Arizona republican., 1908-07-16
A COAST ECHO
 FROM PHOENIX
los Angeles Examiner on
 the Power Contract
More Trouble Makers Get ting Busy With Salt River Valley 4 fairs.

II IdS seemed to most 1IlOtIiN UeO- pie who have taken the trouble tO ac- quaint themselves with the facts. that the statement made by these interest ed in precipitating a controversy in respect of the power contract between the United States reclamation service and the Pacific Gas and Electric Light company, were sufficiently outrageous to answer the purposes of all those concerted. But that has not sufficed. Yesterday there arrived in Phoenix, the Los Angeles Examiner of July IA, containing a rehash of all that has been heretofore printed in criticism of the reclamation service, only that al- most every statement made Is scan dalOus enlargement of the accusations formerly made by the critics of the service and which as intimated above were far enough from the real facts.
 To intelligently grasp the comments one must know what the Examiner printed and here it is in broken doses, so the reader will not be overcome by swallowing it all at once:
 Phoenix, Arizona, has just discov- cred that a monopoly of its lighting and power privileges has been gained
 
 pany. a corporation controlled by Los Angeles bankers and officers of the Edison Electric company. Efforts have been made to break it, but the public bodies and the mayor of the territorial capital, having learned previously that the government had already given the company sole rights at the Roosevelt dam, were informed yesterday that the best they could hope for now was d reduction of lighting rates. The con tract between the government and the Pacific Gas and Electric company was signed a year ago. but the people of Phoenix did not know it until last month. Their knowledge then was gained through the plans of the cor poration to bond the privilege for | $500, ,O0O."
 The essential features of the con tract were published in the Phoenix | papers year ago before the contract was signed and all observant local readers knew about it. That publicity | was secured through the company's | efforts to bond itself is a wrong i'm 1 plication. Manager Ensign of the com | pany says that preliminaries for it's | bonding project were completed before the negotiations for the contract were entered into. The two projects had
 nothing in common. On the contrary
 it has been a matter of street report that the agitators were seeking to as
 sail the company merely because it
 now has bonds to sell and its enemies considered it good place to land with | club.
 According to the provisions of the
 contract the government gives to the | Pacific Gas and Electric company eX-
 elusive right to the 25,O00 horse power
 which the Roosevelt dam is capable of
 generating. This power the govern
 ment agrees to transmit to the cor
 poratiOn's central station, forty miles
 away for 11A cents a kilowatt On its
 part the company will have to trans
 init it to Phoenix and surrounding
 country, an average of twenty miles,
 and it will charge it's lighting and
 power patrons 20 cents a kilOWatt.
 This is one of the facts that have
 stirred the Arizonians. Mayor L. w. l COggins of Phoenix, the Maricopa | County Board of Trade and the Mar
 icopa Commercial Club protested to
 the Interior Department when the company's plans became known. Then
 they learned that they were eleven months too late-that the contract was
 signed and in force"
 Instead of an exclusive franchise for 25,000 horsepower, the contract calls for about 2OOO horsepower and eXclu- siveness consists only in the fact that the government will sell to no one else ! electric light purposes though it will sell to the city or to any manufac- l turer in amounts of not less than 100 | kilowatts. As for the mayor and the | board of trade, the former and some members of the latter, did join in the protest before they were apprised of all the facts, but the mayor and most of the members of the board of trade, have now dropped the issue.
 Acting Secretary Frank Pierce of | the Interior Department informed the Arizona protestants that the contract 1 had been drawn up by Lewis c. Hill, chief of the reclamation service, and approved by Governor Kibbey as at torney for the Water Users associa- 1 tion, to which it had been referred by | the government. Following this the ] opponents of the alleged monopoly made another protest against the con | tinuation of the contract on the | ground that it was a violation of the | Sherman antitrust law. But they were again informed that the privilege was given in exchange for a release | of the Arizona canal, on which the | Pacific Gas and Electric company had a twenty-five year right to all the sur plus water. If the government had not granted rights to the power from | the Roosevelt dam the company would | have refused to surrender it's hold up on the canal, which was necessary to i the irrigation project. This was what arrayed the farmers of the | Water Users association on the side of the contract which Phoenix is op- | posing"
 Governor Kibbey never saw the con tract until a few weeks ago. He ap- proves it now but it was never pre- sented to him for approval until after 1 the protest was made a few weeks ago when the department referred it to the Water Users association of which he | is counsel and which also approved it.