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Show FRANCHISES IN TWO CITIES. The Councilmen of this city have no doubt returned from Los Angeles flrmlj convinced that they ought not to grant long-time franchises. So thoroughly 18 the Idea recognized that municipal franchises should be carefully guarded and limited, that even an Indian student stu-dent orator at Riverside showed them In a most convincing manner that the idea of conferring such franchises was not to be thought of; and we trust that his oration made the right .mpresslon upon the minds of our Councilmen. As we have shown, there Is on in Philadelphia a similar grab. There the United Gas Company offers the city twenty-five million dollars for an extension ex-tension of seventy-five years on its lease of the city gas plant. Hut the people are up In arms against the proposition, prop-osition, threatening to hang the Councilmen Coun-cilmen who vote for the extension; the claim being that the gas company would realize a hundred million dollars from the extension. Here the company asks a fifty year life for the consolidation of Its twenty odd franchises, and offers the city practically prac-tically nothing In return All Its capacity ca-pacity for light nnd power Is taken and paid for by customers, and more; and yet the company pretends to "give" free light and power to the city, filching filch-ing it from those who have paid for it all; and besides, the company gets a tremendous profit from the arc lights it overcharges for but has no right to sell. if the Councilmen of Philadelphia who vote for a franchise that Is a robbery, rob-bery, but w hich yet bids to that city twenty-five million dollars, should be hanged, what should be done to th. Council of a city who vote for B worse Job. and one in which the city gets nothing that is not first taken unfairly from the citizens who have paid for It all? |