September 19, 1973
Page 30514
PERSON TO PERSON – BY TELEPHONE
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I am proud to see that the old ways of personalized dealings between people and newfangled mechanical inventions have been saved in Maine. Last week, the Maine Public Utilities Commission ruled that the citizens of Bryant Pond, Maine, can keep their comfortable, old hand cranked telephone system. The Maine Public Utilities Commission agreed that the hand cranked system has decided advantages over "the increasing depersonalization and indifferences which are a by-product of modern life."
This victory of people over depersonalization is reported in the Washington Star of September 6, 1973. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
CRANK CALLS SAVED BY BELL
Up in Bryant Pond, Maine, the old ways won a battle against modernization yesterday.
Bryant Pond is the last town in New England to have hand-cranked, magneto telephones.
Subscribers to the Bryant Pond Telephone Co. service are told in their phone books to "signal the operator by turning the crank before removing the receiver."
A couple in South Paris, Maine, which borders Bryant Pond had complained to the Maine Public Utilities Commission that people calling them from outside the area had trouble getting through because they could not call directly.
But the Bryant Ponders rose up as a body to defend their system. Some 200 townspeople showed up at a hearing to support the old ways – the company has only 350 subscribers – and defended it as being perfectly adequate and more personal than modern, automated methods.
And yesterday the commission agreed.
"We have carefully reviewed the complaint in this case and are convinced that the problem the complainants are having with incoming toll calls is not with the Bryant Pond system but rather with the unfamiliarity of Bell System personnel with the magneto system," the commission said.
The commission added that the old system has decided advantages when placed in perspective with "the increasing depersonalization and indifferences which are a byproduct of modern life."