Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/855

 PLAN FOR THE CONTROL OF QUASI-PUBLIC WORKS 841

the time will ever come when the really useful citizen, whose life is full of duties, will be able to act intelligently in the control of all the various agencies of social service which our complex municipal life will require. There is no advantage in having a government do things simply for the sake of doing them. It is no more to the interest of society to be obliged to consciously control all of its organs than it would be to the interest of a man to be obliged to consciously control the flow of blood to his brain. So, if the social service can be adequately secured without ownership, ownership will be a mere burden, not an advantage. If the values of these activities can be secured to society without the socialization of the form of the industry, all that is desirable will be gained, and the burdens will be avoided.

The above statements have been made in order to set forth the place and importance of a plan recently brought forward by Mr. Alfred F. Potts, a prominent attorney of Indianapolis. His plan of control of quasi-public works is, in brief, the management by disinterested trustees of institutions endowed for the purpose of rendering the pub- lic service at cost. He does not make the proposition as an experiment, but advocates a plan which has been demonstrated to be successful, though applied under difficult circumstances.

The plan may, perhaps, be best understood by reviewing it in its experimental application in Indianapolis. In 1887, when natural gas was about to be introduced into Indianapolis, the Indianapolis Gas Company, which had constructed pipe lines from the fields, some twenty miles north of the city, to the city limits, declared that it would not bring the gas into the city unless the rates which had been fixed by a city ordinance could be doubled. These rates were already liberal ; so this move of the company was in the nature of "sand-bagging." A storm of indignation was aroused, and various projects were suggested for the control of the industry. The agitation resulted in nothing more than the increase of the public indignation, until Mr. Potts devised the plan that was formulated on November 2, 1887, in the articles of association of the "Consumers' Gas Trust," which will be discussed more fully later. Mr. Potts had to keep up a constant battle to prevent the council from hastily passing the old company's ordi- nance. An active canvass was made in every ward of the city for popular subscriptions, at $25 per share, to the stock of the trust, hundred thousand dollars was subscribed within three weeks; and the stock was so scattered among the voters that the council did not dare to