The Duluth Rip Saw

THE LOCAL TELEPHONE SITUATION.

Citizens of St. Paul fear that they have been robbed of home rule and, specifically, telephone control, by the Minnette law of 1915. They are setting about to file a complaint against the Tri-state Telephone company with the state railroad and warehouse commission, charging excessive telephone rates.

Duluth, a home rule city, is in a similar plight as St. Paul and other cities. The monopolistic, non-resident Bell Telephone interests must be held highly responsible for this twisting of conditions and this robbery of the cities in local control of public utilities.

Although the citizens of St. Paul have awakened, they are somewhat in the condition of the man who locked the barn door after the horse was stolen. In Duluth, citizens have not even done that much and, as for the city council, the kindly old commissioners are asleep and snoring so loudly that they can be heard in Superior.

Not being satisfied with robbing Duluth of home rule, so far as telephone systems are concerned, these absentee monopolists, who do business in Minnesota in the name of the Bell Telephone company, are putting the shackles on Duluth still further by absorbing the Zenith telephone system, a system in which the people once had a direct and actual interest, but who now have nothing but a befogged memory of said interest.

Rates have gone up and service has gone down. Duluth, a city committed to public ownership of public utilities finds itself dangerously near utter helplessness in its power to save reasonable telephone rates to the public and, perhaps, utter helplessness as to acquiring, owning and operating a municipal telephone system.

The city commissioners are doing absolutely nothing so far as their constituents can see. With the somnolent scheming, snarling Samuelson, with all his entanglements and poverty of intellect for city attorney, perhaps nothing could be done, even if this complacent and mediocre administration tried.

The people should make their voices heard to an extent that some honest, capable and energetic lawyer will be employed to see if the people have any rights left in the Zenith company, as against the Bell company.

Quick sharp, decisive action is imperative.

If the absorption of the Zenith company and its prospective liquidation have not gone too far, then the Zenith telephone system should be condemned, taken over and operated by the city, with rates barely above cost and within the reach of thousands who really cannot afford the present sky-high rates of the greedy, monopolistic Bell company.