The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-11-01

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five wise virgins. It's electric light
must burn all the time. Let it play
hour and a thousand contracts would
say gOOdby.
A Powerful Contrast.
The real story of this biggest of
Kansas enterprises does not lie in the
investment of millions, or the serving
of thousands of people in a great min
ing field and four or five cities, or the
figures that tell of power. Not at all.
1t rests on the contrast between the
two plants on the banks of Spring
river near Galena. They are only a
mile apart. Coming to the first one,
silent. clean, simple. unpeopled, I'M
pretentious. and then going mile to
that aspire like another tower OF
babel to the clouds. it's blanket of
smoke and unsightly dress of SCOT, its
noise and confusion and massive
buildings and endless cars Of coal and
cinder pits and hurrying men and
roar of steam and heat from the crater
furnaces. Yet these two plants are
engaged in the same work, furnishing
the same product, serving the end sole
and simple Of making that big dyna-
HlO puIT llk0 d Tiger Cat Willie IL PldCCS
with velvet paw of speed the little
sparks on the endless copper wires.
He Did Know and He Did See.
It was this contrast that over
Swallowed everything else in the State
Journals mans mind on his visit to
the plants The details Of the plan
of these plants were lost on the news
paper man. He understood not the
principles of power production and
Transmission and kilowats and pres
sure and ignition and hundred
technicalities of engineering that the
experts babbled to him about like
most men talk of their sweethearts.
But he did know and he did see the
lesson before his layman eyes. He
saw water doing the work of coal
and steam and men. He saw the dy-
namo in the plant at the ram turn
just as fast as the dynamo in the
steam plant. And he did not see
those endless cars of coal poured into
the NAV and hopper Of the insatiate
furnaces at the water plant. He saw
only the current of Spring river slip
ping away down the valley to join
the water that had gone before and
to be Joined by the water that will
come tomorrow. This water will flow
away from Kansas whether there is
a dynamo in the bowels of the dam
or not and it's place will be taken by
the water that is on the way eternal
and forever as long as the world
stands.
No New Coal in the Making.
But every lump Of coal taken out
Of Kansas ground is gone for good
and its place is not taken by other
Jumps of coal, for there is now no
new coal in the making.
Burning coal for power is like using
TYcSv1
water is like using the income and
interest from capital. The uses are
as well and as good and yet the cap
ital remains undiminished for old age
to rest upon in comfort and security.
The Men Are Big, Too.
And the men behind this Empire
company are big men-just like the
work they have done. They are not
asking for anything. Their work is
thousand horsepower every kilowat
they can muster on the wires is spoken
for. But they are worth talking about
a little, just the same. Judge David
D. Hoag, head of the concern. is an
old time Kansas man. He used to be
probate judge of Ottawa county in the
seventies. He moved to Kansas City,
Kan, in 1880 and helped organize the
old Kansas City elevated railroad COM
pany. His vicissitudes and his bless
1n&S came IN eQudl doses curing the
next 20 years. He moved to Joplin
in 1904. and started this water power
proposition. What he went through
in the early stages no one knows but
him and he won't tell, for he don't
talk rruch. this worthy judge with his
thin face and high nose and black
beard. He is a little man in inches
and in girth but the works inside of
his head are as quick and strong as
though they were charged and run by
his own dynamos. He is simple and
kindly and unostentatious and his
heart is right People who meet the
little Judge like him. He don't talk
shop unless you corner him and then
he talks about what every one has
done but himself.
Those Civil Engineers.
There's a lot of dandy fellows with
the Empire Electric down in Galena
country. George E. Hyler and Capt.
II Z. &c~-si and George L. McCul-
laugh are among them, and there is
a bakers dozen Of civil engineers. best
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