. Bell telephone magazine . rst patent. Govern- ment actions have affected the com-munications industry adversely onsome occasions, and benefited it onothers. They have helped shape itsdecisions—and helped decide theshape of the business. The Long Lines department, forexample, was launched as an oper-ating company essentially becausea conservative Massachusetts legis-lature would not allow a businessto capitalize at more than $1 mil-lion. This was not enough to startthe nationwide telephone networkTheodore Vail envisioned, and soAT&T moved to New York. That was in 1885. The telephonebusiness,
. Bell telephone magazine . rst patent. Govern- ment actions have affected the com-munications industry adversely onsome occasions, and benefited it onothers. They have helped shape itsdecisions—and helped decide theshape of the business. The Long Lines department, forexample, was launched as an oper-ating company essentially becausea conservative Massachusetts legis-lature would not allow a businessto capitalize at more than $1 mil-lion. This was not enough to startthe nationwide telephone networkTheodore Vail envisioned, and soAT&T moved to New York. That was in 1885. The telephonebusiness, as most businesses, wasa small enterprise at the time. Inthe ensuing years, as the businessgrew, governmental involvement inthe business also grew. Today there is hardly a major ac-tivity conducted in the Bell Systemthat does not come under the scru-tiny of some governmental unit-pricing, sales, purchasing, financ-ing, expenditures, taxes, personnelpractices, wages and hours, pen-sions. Cite an activity and you likely. will find that the government is in-terested in how the Bell System iscarrying it out. Big companies also affect theirenvironment on a larger scale. Theyattract large numbers of employeesand this requires that the commu-nity provide more schools, housing,roads, public transportation, healthcare and other services. Often theycause or contribute to air and waterpollution. Such external effects ofdoing business present problemsthat business and government todayare working in tandem to resolve. Recently retired AT&T presidentand board chairman H. I. Romnesexpressed that working relationshipin these terms: In recent years, we in the UnitedStates have evolved-in the prag-matic fashion of Americans-a newamalgam of public and private ef-forts, which we apply in constantlyvarying combinations to the direc-tion of our affairs and the solutionof our problems. It conforms to noideology or dogma. It is uniquelyAmerican. This interpenetration of the pub-lic and private secto
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