Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 185, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1913 — Would Shift Democratic Blunder On Other Shoulders. [ARTICLE]

Would Shift Democratic Blunder On Other Shoulders.

Foxy Brother Babcock would now claim that the utilities law passed by the last democratic legislature is. going to cause a raise in the local telephone rates, but that the trouble is all with the failure of the council to pass his pet telephone franchise and thus excuse a democratic blunder affecting the entire state. The Republican believes there is no person in Rensselaer so forgetful as to recall the exact proceeding in Bgb’s pet telephone franchise. It was just this: \ The Jasper County Telephone Co. wanted to get a new franchise at increased rates. The people objected and the newspapers presented the cause of the people. Babcock fathered a scheme for a new franchise and blew a bazoo filled with self-praise about busting the trust. The franchise was opposed by the Republican because one company is enough for one town at any time. The Democrat talked about cheap rates and promised that his company would give them. The ordinance providing the franchise passed to its third reading and one week before it was to have been passed its rates were changed to be the very same that the Jasper County Telephone Co. had asked and been refused. The Republican felt at that time and still believes that had the ordinance been passed the new company would have absorbed the Jasper County Telephone Co. and fostered the proposed high rates on Rensselaer. Babcock sued us for $20,000 libel for our expressed opinion and the city council very properly turned down the franchise, even members who had looked upon it with favor being against it when the provision for higher rates was slipped in. * Now The Democrat claims that The Republican is responsible for the possibility of higher rates, when as a matter of fact, it was the activity of The Republican in the interest of the people that prevented a merger that would have raised the rates the very day the new franchise was to have been granted. The new utilities law provides for fixing the physical valuation of public utilities and then allowing a charge that will guarantee the investment a' fixed rate of Interest and a fund .to overcame depreciation. The law was a move along the right direction, hut it was dominated by Tom Taggart, which looks suspicious and Indianapolis papers claim that its provisions Are so uncertain that great power is left with the commission and

that the commission is composed of men who are not very apt to give the people a square deal. The same law would have been in force and the same commission in charge if Babcock and his company had procured a franchise and the rates might have been higher, for the company would have undoubtedly done everything to show a high investment. Evidently Babcock thinks that tlfe people to whom he addresses his appeal can neither remember nor reason. The article has somewhat the appearance of hoping to Influence some of the original stockholders in his company in coming across with a part of the cost of incorporation, which The Republican is informed by a member some refused to do. One stockholder said: ‘To pay out SSO for the purpose of incorporating a company that had small chance of procuring a franchise or of ever engaging in business if it did, looks like putting the cart before the horse, and for my part I do not intend to put up a cent to pay for such foolish procedure. It will take a lot of front page articles for Bab to make the people believe that the defeat of his pet franchise; with its eleventh-hour raise of rates, had anything to do with the democratic blunderbus of a utilities measure for the uncertain quality of the commission that is to apply the aborted law.