USA > Missouri > Jackson County > Kansas City > Kansas City, Missouri : its history and its people 1808-1908 > Part 19
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The morals of the City Hall were not overlooked, and in 1904, resolu- tions were put through, urging on the City Treasurer and City Auditor that they should employ none but efficient honest men in their respective offices, regardless of politics. The real estate dealers in 1904 took up the movement to encourage the establishment of cotton mills in Kansas City and the mem- bers were largely responsible for the establishment of the large cotton mill in Kansas City, Kas., two of them traveling through the South, collecting infor- mation for the benefit of the public. It was in 1904 that the Real Estate exchange began insisting that a new city charter be adopted and it continued to urge this matter, in spite of a defeat at the polls, until the charter of 1908 was adopted. The members of the Exchange took a prominent part in framing the new charter. The Real Estate exchange members assisted in the fight for cheap gas and only discontinued their work when cheap gas was obtained.
When it was suggested that a $20,000 fund be raised to advertise Kansas
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City seventeen subscriptions were made by the real estate dealers at the first meeting and nearly 50 per cent of the amount was subscribed by them.
When the proposed Constitutional amendments prepared for consideration at the election of November, 1908, were made public, the Real Estate exchange called for a public discussion and invited the Honorable F. N. Judson, the Chairman of the Tax commission, to come to Kansas City, to address the Ex- change and invited guests. A delegation of real estate dealers from Kansas City attended the national convention of real estate dealers in Chicago in 1908, and assisted in the organization of a National association.
These are the names of the presidents of the old Real Estate exchange: C. W. Whitehead, P. H. Madden, C. D. Parker, J. Scott Harrison, V. F. Boor, E. H. Phelps. Colonel Phelps always was an active member and it was largely to his efforts that the continuous existence of the Exchange is due. He served as president several terms when the interest was at a low tide.
Following are the names of the presidents of the new Real Estate ex- change of Kansas City with the date of their service: C. J. Hubbard, 1901; P. H. Phelps, 1902; John A. Moore, 1903; A. A. Whipple, 1904; E. F. Allen, 1905; A. C. Cowan, 1906; B. T. Whipple, 1907 ; E. R. Crutcher, 1908.
The headquarters of the Exchange have been at various times in the Natatorium building on Eighth street, near Central; Armour building, Fifth and Delaware streets; Real Estate building, Wall street between Seventh and Eighth streets; and the New York Life building. Since the reorganization of the Exchange in 1901, the office of the president has been considered the headquarters, no regular meeting place being provided.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE PUBLIC UTILITIES.
Kansas City owns and operates (in 1908) one of its public utilities. This is the water service. Its other utilities depending upon public franchises- street railways, electric lighting, gas, telephone, refrigerating and heat and power service-are under private ownership and operation. A variety of con- ditions affect the regulation of these privately owned public utilities, according to the terms of their franchises and the state of the laws at the time these rights accrued.
Only those services which are purely municipal or at most municipal and suburban in their scope are here considered. Steam railways, with their terminal facilities, are for the most part under state jurisdiction, and, besides,
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the usual nomenclature of such things does not include as municipal public utilities the railways whose entrance here makes Kansas City the second most important railway center in America.
The Water Works was purchased by Kansas City from its private owner, the National Water Company, in 1895. The purchase was the result of much discussion and litigation, the city finally gaining possession by the payment of $3,175,000. Of this sum $3,100,000 was paid for the general water works and $75,000 for the Westport pipe line. In the period since that time the service has been greatly extended, the plant very largely made over and reequipped. A conservative estimate of its value in 1908 was ings of the service, the bonds issued for the purpose, in addition to the orig- in the sinking fund for their further reduction.
inal purchase issue, being $1,100,000. In the same period bonds were re- tired. The bonded debt in 1908 was $3,492,000 with about $250,000
The plant thus shows a profit of approximately five million dollars in the value of the existing physical property. But this is not all, the city receiving free water service for fire hydrants, street cleaning, sewer flush- ing and public building uses that would have cost the city at the prevailing water rates, $210,300 a year. The city has not saved this sum each year since the municipalization of the plant because the average amount used has not been so great as for the year 1907, but the total actual saving in these departments for the thirteen years has been more than one and one- half million dollars.
In this period, too, the rates to customers of all classes were reduced on an average of nearly 25 per cent from those in force under private own- ership. The first reduction was of 15 per cent, the second was of 10 per cent under the first reduced scale of prices. It would be conjectural to state whether these reductions are greater or less than might have been expected had a water franchise remained in private control. Without attempting any comparison with a supposititious private ownership it yet has been a subject of much interest whether it would not be more equitable to reduce the rates to consumers to cover the cost of services to them than to hold the rates at a level when the actual users of water pay not only for what $8,500,000. The improvements have been chiefly paid for from the earn- they get, but for the service through the public hydrants and, as well, for the extension and maintenance of a property that virtually belongs to the land and in which the water users, as such, can have no permanent interest.
The water supply is drawn from the Missouri river, four miles above Kansas City, Kansas. This is near the site of the old town of Quindaro and the pumping station at this point is called the Quindaro station. It is equipped with six pumps of a total daily capacity of one hundred and seven
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million gallons. The intake in the river at this point is not wholly secure nor adequate, and there an early betterment is contemplated. The settling basins at Quindaro have a capacity of forty-five million gallons.
The great flood in the Kaw and Missouri rivers in 1903 carried away the flow line, which before that time crossed the Kaw river on a low bridge, and left Kansas City without the water service for two weeks.
This disaster hastened the work of rehabilitating the entire physical system in accordance with plans that had been recommended a year earlier by an expert commission composed of George H. Benzenberg of Milwaukee, Stephen A. Mitchell and John Donnelly of Kansas City. The largest de- tail of the improvement was the laying of a new thirty-six inch flow line from the Quindaro supply station to the west bank of the Kaw river and the construction under the bed of the river through the solid rock of a six foot aqueduct crossing to the east bank of the stream. There a connection is made with two thirty-inch pipes leading to the Turkey Creek station.
At the Turkey Creek station are storage basins with a capacity of nine million gallons and a pumping plant equipped with six pumps having a combined daily capacity of sixty-one million gallons. The pumps here force the water to the Holly street reservoir, holding nine million gallons, and throughout the city's three hundred and seventy-one miles of distrib- uting mains. It was part of the plan of ultimate enlargement of the water works system to establish other reservoirs through the city-a detail which, in 1908, is being pressed by the superintendent and the water commissioners.
The water service has now no filtering system. It has been estimated that adequate filtering beds would cost three million dollars. The plan is to provide them, though nothing definite had been done to that end in 1908. Larger settling basins are first to be secured. In those already es- tablished a solution of lime and alum is used to precipitate the foreign sub- stances in the supply drawn from the river and to clarify the water. The city chemist asserts that this water is much purer and freer of germs than the average of the water from springs. Analyses showed variously forty, fifty, one hundred and seventy, two hundred and thirty and three hundred germs per cubic centimeter in samples of city water tested. Water contain- ing fewer than five hundred germs per centimeter is considered wholesome. In the samples taken no pathogenic, or disease-producing, germs were dis- covered. Experiments have traced no late cases of typhoid fever to the city water supply, but several have been found attributable to spring and well water and to milk. Deaths from typhoid have averaged sixty a year. This is not abnormal among cities, but it is too high: that is, much of the mor- tality can be prevented by improving the water service. Dr. Walter M. Cross, the city chemist, explains that while turbid water is not more likely
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to be impure than clear water, many persons drink impure clear water from cisterns, wells and springs from fear of the much purer city water which has not been well clarified.
The general management of the water works is under the control of the board of public works, the members of that board sitting, in this regard, as a board of water commissioners. The physical or constructive phases of the service are directly controlled by a chief engineer and superintendent. The two offices have at times been filled by one man. The financial con- duct of the plant, under the general supervision of the water commissioners, Is in the hands of the assessor and collector of water rates. But the entire waterworks department is under the general and final authority of the city council. Appointments to positions in both branches of the service are in the hands of the mayor or his appointed board of public works. The head officers must be confirmed in their appointment by the upper house of the council. Under the city charter adopted August 4, 1908, the subordinate employees are protected by the merit system of civil service, as are the em- ployees of other municipal departments.
The officers, in July, 1908, are: Board of Water Commissioners: Rob- ert L. Gregory, president; Lynn S. Banks, R. H. Williams, Wallace Love; superintendent, S. Y. High; chief engineer, William G. Goodwin; and as- sessor and collector, George M. Shelley.
The largest public utility corporation in Kansas City in 1908 is the Kansas City Railway and Light Company, owning and controlling the Met- ropolitan Street Railway Company and the Kansas City Electric Light Com- pany. The corporation is stocked and bonded for approximately forty-five million dollars. Of this, twelve and one-half million is in preferred stock, twelve and one-half million in common stock and twenty million dollars is in bonds, much of the bonds being held in the treasury to issue against the bonds of the constituent companies as they fall due. The market value of the corporation securities is about thirty-three and three-quarter million dol- lars, the bonds selling for practically par, the preferred stock at seventy cents on the dollar and the common stock at forty.
The Metropolitan Street Railway Company operates in Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas, a consolidation of several street railway fines that received franchises at various periods in the city's growth. Some of the lines were once horse car lines, some cable lines and some electric. All are electric in 1908, except a portion of the Twelfth street lines, between Washington street and the stock yards. The cable line is used pending the construction of some kind of a trafficway between the higher and lower levels of the city.
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The franchises of the several constituent companies were harmonized and given the same terms by extension ordinances of 1899 and 1902. The latter of these, known as the "peace agreement," confirmed and limited all franchises to a period expiring June 1, 1925. It required or permitted the company to make certain extensions of its lines, confirmed a five-cent fare, established universal free transfers and provided a five-cent fare to the city's Swope park, outside the city limits. The company agreed to pay the city 8 per cent of its gross earnings, out of which the city was first to pay all the state, school and county taxes levied against the company and keep the res- idue in lieu of any municipal general property tax, car, license, occupation or other taxes. But if the city's receipts from the 8 per cent should not equal in one year the sum that the city might exact under the general taxing power plus the possible receipts from a car tax of $50 a car, the city could levy and collect taxes to make up the deficit. The agreement also provided time schedules for the running of the cars.
The Metropolitan Street Railway company operates all the street rail- ways in both Kansas Citys except the line of the Kansas City-Leavenworth electric line. It also operates the lines to Independence, Fairmount park, Swope park and Marlborough. The system in 1908 includes 223 miles of sin- gle track. The maximum number of its cars in service is about six hundred. As shown by the published report of the holding corporation the street car company carried in the twelve months ending May 31, 1907, something over one hundred and thirty-six million persons. The gross earnings of the street railway for the same period were $4,821,902. This was a gain of nearly $400,000 over the previous twelve months.
While a few building owners supply electric light and power to limited surrounding areas, and many factories, stores and office structures are equipped with their own electric plants, the greatest bulk of this public service is furnished by the Kansas City Electric Light Company, affiliated with the Metropolitan Street Railway Company under the ownership of the Kansas City Railway and Light Company. This company operates un- der any one or all of several varying franchises that were granted to orig- inal companies before the city charter of 1889 was adopted. At least two of the franchises grant perpetual rights. They exact no compensation from the company to the city and place no restrictions upon the rates the company may charge. It may demand as much per kilowatt hour-the standard of measurement-as a consumer will be willing to pay, or may grant to some one else as low a rate as it pleases. The rates charged the city are a matter of contract. By ordinance, embodying a contract, are street lights are fur- nished at $65 each year. The Electric Light Company's gross earnings for the fiscal year ending May 31. 1907, were $893.436.66.
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Another utility company controlled by the Kansas City Railway and Light Company is the Kansas City Heating Company, operating under a franchise granted in 1906 to Bernard Corrigan and C. N. Black. This company distributed steam for heating and laid pipes through a consider- able portion of the business section of the city.
The officers and directors of the Kansas City Railway and Light Com- pany for 1908 are: Officers-Bernard Corrigan, president; Charles N. Black, vice-president and general manager; W. E. Kirkpatrick, secretary and treasurer; J. A. Harder, auditor and assistant secretary and treasurer. Directors-Samuel McRoberts of Chicago, chairman; J. Ogden Armour. Chi- cago; Charles W. Armour, Kansas City; Charles N. Black, Kansas City; George W. Bacon, New York; Bernard Corrigan, Kansas City: Henry C. Flower, Kansas City; Edward George, Kansas City: Joseph J. Heim, Kan- sas City; L. E. James, Kansas City; H. O. Coughlin, Jersey City, N. J .; Kenneth K. McLaren, Jersey City, N. J .: E. F. Swinney, Kansas City; Hugh C. Ward, Kansas City.
Kansas City has two telephone systems, one. the older, the Missouri and Kansas Telephone Company controlled by. or affiliated with, the Bell organization; the other, the Home Telephone Company.
The Missouri and Kansas Company has no municipal franchise. It op- erates under the general law of the state and assumed its privileges before the city charter of 1889 was adopted. It pays to the city 2 per cent of its annual gross earnings. It also pays a yearly conduit tax, at the rate of 30 cents a linear foot for the first six miles of conduits and 20 cents a foot for all in excess of that length. It has four miles of conduits. Whether it must also pay an imposed wire and pole and conduit tax is a legal question that has not been determined. The company, however, is subject to the general police power of the city, affecting its right to erect poles and string overhead wires. The Bell Company in 1908 has about 20,000 telephone in- struments in service. The company is not limited in its rates of charge. Its revenues for the year ending December 31, 1907, were $2,428,892; its expenses $1,740,071.
The Home Telephone Company acquired the thirty-year franchise that was granted to John Enoch by the city council in November, 1901. Under this franchise the company was to pay 2 per cent of its gross receipts, fur- nish 30 free telephones to the city hall and was limited in its rates of charge to $36 a year for residence service and $60 a year for business service. The itemized reports for the company show 20,146 telephones in use, of which the yearly gross earnings per telephone for the year ending March 31, 1908, were $39.07; its expenses were $21.04; net income, $18.03; interest allow- ance, $7.64, leaving a surplus net income of $10.39 for each telephone in
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use. The year's gross earnings of the company were $766,945, and for the same period, expenses, $412,970; net earnings, $353,974; interest charges, $150,101; surplus, $203,873. Its long distance service for the year ending March 31 1908, gave these fiscal returns: Gross earnings. $188,265; ex- penses, $79,340; net earnings, $108,926; interest charges, $53,882; surplus, $55,043. The Home Company is subject to the same taxes and police pow- ers operative against the Missouri and Kansas Company. Both companies have long distance connections.
The utility of gas is under the control of McGowan, Small and Mor- gan, grantees under a franchise, for thirty years period, granted September 27, 1906. These grantees represent the same interests that controlled the Kansas City, Missouri, Gas Company that furnished artificial gas at $1.00 a thousand cubic feet. "McGowan, Small and Morgan, grantees," consti- tute the gas interests for the municipality of Kansas City, Missouri. But the supply of gas is brought by pipe line from the natural gas fields in south- eastern Kansas, the gas fields and pipe lines being controlled by separate corporations known as the Kansas Natural Gas Company, the Kansas City Pipe Line Company and the Kaw Gas Company. The interrelation and various specific functions of these several companies are difficult to deter- mine-so difficult that the lawyers in the employ of Kansas City are not quite clear on the point. Some of the company's pipe lines are 125 miles long. The gas is pumped from the wells, the principal pumping stations being at Petrolia, Kansas, and Scipio, Kansas.
Under the franchise the grantees or their assignees are permitted to charge for domestic consumption 25 cents a thousand cubic feet for the first five years, 27 cents for the succeeding five years, and 30 cents for each year thereafter. If at the end of ten years they can show that the gas cannot be profitably supplied at the 30 cent rate they may increase the charge. But if they do this the city's right to purchase the plant or to regulate the rates becomes operative. The city receives 2 per cent of the company's gross earn- ings. For the six months ending July 1, 1908, these gross earnings amounted to $1,003,449.78. This attested a remarkable increase in the sale of natural gas. For the six months ending July 1, 1907, the first full semi-annual period after the change from artificial to natural gas, the earnings were $189,316.08; for the period ending with December 31, 1907, the earnings were $428,844.19. The advance of more than $800,000 in a year's time was due to the general substitution of gas for coal as a fuel for cooking and heat- ing in dwellings and very largely in hotels and office buildings and even to a considerable extent in manufacturing establishments. The rate of charge for manufacturer's uses is ten cents a thousand cubic feet. The boulevards and many of the other residence streets are equipped with gas lamps. The
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city pays $12 a lamp, yearly, the fixtures being supplied by the gas com- pany.
The Kansas City Viaduct and Terminal Railway Company owns a toll viaduct crossing all the lowlands and the Kaw river that lie between Sixth and Bluff streets in Kansas City, Missouri, and Third street and Minnesota avenue, in Kansas City, Kansas. The viaduct is a monumental structure one and a half miles long with a broad asphalted road-way and double tracks for street cars. It is supported on heavy steel pillars and trusses, strong enough to carry steam railway traffic. Approaches intersecting from streets in the West bottoms are equipped with steam elevators for lifting horses and heavily loaded drays from the street below to the top viaduct level. The viaduct is for the use of pedestrians and vehicles and street cars. The company pays 2 per cent of its gross earnings from street railway traffic . to Kansas City, Missouri, and Kansas City, Kansas, the former municipal- ity receiving 51 per cent of the 2 per cent, and the latter 49 per cent. Kan- sas City, Missouri, also receives 2 per cent of all tolls collected at its entrance to the viaduct, while Kansas City, Kansas, is paid 2 per cent of all re- ceipts at the Kansas end of the structure.
Kansas City did not avail itself of its full municipal powers under the authority of the state constitution of 1875 until the adoption of a charter in 1889. Before that time it had only limited police powers over its pub- lic service corporations, which operated under franchises granted by the state. Under the later constitutional charter the city granted franchises limited by the charter to not greater than thirty-year periods, and possessed and exercised the authority to regulate service and conform it to not only specific contract requirements but to the reasonable demands of public con- venience and safety. As an instance of this authority the city council or- dained that the wires of telephone, telegraph, signal service and electric light plants should be placed under ground in the district lying between Second and Twentieth streets and Jefferson streets and Forest avenue. This requirement was only partly complied with. It developed, however, that the power to regulate and prescribe rates of charge for public utilities had not been delegated to the city and still remained with the state legislature. To supply this deficiency in the municipal powers the legislature of 1907, at a special session, passed what is known as an enabling act conferring on every incorporated town and city in the state the right to fix rates of charge for pub- lic utilities. To determine what are reasonable regulations of charges a city council may authorize or appoint a commission to make investigation into all facts and conditions affecting the establishing of public service rates. To this end the commission can compel the attendance of witnesses and the produc- tion of books and papers of the companies investigated. The commission
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ELEVATOR FOR RAISING AND LOWERING TEAMS, INTER-CITY VIADUCT.
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reports its discoveries to the city council for action. If the council takes action on this report, or on its own initiative without the aid of a commis- sion, and if the corporations allege that the action is unreasonable they have an expressed right to a court review of the action taken.
By authority of this general enabling act the city council of Kansas City provided for a Public Utilities commission of seven members to be appointed by the mayor and having the authority to employ a legal coun- selor and an expert on public service corporation affairs in the statutory in- quiries. The commission which was named by Mayor T. T. Crittenden, jr., is composed of E. W. Hayes, I. E. Bernheimer, John J. Green, John N. Payne, George M. Myers, John T. Smith and R. W. Hocker. The com- mission was appointed May 31, 1908.
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