Offer to buy B & O telegraph by Brotherhood of Telegraphers

Wanting To Buy a Telegraph System.

It is said that an offer to buy the telegraph property of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company has been made by the Brotherhood of Telegraphers of the United States. The sum offered is $3,000,000; $500,000 cash on the acceptance of the proposition, and the remaining 2,500,000 at the end of six months. This sum it is proposed to raise by assessing each member of the Brotherhood $50 a month for six months. There are, it is said, 21,000 members, and the leaders among them entertain no doubt of their ability to thus raise the sum required. The proposition is said to be looked upon with favor by the members. Each member of the brotherhood who contributed would be a stockholder and only brotherhood men would be employed.

The negotiations for the purchase of the Baltimore & Ohio plant have been conducted with the greatest secrecy and with such caution that neither Gould, Ives nor Sully knew they had such rivals in the field. Rumor has it that the Knights of Labor are lending & helping hand in the transaction. A co-operative telegraph company has been under consideration by such men as Campbell, the leader in the telegraphers' strike in 1883; J. B. Taltavall; Shaw, of St. Louis; Morris, of Chicago; Buckley, Quick and Tom O'Reilly, of this city, and many other prominent members of the profession. The committee having charge of the details of the proposed purchase, consisting of some of the above, have already waited on Mr. Garrett with the offer of the Telegraphers' Brotherhood. If the answer is favorable, details will at once he perfected so a [sic] as to be ready for submission to the National Convention of Telegraphers, which meets at an early date. In addition to the support expected from the members of. the brotherhood itself, it is anticipated that the Operators' Telegraph Company, a co-operative organization already in successful working trim in the West, will lend its money and influence to the promotion of the new scheme. It is thought by the operators that no difficulty will be experienced in collecting the assessment of $50 per month for six months from each of the 21,000 or more members of the brotherhood.