MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP THEORY. 167 speak for the public and those whose duty it is to safeguard the interests of corporations. If both parties will join forces to secure a scientific system of regulation, municipal ownership will cease to be advocated as a protest against corporate extortion. ANOTHER MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP THEORY DEMOLISHED. Advocates of municipal ownership have found support for their cause on the theory that by such means the public would cease to pay the enormous salaries drawn by corporation managers, while workingmen would benefit by an increase in wages. Their representation has been that municipal ownership would decrease the cost of management and increase the cost of wages, and that, as a final result, there would be an economic saving. The United States Department of Labor has made a careful investigation of this subject, the results of which are given to the public in its fourteenth annual report. A total of 952 private and municipal electric lighting plants were investigated. Separate figures for salaries and wages were not secured for all of these plants, as in many of the accounts salaries and wages were so mingled as to render this impossible. The report states that "for 576 private plants and 245 municipal plants the accounts were kept separately and accurate data were obtained.” These data are published in a series of 15 tables, in 168 MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP THEORY. which private and municipal plants are grouped according to the horsepower capacity of their engines. The report states that: "It has been charged on the one hand that the cost of administration in private plants largely exceeds that in municipal plants, while on the other hand it has been stated that the wage cost in municipal plants is in excess of that in private plants." This statement is followed by a table which includes 576 private plants and 245 municipal plants, giving the average cost for salaries and wages of all the plants in each group. The results of this comparison are stated in the text, as follows: "In the above table it is seen that so far as salaries are concerned the average cost in municipal plants is smaller in every group presented, in some cases being less than half the average cost in private plants. As regards wage cost, it is seen that in seven of the groups shown the average cost in municipal plants exceeds that in the private plants, while in eight of the groups this cost in private plants is greater than in those municipally owned and controlled." From this statement the inference is liable to be drawn that the aggregate of salaries and wages in the case of municipal plants is less than for private plants, and that, therefore, municipal operation is the more economical. To test this point we have gone through these tables and selected every municipal plant for which salaries and wages are stated without any reference to an ex A MONOPOLIST'S TRICK. 169 planatory footnote. We have taken from each group the same number of private plants as there are municipal plants contained in the group, taking, in every instance, the first plants in the list. The tables constructed on this basis contain 244 municipal and 244 private plants. We find that 73 out of the 244, almost one-third of the municipal plants, report a total annual expense for salaries of $300 or less, 25 of the 73 reporting less than $100 per annum on this account. Notwithstanding this questionably low statement of the cost of salaries, the total paid for salaries and wages as shown for 244 municipal plants is $797,518, while the total for the 244 private plants is $782,484. The excess of municipal over private salaries and wages is $15,034. This demolishes the theory of an economic gain being effected by municipal ownership and operation on account of salaries and wages. This showing is simply on the face of the returns. If the inquiry is carried further to show the actual amount of service received for payments made, the efficiency of private management will be far ahead. A MONOPOLIST'S TRICK. Politicians are greedy to make money for their own pockets, and they are greedy to get votes, so they may have power and opportunity to make money. Every politician regards an increased expenditure a source of power, because it enables the party in power to give employment to those who suppose they pay no taxes. 170 A MONOPOLIST'S TRICK. How to take the largest amount of money from taxpayers with "the least squawking" while they are being plucked and pay it out to the largest number of voters who will stand by the party in or wanting to get into power, is the science of politics. Certain politicians in New York created a big disturbance by becoming the beneficiaries of an ice trust. Other politicians of the same party took advantage of the popular clamor to propose destroying the trust. Not by publicity this time, but by getting up a demand for municipal ice plants, $27,000,000, to be acquired by a mortgage on taxpayers' property and spent in employing faithful workers, it was calculated, would hold more voters in line for the party than denunciations of officials caught owning ice trust stock would drive away. A good calculation, and on a sufficiently grand scale. The council of the city of Baltimore is more timid. It wants voters and seeks notoriety by drafting a bill to construct a municipal ice plant, but proposed to appropriate the absurdly small amount of $50,000 for this purpose. This sum would not provide a plant capable of supplying the public needs. Private dealers could meet the competition of such a small, insignificant plant so completely the public would soon become disgusted with the whole enterprise, and the result would be another failure for municipal ownership. It is quite possible that the trust is banking upon some such niggardly and shortsighted policy on the part of MANAGERS AND EMPLOYES. 171 the Baltimore authorities. Nothing would suit the monopolists better than to have the city limit itself to the figures named. Some who are watching the movement are calling the scheme a monopolist's trick. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE MANAGERS AND EM PLOYES. Under public ownership managers and employes are public servants and owe their employment to political influence or the enforcement of civil service regulations. They have no direct interest in the results of their management, except intangible public appreciation, upon which they must rely for continuous employment and promotion. The terms of their employment destroy the economic factor of self-in terest. Under private ownership managers and employes owe their employment to the direct personal interest of those owning the stock of the corporation. They have a direct interest in the results of their management, since they must rely for continuous employment and promotion upon the prosperity of the corporation. The terms of their employment stimulate the economic factor of self-interest. They may also be, and often are, stockholders as well as employes, thus having an additional direct interest in the results of their work. |