Burlington Weekly Free Press

Monopoly of Public Necessities Should Result in Government Regulation, Says Chairman Redmond of Public Service Commission.

Problems of present-day civic life in this city and this State, as seen by men conversant at first hand with conditions as they are, were the subjects discussed Friday night at the First Church Brotherhood dinner. John W. Redmond of Newport, chairman of the Vermont State public service commission, was the principal speaker. He spoke in part as follows:

"I don't need to allude to the fact that the government of the United States was at the first an experiment of a kind unique in history, nor do I need to trace the steps by which our great national problems have been solved by the statesmen that have gone before us. That the last great problems, those of slavery and State's rights, have been settled for all time is sufficiently proved by the fact that the southern States now declare that they are going to give us a president.

"The thing that I want to impress upon you is that the problems of to-day are not problems of statesmanship nor of politics. The issues of the present time are economic, pure and simple. They involve the creation and distribution of wealth. They cluster about such words as labor, capital and strikes. And they call for as much thought and consideration as did those which perplexed our fathers.

"One of these problems of our day is summed up in the word monopoly. A monopoly is a business which excludes competition. It is an invidious term, but I believe the time is coming when it will not be invidious, when it will not be said that the panacea for all human ills is competition.

There are two kinds of monopoly—natural and artificial. The postoffice of a patent right is a monopoly created by law, and a trust like the steel or the tobacco trust is another form of artificial monopoly.

"But there is a kind of business that is a monopoly by nature. If you try to deal with businesses of this kind on the supposition that they are not natural monopolies, you will make the same mistake as to assume that a natural tiger is an artificial one. Natural monopolies include all public service businesses."

Mr. Redmond showed the working out of a natural monopoly by the illustration of a toll bridge across the Connecticut river. Excessive tolls being charged, and going into the pockets of the shareholders, a rival bridge is built at a cost of $50,000. Competition then results in war, and the outcome is destruction or absorption of one enterprise by the other, and competition again gives place to monopoly. The only cure for the misuse of a natural monopoly, said the speaker, is government regulation.

"There can be no competition," he continued, "between two public-service concerns which are serving the same community with the same kind of service. Wherever there is a monopoly of a public necessity, there must be government regulation. The time is coming when there can't be a strike in the coal mines, for coal is a public necessity."

Taking up the railroads, Mr. Redmond pointed out the difficulties they meet with, being forced to buy steel from a trust, coal from another trust, labor from a trust—called a union—and then being forced to listen to the public clamor and still pay dividends to the stockholders.

"Gentlemen," he declared, "a strike on a railroad is a disgrace to civilization. It's a thing we won't stand forever. Let the employees be well paid—they don't get a cent too much. Let them get pensions for injury. But they have no right to tie up the service, for they are as much in the service of the United States as a soldier in the army, if not even more so.

"There should be a tribunal to regulate our trusts. The mere existence of such a force is enough. It doesn't matter how often it has to be used. In school we had a ruler, up in the corner, and the mere presence of that object was an influence unspeakable to keep us in obedience."

HOW CRIMINALS ESCAPE.

Levi P. Smith, who presided at the dinner, introduced State Attorney Henry B. Shaw of this city as an expert competent to talk on Vermont. "Anyone," said Mr. Smith, "can speak upon the Sandwich Islands."

"We have had a great deal of crime here during the past few years," said Mr. Shaw. Murders, hold-ups, larcenies, forgeries and minor crimes have been rampant. The offenders have usually had astute defense. The procedure has commonly been for the respondent to waive examination, because of the fact that the state had a strong case, and that by this method he could make war with the state's witnesses before the case finally came before county court.

"Another difficulty was found in the fact that in the preliminary examination witnesses refused to answer the questions. Following a conference of district attorneys two years ago the last Legislature passed an act to stop this, and now the magistrates have power to put the witness under bail, or, lacking bail, he can be put in jail. Better results have followed this act. We have also widened the powers of inquest, and witnesses can be subpoenaed and sent up for contempt of court or perjury."

Mr. Shaw termed the power of the Legislature to commute the sentence of a person convicted for murder as "the recall of judicial decision," and Mr. Redmond agreed with the definition. He urged the classification of criminals, adding that in our methods of recording the measurements of offenders we are years behind the times. Exceptions in court procedure should be permitted the state, said he, as well as the respondent.

SOCIAL SURVEY SUGGESTED.

"We are in danger of spoiling our children and coddling our criminals," remarked Mr. Smith, at the close of Mr. Shaw's address. The next speaker was the Rev. B. G. Guthrie, who spoke in the interest of a social survey of Burlington and Winooski.

"There is a deep desire for improvement in all walks of life in this city," said he, "and the purpose of such a survey is to take hold of this aroused interest and give it plan and a consecutive program. Knowledge of conditions is necessary first, then action. Now is the time to use the social passion alive, and to see if we can't deal constructively with the problems that face us."

Prof. A. R. Gifford of the University of Vermont said that a more comprehensive and profound knowledge of conditions is desirable if the evils are remediable. If the results are commensurate with the efforts, the expense is negligible. But mere knowledge is worthless unless it arouses us from apathy and leads to action. An example of this, said he, is found in the fact that a license was recently granted to a local hotel of questionable reputation, with the provision that the license would be revoked if the case pending against the proprietor results in conviction. An important question, said Professor Gifford, is this: Are the brotherhoods of the various churches willing to follow the matter through, and carry out a persistent campaign? He also pointed out that a social survey shows up political and industrial conditions as well as saloon and social evils.