Albuquerque evening citizen. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1905-1907, 1905-12-04
Growth of Municipal
Ownership Movement
BY PROF. FRANK PARSONS Of Boston.

Chicago has voted FIVE to one in favor of municipal
ownership of the whole gas and electric lighting business
Every ward from the richest to the poorest gave a ma
Jority Tor municipal ownership in that famous %referen-
dunn.
Chicago has also polled an overwhelming vote in
favor OF municipal ownership Of street railways, and
Mayor Dunno was elected on a municipal ownership
platform.
Now the tidal wave has reached New York. and
Hearst has received 100000 votes and more upon IA NUM-
cipal ownership platform. If amman fraudulent
votes can be cancelled and a fair count made, the muni-
clpal ownership mayor will take his seat, for there is no
reasonable doubt that a large majority of the voters cast
their ballots for Hearst, municipal ownership and good
government.
in progress for more than a hundred years. In 1900 all
but one of the sixteen water works in the United States
were private; only the plant in Winchester, Va, was. pub
lie. Nearly "a per cent of the works were private and
only about 6 per cent public.
Now the number of public works is nearly 60 per
cent of the whole number in the country, a tenfold
growth of the ratio in about 100 years.
OF the fifty largest cities in the United States, TWEEN
ty-one originally built and now own their water works
and twenty more have changed from private to public
ownership-more than so per cent are now public.
In Massachusetts, twenty-nine plants out of sixty
seven have changed from private to public ownership.
In other words, 43 per cent of the works built by private
changed the other way. In New York there have been
twenty-six, changes from private to public and one the
other way.
According to Bakers Water Manual, there have been
over two hundred changes from private to public owner
ship and only twenty changes the other way in the whole
United States.
In Massachusetts,, according to the last report have
seen, rs per cent of the water works are now public, in
Illinois rs per cent, Michigan 81 per cent, Iowa so per
cent, New York so per cent, Minnesota 81 per cent, Ne
braska SO per cent. From 100 per cent private to 70,
7S and 81 per cent public in less than a century is a very
decided change.
And the movement is accelerating; from 1890 to 1896,
the growth of public ownership was far more rapid than
at any previous period, the public works more than doub-
ling in the six years Q10 per cent increase, to be more
e%xact), while the private works increased only a little
over one-third $50 per cent?.
The movement toward municipal ownership abroad
has also shown remarkable vigor, especially in Great
Britain and Germany, where about six hundred cities
own their gas works. Scotland has ~forty-fve
public gas works to four private works, and outside Of
London more than half the gas used in Great Britain
and more than half the consumers are supplied by public
works.
But the most remarkable public ownership move
ment in any country is the rapid development of NUM-
cipal operation of street railways in Great Britain. Be
fore 1893, only one town owned and operated its tram
ways; from 1893 to 1895, four cities undertook the oper-
alton of street railways; from 1896 to 1898, eleven cities
entered the field and now more than half the municipali-
ties in Great Britain own their tramways and ffty-one
cities and towns operate their street railway systems.
Municipal ownership has made great progress in
many other countries. Can anyone doubt that a move
the civilized world is founded on excellent reasons and
is the result of the growing civic and economic enlight-
enment in the people?