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Show Single copies, .10 cents. Payments should be made by Check, Money Order or Registered Letter, payable to The Citizen. Address all communications to The Citizen. Entered as second-clas- s matter, June 21, 1919, at the Postoffice at Salt Lake City, Utah, under the Act of March 3, 1879- 3 Phone Wasatch 5409. Ness Bldg. Salt Lake City, Utah. Published Every Saturday by weekly publishing goodwin8 A. W. RAYBOULD, Business CO., INC. Manager SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: Includin' postage in the United States, Canada and Mexico, $2.50 per year, to ail foreign countries, within the Postal 0 for six months. Subscriptions on, $4.50 per year. . 311-12-1- SWATTING UTAH INDUSTRIES TO SWELL DIVIDENDS 9 well known fact that the manufacturing industries of this abso-el- y te, and all lines of endeavor, where the use of power is necessary, are being mulcted by one of the greediest public rporation in all the west today. The Citizen refers specifically and )ecially to the Utah Power & Light Company, a corporation capital-i- d for many millions and doing business over a vast intermountain It is a ritorv. This company controls many valuable water power rights iich it has been granted by the people solely for the public good d not especially for private gain. When under the stress of war profiteering a benevolent state ilities commission granted this corporation a big increase in power tes, it was thought that as soon as the country evidenced a return normalcy this commission would call another hearing and lop off ese fancy charges, which, under present conditions, have become burden upon home production. The attempt to return to a sarie id safe business status is n.ow well on its way; in fact, it has ogressed so far that the institutions and corporations that want 1 continue the war-tim- e profiteering stunts, stand out in bold relief gainst a fast approaching normal back ground and appear like prowl-- g mountain lions contrasted to a field mouse to the man who must ly their exorbitant tax. 1921. Recently the state board of, equalization placed a valuation on the companys properties for tax purposes solely. This represents the physical valuation of the corporate holdings when the state wants to assess it taxes. Net earnings of $5,000,000 or more on this valuation would exceed 35 per cent on the valuation returned by the state board of equalization. If this is a correct valuation for tax purposes and represents the valuation placed upon the holdings of the company by its own experts, as is the usual procedure then it is evident that the present power rates are more than 50 per cent too high. For rate making purposes the valuation of the corporations holdings were placed at $42,000,000 by the utilities commission. Here is evidence that two different state commissions have gotten badly mixed up in their figures or is it just a plain case of mulcting the public at the insistent behest of a greedy corporation still clinging to the belief that the old hysteria of war prices and rates can be maintained against public opinion? It would seem that one of these, state commissions should call for a rehearing of the entire case and find out, if possible, whether the value of the Utah Power & Light Companys properties is really $42,000,000 or more like $14,000,000 winch the tax board has found it to be. With such evidence of brazen faced manipulation of corporate valuation for divers purposes staring it in the face, is their any wonder that the average citizen begins to see red and almost concludes that the leveling process of bolshevism and the .forcing of all corporations into the hands of the state, are, after all, the only effective means of getting a square deal? A public scandal is sure to follow this revelation of a double valuation standard for this Utah corporation at the hands of two of the states most prominent boards and it would seem it certainly calls for a speedy review of the entire power rate situation. . Another aspect of the power rate situation centers around the Duble standard of valuation the Utah Power & Light Company aces on its properties. It has one valuation for the commission to aze at when it wants its rates fixed and another and decidely dif-?rentiat- ed valuation for the tax assessing commissioners. Here are enumerated a few facts regarding the power rate situa-o- n and the reasons why they should be speedily reduced : According to the records of the hearing for increased power ates before the state utilities commission, net earnings of the com-an- y for the year 1919 aggregated $2,663,000, and total valuation was eld to be $42,000,000. On this showing the utilities commission ranted increase in power rates which added approximately $2,d00 -D. bis would indicate that under the new rates the corporation I ; would, earn more than than $5,000,000 on its capitalization during SLUFFING U. S. WAR DEBT INTEREST TO PROMOTE TRADE British publicists and some Americans, arc striving with might main to convince the people of this nation that unless the war s of the old country to the United States arc entirely forgicn, be A. least the time of payment of principal and interest the whole world will crumble and our industrial indefin-prolongc- d, fabrication, built up at the expense of hundreds of billions in money and many years of indefatigable labor, will fall. The latest came in a fulsome article by Frank IT. Simmonds, and dire given wide publication in the daily press, full of cant and prophesies of immanant disaster to trade relations and placing the |