The Washington times., 1914-05-16
A WORD OF PROTEST.

Mr.. Howard S. Reeside, president
of the Washington Gas Company,
has been telling a Congressional
committee why public ownership of
public utilities would be ruinous for
this town. Mr.. Reside, who, as pres
ident of just one of the towns public
utilities, draws a salary three times
as large as he would get if he were
a Commissioner of the District gov
ernment, is not quite to be taken
seriously. Like Mr.. Clarence King,
who, on behalf of the Washington
Railway Company, also deplored mu-
nicipal ownership, he will have to
rest under the suspicion of bias.
1t will I've recalled that Mr.. Rec
sides company recently gave its very
earnest support, in Congress, to a
piece of legislation for the consoli-
dation of the Washington Gas and
the Georgetown Gas companies.
That measure was presented with
the bland insistence that 1t was al
together in the public interest; moth
ing in it whatever for the gas people,
but they wanted it passed just be-
cause they wanted to be able to do
more for the people of Washington,
to whom their assurances of devotion
have ever been most touching.
But when the legislation got be-
fore the unfeeling specialists in
Congress-, it was taken to pieces an
exposed as a project in initiation ard
perpetuation of monopoly. The
measure never got a chance at pass
age. after the truth about it was cx-
posed.
So it is with Mr.. Resides erudite
exposure of the failures that have
strewn the path of municipal owner
ship experimentation in this coun-
try. Mr.. Reeside presented list of
some 200 municipal ownership fail
ures, compiled by the Municipal
Ownership Publishing Company. Mr..
Reeside knows. and he ought to have
been fair enough to explain, that this
list is prepared by subsidized
agency whose special business is to
fight the rising tide of municipal
ownership in this country. The Mu-
nicipal Ownership Publishing Com
pany prints a little circular called
Concerning Municipal Ownership"
at intervals. 1t is circulated as if it
were regular magazine, and its
misleading title, as we'll as the mis-
leading name Of the publishing or
ganization, gives the impression that
it is devoted to promotion of munich
pal ownership. Instead, it is the
most unfair and unjust of opponents.
Its disregard for facts is such that
Mr.. Reeside could hardly have hoped
that its publications would be taken
seriously in intelligent circles. Its
chief contributions are from people
who have long been specialists in
carrying on the fight for the fran
chise-owning corporations against
muniSiDal ownership. It's function IS
to gain as much circulation as
possible for distortions of facts
about public facilities in this country
and abroad, in order to injure the
cause of municipal ownership.
The failures in municipal owner
ship have been very few, indeed,
compared to the failures and the
huge losses that have been caused
by vicious financing and bad manage
ment of privately owned utilities.
Mr.. Reeside admits that municipal
ity ought to own its waterworks, but
he fails utterly to show that there
is better reason for owning its wa
terworks than for owning its gas
works. There is none whatever.
For many years past the Washing
ton Gas Company, now headed by
Mr.. Reeside, has been trying, by
first one ingenious plan and then
another, to hoodwink Congress into
passing legislation under which 1t
could expand its capitalization to
such vast figures as would enable it
to absorb all its hugs profits into
dividends, without having the rate of
dividends too high for decency's
sake. Just so long as there is pri-
vate ownership of gas properties in
Washington, that will be the first
and foremost task of every president
of the gas company. 1t is the pet
and favorite project of Mr.. Reeside
today, as it was Of Mr.. Letter before
MIN, and of the Mclean management
before that. The gas monopoly
earns unholy profits; earns them be-
cause it is allowed to charge exccs-