Arizona republican., 1896-06-20
PERPEHUATE MONOPOLY What the City Council
 Is Doing. Opposition Electric Light SyS- tenn Ordered Down. No More Poles to Be Permitted Lengthy Session of the
 Council.

It would appear by the action taken yesterday by the city council that that body is supporting the "old-line" elec- tric company, and that from this time on it shall be unlawful for any other corporation to operate in the city of Phoenix apparatus for the production of electric light or for the production and carriage of electrical power. .7
 Several months ago Gus Hirschfeld was given the privilege of conducting wires from the old Gardiner machine shops on Second street to his place. of business on Washington street, near First, such wires to be used for the purpose of transmitting electricity to be used in Block q of the city. The electrical plant used by Hirschfeld was a small one, operated by Copeland & McCallum. It was designed to uti- lize direct curTfnt apparatus.
 These many months agone the cleo tric light company purchased the appa- ratus of the Gardiner Electric Light company The Gardiner works were of low voltage, direct current, and the in- dividuals who had been it's patrons for fans or power found their appa- ratus useless and were obliged to pur- chase new fixtures, at high cost, in or der to connect with the high potential, alternating currents of the purchas- ing company AS the company had now a free field to itself the rates were naturally raised; for this the company could not be blamed; verify it had a monopoly When the Hirsohfeld plant cut into their lucrative business in saloon row. it is also natural that the company's representatives sought to find some way of stifiingy the oppo- sition.
 They have stif1ed it.
 Yesterday afternoon Hirschfeld was ordered to remove his wires from the alley and from the buildings along the alley and at the same time an order was promulgated that hereafter no more poles will be allowed to be erected in the city; that all persons having wires to carry must make arrange l ments for such carriage with the companies having poles. Thus Hirschfeld has been cut l off and the order is that he 1 have his wires down by July 1. | Hirschfeld will submit, but cannot help speculating how it has come that the mayor has so suddenly become | aware of the danger of additional poles or more electrical currents.
 A representative of The Republican yesterday afternoon found Mayor Mon 1hon and City Attorney Evans at the city council rooms and interrogated them about the order. They protested that the order is not in the interest of the electric light company, and yet at the next breath acclaimed against the ln1quity of allowing another electric system to come into the business por- ton of the city and skim off the cream of the business as might be done in Block 21 and as Hirschfeld seemed to be attempting to do.
 'NThe old company" insisted the mayor, ''goes out into the suburbs and supplies people in the outskirts even at a loss," and intimated that no in terloper had any right to come in now when the old company had been to such expense and take unto itself at a less rate the lighting of the business I portion. He even used the argument that the old company is losing money.
 The city attorney contended that Hirschfeld or no other man should be allowed to run lights simply under an order of the city council and that he should apply for a franchise by ordi- nance, though admitting that should there be such application it would be burdened with the order forbidding any more poles and not denying thai such ordinance would by them be sad dled with far more conditions than the franchise now enjoyed by the monopoly. One idea of both mayor and city attorney was that any new electric system should be bound to ex- tend it's lines all over the city, to SUD- ply lights at uniform rate through out the city and to furnish the corpo- ration with a large number of lamps as bonus for the granting of the fran chise.
 "But the old company is compelled to none of these things was urged
 That's SO" was the reply, 'ibut it got it's franchise long time ago.
 So this is the situation at present
 and the way of competing electric service would indeed be a rough one.
 A CLEANUP SESSION.
 The City Council Clears Off the File oi