The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-11-26
NIuntcipnl Own ersnip.

Your editorial in Fridays issue en- titled Not an Unalloyed Good once more prompts a reply on the question of municipal ownership, which Is with out doubt one of the great questions of the hour and Is so recognized by all progressive thinkers.
 The most remarkable point about your article and MT. Porter's quoted remarks is that at no place is the ques- tion asked, "Is it right?'' or 'Is it wrong?" Nowhere does it rise above the plane of expediency, and question of profits, and the fact that some mu- niclpalities get poorer service under their own control than from corpora tions, is accepted as conclusive.
 Last year I visited a plantation in Georgia. It was wreck of it's former greatness, yet free men were working it instead of slaves, and much blood was split in making the change, still think it would be hard to find those who would advocate a return to the former condition on account of its greater efficiency of management.
 To rail against the free planter for his inefficiency when he has had no chance to test his powers, is equivalent to saying municipal ownership Is failure, when we are just beginning to put 1t into practical use.
 The first question to be decided Is the question of right or wrong, and then apply ourselves to securing the right. and not stand idly by while keener and unprincipled men take away our rights and then turn around and ask us what we are going to do about 1t.
 I have no doubt there are men as competent observers as MT. Porter. who would manage my domestic affairs much more economically than I can, but I want none of them, nor do we as a city want philanthropic gentlemen who buy up aldermen at so much head to give us such wonderful econ- omy
 To compare public service in England with those in America is not to the point it is simply subterfuge to throw dust in the eyes of people who have not taught themselves to think clearly. There are some things in England we might adopt, and there are some things here they could copy with galn we want the best there Is to be had, and we want the chance to test these things for ourselves, and so grow out of baby hood into manhood by healthy evolu ton instead of just as some corporation magnate things fit to bestow them. There is no doubt in my mind of any thinking man that public service cor porations are responsible for most mu- nicipal corruption, and this in itself would be sufficient to condemn the sys- tenn were it not for the profit they make out of it. The keynote of municipal ownership is ITO the producer belongs the product The franchises of a city are created by the people as body and should be held by them as such. And yet we find MT. Porter advocating the private ownership of public property on the ground of greater efficiency of This may be college eth ics and good academic reasoning, but I venture the assertion that the com mon herd who have never been pervert- ed by the sagebrush phraseology the logic of the schools, would at once decide that private property be- longs to the individual who created it and public property belongs to the body polite.
 The mass of the people are aware of these facts and no man is doing more to day to educate them than Tom L. Johnson, mayor of Cleveland, O.. and | another who is doing his utmost in the | same direction as your humble servant, l
 w. TRUEMAN