The Public Utilities (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1922 edition. Excerpt: ...same telephone utility has grown to a $40,000,000 capitalization, all usefully engaged. The $80,000 annual income has grown to nearly $10,000,000. The seven thousand daily messages conveyed over the lines have grown to seven hundred thousand. The $120 a year annual rental has fallen to seventy-two dollars for a better service. The semi-annual and quarterly statements of rentals have been succeeded by monthly bills, which enable people to pay for their telephone service as they do for their grocery bills. Nothing Local About Telephone Experience Nor was this telephone experience unique. It was duplicated in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, St. Louis, and another score of cities of size; and, proportionally, in practically every American village and hamlet that has a railroad station, post-office and a school. The growth of a united, coherent, inter-connecting, centrally controlled telephone system, having an opportunity to test out and apply every imTHE PERMANENCY OF THE PUBLIC UTILITIES provement in the art, was neither hindered nor menaced by competition. The competitors logically either died, merged with it or arranged to secure connections to give real universal service. The man who says to-day, in face of this growth, that the telephone has reached its limit of use is talking as idly as did the "wise" capitalist of nearly forty years ago. The Permanency of the Utilities Calls Constantly for New Capital In the immediately preceding chapters attention has been called to the permanency of the public utilities. No American community is static in its growth. It must either go ahead or go backward. Most of them go ahead. Only those go backward whose existence...