494
UNITED STATES
The total capital invested in railways (stock, funded and unfunded debt) on December 31, 1918, was 20,784,832,841 dollars, and the total amount paid in dividends and interest was 842,471,285 dollars. The number of locomotives was 67,936.
The telegraphs of the United States are largely in the hands of the Western Union Telegraph Company, which had (December 31, 1919) 245,560 miles of line, 1,433,978 miles of wire, and 25,452 offices; the number of messages sent in 1912 (the latest, available returns) was estimated at 90,000,000, not including messages sent over leased wires or under railroad contracts ; the receipts (corporate and Federal), in 1919, 104,082,147 dollars; expenses (corporate and Federal) 90,312,033 dollars ; and profits (corporate and Federal), 13,770,114 dollars.
The following table relates to the business of another important company ; the figures of the table do not represent the operations of one company, but the aggregation of the figures of many companies which go to make up the telephone system which is generally known as the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (' Bell Telephone System ') on January 1 of each year : —
-
1917
1918
1919 5,742
1920
Number of central offices
5,397
5,676
5,731
Total miles of exchange service wire
17,107,405
19,521,679
19,947,230
20,643,490
Number of telephones owned
6,545,490
7,031,530
7,201.757
7,739,159
Total employees ....
179,032
102,364
187,458
209,860
Length of wire operate miles
19,850,315
22,610,487
23,281,150
24,162,999
Number of exchange messages daily
28,530,073
30,845,153
30,001,146
29,561,000'-!
Capital of Companies . dollars
463,101,569
505,403,777
513,017,040
512,121,868
Revenue . . . . ,,
301,867,172
( :i >
( 3 )
—
Income 1 .... „
50,714, -.HI
51,947,767
51,957,565
"
1 Including private-line telephones.
2 Based on daily average messages for lust five months of 1919.
3 The Bell Telephone System was under Federal control during the last five months of 1918, and a complete income statement for the properties of the system was, therefore, not available for January 1, 1919.
The postal business of the United States was as follows : —
Fiscal Year ending June 30
1918 1919 1920
Pieces of Mail
handled in
Railway Mail
Service
14,134,736,744 14,962.066,979 15,471,523,112
Registered
Cases and
other
single pieces
in R.M.8.
67,725,479 83.172.6S2 93,107,220
Rotary locked
registered
pouchos
and sacks
handled
in R.M.S.
4 370,386 », 868.976
4,503,882
Total
14 206,832,609 15,049.093,636 15,569,134,214
Money orders issued (1919-1920) :—
Dollars Domestic. . . 148,490,987 amounting to 1,332,699,836 International . . 1,351,847 „ 32,960,048
Total
. 149,842,834
1,365,659,884
