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Show PUBLIC OWNERSHIP Citizens of St. George should not allow themselves to be deluded by proponents of municipal ownership. . Speakers at the Municipal League convention here last week spoke in glowing terms of the success of such ventures ven-tures in other parts of the state. Their statements were without a doubt greatly exaggerated ex-aggerated and it is probable that they could not produce figures to support their claims. They spoke of course, of the local power and light situation. A point in this connection which should not be over-j looked is that Price, the ; home town of W. F. Olsen, principal agitator here for j municipal ownership, buys its power from! what he tennis "the power trust", and has no plant of its own. As a former mayor and prominent ! citizen of that town, Olsen , should put in practice what i he preaches. While nearly ten years must elapse before St. George could put in operation a plant of its own, it is not too early to begin studying the situation, situ-ation, and to get both sides of the auestion. Government and municipal ownership has never proved a big success, and the reason is too much politics, which is an evil which cannot be cast - aside, it seemis. It is true that the public will share in profits if there are any, and it is also true that the public must pay any deficit that may arise, and besides this public owned enterprises en-terprises pay no taxes. Latest government statistics statis-tics show that about 96 per cent of the electrical energy served in the United States is generated and distributed by commercial companies, ;the remaining four per cent by municipally owned elec- -tric properties. |