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Seattle Holds Meetings of Operating How Should a Wire Chief Conduct His Department?

Executives.

Seattle and Los Angeles appear to be engaged in a race to see which will outdo the other in successful operating. Los Angeles' system of holding meetings has been outlined in the the Magazine. In Seattle meetings of operating employees have been held for a year and a half, under a slightly different plan.

In Seattle, Service Manager H. V. Parkinson has arranged eight regular meetings a month, so that every person in any position of authority in all of the local and longdistance offices attends one meeting a month. The meetings are held in the service manager's office and last from two to two and one-half hours. Supper is served in the main dining room, and the meetings permit of the chief operators and supervisors from the several exchanges becoming acquainted. Meetings of operators are held as occasion requires, and these are made brief and full of business.

Seattle chief operators are encouraged to take notes and bring up questions at meeting time, and this is found to be most profitable.

In the wire chiefs' contest, papers which were considered worthy of honorable mention, besides those published, were submitted by the following gentlemen: O. R. Cole, city wire chief, San Francisco; J. P. Dunphy, division wire chief, Oakland; W. S. Johnson, wire chief, Modesto; James Oliver Jensen, wire chief, Palo Alto; E. E. Lincoln, wire chief, Eureka; R. W. Frisbee, Boyle, wire chief, Los Angeles; Edward A. Wright, wire chief, Salinas; John R. Adams, main office, Los Angeles; J. B. Spowart, wire chief, main exchange, San Francisco; Jay F: Muldoon (deceased). main office wire chief, Seattle; G. J. English, wire chief, west exchange, San Francisco; W. E. Alexander, city wire chief, San Jose; L. Morel, wire chief, Alameda; J. A. Etter, wire chief, Oakland; J. C. Dunn, wire chief, San Luis Obispo; S. E. Barr, wire chief, Tacoma; J. A. LaCost, wire chief, East office, Los Angeles; E. A. Keith, wire chief, Bakersfield; E. H. Long, division wire chief, Los Angeles.

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The law of worthy life is fundamentally the law of strife. It is only through labor and painful effort, by grim energy and resolute courage, that we move on to better things.-Theodore Roosevelt.

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The Pacific Telephone Magazine popular, in spite of defaulting cashiers. The

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When George Washington was President, a hatter made his hats, and sold them to his customers in his own shop. This meant that in the cost of every hat there must be figured

Hats and Telephones

the price of skilled labor involved, and a quite surprising selling expense due to the fact that the hatter's factory was located in the retail district, and rent must be figured in selling expense. Besides, the hatter, a skilled artisan, was also the salesman. The introduction of system, whereby a minimum expense is made possible for every feature of manufacture and sale, quite as much as the introduction of machinery into the operation of manufacture, has resulted in much better hats for much less money.

A corporation is an organization of capital formed for the economical administration of a business. In some cases, unscrupulous men have secured control of large combinations of capital and have exploited the resources of a corporation for their own selfish ends. This should not discredit cor

life insurance investigations in New York showed clearly enough that there had been rank extravagance in management, but after the first shock, public faith in life insurance was increased. This was because the investigations showed that, in spite of extravagance and even dishonesty, the life insurance business was fundamentally right. Occasionally a preacher messes in domestic unpleasantness, or a Sunday School superin

tendent steals the school's funds, but such discrepancies do not affect the general belief that churches and Sunday Schools are right. Corporations are subject to the attacks of who seek, by unscrupulous demagogues, who smirching reputations of better men than they, publicity which is necessary to their schemes for personal advancement in public trust positions. These attacks do not, however, serve to undermine the basic principle that corporations are necessary for the economic administration of large businesses.

The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company has, in round numbers, 200 exchanges of 100 or more stations. Probably 200,000 stations are served by these 200 exchanges, an average of 1000 to each exchange. The company is managed by a few experts, who oversee its affairs through men Besides this, the less expert than they. company is affiliated with The American Telephone and Telegraph Company, a cor

poration of national scope. The American Telephone and Telegraph Company hires the greatest telephone specialists in the world. to devise new ways of administering the telephone business more economically and more satisfactorily to patrons. The services of these experts are provided as occasion may require, for The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company, and affiliated companies.

Imagine for a moment the condition which would result if The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company were broken into 200 parts. Each exchange, operating as an individual, would have to employ experts in operating, maintenance, construction, and and administration. The salaries which these men would properly receive would consume all the profits of the business. It would be necessary either to dispense with the employment of these men, which would mean poor service at once, and a speedy break-up of the business, or to provide for the expense by greatly increasing telephone rentals.

To follow the example farther brings us to even more striking evidence. Suppose each exchange must make its own telephone instruments, or buy them; suppose it were necessary to do the same with wire and all other supplies; suppose the toll business must be eliminated, and this would be necessary if every exchange were to exist as a distinct unit but why continue?

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his early education in the schools of Le Roy and Buffalo, subsequently taking a collegiate course at Cornell University. Mr. Bangs gained his first experience in telephone work in the employ of the Bell Telephone Company of Buffalo, where he remained two years. Afterwards he was employed for a year by the Western Electric Company and the Venezuela Telephone and Electric Appliance Company, Ltd. Following this he was for seven years a member of the Engineering Staff of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, and after that he was employed four years by the Southern Bell Telephone Company, and then for a similar period by the Central Union Telephone Company. Mr. Bangs while occupying the post of Chief Engineer for The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company, retains his connection with the Central Union Company. He succeeded as chief engineer for The Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company the late F. W. Alston, assuming his duties on the coast on March 1st, last.

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