The first building erected cost $72,248 and in it machinery was installed for the production of current for 2,000 arc lights and 3,000 incandescent. The first installation brought the expenditure to $739,222. Every man has his personal limitations and Mayor Pingree was no exception. He was absolutely honest and extraordinarily energetic. He was utterly lacking in tact and diplomatic gifts, but he was so forceful and persistent that he often won over men who opposed him by the sheer force of his presentation of facts. He was one of the best judges of leather and workmanship in shoes in the country, but a very poor reader of human character. But sheer luck or a special Providence often seemed to be enlisted on his side when one of his undertakings needed the direction of an unusually capable organizer and executive. His luck was with him when he appointed a public lighting commission of representative business men like J. L. Hudson, C. A. Newcomb, Martin Butzel, Geo. H. Lathrop, Wm. A. Jackson, and W. R. Farrand. These men were appointed March 28, 1893, to serve three years. Several of them had been investors in private electric lighting enterprises. Mr. Pingree was again favored by "Lady Luck" when he picked Alex Dow to direct the installation and operation of the Detroit public lighting plant. Mr. Dow was a stranger to Detroit. It was reported about that any competent electrical engineer who would accept employment with a municipal lighting plant would thereby earn the enmity of all private lighting companies, which were then being gathered into a sort of trust under the control of the General Electric Company. Mr. Dow accepted the office, planned his equipment for installation, and began buying machinery, lamps, poles, wire, and other necessary equipment. He was a hard-headed Scotchman, a good judge of values and a shrewd trader. Although a man of positive opinions and quick decisions, he was diplomatic in his methods. He finally arranged with the lighting commission for the purchase of a number of 100-light dynamos from the Western Electric Company of Chicago, which was outside the electrical combine. The Western Electric had never made a machine larger than 60-light capacity, and immediately the Fort Wayne, the Brush, the Peninsular, and the Excelsior electric companies, which were subsidiary companies of the General Electric, began machinations to discredit the Western. The Fort Wayne Electric Company was the owner of the Brush Company and the Peninsular Company of Detroit, and hoped to bar any other company from operation in Detroit. As a means to an end representatives of the local electric lighting companies took the public lighting committee of the common council first to Fort Wayne, Ind., for a little coaching by experts of the company there, and then to Chicago, where they were well entertained while they made an inspection of the first 100-light machines turned out in the Western Electric shops. The Western Electric was on the lookout for tricks, so it had Prof. Barrett and other disinterested experts on hand when it exhibited its dynamos built for Detroit. The committee on lighting of the common council came home and reported the Western Electric machines to be a total failure. Meanwhile agencies of the local companies had not been idle in Detroit and the council, on the report of its committee, voted at once to rescind the contract with the Western Electric. But reports of another nature and from disinterested sources. showed the Western Electric machines to be fully efficient and up to specifications. The Western Electric followed with an offer to install the machines on six months' trial and without cost to the city if they did not comply with every test. The opposition was thus balked in every attempt. The contract with the Western Electric was revived. The plant was installed under the direction of Mr. Dow and began operation, furnishing part of the city lighting April 1, 1895. It began lighting the city completely on October 1. The cost of lighting that first year was $36 a lamp. Detroit invested in its first installation for electric lighting a little more than $700,000. Today it has an investment of $6,279,237. Of that amount $1,636,435 is deducted for depreciation. Although that rating is manifestly excessive, it leaves a net investment of $4,642,801. The old system of tower lighting was more spectacular than efficient. The lamps, suspended 150 feet above the ground level, wasted most of their illumination on the desert air. A twilight glow was shed over a wide area, but there was no effective lighting anywhere. The total number of street lighting units last year was 14,617. At the lowest rate Detroit ever paid for contract lighting of the streets the cost would have been $1,900,210. The operation of the city plant last year cost only $615,287. It gave employment to 250 men. In addition, the city spent $19,498 for power purchased, $10,133 for contract lighting, and $34,938 for necessary street alterations, making a total of $679,857. Detroit is now rated among the best-lighted cities of the country. In addition to the street lighting, the public plant furnishes lighting by incandescent circuits for nearly 400 public buildings, including public schools. The output of power utilized for lighting increased nearly 16 per cent during the year. A CHAPTER CIV PROPOSALS FOR REFORMS IN TAXATION LL expenses of government are paid out of public funds raised by taxation. Taxes are supposed to be levied upon the actual cash value of all real and personal property within the jurisdiction of the local government, and those values are supposed to be determined by a fair assessment made on a uniform basis and without discrimination. A tax levy is one of the simplest functions of government, but the assessment of real and personal property is one of the most complex and difficult of tasks. A very large proportion of personal property escapes taxation altogether through various ingenious ruses and concealments. Many wealthy citizens invest heavily in what are known as non-taxable securities. Just why a government should make discriminations between securities, and grant to some particular form of private property a complete immunity from taxation, is hard to understand because the practice is so manifestly unfair to the man of small means who cannot take advantage of such privileges of immunity. When Mayor Pingree came into office he began to discover many such discriminatory practices. He looked up the assessed valuations of large tracts of vacant property held by wealthy syndicates and found that most of these platted areas were assessed at low acreage valuations. For example: One large farm tract had been platted so as to make nine lots to an acre. The lots were being sold at $250 each. The land syndicate was assessed at a rate of $60 per lot, but as fast as the lots were sold the assessment was raised to $160 each. This was but one example of a general practice and in some of the more expensive land areas the discrimination was still more flagrant. When the Mayor raised an outcry against the practice and insisted that the assessment of such lands be made proportionate to the selling price he did not popularize himself with the realty He found that the most valuable real estate and buildings in the city were commonly assessed at about 40 or 50 per cent of their real value while the homes of people of small means were commonly assessed at 70 per cent or more of their value. The street railway company which owned most of the transportation lines in Detroit paid no property tax at all. In lieu of all other taxes it was obliged to pay into the city treasury annually one per cent of its gross earnings. Its visible property, worth more than half a million dollars, and its franchise, worth several millions, went tax-free. Mr. Pingree felt that this was not an adequate return to the city for the use of the public streets and the privilege of collecting fares, but the street railways were safe from interference during the unexpired terms of the various franchises. He decided that as a faithful public servant it devolved upon him to insure that the city was getting all that was due under the specific tax by an examination of the street railway books for a verification of the statement of gross earnings. To his surprise his request for an audit of the books was refused. Mr. Pingree appealed to the courts and then he was even more surprised by a decision which sustained the attitude of the street railway company, because the city had not stipulated in its franchise grant for any audit of the books of the street railway companies. Under such conditions the city was forced to accept what it could get at the street railway's own rating of gross income. The assessor and taxgatherer are never popular members of the community. The more they try to do their duty and equalize the tax in fairness to all citizens, the less popular they are likely to become. When the Mayor of the city attempted to intervene for the correction of the more flagrant discriminations in assessment and taxation he became the target for continuous attacks. Mr. Pingree took note of the fact that a number of wealthy lake transportation companies, which owned fleets of vessels |