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Down With The
Telegraph Poles
The “News Letter” has repeatedly urged upon the
authorities of San Francisco the necessity of compelling corporations which are
engaged in the conveyance through our streets (for any purpose) of the
electrical fluid, to place their wires underground. It has been demonstrated
over and over again that the maintenance of a forest of poles and a network of
wires overhead is not merely atrociously unsightly, but also alarmingly
dangerous. The danger arises from a number of causes. In cases of fire, these
wires retard the movements of the firemen to an extent which is liable at any
moment to lead to the loss of millions of dollars worth of property, besides
imperiling human lives. Another evidence of the dangers arising out of the use
of poles and overhead electric wires was given in New Orleans on the 30th of
December last, when an organ-grinder who was leaning against one of the poles of
the Louisiana Electric Company was suddenly struck dead by a flash of
electricity which descended the pole from the wires it bore. This, of course, is
a very unusual incident, but yet it is liable to occur at any moment and to any
person.
If such dangers were unavoidable, they would have to be tolerated. But they are
not unavoidable. They can easily be guarded against by placing the wires
underground. The subterranean system has been tested, and has been found to work
excellently. In Chicago an underground circuit of fifteen thousand miles has
been established, and after a four-years’ fight the municipal authorities have
at length compelled the telegraph companies to place their wires in this system,
and take down their unsightly poles. It is time for our Board of Supervisors to
do likewise.
San Francisco News Letter and California Advertiser
January 16, 1886
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