Arizona republican., 1921-02-08
MUST ADVISE PUBLIC
 IF OBLIGATIONS

P H. Gadsden, president, American
 Electric Railway association, offered
 sound advice to the Indiana Public
 Utility association at the meeting held
 in Indianapolis on January 13, when, in discussing the necessity of public
 utilities creating a flow of new capi-
 tai into their securities, he stated that
 the best way to secure the adjustment
 of public utility rates to a basis that
 will attract new money is to be frank
 and advertise. The granting of a pub
 lie utility franchise imposes upon the
 utility the obligation to serve the pub-
 lie. but as the power of regulation re-
 for the public to guard the utility-the
 authority to regulate carries with it
 responsibility to protect.
 That the public may know the con-
 ditions confronting the enterprise of which they are directly or indirectly part owners as we'll as patrons, to cater
 to whom is the reason for the utility,
 it should be given the facts quite as
 much as the commission or mouth piece
 of the public. Advertising facts in the l daily newspapers and by every possible channel will, if they are facts, swing public opinion quicker and surer than political wire pulling and lobbying.
 The appearance of the five year re- port of the National Board of Fire Un- derwriters in which is given the losses from fires for the period 1915-1919
 makes public story of waste and de- struetion which is staggering. The fire l loss for the five years is placed at $1,416, ,S75,00 and the two chief causes quite enormously attributed to the use of electricity and to matches and smok- ing. It is said that the losses due to
 fires of electrical origin amounted to l SS4, ,0S6, ,471-nearly per cent of the total reported fire Ioss-and those to ! the careless uses of matches and smok- | ing to s73.474, over per 1 cent of the total Careful investiga- tions conducted by the Society for Elec- 1 trieal Development for the year 1913
 shows that the proportion of fires in residences and commercial buildings in
 a very large proportion of the country supplied with electric service which can in any way be traced to electrical origin was 2.57 per cent. while the de- l tailed fire records kept in many of l these communities show that nearly l 75 per cent of all fires are caused by
 careless use of matches and the scat tering of lighted cigarette and cigar butts.
 The marked discrepancy between the two citations is due partly to vital diff ferences in the statistics considered. The National Board of Fire Under WrlterS based compilations on the ad- justment of some 3,500,00o insurance claims to which an arbitrary 25 per cent was added to cover unrecorded burnings. The compilations of the So- ciety for Electrical Development, on the other hand. were based on fire re- ports made and filed by fire chiefs. department heads. central stations and state officials from 345 towns and cities, representing in the aggregate a
 population of close to thirty million,
 or very large proportion of the
 country supplied with electric service
 in 1919. The society figures cover all fires. whether claims for insurance ad- Justment were made or not, and no arbitrary increase is made for fires in