The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-03-23
AS TO OUR GAS BILLS.
A Big Reduction Promised by the
New Company.
WHAT SOME PEOPLE ARE PAYING.
Citizens who Think the Present Price is En-
tirely Too High-The Reasons Tor the
Belief Within Them.

There are two little machines that no
man mas yet succeeded in ''tackling'' with
out being worsted.
These powerful and ingenious pieces of
mechanism are the galvanic battery and
the gas meter.
Men have tried in various ways to get the
best of the gas meter, but have signally
failed They have tried to curtail its regis
tering power by turning out the lights
and going 10 bed, but they only woke up in
the morning to find that it had been at
work while they had been sleeping. They |
have closed the shutters and bolted the |
doors, tied the dog in the cellar and gone
away for the summer, but on their return |
the gas collector met them on the front step |
and demanded the same gas bills that they |
had paid when giving AT Home recep |
| tons until the small hours of morning.
Like Tennyson's Brook this devise
''goes on forever
Its avaricious fingers keep digging away
at the pockets OF the rich and poor alike,
and as persistently as a red headed wood
pecker at dead tree for live worm.
1t laughs at city ordinances, and IS as
much beyond the control OF legislation ana
a fair count as the Utah registering board.
Millionaires have found in it rich fields
for exploration.
1t has built up syndicates which have
corrupted the legislatures of great cities
and threatened the very existence OF free
government. The Philadelphia syndicate,
for time, threatened to capture the gas
plants OF every American city and would
have succeeded, had not science and the
press set obstacles in its way. Science
: gave electricity, while the press aroused
the people and whipped corrupt city legis-.
latures for conspiring with the gas trusts
9 to defraud the people. The right of the
people to supply the people with cheap
t light was maintained with such power that
: the Master Thieves were for time CON-
PEELED to sell their product at a fair price
5 or dig up their rusty pipes out of the pub
! lie streets. Hundreds of cities in Great
: Britain and Germany built their own gas
8 plants and furnished cheap light to their
inhabitants. They proved so successful
: that Philadelphia followed their example
t and owns one of the best gas plants in the
United States, all paid for, while giving its
t citizens gas at about one-haf the price
S charged in cities where it was supplied by
/ private concerns. Richmond, Va, and
G other cities have found that the plan of a
city owning it's own gas plant works admi-
rably.
Monopoly ridden. New York gave away
n it's street franchises to the private com
panies, and it is estimated that the gas COM
panies have taken as much as hundred
million dollars profits out of The pockets of
the people, the majority of them poor and
impoy erished.
The gas plant in this city recently
changed hands.
T. In the mad haste to claim every change
a benefit, the danger of saddling on this
city more gigantic monopoly than the one
n eradicated was never limited at. Chang
ing one form of tyranny for another, is the
ruling insincerity of the passing hour. The
3 new combinations for the benevolent pur
pose of comforting lasting benefits to this
t. city need to be watched as vigilantly a:
le the old ones and no less restrictions than ;
prudent man exercises in the conduct O.
his business, should be required of them.
The living expenses of the people SHOULD
o. be made as light as is consistent with SAT-
th business principles.
~ Cooking coal and selling the fumes is
very profitable business in a City OF thi
size and will become much more so wit
the increase in population
Three dollars per thousand feet is to-
re much for gas, even in this latitude.
The people are already demanding re
dress from this burden.
H. G. Reich, lessee of the upper floors o
the Wasatch building, to The HERALl
". said: "Our gas bills run from 800 TO $3}5
nd per month for the three upper floors. L
every other city have been in a reductio
is made for person using more than 81
per month. | use but one jet in my room
N, from TO II pm, and the bill runs as mig
~. as $40 per month. l think the gas ougt
to be furnished at from S1.T5 to 81 pc
thousand feet"
Roberts 81 Nelden, druggists, whe
ir- asked as to the price Of gas said, with hr
,e- irony: SIT is high enough Though W
es. use an electric light we have to pay $50
fOrc -aa oil 10
,p- The Coop store found their gas bill
running as high Us $500 month and wei
tire forced to put in their own electric ligi
Vi plant.
c. S. Erb, proprietor of the Walk,
of house, said that the quality of the gas WI
ap. poor and that it cost too much money. A
oil electric arc-light that costs him 80 cents
night takes the place of gas that cost
rus per month.
There were a number of other merchan
ath and business men whose remarks were
ain the same tenor.
of To get at the chances for reduction
the charges The HERALD called at q
of Office of +. H Dyer, on Commercial stree
and found Mr.. Dyer, the new manager
the company.
:, s'How much do you propose to redu
)re, the price per thousandr' asked the !
porter.
sTo minimum, over the cost OF prodl
lal, ton" said Mr.. Dyer.
tier ''Then you didn't purchase the gas pla
me. to make money out of it, but to give che
use gas to the people, Us benefactor gu
ut 'Oh, of course, there will be margin
rep profits"
"But margins are very elastic and can
"a run up to very nigh notch.''
anu Mr.. Dyer insisted that gas would be f
nished at much lower price.
''You cannot say whether the minim
= price you propose viii cover a profit of
,ox cents or 50 per thousand feet .'' still p
H. sisted the reporter.
S y 1.-The gas businessiis new to me, and III
know something of the cost of produc
it cannot say what the reduction will
except that it will be much less than
anu present"
The reporter left amid shower of
:. promises from the head of the present
IT, monopoly.
ION, W. II. MCCLURE G. CO..
Real Estate Small profits ard sure
turns 66 West Second South street,
- Lake City, Utah.
ring - -.