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Show IKillT COMPANY TAKES UMBRAGE ! Accuses The Record of Being Scurrilous and Slandrous Agninst Company. Office f Cedar Klertric Company, CMar City, Utah, June )i, 11M7 Kditor Iron County Record.- I'lcasc publish the following statemant of facts as an advertisement and send me a lull for same. In the last three previous issues of the Iron County Record, the Cedar Electric Company have been unwarrantably, unwar-rantably, scurrilously and slanderously slanderous-ly attacked upon their method or system sys-tem of operating the electric light plant: upon their incompetency and lack of ability in supplying their patrons pat-rons with electric current for light and power purposes, and upon their dog-in-the-manger attitude in standing stand-ing in the way of parties who were anxious to take hold of our plant and operate it; the article in question intimating in-timating that there were parties desirous de-sirous of purchasing the holdings of the company, who would be able to I give the people uninterrupted serv-i serv-i ice. The Hoard of Directors of the com- ! pany have discussed those article.'-. and they protest the continuance of j such unwarrantable slander; they in- I sist that the statements therein made are absolutely untrue, and that there is no justification for them. ' The company has much to contend with in keeping the water running to the wheel; Coal Creek is a very treacherous stream, liable to floods that sweep out all the dams and leaves us without water to run with. Hut, in spite of all the difficulties, WS are pleased to be able to state (truthfully), that during the eight months last past, there has been only seven nights that the town has been without lights furnished from our plant. We were feeling quite proud of our Ability to run the system, and felt that we were giving the people pretty good service, until those articles arti-cles in The Record hit us in the face, having about the same effect as, throwing a bucket of ice-water ov i one. We are not standing in anyone's light, or way, that we know of; no one that we are aware of wants to buy the plant, and it seems that we should know it if anyone wanted to buy; they would almost certainly maki their wants known to some officer of-ficer of the company. There have been times when the Hoard felt that it would be best to sell, but that time was during the dark days. If we had had the chance to sell thtl by taking a fair sized loss, we would undoubtedly have done SO; Hut the chance did Mi offer, and by strenuous effort and continuous plugging plug-ging away, and by the help ami moral support of our FRIENDS, the Hoard has succeeded in getitig the business on a paying basis, and with the exception ex-ception that we are still in bondage to a considerable extent, and furthermore, furth-ermore, that it is going to le several years before we can hope to pay dividends, div-idends, (unleM our treasury stock is taken up(, we have as good proposition proposi-tion for investment as ran be found hereabouts. We hope that fiom this time on the paper will refrain from publishing more of that class of articles concern-ing concern-ing this company; moreover, we must I Insist upon it. CEDAR ELECTRIC COMPANY, .1. H. ARTHUR. Secy -Trees. The Record was very much surprised sur-prised at receiving the foregoing communication, whuh is self explanatory, explan-atory, or as nearly so as we are prepared pre-pared to make it. We iliave always looked upon the offlci M of the Kb ctrie Contpan) as gentlemen of more than ordinary intelligence. Hut tins di.s sertation is not only silly and puerile, but savors of B woman's hysteria as well The communication states that "In the last three previous Issues of tin Iron County Record, the Cedar Electric Elec-tric Company have been unwarrantably, unwarrant-ably, scurrilouslj ami landcrousl attacked upon then method or sys tern of operating the electric light plant." In the first place we will see what definition is given tO the terms scur- iloui and slanderous, attributed to our references to the electric company com-pany during the past three issues. The international Dictionar) defines scurrilous as abusive, reproachful, insulting, in-sulting, gross, siie. vulgar, low, foul mouthed, Indecent, scurrile, And try .same authority gives the definition of ilandes as disgrace; -bam. ; reproach; dishonor, Now, inorder that our readt rs may judge for themselvei at to whether Or not our reference to the electric company and then service com.' within with-in the meaning of the terms u sad in the foregoing communication, we will here reproduce all articles concerning them that have appeared in our col- imns during th. pa thn t In our number of Mnv IK. under the aptlon, "Give ui service," we pub- ishad in QUI editorial columns, the following) Electricity has com.' to be a daily, and we might say an hourly hour-ly necessity in a majority of the hornet and business s 'ablisb-ments 'ablisb-ments of Cedar City. In a great many places of business such, for instance, as The Record office, of-fice, we are scarcely able to do anything at all without it. It is the motive power which propels our typesetting machine, our job presses, our cylinder press, folding fold-ing ma. hi -c. a lfl is even employed em-ployed in the business department depart-ment in connection with our correspondence cor-respondence and the preparation of our copy for the paper, besides keeping us cool through the medium me-dium of the electric fan; in the garages it is employed in pumping pump-ing tires, vulcanising and turning various machinery; in innumerable innumera-ble homes it heats the flat irons, turns the washing machines, electric elec-tric fans, cooks food, etc.; it is employed in the hotel, the ice cream foctories, and elsewhere for power; it planes, turns and saws-lumber; saws-lumber; runs iron lathes, and various var-ious other machinery, all in addition addi-tion to lighting our homes, streets and places of business. It therefore there-fore can be easily seen that a hardship is worked on somebody every time the current is off. The local company has been struggling along and doing the best they could under the circumstances, cir-cumstances, and people have put up with the irregularities in the service without saying much; but as the business has grown and we have come to depend more and more upon the electrical agency in our daily affairs, and satisfied to pay our good money for same when it is furnished, we feel that we are entitled to a dependable service. The company's dam and ditch are not such as to guarantee guaran-tee this in times of high spring water and summer freshets. There should be a good cement dam, with spill way, sand and gravel trap, etc., so that every freshet that comes down the creek would not fill the entrance to the race and dam off the water, leaving . the town in darkness for from one fo ',-, ttnvc It Would be economy and good business foresight to make such an improvement, for the temporary tempor-ary repairs now being done would easily pay interest on the money required to make a permanent job of it, to My nothing of the money lost to the company by reason of the interruption to the service and the fact that many more Uses would be found for this form of energy if it were absolutely abso-lutely dependable, We understand that outside capital stands ready to take the plant over and place it in a po-sitlon po-sitlon t.. ii. dependable service, and while we would much prefer to st.P it operated by a local company, com-pany, we have about reached a point where we MUST have dependable de-pendable service and if the local company is not financially able to give it to us, then we believe that it would be in the interest of the progress of the community for them to step to one side and transfer the business to specialists special-ists in this line of work, just as they have done at St. George, Richfield and a number of the other small cities of the state. Is there anything scurrilous, slanderous, slan-derous, or unwarranted about this. For the most part it is such a boost for the use and value of eluctricit the company's ito(k in trade a- any gooi! publicity man or shrewd business busi-ness man would be willing to pay very handsomely for, and which could not be purchased in the position in which it appeared at any price. In the same i-ur of the paper the following local mention was made: This has been a itrenUOUS week in The Record offlce. No electrU CUITant sine, Monday evening until un-til this (Friday) afternoon, The old noisy, balky, whimsical gas dine engine is a poor substitute at best for electricity, and for the past day or two we have been waging a presistent tight, backed bj .s..m. of the local gas engine doctors, to keep it going. At besl the Issue will be a few hours late, and whether we get out at all or not will depend upon the light plant, ii. the big ROWS press is one piece of machinery that we cannot run without the current. Anything noted about this that is scurrilous or slanderous? If so it Is certainly against the manufacturers of gasoline engines, for it Is a vary effectual boost for the use of electricity, electric-ity, as compared with gas Our issue of May 86th contained this paragraph, which la doubtless the specific article that was deemed to i scurrilous .md defamatory. Read it: The Electric light service the past week has been very constant and satisfactory, Ws trust that the interruptions due to the spline high water are now about over, although there is still a good deal of snow in the mountains moun-tains to melt and come down when the weather gets warmer We must admit that the above is a prettj severe arraignment. In our issue of June 1, the following appeared in our local columns: The reason that the electric light and pOWl r service is so poor, intermittent, and unreliable today is that some gravel has washed into the head of the creek (should have read race or canal) and the cooler weather having checked the flow of the creek it is not high enough to flow over the obstruction. In order to avoid the labor of moving this gravel we are aiting for the weather to warm up and bring more water down the creek, which will then be high enough to run over the gravel again and keep the wheel turning. You can easily see that only the weather man is responsible respon-sible for the poor service. The above item brought Mr. Leigh, the man In charge of the ditch and plant, to our office, who protested that the item was incorrect, as it was not gravel in the head of the race, but a stick of wood that had become fast in the nozzle of the penstock that had caosad the plant to run all day with a voltage of not more than 60 to 70 volts at best, scarcely enough to turn . machinery at all. The facts do not appear to improve the case of the . are taker very much. It would have taken about fifteen minutes to have SSmoved the cause and have given us good Mrvice, had there been some one on the Job, and the reason that it was not done was that he was laboring under tin supposition that the condition condi-tion mentioned in our local, as report! re-port! d to both US and the care taker, v s ih,' cause of the loss of current. The Cedar Electric Company is a public utility, engaged in the furnishing furnish-ing of electric service to this comun-Ity, comun-Ity, and WS as the representative of the DSK pie, and al-o as one of their heavier customers, are strictly within with-in our rights when we comment upon the quality of the service supplied and publish facts concerning it, and would have been Justified by the facts in making severe arraiiiunent of the service at times in the past, which we have refrained from doing for the reason that they are a home company Struggling under adverse conditions and a lack of capital; but the cornun- i. ation which we publish at the commencement com-mencement of this article is not only a must unwarranted and abusive attack at-tack upon us, but Is also entirely for eign from the facts, is senseless and manifests a vindictive spirit wholly unbecoming of such men as compose its board of directors and officers. If they are the men we believe them to be, they will publish a public apology for this insulting document, which we are publishing gratuitously, with full information as to what has brought it forth, and rest our case with the people to judge as to whether we 01 they are guilty of using slanderous and scurrilous language. By the introduction in-troduction of their article it is evidently evi-dently intended to convey the idea that our reading columns were closed against them, and consequently it was necessary for them to make their accusations ac-cusations through the advertising columns; col-umns; or they realized full well that their attack was so ungenerous and unfair that they did not have the "nerve" to ask us to print it concerning concern-ing ourselves gratuitously. On this phase of the question we have to say that our columns are always open to the public for the publication of any helpful comments on local affairs, or for the defense of any person or corporation cor-poration unjustly assailed. We will also remind the company that our advertising ad-vertising columns, too, are open to all business enterprises seeking to extend their patronage, and that an exchange of business courtesies are often attended at-tended with good results. In his letter the secretary says that the lights have only been off seven nights; but he does not say anything about the days. That is just the trouble. The company apparently does not deem the day service of any particular importance. All that is necessary is to have the current on when the shades of night begin to fall. They fail to remember that the system is nearly loaded to its capacity capac-ity and that increased revenue must come from the sale of their day current, cur-rent, ti accomplish which it is necessary nec-essary to make the service as satis factory and dependable as possible. As to the Implied threat which closes clos-es their communication, we will suji that we trust their service in the f tine will be such that no adverse criticism crit-icism will be called for. |