If it should ever appear to be for the public good that this agency, so
capable of use as a political power, should pass into the hands of
government, it seems proper to await such a demonstration of the
self-sustaining capacity of the department under whose control it is
proposed to be placed, and such efficiency in that service, as will
furnish reasonable assurance of ability for the united control without
burden to the state, or lessened convenience to the people. A department
which is still confessedly imperfect, which cannot even tell the number
of letters which it transmits per annum, whose receipts are unequal to
the cost of service by over $6,000,000,[28] which could not secure
skilled labor in this new field except by foraging from existing
enterprises, and which could not avoid heavy losses at the rates
proposed, is not at present a fit recipient of so important a trust.
Footnote 28:
The postal revenue for the year ending June 30th, 1868, was
$16,292,600.80, and the expenditures during the same period
$22,730,592.65, showing an excess of expenditures of $6,337,991.85.
From the report of the Postmaster-General.
The Post-Office Department, which already has more duties than it is
able to perform, instead of seeking to absorb the telegraphs, had better
apply itself to its proper task of developing the correspondence of the
country, and endeavor to make itself financially profitable to the
nation, instead of a serious burden.
That the post-office undertakes more than it can perform is shown by the
delays and irregularities of the service, and the enormous and
constantly increasing number of its dead letters, which amounted, in
1867, to over 4,500,000! Were the telegraph companies to deal with the
messages committed to them for transmission as the post-office deals
with the letters committed to its care, there would be good grounds for
governmental interference; but there are very few complaints of
non-delivery of telegrams.
It should be borne in mind that electric telegraphy is a science, and
its successful operation requires a thorough knowledge of electricity,
skill in manipulating the apparatus, and many years of constant training
in the practical duties of the business. Many of the employees of this
company have been constantly in the service for more than a score of
years, and still consider themselves students in this new field of
practical science: without wishing to be invidious in our comparisons,
we may fairly say that the intelligence and skill which are ample for
the duties of filling a bag with letters and despatching them by horse
or steam power, would not be competent to the duties of successfully
transmitting an important despatch through the invisible agency of the
electric current.