The Public's Interest

“Some one has said,” declares Frank W. Smith, President of the National Electric Light Association, “that electricity takes more brains to make, and less brains to use, than any other commodity or form of service at the disposal of the people. When one analyzes this statement, it would seem to be true, for there is no form of public utility into which more inventive genius and more engineering skill has been put than into the electricity supply business.

“The every-day user of electrical energy for light or power, by the simple process of turning a switch or pressing a button, has instantly at his disposal the services of a Thomas Edison, a Nikola Tesla, a Doctor Steinmetz, a George Westinghouse and a score of others, representing the brains and genius of a half century of time.

“No community can develop faster than its utilities. Consider only for a minute the social life as affected by these public utilities. They are largely solving the domestic problems of today. The drudgery of housekeeping that your foremothers knew is largely passing away, due to the devices that are brought into the homes and are operated by the service which these utilities offer. Our homes are lighted and cleaned by electric power and the same energy is used to wash and iron our clothes, and in some instances to pick our fruit; with gas cooking and heating all the time. Our health and prosperity and happiness depend upon a good and abundant supply of water. The telephone is our messenger, that brings the doctor who helps us into the world, and the same doctor who keeps us well and happy.

“We could not live as we live today without the proper functioning of these utilities. In the business world and in all of its various branches, and in every field of endeavor, electricity plays an important part, second to none. The whole public is interested in the success of the public utilities and their ability to finance and properly function.

“The whole public is interested in the value of its real estate and in the returns therefrom; in its accessibility and usefulness; in the growth of industry and facility of access to industrial centers; in the housing of the people and their decent living; in the economies and humanities of life. These constitute the civilization of cities, and without the public utilities the civilization of cities cannot survive.

“The whole public is interested in the provision of new capital to extend the public utilities just as much as it is in the original investment in these enterprises. In fact, the public utility business is actually controlled by the public, who, through regulatory bodies, namely the Public Service Commissions of the various states, created to regulate these public utilities shall furnish the rates at which the service shall be sold; the securities that should be issued to provide adequate facilities to supply the people; and the people should understand that they themselves have the most interest of anyone in the public utility business of this country because they are the real owners of these utilities.”