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Show UTILITIES MEASURE IT PUBLIC HEARING I SILT LAKE Salt Lake, Feb. 10. Citizens at large voiced objection to u siate pub-li pub-li utilities commission, ab proposed by tbf Evans bill at a public hearing m the measure before the senate judiciary ju-diciary committee in the senate chain ber last night The chamber was well filled with people Interested in this measure, and in addition. Chairman L B Wight, at the request of friends of the measure, meas-ure, read a score of letters urging that th bill be not passed at this time lest Utah experiment with such legislation ;n this stage of its development devel-opment These letters, setting forth industrial, indus-trial, economic and similar arguments against passage of the utilities bill, were from former Governor John C. Cutler Fred J Kipsel of Ogden. James A Melville and twenty other citizens oi Delta. Utah; Rodney T. Badger V V. Armstrong, the Utah-Idaho Utah-Idaho Sugar company, by T. R. Cutler, Cut-ler, general manager, and others. On tbe floor of the senate chamber iasl night arguments both for and against .he bill were presented. Principal Prin-cipal arguments in fnvor of the bill will be urged Saturday morning, at the request of H. I Moore, representing represent-ing the electric lines, friendly to the measure. The chairman announced an-nounced that with final argument by proponents on Saturday morning public pub-lic hearings on the bill would end As the representative of the farmers, farm-ers, merchants and manufacturers of his section of the state, V H. Cap-well Cap-well of Tremonton voiced his disapproval disap-proval of a utilities commission for Utah. George Austin observed that Utah was prospering at this crisis in the woiiu ilium iiihu many oilier localities locali-ties and cautioned the committee against Indorsing the Evans bill without with-out careful consideration He viewed it with misgivings, he said. Contin uing, Mr Austin declared that while the central part of the state was well endowed with railroads and other utilities, util-ities, other sections were still crying for them. He thought enactment of the utilities bill would have the effect ef-fect of discouraging railroad extension exten-sion and investment of new capital in pubic service enterprises Rewarded With Applause. "No state is as solid as Utah," declared de-clared Mr, Austin eloquently. "Let's get all he competition we can here It builds more roads than commissions wll We have had no legislation restricting capital and I ask you gentlemen gen-tlemen of the committee to seriously consider whether this bill ma) not do more harm than good " Mr. Austin was rewarded with applause. On the other side of the question John A. Beck, jr., from the Traffic Bureau of Utah, presented an array of comparative figures ou freight rates In Utah and other states. All of the figures given by Mr. Beck showed that rates In Utah were higher high-er than for the same distances In other oth-er states he named He said he based his Utah rate calculations on the Denver & Rio Grande road A speaker for the negative subsequently attacked Mr Beck's figures on the ground that the comparisons were unfair, un-fair, since they did not take into account ac-count the mountain hauls on the line he mentioned in Utah. Mr Beck and Harry S. Joseph offered of-fered some diversion by a spirited dispute over whether the state constitution con-stitution touched upon state regulation regula-tion by commission of public utilities utili-ties Speaking of a shipper. A. V Taylor Tay-lor of Salt Lake declared himself , in favor of the bill. He declared that n utilities commission would give local shippers an Impartial tribunal, to which they might take their controversies con-troversies wth the railroads over rates He said that Utah manufacturers manufac-turers and development enterprises are retarded by the lack of a commission com-mission A paint factory' in which he was interested here some years ago, he said, was forced to close be cause it could not get as good freight rates as eastern competitors. C. A. Faus, another loral shipper, concurred in what Mr. Taylor had said. The shippers, said he, had been paying bills for rate contests with the railroads, and he thought there should now be a commission to appeal ap-peal to |