Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1919-02-10
Al 1ACKS PUB
Lie OWNERSHIP
Attorney ]. A. Reed of Iowa
. Railway & Light Com
pany Prepares an
h Argument.
AFTER MANAGER LONG
,Weaves a Mysterious Web of
= Fiction and Misrep-
resentatiOn.
AFTER MANAGER LONG
: -

II coming a source of more and more al
nOyance to corporations that own an
4 operate various kinds of public servie
1 utilities, and the managers of such uti
tiles sometimes forget their cunnin
and rush into print to air their grie,
ances.
\ coming to the attention of the Freeman
journal is the effort of the Iowa Raj
way & Light company, which operate
\ plants in a number Of Iowa towns, t
discredit the public ownership princi
pie by misrepresenting the situation
here in Webster City.
ii There are a number of towns in I0wi
just now considering the question o
Installing municipal plants for light
ing and power purposes and of cours'
the gentlemen interested directly il
! privately owned plants of this kind de
not like this sort of thing. Nevada j.
! one of the towns that is talking of put
ting in a plant and the Iowa Railway &
Light Company operate a plant there
Mr.. j. A. Reed of Cedar Rapids, vice
4 president and attorney for the low.
Railway & Light Company, has pre-
pared a wonderfully skilIful produc
ton attacking the Webster City way OF
A management and ownership of its pub.
lie utilities and the only thing lacking
& to make his arguments convincing is
the simple element of truth. If the
4 article Mr.. Reed prepared and publish
ed in recent issue Of the Nevada Rep
resentative were true, it would dispose
of the problem for all time in favor of
privately owned public service utili-
ties, but, unfortunately for the COM
pany, wrong conclusions are drawn and
false deductions made to mislead the
people of Nevada. Moreover, hundreds
of copies of the paper containing
Mr.. Reeds write-up have been mailed
Ito people here in Webster City and
those opposed to Getty ownership are
FLOATING over the Measurements made
and the fancied difficulties municipal
ownership advocates will experience in
refuting the charges. Mr.. Reed says
I'VE have copy Dc this report "a
report the city clerk of Webster City
made to the state). The statement
shows $4,000 invested in the electric
light property. Now somebody put up
this money and as long as it is in exis-
tence somebody ought to earn interest
on it. Five per cent is small enough
for this item. Five per cent on $780,
900 is s6.OOO.'
Webster City a number of years ago
conceived the idea of building and OPP
Grating an electric light plant. A be-
ginning was made in small way and
a small bond issue resorted to. The
interest was taken care of from re-
ceipts and the taxpayers never paid Il
made from time to time from accumu-
lated profits and at no time were prize
es of electricity anywhere near as much
as those charged by privately owned
plants. Now Webster City has plant
valued at 100000 to $4,000, every
cent paid for, and no taxpayer paid
cent, unless it be held that he paid
something in the profit resulting to the
city in years gone by through a small
tax levied for street lighting, which
tax has not been levied for some time
For street lighting purposes 10000
kilowatts are consumed year, which
at the rate of cents charged private
consumers would amount to $4,000 per
amum. Privately owned plants usu-
ally charge from $50 to $50 per annrm
per lamp for street lighting and, as
Webster City has five hundred such
lights, the charge here would be not
far from $4,000 to $4,000 per year.
The saving effected on street lighting
alone, if charged to taxation, would
create a fund sufficient to pay a fair
rate of interest on the Investment and
take care of depreciation.
Mr.. Reed continues:
: SIN this city statement we find an
item of $157770S damages. BY con-
sulting N. w. reporter 165. page 1909,
we find, under the title of Weber VS..
Webster City, a case where man was
injured in the city plant on account of
defective water heater and secured
verdict Of this amount against the
city which was affirmed by the supreme
court. Now a private plant would
have to meet this expense from opera
ton.
webster City seems to have charg-
ed this in no way to the light plant,
but paid it out of the general fund"
Now, as matter of fact, the Weber
judgment and all costs to which the