It is curious to observe that the reasons assigned for the advantages to
be gained by governmental control are precisely the same which led to
the consolidation under one management of the great mass of the American
lines, and which has led to the unjust charge of monopoly as the work of
unification has progressed.
Mr. Scudamore says: “When I began to collect the information on which
this report is based, I was not free from doubts as to the propriety of
the scheme; but, after patiently collecting and considering all the data
which I could obtain, I found myself driven, by the mere force of facts,
to the conclusion at which I have arrived. This conclusion, indeed, is
almost identical with that to which the directors of the Electric and
International Telegraph Company came in the year 1852, and which they
thus stated to their stockholders:—
“The delays, inaccuracies, and expense of the continental telegraphs are
an exemplification of the great advantage to the public of the
administration _being under a single management_. _This circumstance
alone admits of the establishment of a low and uniform tariff...._ The
telegraph has already become a most powerful and useful agent, and has,
in a measure, been adopted as a means of communication by persons
employed in commercial pursuits, but, owing to the want of proper
arrangement and facilities, and the fact of the management of the lines
being divided _by several companies_, without unison in action or
interest, the public generally have been debarred from benefiting by the
immense accommodation and advantages the telegraph is capable of
affording.”
In presenting the same idea, Mr. Washburne, with a looseness of
statement for which we know of no proper justification, remarks as
follows:—
“There can be no doubt that the superiority of the continental
system over every other is due to the fact that the telegraph there
is a government institution, while in this country it is left to
private enterprise. Individual and associated effort have done much,
but, with the confusion of our telegraphic system before us, it
would be folly to shut our eyes to the inherent weakness of all
joint-stock enterprises. Absence of responsibility, waste of labor,
irresolute councils, expensive management, want of effective control
over subordinates, are among the evils of such associations, to say
nothing of the imperative demands of stockholders that dividends
shall be made and that none shall be hazarded. Under government
control one governing body would do the work now done by twenty, and
the obligation to realize profits would not interfere to prevent the
reduction of rates or the proper extension of the system.”
Passing over the charges of “waste, irresponsibility, and irresolute
councils,” which serve to round the paragraph in which they occur, the
focal idea is the efficiency secured by a united control. That is the
very basis of this company’s organization. Discarding as false and
perilous any general assumption of the enterprises of the people by the
government, and accepting its refusal to attach the telegraph to its
administration, when offered to it by its inventor, as for the best
interest of the nation, this company early saw that united action
between the extremes of our territorial limits was as essential to its
own success as to public convenience. With numerous companies, of
limited jurisdiction, and tariffs on all bases,—which had to be added
and dovetailed to each other whenever a despatch passed between two
distant places,—there was neither certainty of correctness, promptitude,
nor the possibility of a low and uniform tariff. To secure all of these
the leading telegraph organizations combined. It was a step necessary
alike for public usefulness and success, and is accomplishing all that
could be desired. The system has penetrated farther, and compassed more
territory than separate organizations could have attempted or than even
government itself would have been willing to undertake. Its
administration is vast, harmonious, liberal, exact, economical, and
just. It uses its revenues largely to extend its realm of usefulness to
the people of every section of the country. It seeks to secure the
highest skill and character in its employees. Its aim is to give the
wires to the use of the whole people on the lowest terms consistent with
proper self-support and the just return which capital and skill demand.
It will accomplish all the nation requires of it, if allowed to solve
its own problem, making the wires the accepted right arm of the public
industries, and the emblem of universal unity and good-will.