The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-06-03
PUBLIC UTILITIES.

CFrom the Bridgeport Morning Tele 1 Cram)
 1 Those who believed from thu
 first that the advocacy of any
 really workable public utilities
 bhl under the conditions now ex isting in Connecticut is merely ; waste of good paper and ink ar' unfortunately likely to be justi fled by the event. Some benef
 to the community may perhap: be obtained by drawing public attention to the obvious trickery and dishonesty in the bill report ed by the majority of the judi ciary committee and the mos, should be made of this education al opportunity with view to flu. ture campaigns. A more disgrace full bill or one less considerate oi the public welfare was probably newer submitted to any iegisla- ture. The futility of the two commission plan and the insidi- ous phraseology by means oi which the few rights the public now possesses are cleverly taken away from 1t have been thorough ly exposed by our neighbor the Farmer, to whose careful analysis of a very cunningly contrived piece of evil doing the whole State is indebted for enlighten- ment. Such a bill would render things infinitely worse than they are at present and it should not be allowed, to pass,
 Neither does the bill in which the minority report of the oom- mittee is embodied fairly cover the ground. It is doubtless ihon- estly intended ;.but even if by any miracle it passed both houses of the General Assembly, there is little hope that it would meet the necessities of the situation. Broader statesmanship and a hrmer hold upon essentials will be required of any measure really strong enough to place the rela- tions between the public sand the corporations which serveIit upon basis equally fair to both.
 The failure of the present effort to obtain a just regulatiod1,of pub lie utilities seems to be a fore gone conclusion. Most of the promises Qf support the reform CTS received in advance from can- didates for House and Senate were perfunctory upon the face of them. Those who knew the political history of some of those promise makers understood that their affiliations would effectively prevent any strict observance of their pledges. The obstacles to the framing or passing of any public utilities biM worth the name were inherent fin the consti- tuition of the legislature. Reform had begun as usual at the wrong end Given a legislature com posed in both branches of able and disinterested men, the accept ance of a bill whAch should meet all real needs with fairness to both corporations and the public would have been comparatively simple matter. With legisla- ture composed to a large extent of persons who ,1labitual1y serve two masters, anytbill of real Value was predestined to failure from the beginning.
 Those who believed that mem bers would keep their anti-elec- ton promises owerrated the force of numbers behind their proposed bill. In a state like Connecticut, the abuses of corporation power which are commonly in evidence are seldom as acutely realized as they are in communities which contain many large cities. The great mass of the voters does not understand the questions in volved neither is 1t possible to in terest 1t in them. Those who are opposed to State regulation of public utilities are thoroughly aware of this indifference. They know that although a minority of the voters may express violent hatred t6 corporations which in it's sheer demagogy only injures the cause of reform, most of the people whose dealings with cor porations are very slight refuse to interest themselves in a matter with which they seem to have no direct concern. A thorough campaign of education will be needed before the reformers can hope to carry an overwhelming preponderance of voters along with them.
 PRTnCEPORT ROY WINS