Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1909-09-22

If the peoples interests in this fran
chise matter could be represented by
hard headed business men with the
same shrewdness with which they look
out for themselves there would be no
twenty-five year franchise voted to
Jones & Hovey's representatives at this
time without an interurban guaranteed.
Last winter the mayor and the Times
Republican We're agreed on this policy.
This summer the Times Republican
stands there still. Jones & Hovey's
mortgage comes due in three years or
so. They can't renew it until they re-
new their franchise. There never will
be time when they will not offer us
as good a deal as they now offer thru
Pratt and Darling and shrewd trader
would wait knowing that each few
months he would receive a better offer
as time brings us closer and closer to
the day the mortgage comes due.
In the meantime somebody is likely
to buy Jones & Hovey's property and
build us an interurban. They may Of
fer to do it now. AT any rate every
business man knows that where inter-
urhans have been built they have eth
er absorbed the local plants or have
been made extensions of the local
plants Marshalltown's only hope Of
an interurban is in this Jones & Hovey
plant The net earnings of this plant
as it stands today if pledged in bond
issue would pay the interest on enough
borrowed money to build the Grundy
Center interurban and improve the gas
plant If increased business should
bring any such profits as the expert
engineer who examined 1t for Hamilton
Browne estimated the profits on gas and
electricity inside the city limits alone
would pay the interest charge on the
present Jones & Hovey bond issue and
would pay the interest charge on the
entire cost of both the Grundy Cen
ter and Ames interurban lines. Any
man with money enough to buy Jones
& Hovey's equity could with q twenty
five year franchise borrow enough
money to build these interurbans and
he ought to be made to do it as the
price of the franchise.
Are Jones & Hovey In 1t?
If anyone doubts that Jones & Hovey
are to remain in possession of a large
share of the new franchise let him but
watch the local manager, NJ. w Hovey.
buttonholing favorable councilmen in
their places of business and at their
homes. Or let him recall that Pratt
and the Western Trust and Savings
Company were discovered jointly fight
ing the Mcbride crowd at Boone with an
injunction suit The Western Trust and
Savings Company thru an officer of its
bank, is applying for the franchise on
a bond signed by the local banker who
presented MIR. Pratt and the Jones &
Hovey deal last spring. Then Pratts
scheme was to organize a new COM
pany in which Jones & Hovey were. to
retain large or the controlling inter-
est. He presented it to leading busl-
ness men in private and before the Re-
tail Merchants Association in public
and failed of endorsement because he
insisted that dollar gas was prohibi-
tive rate and he proposed rates grad
uated just as the Darling schedule now
provides according to the number of
million cubic feet of send out annual
ly. The first man to come to town
to beg and coax when Pratt failed
was Mr.. Jones. of Jones & Hovey, who
followed the Times Republican editor
out to his home and there begged for
Pratt's deal to go thru.
No lnterurban From Pratt.
But this does not matter at all if