THE PHILADELPHIA GAS WORKS: A MODERN
INSTANCE.
On November 12, 1897, Mayor Charles F. Warwick, by giving his official approval to the ordinance providing for the leasing of the Philadelphia gas works to the United Gas Improvement Company for a period of thirty years, consummated a series of events which, when considered as a whole, may be regarded as a modern instance of the overpowering influence of rich and powerful corporations over the scruples, better judgment, and previously expressed opinions of public officials.
On June 4, 1896, the common council of Philadelphia passed the following resolution relative to the sale of the gas works:
Whereas, The mayor and director of public works have advocated and formulated a comprehensive plan for the reconstruction of the gas works at an estimated cost of one million five hundred thousand dollars ($1,500,000), with the statement that the result of such work can and will be followed by an increased supply and great improvement in the quality, with a reduction to seventy-five (75) cents per 1000 feet; and
Whereas, The finance committee in approval of this much needed improvement has passed favorably an item of one million ($1,000,000) dollars for said work in the loan bill; therefore be it
Resolved, by the select and common councils of the city of Philadelphia, that they view with disfavor any proposition to place this valuable plant in the hands of a corporation, thereby establishing a monopoly of this necessity, and placing the people at the mercy of such corporation; and be it further
Resolved, That councils approve of the plan to increase the facilities of these works and to maintain the plant as the property of the city.
In the face of this emphatic and unqualified expression of opinion, the same body on November 8, 1897, less than a year and a half after the above action had been taken, passed, by a vote of seventy-nine to fifty-one, an ordinance leasing the same gasworks to the United Gas Improvement Company, a corporation that offered the city by far less favorable terms than any
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