Waterbury evening Democrat., 1908-12-09
RUNNING THE SHIP
City Ownership of PIau's a
 Money Mixing Venture.

Some of the wise heads are expa- taiting upon the fortune there IS Tn selling water provided one had enough of 1t and incidentally calling attention to the pity of it that Wa terbury owns it's own plant instead of buying from a private corporation and yet they quote figures to show that the municipality realizes hand somely on the money invested in lts reservoirs. This, of course, is what emphasizes the fact that the public has no right to own such plant, for in these times it is a sort Of crime for municipalities to turn q hand for themselves, the tendency being to leave everything there is a dollar in into private corporations. But notwithstanding this, Waterbury runs it own water works and makes it pay. It's board of directors, the mayor, the board of public works, and the aldermen add to the system from time to time, but now and then they don't get things exactly right, but this is unavoidable, for men in public places as well as those in pri- vate life are all human and conse- quenty none of them is infallible. We are told how the directors of a private corporation would handle this water question. Surely they wouldn't let the supply run out es- pecially when every gallon added to
 the supply meant |" larger income and bigger dividends. Well, now wait till We see It is claimed now as it was at that time, that steps should have been taken to build q storage reservoir in the spring of 1904. The Hon John P Elton was mayor at that time and had associ- ated with him such men as H. l.
 Wade, E. o. Goss, Edward L. Fris- son, Otis Northrop and others of rec ognized business ability and person. al integrity. Why didn't they pro- vide for storage reservoir and have it ready for use this year, when it was needed, just as We are told the directors of private corporation
 would have done? Was it because they didn't know what effect such |;
 course might have on the fall cleo, tion? No. The gentlemen whose names We are taking the liberty of
 mentioning do not live by politics and most of them went into office
 with some reluctance to look up cer- tain kinds of wrong doing which a
 careful investigation showed never had any real existence in Water, bury. They searched high and low | and failing to find what they were after themselves they employed half
 dozen New York experts, but even these couldn't detect scrap of evi-
 dence to bolster up the charge oi | misconduct in the city hall, and fin ally Mayor Elton announced, and 1 appeared pleased to be able to say l so, that everything was found where | it belonged and that there was not
 an iota of truth in the allegations that the public was wrOnged by former officials. This statement was
 made at a public meeting, but the Democrat was the only focal paper that thought it of sufficient impor.
 tance to publish it.
 But this is digressing What we started out to say was that while
 it is a notorious fact that no matter how well men may mean or do in public places it is out of the gues-
 tion to give general satisfaction This may be due to some defect in
 our reasoning powers which never bothers him until he enters public life. so that the situation would not
 be improved one bit if you brought the most successful business men ill the country into office. It is a fair statement to say that We had them
 and it does them no injustice to add
 that while On the whole they did well, they made some very serious and costly blunders. Now then
 what is the remedy for these errors in judgment that crop up from time to time no matter which party Is
 in power. If We are to follow the advise of the seers about us and refuse to be satisfied with men except those who are wise at all times, we had better sell out at once, and let the trolley company, the railroad | company, the telephone company and
 the other private corporations goble
 ns up. Come now, gentlemen, take
 your choice. Waterbury cannot find perfect men to run it's affairs and
 it is up to you to go out of business
 as soon as possible.