hirelings and
henchmen of the party in power. Although the phrase “pernicious
activity” had not yet been coined to characterize the performances
of unscrupulous office-holders, the people had seen quite enough of
the thing itself to want no more of it; and the project of government
interference became unpopular. At the same time, it can not be said
that Mr. Gould, who lived until 1892, ever inspired the people with
confidence or made any recognizable attempt to that end.
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