Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1909-11-10
GOOD TALKS Gas
FROM CEDAR RAPIDS
ENTHusEs LARGE AUDIENCE
WITH SENSATIONAL DISCLOSE
URES FROM THAT TRIAL.
GAS COSTS s5 CENTS TAERE;
GAS COSTS e5 CENTS THERE;
80 CENTS REASONABLE RATE
Books of the Company Showed That
100000 Property and s214,ooo In
Dividends Had Been Accumulated
Out of People Without investment Of
Dollar of Original Capital.

cd 10 them at the Searchlight Club
Tuesday evening. The story OF the cost
of gas. the enormous profits, and other
sensational disclosures made from the
books of the Cedar Rapids Gas Com
pany, which finally sustained a rate of
80 cents per thousand cubic feet in
both the district court and supreme
court OF Iowa, was d revelation TO
many of our business men.
When Mr.. Good had told how the
owners of The Cedar Rapids gas plant
had borrowed, in 1915, all of the money
they had ever put into the plant, and
mad collected from the gas consumers
OF Cedar Rapids all the money that
they had ever invested in extensions
TO their plant until they valued it at
100000, and had Withdrawn from the
business s2l4.oo0 in dividends without
ever having invested one dollar OF or
lginal capital, Mr.. Good announced to
his audience that while he never had
been an advocate of municipal owner
ship, he had been forced to the con-
. clusion that if the people of Cedar
Rapids had already paid for their gas
property, they ought TO own it.
Mr. Good stated that from the books
Of the Cedar Rapids Gas Company it
was discovered that gas costs not TO
exceed 60 cents per thousand cubic feet
70 manufacture and distribute in Ce-
dar Rapids. He then read from a re-
port of the United States labor COM
missioner, who had been given access
10 the books of a big gas syndicate,
known as the Mcmillan syndicate,
owning twelve gas plants in large Cit
les in the middle west, in which il was
shown that the cost of manufacturing
and distributing gas in those twelve
plants averaged only - cents per thou
sand cubic feet.
Good read from federal statistics to
show that the amount of capital in
vested in public utilities in this coun-
Try was almost three-fourths of the
{ capital invested in the railroads of this
5 country, and Yet he stated that there
= was hardly city in the United States,
and not a single one in Iowa, until Ce-
, dar Rapids attempted it, which has
even approached an effort to regulate
the rates of their utilities. He con-
sidered this one of the great questions
with which city councils state legisla-
, tors and the national government have
TO deal. He asserted that half of the
utilities of the city were used largely
by the wage working people, whose
cost Of living consumed practically all
Of their income, and that the enormous
profits made by public utilities COM
panieS, by reason of excessive charges
for services. come out Of the pockets
Of the men who work for small wages.
Boosts Van Law Bill.
He commended Senator Van Law very
highly for the bill which he introduced
in the last legislature, giving city coun-
ellis the right TO demand the books of
any public utility company for their in
formation in regulating rates, which
would be reasonable. and he con-
demned unsparingly the effort which
r was made in this same legislature to
create a public utility commission in
Iowa. He called attention TO the fact
that a majority of voters in Iowa who
s would elect the commission lived largely
r in the rural districts or villages where
: they have no interest whatever in
n either the price or cost of the public
+ utilities, and he insisted that the people
Y of the towns who buy this service
o should be left free. with full authority
" ISt4 NitIl tileIl com KpSliltS. ne llItl
stated that among all the inquiries and
complaints that had been sent to him
: regarding the matter of a public util-
ity commission. not one had ever
charged that a single city in Iowa had
been unfair toward public utility ex-
cept the city of Cedar Rapids. He Their
proceeded 10 tell what the city of Cedar
Rapids had done.
'. Story of the Experts.
He told how the experts for the gas
company, including Col. E. G.. Pratt
who had been employed to appraise The
physical property of the company, hac
y testified to enormous and outrageou:
- valuations and cost, and how these
same experts would then testify tina
'e the depreciation of the gas plant wa.
enough to practically wipe it out ever.
ten years, and he told how the books o
20 the gas company had been padded t,
bolster up an excessive valuation upol
= which rates were to be figured, and how
1T the experts which ne secured to e
over the books had figured that rat
- of so cents per cubic foot in Ceda
Rapids would pay the interest charg
on all the bonds of the company. re
IN turn from 10 to Is per cent net earn
Z ings upon the conpany's own valuation
of its plant, and still leave earning
ia sufficiently large to permit a deprecia
f. ton charge which. being made ever
year would, if loaned to a savings ban
~ at per cent interest. create d fun
which would replace the entire paar
at the end Of twenty eight years; wl1ic
length time, according to the averae
estimate of the experts, seems to be til
life of a gas plant
Mr.. Good in preparing for til
. Cedar Rapids law suit ahd rea
the report of every gas case which ha
ever been tried and reported in prin
He was able to catch most of the e1
perts in their conflicting testimony i
had studied and acquainted himse
with the process of gas nanufactur
and with the assistance of Profess,
Bemis. and other experts, he had bee
able to compute the exact cost of di,
tributing gas in Cedar Rapids.
No Local Reference.
Mr.. Good made no reference to ii
Marshalltown situation except 80 sta
that he did not know when he can