FOOTNOTES ON THE SUCKER LIST
McMillin, Miles
Footnotes On The Sucker List By MILES McMILUN PERHAPS, someday, when future historians sit down to puzzle about the screwy way the people behaved in the first half of the 20th Century, some...
...If TV A rates had been in effect in that state the total bill would have been reduced to $174,030,153—a difference of $48,955,147...
...1 In his tables, Rankin shows that the United States is being overcharged $1,263,000,000 by the privately owned power companies...
...The book is called Results Of Publicly-Owned Electric Systems and sets forth in graphs, tables, and charts the operating records, earnings, output, rates, net revenue, valuation, and other valuable information...
...Asterisks And Low Rates The report of the EPC discloses that in 1943, as in past years, the publicly owned plants had the lowest rates in the nation in all categories...
...14.94 {The asterisk indicates public ownership...
...KWH CITY BILL 25 Manchester, N. H...
...average for the rest, $2.79...
...5.30 HIGHEST...
...For 40 kilowatt hours the people of Manitowoc pay $1.25...
...the others average $3.89...
...That record grows more impressive every year...
...I am astounded all over again at the way the people of this country continue year after year to pay such a fabulous tribute for the privilege of not owning and operating their own power systems...
...For 100 Manitowoc pays $2.38...
...That city is Manitowoc...
...the others average $3.34...
...I have just been looking over some comparative rate charts that have piled up on my desk in the past few weeks...
...2.00 40 St...
...It can be obtained from Burns and McDonnell, 107 W. Linwood Blvd., Kansas City, Mo., for $10...
...1.10 100 *Tacoma, Wash...
...Only one of these cities with privately owned plants is smaller than Manitowoc, but not one has lower rates in any of the kilowatt hour brackets...
...the average for the other first class cities in Wisconsin is $2.13...
...Adding up these overcharges in the 48 states, he arrives at his figure of a total overcharge of more than a billion and a quarter dollars...
...Petersburg, Fla...
...Footnotes On The Sucker List By MILES McMILUN PERHAPS, someday, when future historians sit down to puzzle about the screwy way the people behaved in the first half of the 20th Century, some precise scholar will record his impression that, by and large, most of those curious people were what was known in the night-club vernacular of the day as "suckers...
...John Rankin, Mississippi Democrat...
...1.70 250 *Tacoma, Wash...
...75 25 *Nashville, Tenn...
...And being a precise scholar he will record his footnotes to substantiate it...
...These figures do not tell of the vast civic improvements, the higher standards of living, and the many other lasting ben- . efits derived from the money saved from public ownership...
...I know that I have found it so in checking data for this column...
...75 40 *Tacoma, Wash...
...For 60 KWH Manitowoc pays $1.68...
...6.08 250 St...
...From a technical viewpoint the real story of the results of public ownership is told in a new survey just put out by the Burns and McDonnell engineering firm of Kansas City, Mo...
...If he is an extraordinarily precise scholar one of the footnotes he will enter will concern our inexplicable willingness to throw money away on such a vital necessity of modern living as electric power...
...2.98 100 St...
...75 25 *Memphis, Tenn...
...For 80 Manitowoc pays $2.03...
...3.20 500 *Tacoma, Wash...
...Petersburg, Fla...
...For city officials, operators, and managers of both private and municipal systems, who want to keep in touch with the march of public ownership, the book is just about indispensable...
...I have heard it praised by representatives of rival engineering firms as the outstanding book of its kind in the country...
...Burns And McDonnell Survey This, of course is.only part of the record...
...The most striking-contrast for the nation as a whole is found in the comparative rate tables published by the Federal Power Commission and the annual tables showing the comparison between what the states pay now«and what they would pay under the rates established by the Tennessee Valley Authority...
...10.08 500 Lynn, Mass...
...Conversely the private companies charged the highest rates in all categories...
...Wisconsin has only one first-ciass city that has had the foresight to acquire its electric plant...
...Following are the typical monthly bills in the various categories: LOWEST KWH CITY BILL 25 *Chattanooga, Tenn...
...The latter are prepared and inserted into the Congressional Record by Rep...
...Petersburg, Fla...
...The Example In Wisconsin Right here in Wisconsin, according to a chart from this state's Public Service Commission, there exists one of the most glaring contrasts in this country between rates charged by private and public owned utility systems...
...Taking the state of California, for example, he cites figures to show that in 1943 that state paid $222,985,300 for its power...
...75 25 *Knoxville, Tenn...
Vol. 8 • August 1944 • No. 33
