PROSPEROUS UTILITY SQUAWKERS
Prosperous Utility Squawkers [FROM THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL] AFTER seven years of being "killed"—their version—the public utilities seem to be thriving better than ever. Business is improving,...
...The loudest of the squawkers has been Wendell Willkie, president of Commonwealth & Southern...
...Nor was the effect confined to the south...
...True, the TVA forced a reduction in rates, but increased consumption made returns better than ever...
...There will be no turning back from this...
...Willkie's stockholders got every dollar they were worth...
...And now his other properties, again on the fringes of the Tennessee valley development, must be more prosperous than ever...
...Willkie has seen nothing but ruin for the utilities, and therefore for America, in the TVA experiment...
...Some types of utilities still have pernicious practices, but in time these practices will be reached, too...
...The latest squawk is heard because the SEC, after more than a reasonable waiting period, is going to enforce the provisions of the holding company law...
...Privately, though, If they are honest, tbey have to admit that they will be better off, when the holding company pyramid* are off their necks...
...The TVA and rural electrification have been good salesmen for the utilities throughout the country...
...But to hear others cry out, one would think the government was trying to destroy them...
...And they will be...
...That created problems for him, so it is understandable how the development might have warped the trend of his thinking...
...Business is improving, dividends in most cases are satisfactory and in some instances are more than satisfactory...
...They should have credit for that...
...WILLKIE happened to be operating in territory where the TVA arose...
...When they were taken over by the government, Mr...
...Some utility systems have met this in the right way and are putting their houses In order...
...The utilities would be better off If they silenced their own squawkers and made co-operation the universal rule...
...The people are determined now that since the utility business is "clothed with a public interest," that interest shall be paramount...
...That is the way it has been throughout the south...
...But we note that for the fiscal year ending on Jan...
...31, 1940, his company had a net income of $13,499,459, as against $10,586,-565 for the previous year...
...But it is also true that his Tennessee properties, for the years they operated on the fringes of the TVA, had increasing prosperity each year...
...MR...
...The TVA operation has benefited the private utilities through its promotional work...
...rwthese loud protests that come from some of J. the utility interests—not from all of them— are not going to take the protesters back to the old' days when they could manipulate their finances, water their stock and charge the people fictitiously high rates under their monopoly conditions...
...One may wonder what all the squawking was about...
Vol. 10 • March 1940 • No. 12
