Weekly Independent

From Saturday's Daily.

TO CURB CORPORATIONS

Washington, September 9,--The bill introduced by Representative Robert L. Crosser, of Cleveland, Ohio, providing for the municipal ownership of the traction lines of Washington D. C., deserves a better fate than to die in a pigeonhole. The House and the Senate both ought to have the opportunity of expressing themselves on this important subject. Mr. Crosser is confident that his bill will be reported out of the committee for consideration by Congress, and it is to be hoped that this confidence is justified.

No large city in the United States has public service corporations so insolently contemptuous of the public as those in Washington. And the street car companies stand at the head of them. Their whole attitude is one of the public be damned. And they have good and sufficient reason for feeling secure in the face of any popular criticism. The people of Washington have no voice in their hand-me-down government. The public service corporations have to deal only with appointed city commissioners and appointed public utilities board and behind both of them the District Committees of Congress and Congress itself. In the past these agencies who exercise their paternalistic watch over the voteless public of Washington have been only too pliable in the hands of the bloated corporation.

But now a new spirit has crept into Congress and the public service corporation would do well to look at such measures as the one introduced by Crosser and read the handwriting on the wall. Before the vested interests of Washington were aware of it the present District Committee of the House was filled with young men bringing a new ideal for Washington-the ideal of having the national capitol not only the most beautiful city in the world from the artistic standpoint but also the model city of the United States in its civic institutions and government.

Crosser is one of the new members of that Committee, and he comes from Cleveland which is famed for having the most enlightened city government in the United States. In Crosser the spirit of the late Tom Johnson veritably goes marching on. Johnson was the great municipal crusader of this country. He exhausted his health and his wealth in a victorious struggle to restore to the people of Cleveland the ownership of their streets.

The Crosser municipal ownership bill may be regarded as the continuance of Tom Johnson's fight in Cleveland transferred to Washington.

While Johnson was battling for the control of the Cleveland street car line Crosser was a fiery souled young lawyer following in his train and attracting little attention at the time. Since then Johnson has died and Crosser has arisen. He wrote the initiative and referendum amendment to the new Ohio constitution. And when the people of the Buckeye state elected him as their representative at large last fall, it was a tribute to his services and his ability. Although he has been silently observing things in Washington since he took office on March 4, in the intimacy of the caucus room members have been seeking him out and marking him for one of the coming strong men of Congress.

Crosser may be relied upon to push his municipal ownership bill with all his energy and ability. He has a number of good friends on the District Committee who will stand behind him in his fight. But whether he succeeds or fails his bill is certain to accomplish some good. It will be a notice served on the street car companies that their hold on the people's streets is not absolute and they may respond with some consideration for the public's wishes.