dividends. If the Chicago City Water Works were in private hands like the gas works, it would probably be capitalized for from fifty to seventyfive millions of dollars, and we should be paying interest on such capitalization.

Now, contrast Chicago on the gas question with this little bit of history of the City of Wheeling, West Va., given by Mr. Keeler in the November Forum:

"Wheeling, where the works are a model of excellence, bought the plant from a company in 1868, for $176,000. The price of gas was then $2.50. From the profits the debt was paid. The works have since been rebuilt with modern improvements out of profits without a dollar of taxation. They are now worth $500,000, and there is a handsome surplus in the bank to their credit. In 1888, with the product selling at seventy-five cents per 1,000, the department lighted free of charge the streets, markets, school houses, engine houses, city hall, public buildings, hospitals, the Orphans' Home, and the Young Men's Christian Association rooms, and yet turned into the city treasury $27,166 net cash. Its seventy-five cent rate is now the lowest for gas in the United States, and it is due solely to the fact that the works are modern and out of debt, that they are owned by the city, and that there is no stock upon which dividends must be paid."

In arguing for the establishment of municipal gas works in Chicago, the Chicago Tribune said recently: "Where a business from the nature of things does not permit of competition, and must be a monopoly in whatever hands it is placed, that monopoly should be in the hands of the whole people, for the benefit of the whole people."

"Government function begins," says Mr. Keeler in the Forum, "where monopoly begins and where free competition ceases.'

Why should a municipality not manage a dry goods store, a grocery store, or a grist mill? Because these things are not in the nature of a monopoly. Any one who has money enough, can without the consent of the public start one of these affairs. He needs no special privileges from the public. But to furnish gas and street railroad transportation the public street must be used and public consent must be obtained. These affairs are in their nature monopolies.

There is not a city in the United States where there is competition in selling gas. Where combination is possibe competition is impossible. The furnishing of gas to the citizens of Chicago is and must remain a monopoly. If the city owns the gas, the city will furnish the largest quantity of gas for the smallest price, because every inhabitant of Chicago will be benefited thereby. Any private corporation will give the least gas it can for the greatest sum in order to put money into the pockets of its stockholders. And between public and private monopoly there is no middle ground. You have to choose between paying $2 or $3 to private individuals, or paying only one dollar for the same quantity of gas and retaining the other money in your own pocket.

We are told of the dreadful dangers that lurk in attending to our own business. There is a danger. But it is not a danger to city or citizens

generally; the danger is all to the few people who are now manipulating municipal concerns for their own private profit.

It is the fashion of the people who want to exploit the public for their own personal benefit, to say that private enterprise can do everything more economically than the public can carry on its own business.

There are in different parts of the world over five hundred gas plants owned by municipalities, eight of them in this country. No municipality owning its own works could be induced to let the business go into private hands. Abroad, the ownership of gas works is as common as is here the ownership of water works. In consequence people abroad get their gas much cheaper than we do. Mr. Keeler, whom I have already quoted, says that the average price paid for gas per thousand feet in England is seventyone cents, on the Continent $1.20, and in this country $1.75, and when the municipalities furnish their own inhabitants with gas, it is of a better quality, and 13 per cent cheaper than when furnished by corporations organized for profit.

Mr. Roome, of the Manhattan Gas Company, New York, some years ago testified before a legislative committee, that the cost of gas to the Manhattan Gas Company, the cost to consumers, and the dividends to stockholders were as follows:

And these dividends were on heavily watered stock.

The New York Times says, that upon an investment of $750,000 in 1823, the stockholders of the New York Gas Company have received in benefits $22,171,336, according to expert Yalden's statement, or dividends at the average annual rate of 47.6 per cent for sixty-two years, and all the time while these dividends were being paid the plant was growing. In 1871 the property was estimated at $4,000,000, and in 1883 it was probably worth still more, but in that year the company being on good terms with the assessor, the plant was assessed for taxation at $61,430, while it paid dividends of 40 per cent and upwards on the actual investment.

In the light of these figures, it is not difficult to see why the men who own and manage gas and street railroad corporations for private profit, are so anxious lest we should get into trouble by managing our own gas plants and street railroads. It is not difficult to see why they think it so dreadful, so subversive and so socialistic even merely to think of it. These corporation saints fear that if we undertake to manage our own affairs, out of it will grow corruption.

Neither here nor in Europe has there ever been a case of corruption in the matter of city water works. Neither here nor in Europe has there

ever been a case of corruption in the matter of city gas works, except in the solitary case of Philadelphia, and that was a case of corruption of the whole City Government and was speedily remedied.

Our gas trust people and our street railroad people are precisely the ones upon whom we rely to watch over and maintain municipal purity and freedom from corruption. Are they not?

Let us look into this matter of private management and public management. Let us glance very briefly at the largest interest managed by the people for the benefit of the people.

Up to the year 1845, postage in this country for a single letter carried not over 30 miles was 64 cents; over 30 and under 80 miles, 10 cents; over 80 and under 150 miles, 122 cents; over 150 and under 400 miles, 184 cents, and 25 cents for any distances over 400 miles. In 1845, the rate was lowered to 5 cents under and 10 cents over 300 miles. In 1851 letter postage was lowered to three cents, and in 1883 it was finally lowered to 2 cents.

The millionaires made by corporations organized for profit are everywhere and numerous. Where are the millionaires made by the post office department? The millions which might have constituted the post office millionaires are in the pockets of the people where they ought to be. In the matter of the post office the people have managed their own business for their own benefit. Every day we reap the reward of the wisdom of the fathers who started us right.

Inasmuch as a large business can always be done more economically than a small one, it is safe to say that hereafter, as heretofore, as population increases, and as the post office business increases, postage will go down still lower. The man is already of age whose letter will go for half of one cent all over the United States.

Being managed by the people for the benefit of the people, the rule of the post office department is to do the greatest possible service for the least amount of money. The rule of all corporations organized for profit, in order to fill with money, the pockets of their stockholders, is to render the least service for the greatest amount of money-to charge as the railroad men put it, all that the traffic will bear.

Contrast the management of corporations for profit with that of the post office department. Contrast it with the management of the Treasury of the United States, which has given us the place of honor among the nations of the earth.

Our cities are growing as they never grew before, and in nearly all of them are growing gas companies that are watering stock to reap where they have not sown, and to gather where they have not strewn.

If we are ever to put an end to this state of things we must begin now. Every day we postpone dealing with these questions will make their settlement more difficult.

The people who own gas works and street railroads say, that for a municipality to own and manage these things for itself is impractical. What a familiar sound that has? "You are impracticable." That is what the slave holders said to the abolitionists. It is what the tories said

to the patriots in the time of the revolution. "Three millions of people," said they, "to undertake to fight the British Empire!" "What an absurdity!" "And to govern themselves." "What an absurdity!"

Just before the resumption of specie payments by the United States, the president of one of the largest national banks in New York, said that the United States could not resume specie payments; that it was impracticable; that it was dangerous to attempt it, and that he himself would give a million of dollars to be first in line to get gold for greenbacks, the morning the government should undertake to resume. Resumption took place and it did not prove to be dangerous for the United States. But it was dangerous to the gold gamblers. It finished them, and that was the danger they had been thinking of all the time.

What the gas people and street railroad people mean by saying that it is impracticable, is that if we manage our own municipal affairs it will be impracticable for them to make any money out of us; but that is a calamity which the rest of us could contemplate with some degree of resignation.

Our gas trust people and our street railroad people in Chicago, are simply an incubus upon the city. They are to us what barnacles are to the ship; they are to us what the wolf is to the flock of sheep; they are to us what the gold gamblers were to the greenbacks; they are to us what the absentee Irish landlord is to Irish farming. The Irish farmer would get on very much better without the absentee landlord. These people are to the city of Chicago what the slaveholders were to the cotton crop—a hindrance and a nuisance. Without us, said the slaveholders before the war, there would be no cotton crop. The war did away with the slaveholders, and now the cotton crop is twice as large as it was before the war. The slaveholders bore no relation to the cotton crop, except to eat up the proceeds. Just so with our gas trust people and our street railroad people. If we could once get rid of them, we should get along very much better without them and their methods.

Let me quote from Abraham Lincoln a few words I find in one of the January magazines:

"I see in the near future a crisis arising that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. By a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign, by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel, at this point, more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war."

Let me quote from a recent article in the Chicago Tribune: From time immemorial until a comparatively recent date, commerce was divided into two classes-the merchant marine and the pirates. At one time, not very long ago either, piracy seemed to have the advantage. At last public sentiment was thoroughly aroused, and as if by magic piracy was driven from the seas. Since that time honest enterprise and legitimate investment have been unmolested by the corsair. In this country, however it

may be in foreign lands, every sea of enterprise and investment is infested with pirates. The black flag flaunts defiantly in every port. Our business world is to-day divided into two clearly-defined classes-the accumulators of honestly-gotten wealth, and the spoilers who prey upon that wealth under color of law. Very little is to be feared from burglars, pick-pockets, forgers, sneak thieves, and the like who lay themselves liable to the criminal law by their operations. Where they steal a few pennies the land pirates grab millions, helped by the cunning unscrupulous lawyers to evade the criminal law as it now stands. It is by intelligent, careful and persistent use of the ballot, that the community must protect itself from the Captain Kidds of the period."

Let us begin this work. We live in a city set on a hill that cannot be hid. All other American cities will take courage from our example. Let the world see that we are citizens of no mean city. Let us take the advance. Let us be the pioneers. Let us take the skirmish line in the battle that is coming on. Already the ground trembles with the coming onset. Already we hear the trumpets and the bugles and the shoutings of the captains. I see the robber barons moving towards their Appomattox. The very air is full of victory-victory of the people, by the people, and for the people.