The Mt. Sterling advocate., 1922-12-21
PUBLIC UTILITIES ooMfsaENce

ehc AcAiuBtOn Leauef, DftemotT IL
under the above caption:
Today and Tuesday the annual con.
vention OF the Kentucky Association
Of Public Utilities will be hel din Lex
ington.
This will be an important confer
erce and II w5-.S be well II many
citizens could attend all sessions
which are open to the public.
The public service corporations, in
common with all forms of partnership
and business associations and organi-
cations, has during recent years pass
ed through some trying times.
Many of these corporations, with
revenue limited either by law or stub
born public resistance, have been
compelled to bear increased burdens
in the form of labor and overhead
charges with no adequate means of
reimbursing themselves. Some 9TH
ers, of course, fortunately situated,
have been more prosperous.
Good business sense, ideal COM
munity interests, prompt a better un-
derstanding between the public utility
corporations and the public. No pro-
gressive city can enjoy the prosperity
to which It is entitled unless 1t is
equipped with public service agencies
which perform the important and
often stupendous duties which fall
upon them.
Local and interurban transporta-
tion, the distribution of water, ice,
light and power, telephone and tele-
graph service, and so on, must for
long time yet be dependent upon
public service corporations. Hence,
the relations between the people and
thes corporations must be mutually
pleasant and profitable, else the one
will be inadequately served, the 9TH
er will be crippled an inefficient, and
will be unhappy.
A great deal of the friction which
has existed between the public and
the service corporation has been due
in part to lack of information by the
people of their true attitude toward
the corporation and in large part to
failure by the corporation to take the
people into their confidence and make
1t possible for them to understand
more intimately the problems with
which the corporations contend.
In the minds of many thousands of
persons the word corporation" is
synonymous with large profits, taken
violently or fraudulently from the
public, and it must be admitted that
more than one public service corpo- |
ration in the United States has been
made a vehicle for stockholders to
ride on comfortably.
Another factor which has caused
friction between the public and the
service corporation has ben failure to
demand from subordinate employees
courteous treatment of the individual
patron. The officials of the public
Iervice corporation, from president to
BETTY accountants, may in point of
be all that brains and mo.
ley can supply, but If at the point of
contact between the patron and the
ultimate representatives
here is vulgarity, discourtesy, ineffi-
iency, or a public-be-damned de-
neanor, all else counts for nothing.
)ne of our great telegraph compa-
lies has learned this lesson well and
S daily profiting by it.
The people in the mass are some
ines unreasonable, but the average ,
nan in his calm moments is disposed
o be fair. With better understand
ng between the public service corpo-
alton and the people, based upon
ommon knowledge of each others
roblems, there should be a good fu-
ure for the various agencies which
will be represented in Lexington to-
ay and tomorrow, and which already