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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (June 9, 1905)
V '- 7fr,i? CZ Z- f- M'Wt mtmmim n I u: r lino), will become the property of the city at the end of fifty years', and the extensions will become city property at tho end of a shorter period. Municipal ownership has just won a signal vic tory In Chicago. The democrats nominated Judgo Edward F. Dunne and made the immediate muni cipalization of tho street car lines the leading lasuo. As Judge Dunne is an admirable mail, and as his platform also demanded tho extension of public ownership to lighting plants and to the telephone system, his triumphant election, means much to tho public-ownership movement. The debt limit fixed in the charters, pf most cities is sometimes found to be a teinpqvary ob struction to municipalization, but the distinction drawn by Bird S. Color, formerly comptroller of New York, between debts Incurred for (improve ments which bring no specific return in dojlars and . dobts incurred for improvements which pay an interest on the investment is a just one, and is finding increased recognition. It must be plain to, any one who will give the matter a jnoment's thought that a municipal plant which brings in ' an income large enough to pay the interest upon - the indebtedness incurred and to contribute to a sinldng fund for the retirement of the debt is a very different tiling from an improvement which - brings no tangible return to the city. . Tho cost of a surface line or a subway ought to bo no greater when built by the city than when built under "just conditions by a private cor- .poratiqn, and the city can, as a rule, borrow money '-"' at a lo'wer rate than a corporation; it can, there fore, charge less than a corporation would be compelled to charge, even if the corporation's cap- italization contained no. water. As a matter of fact, the street car corporations In the various cities are usually capitalized for a great deal more . than tho cost of building and equipping their lines, and tho public is compelled to pay dividends upon .inflated capital. In the improvement of the service a city line would respond more promptly to tho needs of the public and would be more considerate in the treatment of tho employes. The difference would be : 11 on the side of public ownership. Experience in England and in Scotland has shown that a city can take possession of a street car system; in crease the pay of the men, shorten the hours, improve tho conditions, and lower the fare, yet make a profit for the city4, and the same results haye followed the taking over of lighting and water plants in this country. Aside from the pecuniary argument;, which, of course, does not influence a great many, the most weighty argument advanced against the municipal ownership and operation o" street car line3 is that raised by the employment of a large number of men. The natural conservatism which is to be found everywhere, and nowhere more than in a republic, leads many to fear that the employes may be used for political purposes. It must be remembered, however, that the intelli gence of the people at once seta itself to work to remove or at least to reduce to a minimum the evils connected with any governmental action which the people find it necessary to take, and already the friends of municipal ownership are be ginning to consider plans for the elimination of tho government employe as a partisan factor. A non-partisan civil service is tho remedy usually proposed, but it has been found to have three ob jections: first, the attempt to conceal the politics of the appointee is not always successful; second, the employe is sometimes coerced into the sup port of the party in power; and, third, if partisan ship does not influence the appointment or act . .upon the employe, his removal from politics les t sens his interest in the problems of government and deprives the public of the service that he mignt render in tho discussion and settlement of rublic questions. In some places what is called '.- br-partisanship has beep substituted for non-par- tisanship. That is, the employes are divided be tween the several parties, the political affiliations - ; A anPlntees being recognized at the time of the appointment and respected during the serv . Ice. I am disposed to believe that a civil service system which recognizes political opinions and protects them is more in keeping with our theory of government than a civil service system which attempts to ignore them. Where the politics of an applicant is concealed there are always a change for fraud and a temptation to unfairness: where the political affiliations of the applicants are known and the appointments divided between the various parties in proportion to their voting -strength, the selection being open and above board, there is no chan-e for favoritism. Where the right of each party to its quota is recognized the employes can perform their political duties without fear and the activity of those in one par y offsets the activity of those in another party '. making it impossible to use the employes as a part The Commoner. of a partisan machine. No government like ours can afford to remove any considerable portion of its people from political activity or penalize par ticipation in the forming of public opinion. With the growth of public ownership the government employes will, of course, increase, not only in ac tual numbers but also in proportion to the total population, and no civil service system can be per manently satisfactory to the country which does" not leave government employes free to perform their civic duties, and a division of the employes between the parties in proportion to voting strength offers tile most juzt basis for appoint ment that has yet been suggested. Bi-partisanship is entirely consistent with selection on merit through examinations. While the cities have been considering the question of municipal ownership the subject of state and federal ownership of the natural mo nopolies within their respective spheres has been forcing itself updn the public mind. Years ago an agitation was commenced for the operation of telegraph lines in connection with the postofflce department, but it has not yet taken tangible shape, the very low rate given to ie daily news papers having made .tliem, to some extent, inter ested in maintaining private ownership of the . telegraph service. Every argument that can be advanced in favor of the. distribution of letters and papers by government officials can be made in favor of a postal telegraph system, and with "the rapid growth of the telephone monopoly the same question will soon be presented in connection with telephone communication between cities. The consolidation of railroads, the obstruc tion' of rate legislation, and the constant discrimi nation practiced by the railroads against persons and communities all of these are tending to in crease the number of those who -advocate the public ownership of railroads. Usually those who favor the public ownership of railroads advocate ownership by the national governments in fact, this is the only form of such ownership that has received attention. The arguments in favor of it have been much the same as those made in favor of municipal ownership of street car lines and other municipal works or plants, and the objec tions to it have been the same urged against thoso, with the addition that the federal owner ship ,of railroads involves a centralization of powar at Washington which might in the end re sult in the obliteration of state lines. Those who insist upon the preservation of state lines are not attempting to revive the discussion. that once raged over state sovereignty versus national supremacy, but they are actuated by the belief that- local self-government is the safety of the republic. Believing that the people can govern best where they are best acquainted with the con ditions to be met and the things to be done, those who defend state government and state action believe that the republic is strengthened by the preservation of state lines-each state dealing with matters of state, importance. The ownership of all of the railroads of the United States by the national government would throw upon it the employment of an immense body of men and these men could not be employed from Wash ngton without largely increasing the relative importance of the federal government as compared with the state government, and the removal of so large a part of the government work from the states to the nation would weaken the states' power of resistance to foderal encroachments 1 system of state ownership for the local network of railroads coupled with the foderal ownership tw 1 nnk 1In(Vs' would Sive all the adm ages that could come from the federe: ownershin of nil the ra road lines, and at the same Time avoid thl Bbk ralT&ten?Ty 0f undivide Star? Towner ship. The trunk lines, when once owned hi m federal government, would not have to be ev panded or extended, while the Cni L ' being constantly increased A Astern ?T 7 lines established today would t2i f trunk of interstate commerce Tfiftv vZJ i! purnoses secure a president a rpJ .W0UM be necessary to resentatives Xorhbta t thG SnV h,0U8e of reP' STSaTto-SJS i?r 22S i toffeolIfroSI "? a rail and from the reflnerv to tho T.0?8,,0.?10 refinery Any state, which fin da it d!fftl?butIlie centers -ad rates by le fi& W ' " " -VOLUME 5, NUMBER n regulating by the building or the buying of - , . railroad. b 8tato Second, a system of federal ownershin m, , not be undertaken until those favoring iniiii ownership could agree upon a basis of puiWiS? condemnation, whereas state ownership ..Jimm each state to deal with the question accoi-iini tS the conditions to be met in the state and according to the opinion of the people of the state Third, state ownership enables the 'movement to avail itself of experience: as each experiment in municipal ownership has strengthened thoan who have been advocating it in other cities, so tho success of one state railroad would encourage tho adoption of public ownership in other state H The great advantage of a system which per mits the federal ownership of the ; umk linos and the state ownership of the local lines is that it gives to the people the benefits of public owner . ship without removing the government from tho people or endangering the principle of local self. government, and it makes it easier to adjust tho compensation and regulations to the varying con ditions in. different sections of the country. The main objection made thus far to this dual system of ownership is that Interstate traffic might be embarrassed. This, however, is not a valid objection, because the trunk lines would give to every state an outlet for its "interstate com merce, and the fact that the trunk lines would furnish this, outlet would make it easy for ad joining states to arrange for the transfer of traffic over local lines. It would be as easy for state lines to exchange traffic as it is now for the va rious railroad systems to exchange traffic, the dif ference being that under public ownership all would be treated alike and every community woild be protected in its rights, whereas, now fortunes are built up by favoritism and men and commun ities are ruined by discrimination. In Germany nearly all of the-lines are stato ' lines, less than one thousand out-of. twenty-eight thousand miles being owned by the imperial gov ernment. No attempt has "been made to present an elabo rate ""discussion ofpublid ownership. The only object of this article is to point out the trend of public sentiment and to indicate what is likely to be the result of the discussion which 43, now going on. .The principle which underlies the propaganda for public ownership is that wherever competition is impossible and a monopoly is necessary tho fruits of the monopoly must be enjoyed by tho whole public and not by a few: In the case of municipal franchises competition -is impossible, and, in the case of railroads, competition has gen- erally been found ineffective. While it is possible for the larger cities to have competing railway systems, a large proportion of tlie people must of necessity deal with the line nearest to them, and the railroads take advantage of this necessity. Those who favor the public ownorslip of railroads have long favored a strict regulation and control . of railroads and are-now heartily in favor of tho legislation which is being attempted in state and nation, but they believe that public ownership w!ll be found as much superior to the best system of regulation as regulation is superior to a system under which the railroads are permitted to do as they please. JJJ MR. WINSTON'S EXPERIENCE The St. Louis Post Dispatch (an abbreviated edition of the New York Worll) quotes Mr. Jolm C. Winston, chairman of the committee of seventy, as saying that when the committee sought for an able attorney to represent the people of Phila delphia in their fight against the Gas company it found that the most eminent lawyers of Phila delphia were retained in the pay of the Gas company or "were within the corporation's sphere 'of influence." When Mr. Winston tried to inter est the larger business men he found that "their business interests were entwined with the inter ests of the United Gas company." The Post Dis patch asserts, that men who sympathized with the purpose of the committee were unable to rplce an active part "because the great business inter ests entrusted to their care were dependent upon the Gas company favor, or were identified with its piratical fortunes." The Post Dispatch de clares that the gas company is an "incorporated cancer whose filaments extend to all the vital or gans of Philadelphia city life," and it adds that nearly every city in the Union has its united gas improvement company or something else of the kind. It concludes: "In all the world there is no other single source of social, industrial nwl political corruption that Is one half so sinister as the American public service corporation under its present methods of management." '' And yet the-Now York World denounces Mr. Bryan for saying that every city should' own and operate 'Mfc.