The mass of the inhabitants did not know what to make of the new Mayor. They opined that at least he was a “self-starter,' but they could not see how he was going to make material progress, with a majority of the common council and several powerful corporate interests apparently opposed to all his proposals. The reform element was quite elated, but the new Mayor was a man without experience in practical politics. Citizens wondered whether he was sincere and, if so, had he the forcefulness, tact and persistence to put anything across in the face of a powerful and thoroughly organized opposition?

In February, 1890, Mr. Pingree went East on business, but took time to gather much information regarding paving practice and rapid electric transit in eastern cities. On his return he advocated a change of policy with regard to paving taxes so that instead of falling in a lump on the owners of abutting property and making their immediate tax excessive, it might be distributed over several years and paid in installments. The city, he urged, could borrow money for paving by bond issues at 4 per cent and thus relieve the burden of the taxpayer, who would have to pay 6 per cent or more.

This suggestion was at first strenuously opposed by conservative citizens on the ground that it would be an invitation to reckless expenditures for perishable public improvements, and that it would enable one generation to lay and wear out paving for which the succeeding generation must pay a considerable part of the cost. Its final adoption transformed Detroit from one of the worst paved cities to one of the best.

About this time the taxpayers of Detroit found a little comfort in the revelation of a public scandal in the government of Cleveland, where it was found that the city had been swindled out of about $3,000,000 of public funds for which its records gave no accounting. There was some satisfaction in the discovery that Detroit was no worse off than its nearest big neighbor.

For the purpose of comparison of the cost of operating the city government of today with that of 1890, the estimates of that year are given below-in round numbers.

The budget of the present day is so framed as to make a complete comparison impossible:

It is to be seen at once that the items of public expenditure have no correspondence in certain particulars, but there is sufficient comparison to show that Detroit has progressed from a big village with village ideas to a metropolitan city of the fourth magnitude.

CHAPTER CIII

CONTEST FOR REDUCED LIGHTING RATES

W

THEN Hazen S. Pingree became Mayor of Detroit he found a new field for his Yankee inquisitiveness and began looking over his bailiwick with the idea of discovering its most conspicuous needs. Most of all he wanted to insure that the people of the city were getting value received for their money expended through taxation and paid to various public utility corporations. He discovered that while practically every city of 50,000 population in the country had installed rapid transit with electric railways, Detroit, with more than 200,000 population, was still jogging along with horse cars of a long obsolete type.

Detroit was one of the worst paved cities of its size in the country. When he came to a comparison of the rates for electric lighting and illuminating gas he discovered that Detroit was paying nearly double the rates charged in Cleveland, Toledo, Buffalo and Grand Rapids. All the public service corporations were operating under unexpired franchises, and, through the habitual carelessness of the men in local government, for many years they had been permitted to indulge in a sort of go-asyou-please policy.

Immediately he began collecting data of information from other cities for the purpose of comparison to ascertain the difference between the public services which Detroit had and the services that the citizens ought to have. Then, having authentic information in his hands, he proposed to set about the institution of such reforms as the situation would seem to warrant.

Detroit was paying $1.50 per thousand cubic feet for gas while these other cities were paying 80 cents. Mr. Pingree looked up the records in Detroit and found a number of interesting things. The charter restriction against consolidation of the two local gas companies had been violated and the penalty

was forfeiture of the franchise of the Mutual Gas Company. The Mutual Company had filed a bond of $100,000 to insure performance of its part of the contract, but it required a long search to discover the bond. The Mutual Company was also obligated to furnish gas as cheaply as the other cities mentioned. It had become a scrambled egg, inextricably interwoven with the Detroit Gaslight Company. Its mains were being connected as its ownership had been.

Nobody had challenged the violations of the franchise in former administrations and Mr. Pingree had caught the merged companies “with the goods" and was in position to forfeit the franchise. When this disclosure had been made a mysterious stranger suddenly appeared in Detroit seeking a gas franchise for the "Detroit Gas Company," a corporation which had no discoverable existence. The stranger registered as Camille Wiedenfeld, of New York, and while he asked for the franchise on a reduced rate of $1.15 per thousand and disclosed that his company expected to absorb both the old companies, he refused to give the names of the parties he represented.

This was regarded as equivalent to a confession that he was a stool pigeon promoter for the old companies, who wanted a franchise at a higher rate than was tolerated in other cities. Several other ruses were employed without effect. Mr. Pingree said that he was offered a "bonus" of $50,000 if he would sign a gas ordinance for the rate of $1.15 after it had passed the council. He declared that he would veto any ordinance which did not open the way for 80-cent gas. He produced statistics to show that through the violation of the rate agreement the city was entitled to a total rebate of $5,000,000 on account of the years of overcharging. As a result of his uncompromising attitude, after several months of maneuvering, a franchise was granted on a new basis which presently resulted in an 80cent gas rate. Then the consolidation of the companies and their property was validated under certain provisions of public regulation.

The battle for cheaper gas was a prolonged and stubborn affair which lasted three years, but after it was won it served,

like a summer thunderstorm, to clear the atmosphere. Presently a new policy of fair play was adopted by the gas company. Instead of the old defiance it adopted a policy of conciliation. The complaint department was conducted in accordance with the principles of modern salesmanship. If people became suspicious of the record of their meters a test was welcomed and if fault was found a new meter was cheerfully installed. New methods of production and purification reduced the cost to the company and improved the quality to the consumer. The use of electricity was rapidly displacing gas as an illuminant in spite of the new incandescent mantles, but gas was becoming the almost exclusive fuel for cooking and therefore heat units were more in demand than illuminating quality.

As a measure of fair play and of business policy the company in 1896 made a voluntary reduction of its rate so that consumers who used as much as two million cubic feet annually in the industrial arts were given a rate of 45 cents, while small consumers were given a slight reduction. This act so won the public confidence and approval that when the emergencies of the World War increased costs in general, there was not the slightest complaint when the low rate was increased to 49 cents and the rate to small consumers was raised to 79 cents.

The Detroit Gas Company is now producing between 12 and 13 billions of cubic feet of gas annually. Its production in 1895 was a little more than 600,000,000 cubic feet. Its mains now measure 1,149 miles of underground pipes. The consumers number 235,000. Gas, like water, is a commodity of such universal consumption that the number of consumers might be used as an index of the total population.

Detroit has spread out over more than 80 square miles of territory and in order to secure adequate distribution of gas at fairly uniform pressure for the high and low levels five production plants are in use. The old plants at the foot of Twentyfourth Street and Meldrum Avenue, now greatly enlarged, still serve for the downtown district. There is another plant at Green Avenue and the Wabash Railway for the down-river district, and also a fourth at Tireman Avenue and the Pere