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years, or any fixed length of time, but perpetually and upon any increase of capital stock. These licensees, however, were not guaranteed by the parent company against infringers of the patents, or given protection in any way equal at the time to the rights which they sacrificed. The makers of other apparatus which infringed the patent came into their territory unmolested and sold in competition with them. The result is that during the past ten years the licensees have not secured any considerable portion of the profits which justly belong to them. In return for the stock which they surrendered the local companies were to secure a special rate upon apparatus, which would enable them to compete successfully with any rivals. As a matter of fact this privilege was never secured and the apparatus of other manufacturers could be obtained upon the market at a price which was actually less than that which they had to pay to the parent company.

During the year 1885 systematic attacks upon the rates charged by operating Bell companies were started in several states, notably in Massachusetts and in Indiana. In Massachusetts the movement began the previous year, and is said to have been instigated by and supported almost entirely through the efforts of one man who felt that he had not been fairly treated by his associates when the local company in which he was a shareholder had been absorbed in a general consolidation. The method this man adopted was to employ boys in different cities to rapidly circulate petitions in favor of reducing telephone rates in the respective localities. Naturally, not only friends and acquaintances of the boys, but thousands of other persons signed the petitions to help the lads earn the promised pennies. In this manner a total of about 50,000 signatures were secured. When these petitions were presented to the legislature, it was shown that nearly three fourths of the signers were not subscribers to telephone service, that a number of names had been placed on the petitions without authority, and that many of the alleged petitioners could not be located. For instance, ninety signatures were secured in Lynn, and only four of the entire number represented telephone subscribers. Of the eighty-six non-subscribrs, the names of twenty-seven did not appear in the city directory, nor could the individuals be found. Then it was publicly charged that this lot of petitions had been shown to the Bell interests and offered to them for $12,000 in cash. It was further stated that

as no purchaser could be found, the whole batch of petitions finally found their way to the legislature, which, in its final judgment, placed the same value upon them as the directors of the Bell company had previously done.

On April 13, 1885, the Indiana legislature passed a drastic law that later was repealed:

that no individual, company or corporation now or hereafter owning, controlling or operating any telephone line in operation in this State shall be allowed to charge, collect or receive as rental for the use of such telephones a sum exceeding three dollars per month where one telephone only is rented by one individual, company or corporation. Where two or more telephones are rented by the same individual, company or corporation, the rental per month for each telephone so rented shall not exceed two dollars and fifty cents per month.

When this law went into effect, six different companies or individuals were operating telephone exchanges in Indiana under Bell licenses,