The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-07-21
Public Ownership of Utilities
and It's Advantages.
THERE SHOULD Be NO POLITICS
In the Management of the
City's Affairs.
Sabetha an Example for Other
Kansas Towns.


of articles on municipal ownership.
written especially for the State Jour
nal by J. H. Miller, dean of the Col
lege Extension Division of the State
| Agricultural college. 1t is commend
ed to the careful perusal of the read
ers of this paper, and is as follows:
The habit of the German AMI the
Englishman to study local municipal
problems with great care is in strik-
ing contrast to the American dispo-
sition to decide weighty questions
without much consideration. The
average Kansan will decide in two
seconds a municipal question that the
| German would take under Amusement
! for two years and read reports of
what other cities in Europe and
America have done before making
| decision. Here the only thing that
would keep a man from deciding off
hand is the doubt to what stand
| his political party might take.
municipal campaign should be based
wholly upon local economic measures
and should be absolutely divorced
from state or national party politics
! We should not have in Kansas
| Democratic or Republican ticket, but
a ticket for or against ownership of
waterworks or electric light or paw
| ing or new high school or some such
question. The administration of the
affairs of a municipality should be
based largely upon the principle of
service to the group and submergence
of the rights of the individual and at
the same time magnifying the prin-
ciple of protecting the individual as
a part of the whole.
Historically the first act of an incor-
porated town is the fixing of its roads
or streets, limits. grades, paving,
drainage, etc. 1t has a right to con-
duct any system of transportation on
the streets and no one has the right to
use the streets except under regula-
tons of municipal officers. a city,
therefore right r.
ate bus line, or a street car system
as Toronto, Canada, is about to do.
The next step in America is the main
tenance of a public school system.
Rights of the Municipality.
Certain regulations have been made
from time to time by state legislatures,
but they are only temporary. The fact
is, municipality has right to con-
duct its public schools for it's own
highest good, SO long as it does not
conflict with the rights of others. A
city should have right to raise or
lower requirements, to add or take
away subjects to be studied, to widen
or narrow the age limits. If a town
wants to introduce kindergarten in
struction and make the minimum age
limit four years and if it wants to add
industrial subjects for mature men and
women, it should have a right to do
so. Every town that has unframed
men and women should offer needed
instruction and the principle is just as
fundamental for teaching applied me-
chanicS to a mechanic of forty years
of age or domestic science to a house
keeper of twenty years experience as
the teaching of cube root or word
parsing in the seventh grade.
Every municipality assumes from it's
beginning the right and duty of police
protection for all it's citizens and such
service is usually as good as the ma
jority of its people desire; no one
questions the propriety of municipal
fire protection and these, as a rule are
we'll conducted. All problems of pub
lie health are assumed to be under the |
control of public authorities and thus |
all matters of drainage and sewage are |
handled by public officials Few cities i
influence of public parks as aids to
health and peace and morality. There |
are five hundred towns in Kansas
without parks and not village of five |
hundred people should be without one
or more parks. Every city of three
thousand population should own its
own hospital with it's own beds and
rooms and should take patients at al
most nominal cost, or even free, if
necessary. Every incorporated town
should take care of its own poor, al !
though this is, in Kansas, a rather !
negligible matter.
Water and Sewerage.
If a municipality is to assume re-
sponsibility for the health of its peo-
pie it must very early in it's growth
provide for pure water and for thor
L
for the water and sewerage system of
a town to be under private control as
for school or the police to be under
private management In Kansas |
where there is such an abundance of
pure water CONF aratively near the
surface every village of a thousand
people should establish a system for
providing pure water and for effective
sewerage. In Germany the water ser
vice is considered of such value to the
public that the rates are based on the
rental value of property or in case of
business establishments or factories !
on the amount of business. Residences
having a very low rental value are
furnished with water free.
The provision of ample light at a |
reasonable rate is certainly matter |
of public welfare and should be as |
sumed by every village and city as |
naturally as for any other form of |
public comfort. A town of a thou |
sand people could have its own cleo
trio lighting plant and its own system !
of waterworkS and the power plant for |
both could be on the same lot and in |
the same building. The lighting plant
when once established can be extended
not only over the town, but into the
country, lighting farm houses and .
running washing machines. feed cut
tiers, etc Then for n slight additional F
cost an ice making plant can be in
stalled 1t is seldom that an ice plant
can be maintained by private capital
in a town of less than three thousand
people but a village of one-third that
population could own an ice plant and
operate it for six months of each year .
Public Heating.
Then with the right kind of founda-
ton plant a system of public heating
can be established. About the most
wasteful thing in this country is the
plan of individual heating for every
water and lighting and heating sys-
tenn and when it adds an ice making