The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1928-05-18

people for their slime and thought given to the public
utility education in the social sciences he said was
reasonable to expect that young men, oeng familiar
with the fundamental facts of the service industries
result of their college training, will display SYM
pathetic and understanding attitude toward utilities
They Will In the capacity clzens' approach utility
problems in reasonable frame of mind and will not be
mscarred by every temporary gust of agitation and
mob psychology. If by chance some some should in
after years take attitude opposed to public utilities
such an event should not be invoked as condemnation
of the instruction itself No system OF education can
guarantee the quality of the product"
Patience and persistence marked the efforts of
the several national and state committees in their task
of eradicating unsound" doctrine from textbooks
faculties. Dean William G. Raymond of the College
of Applied Sciences of the State University of Iowa
answered the call sent nationwide in 1923 by Mr. In
suls Illinois Committee for ideal text book pub
lie utility economics. Correspondence offers of aid
and happy approval of his manuscript resulted in pub
LEGATION in 1925 of his "The Public and It's Utilities"
The golden heart of this text recognized at glance,
was its advocacy of taxation of municipality owned
plants
On the defensive side there is spicy letter from the
chairman of the Cooperation committee, IN January,
1925, suggesting that "Our Committee can hit this
unfavorabe) stuff at the source when the hap
pens to be professor in one of the higher educatona
Institutions such as Professor Monroe at Harvard.
expect to report something this at the meeting in
Chicago this week. We have not only right but
duty to insist that professor using the prestage Of
his institution may express opinions not based
search and certainly that he must keep his hands out
of the kind of thing that an advocate is hired for.
l think the Association that every of
these birds of the Bemis type is stencil in the nos
trils of his institution and would absolutely
have the backing of the scholarly if insisted
that the public utterances of schoomen must be along
lines in which they have claim to expertness
ther than glibness"
AS for the lesser men, close to the SOIL they wanted
direct action j. S. Sheridan, director of the Missouri
Committee, American Gas Association Conference or
Information Committee Work, speaking in October
1925, said that $3.50 of the public school text books
amned by the utilities had proven to be "sociastic"-
they favored public ownership. The prospect of 20,
100000 American school children growing up into 90,
100000 enemies of the industry appalling How
ever, thanks to the committee work which was benI
done with text book writers and publishers good pro
gress had been made in Supplying the capitalist sys
tenn with literature of its own"
This same Sheridan, in letter to Paul Clapp of tn
N. T. L. A. in June, 1926, advised against giving pub
licity to the work of the Information committees
to text books. He deplored the fact that wor
in Wisconsin on public school matters had come int
the newspapers He urged that cit is a matter TO
executive session between leaders in industry, writer
of text books and printers thereof"
Dean Ruggles, at Ohio State University described
the Illinois Committees correspondence in 1922
busy little letter writer" whose ideas coincide wit
our own" employed by the reorganized Commit
tee Cooperation, in 1927, to make survey of tn
public utility work that is now being done in the CO.
leges and universities and the possibilities for its e1
tension.
Illinois University, which established a four-yes
in public utilities in 1922, has had especial
tenon from the power interests in that state Georg
r. Jones of the Illinois Committee wrote Dean Thoml
son of its College of Commerce and Business Admin
traton, April 1, 1925: 81 was dumbfounded SON
time ago, upon hearing that Professor Pa
ton may leave you. 1t is, of course business
mine, but 1 cannot refrain from telling you that pc
sonaly, think that such a thing would be a well-nig
rreparable loss to the public utilities curriculum
Illinois, the building up of which on sound econom
principles have very much at heart"
According to the Federal Trade Commission, the e.
ecutive committee of the N E. L. A. created in 1872
an "advisory board" of three professors-Ehu Thorn
son of the General Electric Company laboratories
F. Scott Of Yale, and A. E. Kennedy of Massachuset
Institute of Technology For the first year they I
ceived $4,000 each; the following year they were
vted to continue cat cost permitted by the financ
of the association"
M. H. Ayesworth, then managing director of the
E. L. A. speaking at the Midwest Utilities conve
ton of 1925 urged that utility managers should int