The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1922-12-28
PEOPLE WIN FROM
POWER COMPANY

we WOuV0T IL OuI AOApoA eASA~AAs
progressive populistic friends IN
Idaho will have anything more to
say about the power trust robbing
the people of Idaho thru excessive
rates, after reading the decision OF
the utilities commission published
elsewhere In this issue.
We wonder if they will go on talk
ing about such things being winked
at and allowed by the Gooding-Davis
Moore machine after they are in
formed that the commission that has
worked under that administration
for three years squeezing the water
out Of the power trust investments,
when we say water" we mean
actual investment not producing
anything now. to determine what
was never determined before-what
would be fair and reasonable
price to charge in southern Idaho
for power and light service. The
amount of so-called water squeezed
out to form the basis for the new
start in rates was trife less than
eleven million, or about 4SR per
cent. In other words the state re-
quires the power trust to split it's
values in two in the middle and for
get it, and then go to work again
trying to make money on what
capital it has left. II it wants to
sell it's waste lands, its old buildings
and its bad bargains wherein 1t paid
too much for something, all right If
it can find customers for it, but the
consumers of its light and power are
not going to be required to pay re-
turns on such investment.
That is putting the power COM
pany about ON par with the farmer
who bought land at high price or
who bought implements at peak
prices and saw them depreciate on
: his hands or saw the crops he raised
with these lands and tools sell for
less than it cost to produce them;
or the merchant with goods in stock
that he sells at slaughter prices to
get down. to the new start.
1t is handing the power company
an awful punch, but the rest Of us
are taking the, same kind Of medi-
cine in varying degrees, some losing
their savings in actual drops In
prices and some losing it gradually
by operating at loss in business
that cannot be suspended during the
losing period. We are nearly all
taking it in some way.
But the point we wish to call at
tention to is that the Gooding-Davis-
Moore machine did not favor the
power trust and bind the people to
pay dividends on watered stock or
bad investments or investments that
looked good in boom days, but
withered in the big slump. The
soap-box orators who, roasted the
big men of the state government In
advance of the decision on this mat
ter owe it to their former audiences
to apologize and acknowledge that
they were wrong and that what they
said now looms up as SO much
SANDER. But they will not do it.
They will again go before the public
in the campaign of 1924 when peo-
pie have forgotten or partly for
gotten, and fash some new stuff and
paint it red, or they will flash the
old stuff in some new form that
people cannot dispute at the time,
but which may prove later to be as
groundless as some of these past
offenses.
A few years ago when D. w.
Davis was candidate for governor,
he had been working to get in
creased power facilities at Ameri-
can Falls, and gave the free use of
some of his office force all the time
when there was opportunity to in
terest somebody in it, by corre-
spondence and by showing people
the resources, and in various ways
did what it would have cost the
power company hundreds Of dollars
q season to keep an office open to
take care, and he made no charge
for it. #5
The power company in return,
kept receipting his electric light and
cooking bills for his residence and
mailing them to him marked paid"
and the nonpartisans raised a great
hullabaloo about Davis being linked
with the power trust and getting his
light and cooking current at the ex-
pense of the people. When it was
shown that it was paid for in service
and at high rate and that the SER
vice was rendered without any as
surance that he would receive any
thing in return, the spellbinders, be-
came silent, but made no acknowl-
edgment of their wrongs done to
the power company or to the candi-
date.
1t is not honest politics and such
dishonesty is no more excusable in
politics than in conducting school
business or church business or pri-
vate business. VT
But the public mind has become
so calloused that it passes these
things lightly, and jokes about it. If
a Republican newspaper called at
tention to such facts as these during
campaign it would be discounted
as campaign talk. Just now when
the old administration is passing
and a new one is about to be or
ganized, there will be readers who
will think we are throwing sop to
possible new combinations rather
than seeking to give justice where
justice is due-we criticised what
we considered the weak spots in the
administration while they were in