People's voice., 1900-06-21
Municipal Ownership.

lest citizen is entitled to the greatest
degree of comfort that associated eff
fort can provide. 1t is organized love,
manifesting itself in service. 1t is
patriotism of the highest and purest
type. 1t is the casting down of idols
and the lifting up of ideals. 1t is
dethroning the millionaires and ex-
alting the millions Happily, we
are passing away from the abject
worship of mere dollars to realiza-
tion of the truth so tersely stated by
the simple NazareDe nearly nineteen
hundred years ago; "Ye cannot wor-
ship God and Mammon. And we are
coming to measure men not by their
ability to organize industry aud use
their fellow men simply as proft-mak-
ing machines but by their ability to
organize industry and serve their fell
low men.
Municipal ownership is all right
with regard to water works, but not
as to street railways said a learned
judge to me recently. If | were a
young man that had been trained with
proper respect for the bench, | pre-
sumo | would have accepted this decla-
ration as final, because of the learn
ing of the judge, but had this judge
used his reason instead of accepting
the reasoning of some hired man en-
ployed bv the corporations, he would
have known that the same principle
applies to both classes of service, and
that if it is good for the city to own
its own water works, it is good that
every utility that ministers to all of
the people shall be owned in the same
way.
The growth OF sentiment in favor of
public ownership, as seen in this con-
vention Of representative men, indi-
Gates that the mind of the people is
rapidly clarifying on this question.
They are beginning to see that no good
reason exists why all the the people in
the city shall say to few of the peo.
pie, the lighting company, the water
works company, the street railway
company, Now all of US will give
you Ia few of u.s. the right to get rich
offsfrOm the rest of us
The people learn that they can serve
themselves better without profit than
a private corporation can serve them
with profit as an incentive for their
effort.
But the greatest good that we are to
find through municipal ownership will
be found in the improved quality Of
our citizenship.
l believe that the great need of the
hour is that the people shall be edu-
Gated upon this subject OF cooperation
in social service.
Think of the countless thousands
who toll long, weary hours at hard,
exhausting labor for a mere pittance,
barely enough to keep soul and body
together, without hope or ambition.
Certainly we cannot look for a very
high class of citizenship from this
great and ever increasing army.
The little children must be rescued
from our factories and sweat shops, no
less than from the slums and saloons,
if they grow up to an appreciation Of
their responsibility as citizens. All the
the horrors of our present day indus.
trialism must be changed. Patriotic
men and women must no longer be
willing to live by robbing children Of
their childhood and young girls o.
their maidenhood through taking theil
toll in stores and factories at SO. so t.
IS week: and the very fact that the
children and young girls may be hid
den from our gaze or the profit tina
we make come to our hands through
the thin gauze Of corporation
should never for one moment hide th'
wrong from the quiekened social con
science of the man or woman VIII
truly loves his country. deny tn
right of any man or woman living b.
such means to claim to be patriotic
1t is true there are thousands who's
attention has never been called to thi
wrong. but those of US who have ha
our eyes opened to this iniquity ar
nothing less than particeps crimini
unless we cry out against this spolia
ton of our people for the sake c
; private profit. When we shall hav
! realized the perfected republic the
} we shall find the good of the individu:
J only in the good of all.
e Multi. Millionaire S. Harvey Horne
and f. A. DinsmOre of Caldwell, al