Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1912-03-19
To The Voters of Americus:

10 The Voters of Americus:
There is between cities today
rivalry as keen as between person.
engaged in commercial pursuits. L
often takes the form of friendly OF
Jealous banterings, and often unfair
and malicious advantages, but fail
play and honest rivalry have theii
place in city building to the sans
extent as in business or sports.
A city must be in position to COM
-necessitating certain first es
sentlals, such as advantageous loca
ton, accessibility of markets, trans.
portation facilities and cheap power
Tor manufacturing purposes. The last
OF these has been supplied by the
Americus Gas & Electric Company.
Much has been supplied by nature
but much more is to be created In
dustI4al growth rests largely upon
! natural conditions but principally
from our point of view upon the re-
lentless efforts of the citizens of the
community who create the missing es-
sentials.
Cities slumber and sometimes die
because of factional strife, political
feuds, personal animus and immoral
conditions, all of which are mere ne
cations, if analyzed, and all of which
disappear under the lash of public
opinion, rightly directed.
The work of you citizens who want
to build up your city lies everywhere
around. Yours to leadership towards
a city beautiful, towards good schools
and more of them, public health and
public morality, industrial prosperity
and the bringing of harmony out of
political strife.
Will you or will you not permit
those who might almost be called
professional agitators to continue
to plunge your city into debt and to
block the wheels of progress solely
to satisfy personal ambition and pri-
vate spite?
Do you or do you not intend to put
yourselves in a position where you
can no longer build schools for your
children or make any other public i'm
provements in order to embark, on the
advice of those who have demonstrat-
ed their incompetency to estimate any
thing correctly, in an enterprise which
would be at best, without competition,
an ,untried experiment, and with COM
petition a dismal and expensive fail
ure, with the losses to be paid by the
taxpayer?
What sort of arguments, except such
as appeal to prejudice, have been pub
licly placed before the people of your
city as to the advantages of municial
ownership. Absolutely none. Don't be
misled, therefore, now as you have
been in the past, by the last day ar
guments which they put out then only
because they know that their falsity
could and would be proven had they
been laid before you even two days
before the day of election. Consider
the issue solely from those facts
which have been prepared for your
consideration in ample time for the
municipal ownership people to have
answered them publicly, had they been
able to make an honest contradic
ton.
Let us see what arguments have
been submitted, other than personal
ones, in favor of municipal owner
ship
First They say Albany makes
money. How? By buying their power
from a private plant, operating with
water power and with no expense,
practically speaking, for either re-
pairs to machinery and renewals
thereof, labor or fuel, the last of
which items is the most expensive in
the steam plant such as Americus
would have. the City of Albany 5
municipal plant sells no power.
though one of the city ocffiials told a
few of the people who attended a Cit
iZens Club meeting that Albany owed
its rapid growth to the fact that they
owned their own lighting plant. How
much longer will such false and mis-
leading statements delude the credu-
lous? Albany has 12 1-2c rate for
lighting and discounts the bill to 10c
if paid by the 10th of the month. We
have before us three copies of con.
sumers' bills for the month of Feb
ruary They show charges of $11.25
$675 and $5.25 for residence lighting
the last two for six room cottages
Our average charge to our customers
for the year 1911 was $2.42 for elec-
tricity, and $1.94 for gas, per month
Second. You have been told By
the same city official that you car
save $1,000 per year by owning your
own lighting plant. How can this bt
so when your average payment t.
this company for the last three years
for street lighting and electricity fol
the city buildings and pumping sta
ton has been but $4,000? This sams