Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-08-06
DANGER FOR PUBLIC IN
LATEST TRANSIT MOVE
Appeal OF p. r. r. Subsidiaries to
the Superior Court Is Blow
Aimed at the Vitals Of the
Public Service Commission

the superior Court Is a Blow
Aimed at the Vitals Of the
Public Service Commission
LAS the Public Service Commission
Of Pennsylvania the right to deter
mine what is just and reasonable rate
to be charged the public by public utili
ties companies?
That is the fundamental question
lying at the heart of the appeal just
allowed by Judge Linn. of the Superior
Court, to the street railway subsidiaries
of the +. II. I. in this city.
Camoufage it as they may, cover it
up with a maze of technicalities and
hundred side issues, that question in
the end will always be reached as the
great. vital issue, and no amount of
lodging and shifting will escape it.
Therein lies the gravity of the situa.
tion to the street car riders of this city
and the stockholders of the Philadelphia
Rapid Transit Company. Its impor-
tanCc cannot be exaggerated, and il be-
hoovCs Mayor Moore, City. Solicitor
Smyth and Transit Director Twining to
be fully alive to the danger of deci-
sion adverse to the case of the business
mems organizations which brought the
proceedings before the Public Service
Commission now removed by Judge
Linn's supersedeas to the appellate
court.
Should the Superior Court grant the
appeal of the underlying companies and
declare that the commission has no
jurisdiction to prosecute its inquiry fur
ther into the lease terms and rentals
paid by the T. II. r.. the Public Serv
ice Commission itself might as well be
disbanded and go out of business. 1t
would leave the state of Pennsylvania
weakened to the point of impotence In
it's right to regulate and control public
utilities for the protection of the public
welfare and interest.
The issue has suddenly outgrown the
comparatively narrow limits of an ar
gument between public service com
panies and patrons in a particular COM
munity, and it has become an attack
upon the essential power of the COM
mission and the state behind it. There
fore it may not be too much to antici-
pate that Attorney General Schaffer and
the full force of his Office will be found
defending the course of the commission
when the arguments are held before the
Superior Court in October.
.Strategically this flank movement of
the underlying companies is intended to
divert the method of attack upon them
from the broad field of facts and figures
to the limited ground of legal nicely.
The business mems organizations have
been advocating a revision Of the enor
nous rentals which have proved to be
the milestone around the neck of the
p. r. T. management. They allege
them 10 be excessive and unfair and
productive of the financial difficulties in
which the operating company now finds
itself. The subsidiaries evidently do not
wish that point opened for adjudication,
and hope by this appeal to avoid con-
sitleration altogether of the question
whether the rentals are fair or unfair
to the public which primarily has to
nay them. Hence the effort to head off
further inquiry along this line.
But. it is difficult to see how the
Superior Court can consistently deny
the right of the commission TO proceed.
The law of 1913 creating the Public
Service Commission rests wholly upon
the doctrine that the state has the right
to regulate such utilities in all their
relations to the public. and to deny this
right even in part would he virtually
a negation of the whole public service
law.
The greatest power given into the
hands of the commission by the Legis-
lature is the authority, or rather the
mandate, to see that all public utility
rates shall be Just and reasonable" to
both the public and the companies. The
philosophy Of the Public Service Com
mission idea, which has only been de-
veloped in a majority of the states dur
ing the present generation, is that pro-
lection must be afforded to all factors.
To this end it has repeatedly been held
BY such commissions that the fran
chises of a company shall be protected
from ruinous competition in its field,
and the Superior Court itself only
short time ago sustained the commits
sion's action in setting aside unfair
provisions of contracts between COM
ranies and municipalities where changed
conditions made this advisable.
How tremendously unfair, then, it
would be to prohibit the commission
nor from cUen inquirinG whether con-
ditions in this city warrant it in inter
vcning on behalf Of the public in the
matter of the transit rentals, which
everybody knows In some instances run
as high as - per cent year on capital
actually invested,
To expect the commission TO deter
mine what is a Just and reasonable"
rate Of fare and not permit 1t to ex-
amino into all the factors which enter
| into the costs of operation would be
tantamount to a denial of the very chief
| purpose of the act. There is no other
| logical ccnclusion to be gained from a
reading Of the law.
OF course, it may be that the counsel
for the companies can raise cOnstitu-
tional questions which will lead the
court TO conclusion adverse to the
commission, but II can only be with the
| rogult &c puIlifvinp tho onp nowar tha Z