ITEMS OF INTEREST August 9, 1913 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

In a civil antitrust suit filed at Portland, Ore., by Attorney–General McReynolds, the federal government seeks dissolution of the alleged telephone monopoly on the Pacific coast maintained by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company—the Bell interests. The attorney–general asks the federal court to compel the Bell companies to relinquish control of the Independent Telephone Company of Puget Sound, the Northwestern Long Distance Telephone Company, the Interstate Consolidated Telephone Company, and the Independent Long Distance Telephone Company. If necessary to accomplish the dissolution, the court is asked to appoint a receiver for the properties.

In the suit the attorney–general specifically requests the court to require the alleged telephone trust to dispose of the stocks, bonds, and physical properties of the independents "to persons not connected with the Bell Companies as stockholders or otherwise." He asks for the restoration, as far as practicable, of competitive conditions existing before the consolidation, and that Bell companies, their officers and agents, be enjoined from acquiring interest in or control of the companies relinquished.

The losses by fires on the national forests for the calendar year 1912 were the lowest of recent years. Less than one acre to every thousand acres of timbered lands was burned over, and the total damage is estimated at seventy–five thousand two hundred and ninety dollars, or less than one dollar to every two thousand acres of area. About 38 percent were due to carelessness. The total number of fires was 2,472, as compared with 3,369 in 1911, and they burned over, in the aggregate, two hundred and thirty thousand acres as against seven hundred and eighty thousand in 1911. Of the 2,472 fires, more than 75 percent were put out before ten acres were burned over, and nearly 50 percent before one quarter of an acre was covered. Only twelve fires caused a damage of more than one thousand dollars each.

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