ITEMS OF INTEREST February 22, 1913 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

Government ownership or control of telegraph lines is again recommended by Postmaster-General Hitchcock in his complete annual report transmitted to Congress. Mr. Hitchcock says: "In the last annual report the opinion was expressed that telegraph lines in the United States should be made a part of the postal system and operated in conjunction with the mail service. It is believed that under proper management such a consolidation would result in important economies and permit adoption of lower telegraph rates. Now that a postal saving system has been established and a parcel-post provided for, there would seem to be no better opportunity for the profitable extension of our postal business than through the adoption of a government telegraph system." Mr. Hitchcock also recommends that the use of the franking privilege be restricted "to official correspondence, not exceeding four ounces in weight, and to the mailing of such speeches and documents as are printed by order of Congress."

A decree of the United States circuit court at Cincinnati dissolves the Great Lakes Towing Company as a monopoly in control of the towing business of the fourteen principal ports of the Great Lakes. The decree decides that in driving out of business the numerous independent tug companies which were in active competition prior to 1899, when the company was formed, the Great Lakes company directly violated the Sherman antitrust law. The evidence showed that the company controlled ninety-five per cent of the towing business on the Great Lakes. The decree recites that letters of the towing company officials to its agents in various ports not only suggested to them the cutting of rates, but in some instances suggested the bribery of port officials. The company is given thirty days in which to suggest to the court the means of dissolution and complete elimination of present and past practises.

Thousands of human lives and hundreds of vessels, valued with their cargoes at nearly eleven million dollars, were saved from the perils of storm-swept seas by the little cutters of the revenue service which guard the coastline of the United States in an unbroken line from Maine to Texas and from Alaska to California. A total of two hundred and sixty distressed vessels were assisted during the year, and their burden, twenty-two hundred and twelve souls, rescued from danger. Forty-five derelicts and other dangerous obstructions to navigation were removed or destroyed. "For every dollar the government invested in the maintenance of the revenue cutter service," says Captain Bertholf, "there has been a return of $4.36 in the form of property and lives saved from the perils of the sea."

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