The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-08-17
CHANDLER SAYS CORPORATIONS
 GAN WIN OUT
Tells Danbury Business Men That Public Service Fellows Can Beat Utilities Bill if They Set Out For it
But He Appeals to the Corpora tions to Drop By-plays and Place Their Cards Squarely on the Table

Danbury, Aug. 17.-Representative George B. Chandler addressed the Danbury Business Mems Association last evening on the subject of a Pub lie Utilities Commission. Its Need and the general principles of the measure he threw the subject open to ques- tfons from the audience. In the course of his address he said:
 This so-calledF public utilities bill presents the paradox of furnishing an issue bigger than itself. I do not SUD- pose the state of Connecticut would go to rack and ruin if there was not line changed upon it's statute books issue today is not primarily whether the State Business Mems association bill. or the temporary commission's s bill, or the Whiton-Chandler bill, or the Barnum bill. or the Bridgeport bill or some other bill, yet unborn, shall be written into the law. No, that's not the Issue at all. The real issue is representative government. The real issue is whether the people can have what they want when they want 1t.
 There will not be lacking those who. from conviction, or temperament, or self-interest, or from some other cause, WILL cTlttClSo dIu OppOSS yOu You have to expect that. Every man that tries to do things makes enemies. You will meet opposition in your own ranks. That, too, must be expect ed.
 Lust one word-if it may be per mitted-to the public service corpora tfons themselves. This is not hos tile movement. I>have been present at all the deliberations of the board of directors and the legislative com mittee of the State Business Mems association at which this bill and it's advocacy have been discussed, and I have yet to hear uttered in either body the first word of bitterness or radicalism against the men who bear upon their shoulders the two-fold re- sDonsibiHty of serving the public sat- isfactorily and protecting the inter est of their stockholders On the oth- CT hand there Mas been evident at all times single-mtnded purpose to safeguard the interests of the inves- tors. while exacting reasonable ser vice, just rates, and honorable fnan- cial methods in return for the exc1u- sive rights granted. If there are inn perfections fn the measure presented they have been errors Of the hand and not of the heart.
 eff the public service corporations are set upon it, I we'll know that they can beat this bill. as they did it's pre- decessor. I have no illusions on that score. But the question is, can they afford to? My advice-sincerely, if presumptuously, given-is that they come to the next general assembly in a spirit of cooperation and candor; that they lay aside all heckling, all of those adroit by-plays of which they are past masters, and place their cards squarely n-the table. If they will do this, and I ann any judge of men, they will not find a dozen mem bers of the Business Mems association or of the General Assembly who will not be willing to meet them half way The epigrams and sophistries of Fred erick W. Whitridge did more in a half hour to make impossible a dis passionate consideration of this inn portant measure in the last General than the temperate and we'll reasoned argument of MT. filling Or the lucid exposition of the prin- ciples of American railroad rate-mak- ing by Mr. Robbins, could undo in hours This counsel is gratuitous and may be unwelcome, but it at least possesses the virtue of disinter- eStedneSS"