582 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 879 



on any other reasonable basis of com- 

 parison. 



If the public could feel sure of the in- 

 genuousness of corporation statements and 

 statistics, and the corporations could be 

 protected from unfair attacks made by 

 ignorant, although, in many instances, 

 educated, persons or persons with ulterior 

 motives, the barrier of distrust to which I 

 have referred would be dissipated as damp- 

 ness is dissipated by the rays of the sun; 

 but this cure requires a long step forward 

 in the average line of progress, for it de- 

 mands a supervision of the companies which 

 imposes on them exact and ingenuous book- 

 keeping associated with the presentation to 

 the public of accurate and luminous state- 

 ments of their business, and it equally de- 

 mands that the public shall be required to 

 yield justice to the companies with the 

 same ample fullness as individuals seek it 

 for themselves. A progressive step of this 

 nature is always accomplished slowly and 

 hesitatingly. I have observed in Macau- 

 lay's writings a paragraph which is 

 graphic in illustration of our present situa- 

 tion. "Everywhere," he says, "there is a 

 class of men who cling with fondness to 

 whatever is ancient, and who, even when 

 convinced by overpowering reasons that 

 innovation would be beneficial, consent to 

 it with many misgivings and forebodings. 

 We find also everywhere another class of 

 men, sanguine in hope, bold in speculation, 

 always pressing forward, quick to discern 

 the imperfections of whatever exists, dis- 

 posed to think lightly of the risks and in- 

 conveniences which attend improvements, 

 and disposed to give every change credit 

 for being an improvement. In the senti- 

 ments of both classes there is something to 

 approve. But of both, the best specimens 

 will be found not far from the common 

 frontier. The extreme section of one class 

 consists of bigoted dotards: the extreme 



section of the other consists of shallow and 

 reckless empirics." 



The public, misled or annoyed by the 

 reluctance of some honest but overcautious 

 managements to make frank public state- 

 ments of financial results and present con- 

 vincing statistics of operation, enraged by 

 the acts of a few adventurers who from 

 time to time have secured a speculative 

 hold in the public-service field, and enticed 

 by the arguments of individuals with ul- 

 terior motives, are likely to follow the rad- 

 ical leadership of demagogues or of honest 

 but false empirics. This is a danger which 

 seriously exists in states where no public 

 supervision of the service companies is pro- 

 vided, and also in a lesser degree in states 

 where such supervision has been estab- 

 lished. The danger must be rolled back by 

 the exertions of fair-minded and right- 

 thinking men. A serious menace to the 

 welfare of the nation would be caused if 

 unfair dealing toward the public-service 

 companies were established as a policy. A 

 scrupulously frank and honest dealing with 

 the public by the companies should be in- 

 sisted on, but the public must be taught the 

 importance of dealing, on its part, with an 

 equally scrupulous fairness and a well-bal- 

 anced generosity. It is here that I say lies 

 a duty of electrical engineers to the public. 

 It is to give of their time and brain to con- 

 vincingly establish the facts (the facts, 1 

 repeat) which the public do not under- 

 stand in regard to the business of the 

 public-service companies, to indicate the 

 means for rightly treating these new influ- 

 ences which we and our fellow engineers 

 have been creating by our works, and to 

 aid in establishing measures which will 

 favor and sustain mutual confidence and 

 fair dealing between them and the public. 

 This is an obscure and diificult problem on 

 account of its touching the edge of men's 

 ambitions and men 's passions, and it seems 



