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Show ELECTRICITY'S BIRTHDAY On September 4, 1912, the electric light and power industry indus-try reached its sixtieth birthday. That marked three generations gener-ations of achievement ana progress that have revolutionized revolution-ized the industrial and social life of the nation. In 1902, the average consumption of electricity was 60 kilowatt-hours per capita in 1912 it was 1,417. Around the turn of the century, each one of those kilowatt-hours cost the consumer about 25 cents. Today a kilowatt-hour costs Horn less than one cent to five cents, depending upon the amount used and the varying operating costs in different differ-ent parts of the country. Thirty or forty years ago, even (fine homes used electricity power for only a few incandescent incandes-cent lamps. Today the typical American home uses electricity elec-tricity for a multitude of things, including cooking, cleaning, lighting, water-heating, radios, phonographs, razors and other conveniences and necessities too numerous to mention. No other major country on earth uses electrictiy so abundantly. And the main reason is that electrical development develop-ment in this country has been primarily a function of private enterprise. Private enterprise, not government, pioneered every important electrical development. Private enterprise, not government, spent its money and its energy and its progressive pro-gressive genius to give people on farms and in tiny towns electric service as good and as cheap as that enjoyed by the residents of great cities. Private enterprise, not government, govern-ment, was responsible for the extraordinary engineering achievements of the industry improvement in generators, in transmission methods, in the electric light, in rural electrification, electri-fication, etc. It is a statistical fact that there are fewer municipal power systems today than there' used to be simply because politicajly-managed plants could not compete in service or price with business-managed plants. Despite all the ballyhoo concerning the hydro-electric plants the government has built plants which were built with tax money, w,hich are largely tax free and which are completely unregulated the private electric companies serve close to 90 per cent of all the industries and consumers of the nation. As a result, free enterprise in the field of electric elec-tric power is the basic source of electric power needed in the war effort. And the industry is entering its seventh decade determined to make its achievements of the future exceed those of the past. |