The log cabin Democrat., 1907-02-07

1Our or nVe poorly pald OHClalS have Perhaps our opponents will be able to explain how the spells system can operate in any great degree under municipal ownership when the people are the stock holdersjn the water plant. When the private citizen realizes that his vote will have a direct bearing upon the health and comfort of his city, that his ballot will determine the quality of water which his fam fly uses, when he knows that the man who monthly presents him a water bill, is his own servant in- stead of the servant of a private company, then he will be careful, from a strong personal interest, to elect honest and capable managers of public enterprises.
 Not only in the United States but even in Europe, there is less political corruption under munich pal ownership than there is under private ownership. In England and Germany municipal ownership is the rule. German cities not only own their waterworks but even their street car systems, cleo tric light plants, etc. If public ownership primes the spells system then political life in Germany must be intolerable. But no, quite the 'contrary. Dr. Albert Shaw tells that European cities, especially those of Germany, are we'll gov erned and apply business-like principles in selecting adminstra- tive servants.
 In the third place, Mir. Chair man, if we look at this question from an economic point of view, we must give the preference to municipal ownership. The very fact that public water supply has come to be looked at as the natural order of events, is in itself strong evidence that municipal ownership has proved its case. But we must here give a few of the vast num- Der of specific proofs: In Schen ectady, N. Y, just before the water system became public, water was supplied to privafe families at So per year. Public ownership re- duced this rate to g and still there was a good profit. In Auburn, N. Y., the family rate was reduced from SS to S6 when the city bought the plant. In Syracuse the family rate was SIo under private owner ship but city ownership reduced it to S. This reduction of rates ac- cording to the chief city engineer of Syracuse, saved the the citizens SIoo, 900 last year. In 1890, M N. Baker, associate editor of the Engineering News, collected the rates of SIS public water plants and 47O private systems scattered thougnout the country. The re- results speak for themselves. In every case the rate was greater under private than under public ownership. We give only the average cost by states. In Maine this rate under private ownership was $S and under public owner ship S6, New York g and S6, Massachusetts S7 and S6, Pennsvl- vania S7 and S6, Rhode Island SS and $. Virginia SS and S6, Geor- gia SIo and S6, Texas SI6 and Sc.
 Our opponents will probably raise the objection that we have used figures almost entirely as found in regard to northern states. While the greater number of waterworEs in this section of the country is under municipal ownership, yet we were unable to get full statis- tics as this change has come over the South only in the last few years. But notice~fn the statistics given above that in the only south ern states given, the ratio in favor of municipal ownership is very much larger than the ratio found in the northern states As we said before, the ratio in Texas is $16 and So, in Georgia $Io and $6, while in New York and Massachu- setts it is only $7 to $6. To quote MT. Baker: "In every state and territory in the union and in every province in Canada, private work CTS show a higher total family rate than public" Again one of MT. Bakers assistants compiled table giving the names of an equal num- Der of cities having private and public water supplies. These cities are about equal as regards popula- tion, consumption and cost of pro- duction. We are giving first the