Evening journal., 1920-05-28
FRIDAY, MAY 2s, 1920
p,pr1c UTILITIES AND. UNFAIR CRITICISM.

= y. 4, = ,ornon dining dn Wilmington 10 hear both mon
1 and women engage in thoughtiess, and oven dHna-
roeic criticism public service corporations ana tnoS
who control and operate them. There are tlmes' oil
course when criticism is neither thoughtess nor demo-
oglc and when IL is justified AS rule however. that is
moi srue and It s the thoughtess and demagoso stun
that hurts much more than does the true stun.
What ahe effect OF such unyarrsnted criticism may be
Is revealed clearly by the following editorial entitled
why Galena is Without Gas" which appeared in the
Rockford Q) star Of May i6 reiave to The disastrous
results OF successive attacks upon the company in
Galena. n:
Successive attacks upon ne local sas company in
7aena have ended in the destruction OF the plant and the
city is without gas ior eookns nspg a,,ons ana vs.
fact that the city being denied this service Is enough
10 point a warning and moral
II Will be interesting 20 note whether ihose VINO
thoueht they were gaining some socal political favor by
destroying the plant are doing anyihne to ouHd an
other plant 30 take It's place
Very likely they are only lying in walt for other
utHty by which TO advance their regulations Tor khns
Tnis paper holds no brief for any public service
corporation and Is under no obligations 70 any OF tnen
bot the lesson Of Gaena enough 10 SET one thinkng
II we are promote public enterprise there must po
security for invested capital and some prospect iof
n capital hd enterprise cannot be spared the hazard
OF such attacks an public utilities viii go the way
the gas plant IN Galena has gone.
In Rockford. public utilities have had hard Jop, as
they have In every growing city They have had 10 eA-
pand with the growth OF population and be tne out
riders Of prdess Not all OF them have made good IN
fhs particular. Not all OF them are free from fault
some OF them coId have made better job Of t But the
Oalena experience should be kept In mind, always
Suppose Galena had started knocking its dry goods
stores as It did is gas company. How many people
would have gone 10 Galena 10 tradel
Now with Its gas plant shut down. how many people
who seek modern c0nyeniences. win think " moving
thcref
Isn't the burden Of regret pretty generally distributed
hrn the small andthe large home owner tho merchant
thS newspaper and the professional sharing witt
each other in te result Of bonehead play FOR Whloi
they probably not directly responslbel
But they stood by and gave silent support % a mer
clacker who was thinking OF his gain.
Decent fair and yiglaut regulation the city is EN-
titled 20 and should have, but abuse like that wic
killed the Galena gas plant, IS a TO any city
Galena furnishes object lesson which viii not b
forgotten.
That Is true. and it should not be forgotten by Wi
mingtonians who realize what disaster IL would b
thOugh1ess and deungogio 0t,aoks on our publ
service companies taken seriously by people
lead to repetiton here Of tho experience that
oursing Galena-
Nor should it be forgotten that a rule those VIII
engage in thoughtless and demagoso criticism arc
dom, II oonstructionists. In fact they usually
nothing 10 anything upon the site Of enlerprH
they have destroyed