MADISON TURNS THE CLOCK BACK
McMillin, Miles
Public Power News Madison Turns The Clock Back By MILES McMILLIN THE UTILITY referendum in Madison, Wis., to which I have several times referred in this column, has been lost. By a vote of two to...
...The educational work has laid the groundwork for victory—a victory which will be made possible by the return of those who are not afraid of the future...
...Under wartime controls people feel that they have been pushed around too much...
...2. A widespread and deep-going distrust of and resentment against the extension of Government power into any new fields...
...It compares somewhat to the distrust of big business and the utilities which prevailed in the early '30s...
...3. The general war prosperity...
...Spokesmen for the utility continued to hammer at this point in large newspaper ads, over the radio, and by inserting special local notes in the imported utility propaganda...
...It is a real job, however, to convince them that public ownership really means decentralization and freedom from outside financial domination...
...in 1934 the city voted in favor of purchasing the utility...
...There is little difficulty encountered today in getting "bureaucraey"-wary people to look upon municipal ownership as another step in centralization...
...Nothing was spared in the campaign to discredit Government and destroy the people's confidence in it...
...This naturally, works against a cause like public ownership...
...They distrust governmental interference...
...Acknowledging the low rates, advocates of acquisition emphasized the need for tax relief...
...With money coming easier than it has in more than a decade, people are little disposed to listen to arguments on how rates can be lowered or tax relief be obtained...
...Despite the election defeat this year, the fight for public power in Madison will go on...
...This was especially true in Madison where g<5o<J conditions for the operation of a utility make it possible for consumers to enjoy some of the lowest private utility rates in the nation...
...The general conditions prevail, of course, throughout the country and will be encountered by any community considering municipal acquisition...
...This issue, like all the others in the contest, was effectively scrambled by the confusing tactics of the utility spokesmen...
...The defeat this year was due to a combination of general and local conditions, with the emphasis on the former...
...Not A Complete Loss They pointed out that Madison, like thousands of other cities, is suffering from a drastic loss of revenues because of the rapid expansion of suburban developments...
...Broadly, they are as follows: 1. Absence of young people from their home communities...
...The municipally...
...Only the additional revenues derived from city operation of the utility, they argued, could keep taxes at their present levels...
...attacked...
...owned water department in which all Madison citizens have always taken deep pride was mercilessly...
...They poured a torrent of abuse on the city government...
...While he was on the air talking to consumers another would be talking to a meeting of real estate owners, assuring them that the Wisconsin Public Service Commission would not allow the city to keep the utility revenues for tax relief purposes but would order them used for rate reductions...
...It was probably the chief local factor contributing to the defeat of the purchase proposal...
...They stressed the imminence of a financial crisis and the prospect of substantial tax increases on property...
...It was the second vote on this question in the past decade...
...By a vote of two to one the residents of Wisconsin's capital city have refused to allow their city council to negotiate for purchase of the local utility property which the Securities and Exchange Commission has ordered put on the block...
...Exploiting Distrust The exploitation of this attitude by the utility interests in Madison was almost unbelievable...
...One spokesman would go on the air warning consumers that city ownership would mean an increase of 19 per cent in rates...
...Movements involving progress and change must of necessity depend upon young people who are not afraid of discarding the old ways of doing things if a new and better way can be shown them...
...The election followed one of the most vigorously conducted campaigns in the city's history and resulted in a near record-smashing vote...
...The city, council was attacked as a gang of dupes and was in-ferentially accused of bribe-taking...
...They do not make defeat certain, but unless there are compensating local factors—which there were not in Madison—they are hard to get around...
Vol. 8 • April 1944 • No. 16
