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Show TAX RATES AND PUBLIC OWNERSHIP. Unless figures lie, municipalities which have gone in for public operation opera-tion of some kind of business tend to have higher tax rates than those which have left business to business men. Los Angeles, whose tax-free, publicly-owned water and power enterprises are valued at millions of dollars, is at the top among cities of over 500,- j 000 population, with a per capita cost of government of $80.12, a3 compared with a group average of $64.40. In the next group 300,000 to 500,000 Seattle, of the famous city-owned street railway, leads. In the third group, Long Beach, a municipal ownership own-ership town, gets first honors, and in the fourth group, Pasadena, which has likewise listened to the blandishments blandish-ments of the politicians, is second. R. H. Ballard, of the Socthern Califor- I nia Edison company, who recently I brought out the facts, ventured the opinion that these results did not accrue ac-crue so much from the loss occasioned occasion-ed by municipal business enterprises, as by the state of mind that goes with putting a city into business. Whatever the cause, the figures speak for themselves. They show that the best way for a city to get high tax rates is to sanction the waste, ineptitude in-eptitude and occasional graft that accompany ac-company public management of electric elec-tric plants and similar ventures. The corollary of this is that a reasonable tax rate can best be assured by keeping keep-ing the city out of business and by restricting politicians to the craft of politics. |