The Brinkley argus., 1907-10-11
ITEMS NOT CHARGED
Strange Omissions In the Chicago
 Lighting Plant Report.

 However, of Lost Taxes, Wator, De- preciation, Rent or of Half Dozen Other Important Elements of Ex- pense-Eiqgest M. o. Plant In the country--Its Service as Poor as It's Report Is Misleading.
 | The largest municipal electric light plant in the United States i5 that op- erated by the city of Chicago. Natu- rally students of municipal ownership l turn to it's reports as one of the prin- cipal sources of information on the subject. Unfortunately, however, these reports have been 50 worded as to give the false impression that the municipal lights cost the city much less than if they were supplied by contract with private company.
 Newspapers all over the country have announced that Chicago's street llGhts during 1906 cost only $52.33 per iamp. and they are rot to be blamed for max l ing this assertion, for twice on page l 12 of the report for that year $5-.39 l is given as the total cost per lamp l It is true that elsewhere in the report | this statement is modified by the adj mission that this "cost' doesn't 1n- clude interest, lost taxes, water, de preciation, rent of offices and poles, 1 judgments against the city on account of accidents, proportion of the cos., of the offices of the comptroller, audi l tor. business agent and other branches l of the city government, etc, but the edge is taken off this admission by l the further statement that "the cost Of l S52.39 includes all expenses actually ! borne by the city" statement, by 1 the way, which is not even technically 1 true
 The report admits that "there is some justice in the contention that these items should be charged against the lighting cost, but it makes this admis- sion only after years of refusal to Go so, and does so now because of an in l vestigation into the workings of tue plant that has recently been made, and l the findings of which will soon be pub lished.
 l Six years ago the Reform club of I New York employed well known ] firm of accountants to find out what l Chicago's lights were really costing At l that time the city claimed cost of l S6".O9, but the accountants reported l the real cost as S99.SS and made no l allowance for damages, street repairs, l rent of offices and poles or the lighting 1 departments share of tho expense for 1 auditing, purchasing and legal ex- 1 penses and a very low allowance for 1 deprecia tion But the city authorities l totally ignored the findings of this dis interested and expert investigation. l The unfairness of the report is fur | ther shown by it's comparison of the per capita cost of lighting Chicago and l five other cities that do not operate municipal lighting plants. In the first place, the street lighting of Chicago is
 notorously inadequate, and in the sec ond place, while the rates i'll the other
 cities cover the entire cost of lighting, 1 il Chicago they include only a fraction
 of the cost.
 1 Perhaps the most misleading feature
 of the report is it's orcpariSon of the
 alleged cost of the municipal lights
 with the rates charged by the private | company with which the city contracts for TAG Of its lamps. These are in the | outskirts of the city, where the cost of
 maintaining them is very high on ac l count of their long distance from the l generating station and their remote
 ness from each other. That Is why the | city contracts for them. Yet the report
 assumes that the company would
 charge just as high rate if it had the
 contract for all the lights. This as-
 sumption is not only m&nifestly absurd,
 but is directly contrary to the facts, as
 one of the companies offered a reduc-
 tion of more than oGe-quarter of it's
 contract price if it were given the en-
 tire lighting contract.
 In making comparisons the quality
 of the service is an important cons;d-
 eration, and the service of the Chicago
 city plant is bad. It cheats the public
 both by the frequency of oatages
 Camps going out and staying out the
 rest of the night and by stealing it's
 
 age below the point at which the cur
 rent keeps the lamps up to their rated
 candlepower In many cases observers
 have noted that. especially after mid
 night, the lamps give only q dull glow
 at the carbon points and are of practi-
 cally no value as lights This is done
 to reduce coal consumption and of
 course makes great difference fin the
 cost of operation. It would not be tol-
 erated from private company, which
 would also be penalized for outages.
 These things are quite naturally not
 mentioned in the report
 To sum up, the report gives the i'm
 pression to the casual reader that the
 municipal plant Is giving good service
 at low cost, while the facts are that
 It's service is poor and that the cost is
 much higher than if the lights were Gsn vs<.1