anation is that charges have been so reduced
that the telephone has been brought within the reach of practically
every business house and every family. Until the year 1900 every
telephone subscriber had to pay $240 a year, and manifestly only
families in affluent circumstances could afford such a luxury. About
that time a new system of charges known as the "message rate" plan was
introduced, according to which the subscriber paid a moderate price for
a stipulated number of calls, and a pro rata charge for all calls in
excess of that number. Probably no single change in any business has had
such an instantaneous effect. The telephone, which had hitherto been an
external symbol of prosperity, suddenly became the possession of almost
every citizen.

Other companies than the Bell interests have participated in this
development. The only time the Bell Company has had no competitor, Mr.
Vail has said, was at the Philadelphia Centennial in 1876. Some of this
competition has benefited the public but much of it has accomplished
little except to enrich many not over-scrupulous promoters. Groups of
farmers who frequently started companies to furnish service at cost did
much to extend the use of the telephone. Many of the companies which,
when the Bell patents expired in 1895, sprang up in the Middle West,
also manifested great enterprise and gave excellent service. These
companies have made valuable contributions, of which perhaps the
automatic telephone, an instrument which enables a subscriber to call
up his "party" directly, without the mediation of "central," is the most
ingenious. Although due acknowledgment must be made of the honesty and
enterprise with which hundreds of the independents are managed, the fact
remains that they are a great economic waste. Most of them give only a
local service, no company having yet arisen which aims to duplicate the
comprehensive national plans of the greater corporation. As soon as an
independent obtains a foothold, the natural consequence is that every
business house and private household must either be contented with
half service, or double the cost of the telephone by subscribing to two
companies. It is not unlikely that the "independents" have exercised a
wholesome influence upon the Bell Corporation, but, as the principle of
government regulation rather than individual competition has now become
the established method of controlling monopoly, this influence will
possess less virtue in