OCR Text |
Show HINDERING PROGRESS. While the distressing" economical conditions which prevail are due to a number of causes, there can be no doubt that restrictive laws which hamper business and industry have been a a important factor in the situation. situ-ation. An instance of how unwise legislation legisla-tion operate to retard progress is given giv-en by Wright A. Patterson, veteran editor, in a recent issue of the Publisher's Pub-lisher's Auxiliary, a trade publication for newspaper men. Mr. Patterson discusses dis-cusses the effects of laws enacted in Oklahoma and Kansas which, prohibit utility companies from selling electric elec-tric and gas appliances, and the agitation agi-tation for similar laws in other states. He says: "The enactment of such a law in any state means slowing up of the installation in-stallation of these modern comfort and convenience producing appliances in the home; it means depriving the people peo-ple of the community of securing them on easy payment terms and at the lowest possible cost; it means fewer people employed in the community and in the factories of the nation, and in the end it does more harm than good to the merchants of a community." It might be added that such laws tend to prevent the extension of electric elec-tric service to the farms of the country, coun-try, a movement which has made great progress in recent years owing to the enterprise of the utility companies com-panies in supplying the necessary appliances ap-pliances on most favorable terms. |