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Show THE SEARCHLIGHT Gadsby Seeks Kilowatt Mergers (Continued from page The 1) in—generating and _ distributing electricity. The public is the sufferer from over-expansion and manipulation when a utility incubates too many varieties of utility eggs. For instance, the Traction Company has needed inereased ‘bus facilities for several years. Its Salt Lake City traffic is always on the verge of bogging down. The public has complained—and still complains about it. On several occasions the Public Service Commis- sion has suggested that the Traction Company should aequire additional busses. The Company has always stalled and procrastinated. It always seems to have busses ‘on order’’. ‘The writer has knowledge of such busses being ‘‘on order’? for nearly three vears. But few of the Traction Company’s ‘‘on order’’ busses are ever delivered. They don’t seem to materialize like the equipmnt ordered by other concerns. From early in 1941 Mr. George B. Thomas, Traction head, has encouraged the public and the Public Service Commission to believe that the Traction Company was doing everything possible to procure new busses. Other concerns could order and receive new busses even after America had been in the war six months. In August, 1941, the writer of this article was offered 200 new Ford transit busses for service in Salt Lake City. The offer was bona fide. It was made by a responsible dealer, and would have been filled. That information was available to the Traction Company. It could have purchased the same busses. Accordingly, there was no valid excuse for the failure of Utah Light & Traction Company to obtain plenty of equipment in advance of the scar- city arising from the war. Asa matter of policy it refused to acquire an adequate reserve of busses. The inconvenience suffered by Salt Lakers today is the direct result of that policy. And that policy was the policy enforced on its subsidiary by Utah Power & Light Company. Is there any reason to believe ate status from ating would that the change a subsidiary company in corpor- to an division of Utah Power & Light alter that policy? There is not. oper- Company same failure to conform to proper oper- ating standards in the matter of fares and wages has been even more glaring in the period immediately before American entry into the war. Wages were kept low and fares high. The financial affairs of the Traction Company, like its equipment needs, were igencies of Power sire of the always subordinated Company Kilowatt Nobility to the ex- finances, and the de- to funnel all possi- ble revenues There would into the Power Company’s coffers. be even fewer obstacles in the way of shuffling and manipulating were the corporate boundaries between the two concerns to be And the public would be the loser. wiped out. An even more basic objection to the retention of the transportation industry by Utah Power & Light Company, in any reorganization, is the estabished practice of the Power Company to develop and utilize every possible connection that might facilitate it political, economic, civic and social control of the people of Utah. The Power Company has intruded itself into churches, education associations, farm or- ganizations, service clubs, the bar, labor organizations, organized charities, trade associations, and what not, all to expand its orbit of under-cover influence that it might control the people of Utah in its own financial interest. It has allied itself with, or seduced newspapers thatits unholy influence and manipulation might remain undisclosed. ‘Those allies have always been at its elbow in any kilowatt fights or adventures. The elimination of the Traction Company’s bus ‘business from the power business of Utah Power & Light Company would tend to clear up that unwholesome condition and restrict the Power Company to a clean merchandising role. It would have surreptitious call on fewer prominent citizens. WESTERN COLORADO POWER COMPANY The objection to a merger with Western Colorado Power Company rests upon equally strong considerations. There is no physical connection between the two companies—and no public need of one. There is no reasonable need for integration of the two companies. There is no contemplated extension of power (Continued on following page) |