The Great Telephone Monopoly Debate
Tacoma’s business elite weigh in on whether a second telephone franchise will bring healthy competition or just more tangled wires.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The Times asked representative business men of Tacoma if they favored granting a franchise to an independent telephone company. While some council members claim business leaders oppose the competition, opinions vary. Colonel C. P. Ferry argued that Tacoma should welcome competition to force better service, noting he had struggled for two years just to get the existing Sunset company to paint its poles. John R. Arkley of the Tacoma Land Improvement company agreed that competition would mean better, cheaper service. Conversely, those like H. E. O'Neil of Dickson Bros. expressed strong opposition, citing experiences in California where dual-line service actually increased costs by 75 percent. Others, like A. J. Rhodes of Rhodes Bros., worried about the visual blight of additional poles cluttering the streets.
“Competition is the life of trade.”
This debate perfectly captures the early 20th-century transition to public utilities. Modern Tacoma continues to grapple with the tension between wanting competitive infrastructure and the reality of how these monopolies function in a regional market.
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