Los Angeles herald., 1910-06-18
CAN THEY DO IT?
nHE lighting companies threaten


n HE lighting companies threaten to
halt extensions Of their lines and
n damage or ruin such owners of
property as are dependent upon them
for the successful outcome of real es-
tate plans. How great a calamity this
would be if carried out to the full
power of the corporations it requires
only ordinary imagination to realize.
1t is their hope thus to frighten the
people into voting away a prospective
calamity by repudiating the admins
tration of Mayor Alexander and ask
ing for a instead of a Z cent rate
for electricity.
This Is arrogance carried to a point
that has seldom if ever been exceeded
by an American corporation. Can they
do it? Is it necessary to vote 9-cent
light to escape their wrathful venge-
ance? The lighting companies of
Los Angeles are public service corpora
tions, occupying a peculiar relation to
the people. They are performing a ser
vice that the community can well do,
but that the community has permitted
them to do under its special grant.
This grant assumed, if it did not ex-
plicitly require, that the holders of the
franchises shall he able to serve the
public with reasonable efficiency, and
would do so at all times. If the time
should ever come when they are un-
able or unwilling to do so it is at least
debatable whether the fact does not
constitute a breach of contract and
ipso facto surrender of the franchises
There would be one escape from this
conclusion-that the community had
in the exercise of its right to fix rates.
named a figure that amounted to con-
fscation, in which event the courts
would protect the corporation from in
jury and relieve it of culpability.
But in view of the fact that the Edi-
son company, one of the remonstrants
here, has offered to compromise on q
rate of s cents for Los Angeles, and to
give Pasadena not only Accent rate
but to eliminate the minimum charge
sign a three-year contract at the re-
duced figure. and supply the new metal
ICED film lamps free, who believes that
the 7-cent rate with a 81 minimum
charge fixed by the public utilities
commission of this city and indorsed
after consideration of all available
facts by the mayor and council, is
| confscation or anything approaching
it?
Who believes such a thing could be
shown in court? And if it could not be
shown, would not the corporations, if
they had refused to carry out their
plain obligations in the form of rea-
sonable extensions, be actionable in q
large number of damage cases? And
would they not be the offender in a
breach of contract with the city and
thereby the losers of whatever rights
they had been granted without re
course?
Our opinion is that unless the cor
porations are prepared to show beyond
question to the courts that they are
the victims of confiscation they will
think long and well before they will
take the chances involved in per
sistence in their present course. still
their rash threats against property
owners in case others do not vote them
the right to charge what they please
gives reason to suspect that their un
wisdom might carry them so far as
to risk all the possible dangers of
fight to a finish with the city and with
individuals who might be damaged.