The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-12-08
LETTERS TO EDITOR
Signing the New Contract

To the Editor of The Age-Herald:
 As one of the long suffering citizens of
 Birmingham l beg leave through your
 paper to publicly express a few senti-
 ments with regard to the recently en-
 acted contract between the city of Bir-
 mingham and the Birmingham Railway, Light and Power company, which is to
 my believe, a veritable outrage.
 My judgment is based on practical, elec- trlcal experience, for with the exception of the last two years have been active ly engaged in various branches of the
 electrical business, and in different parts of the country for over F years. Dur ing that time I never came in contact with, nor evei heard of, any company of consequence that had such an absolute
 monopoly of the public utilities as the Birmingham Railway, Light and Power company. nor with such prices, and in
 the case of this present contract, they
 have simply bargained, what is practical
 ly an imaginary reduction for the mass
 of the people, for a valuable 10 year lease.
 To begin with, the advent of the Tide
 water company, with it's power plant,
 places a competitor in the field and it,
 therefore, behooved the Birmingham Rail-
 way, Light and Power company to secule
 long period of safety. for big profits by contract, before the present one expired,
 and this they have surely done. Unless the contract as signed is different from
 the copy as printed in the daily papers
 the city of Birmingham is bound to use
 current furnished by the Birmingham
 Railway, Light and Power company for all purposes unless a municipal plant is
 built or current taken from the one in
 North Birmingham. Then, if the city does
 built and operate plant, which is ex-
 tremely doubtful, or if 1t operates the
 North Birmingham plant, it must pur- chase all the auxiliary apparatus now in it's use, or later installed, to which the Birmingham Railway, Light and Power company does not continue to supply cur rent and, in the light of comparatively recent developments in arc lamps, etc., a large part of such equipment taken over would be nothing short of junk, but it is certain that the company would not sell it as such. Now. with this valuable agree ment which gives them the cream of the lighting business, there is certainly no reason why they should object to com petitor entering the field for commercial and residential service
 Comparison with other plants oyer the country, and not necessarily in the south, as climatic differences as between north and south in the United States cut no figure in the cost. of current. show that Birmingham has an excessive rate especially in view of the fact that the controls all of the public utili- ties except water and telephones. A gross price of cents per K. w. H. for light ing. with about the present discounts would be fair rate. And as regards car fare, the city of Columbus, O., is a fair example of what might be done in Bir- mingham. The books of the Columbus arc open to the city and when l the receipts are a certain figure they are | compelled to give certain number of l tickets for quarter with full transfer | privileges, and the last time I was in | Columbus they were giving seven tickets. |
 The plea has been entered that Br- | ningham is spread over so much ter rtory that the company Is at big expense | tracks and lines, but people |
  practically all cases carry not only the wires for the car service, but also for power, light and street lamps. Also tha power plant is located in the heart of the city, providing a market for the exhaust steam for steam heat. Further, that the city proper is like a small city in itself, while the suburbs are like small towns lying close in and with good sprinling of people in between and that the com pany operates a freight service over the passenger lines and evidently not at a loss. Also would one believe that the is entirely without profit in these outlying districts as regards increase in values? And still further, as an offset to this spread of territory. the number of cars operated is proportionately | less than if the district were thickly set l tied, and also run slower. This plan is carried out even on the city lines, where it is a common thing for the cars to run slowly, even stop, to keep from run ming over on their schedule. a system which in my experience at least is pe- cular to the Birmingham district. The idea of a slow schedule evidently being that it allows the people to congregate and consequently give the cars more of a load. It being a self evident fact that, people get on the cars every hour, and that there are two cars on the line, it is great deal cheaper to have those two cars each make a round trip in an hour than to run faster and each make two round trips in the hour, for the number of people carried will be the same.
 The claim has also been made that the is entitled to special consider ation in that they are compelled to have such an extra large reserve of power to take care of the peak load. or the load when the mass of people are going to work in the morning or returning in the evening and the store lights still on. There is evidently some mistake about the Bir- mngham peak being proportionately larg- CT than that of other cities for it seems to be a practice to run the ash trains to and from the powerhouse along Twen- tieth street and First avenue just about the time of the peak load in the evening, and it Is not an unheard of thing for freight trains to be in operation at this | time. and surely this could be done at any other time, thereby evening up the load a litte Along this same line, where else in the United States in a city the size of Birmingham are freight and ash trains run over the public streets and through the business section at any and all times t osuit the company? Truly. the Bir- mingham Railway, Light and Power com many has come to regard Birmingham as