The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1914-02-21
PUBIIC oWNERsHIP.s HANDICAPs.

PUBIIC OWNERSHIPS HANDICAPS.
The chief arguments advanced against publio own
ership Of the utilities used by the people In common
are hrst the removal Of profit interest destroys en-
clency second the introduction of politics the
door to corruption third individual initiative would be
destroyed: forth, are slow to adopt
gressye business methods and improvements There
be more objections. but these the leading
most generally offered and particularly by such anti
public ownership publications Public Service"
We shall take up the chief objections in the order
named
Frst-1s profit the only incentive for the promotion
Of efficiency? It is not. Efficiency" is new catch
word In commercial life 1t was not thought of
until recently. since the people began to balk the
extoronate prices they have been forced to for
service Previously attention paid to efficiency
but that prices have reached their highest greed
attempting to satisfy itself under the charming name
Of efficiency by widening the difference between cost
and selling price, in cutting at the end for their
Is immediate hope of forcing higher prices,
done with bold recklessness in former days.
Men in charge of publicly owned utilities, whose ten
of Office is dependent their good conduct
much and incentive to promote efficiency than
hunger for profit was the basis of their ambition.
Honor and glory the rewards Of efficient public service
have more lasting satisfaction than that which money
bring, except to minds in the habit counting
in dollars :.
Second-There is danger, it is true, of men being
appointed to positions in publicly owned institutions
through the influence Of personal party politics How
ever this is not serious matter at least not serious
the part played by privately owned public service
corporations In corrupting aldermen, legislators
gressmen and senators. There is not much of it
perhaps there once was but so long as public
utilities private hands there danger; they have
other ways of purchasing public officials than through
the use of money, and sometimes these other ways are
more menacng. In any event whatever they do the
people pay it all in the end
Third-Whose individual initiative would be de-
sroyed by public ownership? The stockholders? They
the people, and they receive their dividends
duced service rates. The managers? They equally
as we'll paid, and they not harassed by selfish
ests. The employees? They are given shorter hours
higher wages, better conditions md security of
employment without the fear of blacklist for daring
to assert themselves. Do these destroy individual
tiative? w..
Fourth-Governments may be a tribe backward in
venturlng into new methods in adopting new devices
That u.s. sometimes they may but it is not true gener.
ally And If it true they could be more back
ward than the Bell Telephone monopoly was before
patent rights expired and until it was forced to ad
vance. by the influence of competition through the
Of Independent competition through
the organization Of numerous independent companies
wherever the Bell company today enjoys monopoly
the telephone service it is backward and out of date
This is also true with the railroads. as also true
of the companies before the government estah
lished parcel post .~: 49, - 8. a 4 ,.la..E
Public ownership has never had clean trial in
America outside of the postal service The cities that
have taken it up have been obliged in most cases to
shoulder excessive bonded debts and accept
plants which they forced to rebuild from money
obtained by the issue of more bonds from the net
earnings under municipal ownership. In spite such
handicaps most of the cities have done fairly WELL
until the dead horses fully paid for, and there
will be different story to tell about the success OF
municipal ownership in American cities. y.