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Show WHEN THE FACTS j SPEAK. A short time ago a medium-sized community in Illinois was called upon up-on to vote on a proposal to build and operate a municipal electric plant. Preceding the election, information was widely circulated tending to show that the move would be a wise and economical one. It came, supposedly, sup-posedly, from an unprejudiced source. Then it developed that the engineering engineer-ing f irm making the recommendations hr d i. contract with the city providing that, in addition to its fee for making the study, it was to receive a commission com-mission on the expenditures its recommendations re-commendations entailed. At this time a local committee ' composed of leading merchants and citizens, embarked upon an examination examina-tion of its own. It supplied to the voters information regarding the cost of building the plant, the cost of maintenance, as well as the probable ultimate increased cost of electric service. ser-vice. As a result, the proposal was voted down by an overwhelming majority. ma-jority. It is a fact that, where really unprejudiced un-prejudiced information is available to the public, municipal ventures into business make little headway. The list of expensive failures is too long the list of successes too brief. During the past decade, especially, the municipal movement has been losing ground, and Hundreds of communities have dismantled their plants or sold them to private concerns and received better, bet-ter, cheaper and more trustworthy service. When the facts speak, politics poli-tics in business makes a poor showing. |