private to public ownership: in the years 1880 to 1889 there were 7 such transfers; 1890 to 1899, 14; 1900 to 1909, 16, and in the five years from 1910 to 1915 there were already 11.

These figures carry with them the most important implications. In the first place it is clear that the big water works are in the hands of the public. It is only in the small towns that the private water company has struck root at all. And this is of special significance. In every other public utility just the opposite is true-the number of private companies varies directly with the city's size. Water works statistics, at least, give the lie to the assertion that public ownership is only adapted to small undertakings, and also to the equally tiresome claim that public control lacks initiative. Witness, for instance, the great engineering triumph that New York has won in the Catskill Water Supply. Public ownership has undoubtedly conquered the field of water service.

2. Electric light and power

In the production of electric light and power cities have gone much further than is generally known. In 1902 there were 3,620 electric plants in the United States. Of these 22 per cent (815) were owned and operated by municipalities. In 1907 there were 4,714 plants, 27 per cent (1,252) of which were publicly owned. In 1912, 30 per cent (1,562) of the plants were city-owned out of a total of 5,221. In other words, municipal ownership increased between 1902 and 1907 54 per cent and between 1907 and 1912 24 per cent, while during the same periods private ownership increased only 23 per cent and 6 per cent, respectively.

But with these figures must go others if we are to see the situation four square. It is clear that municipal ownership has made far greater headway than private ownership in number of plants established, but in terms of total output the facts are astonishingly different. The output of municipal plants per kilowatt hour in 1912 was 10,436,276, that of private plants 537,526,730. That is: although the number of municipal plants was 30 per cent of the total, their output was only 5 per cent of the total output for the year. The rate of growth of plants put into terms of output shows a similar discrepancy. From 1902 to 1912 municipal plants have increased their output 136 per cent, while private plants have gained 238 per cent.

What has happened is this. While a far greater number of new plants have been built under public ownership, the private ones have been decidedly larger.

This looks as if the private promoter had captured the big prizes in the electrical field. Other figures bear this out. In 1902 no less than 82 per cent of the municipal electric light plants were in cities of less than 5,000 population, while only 73 per cent of private plants were so located. In 1904 there were but 4 municipal plants in the 39 cities of over 100,000 population. And in 1912 there were only 7 in the 56 cities of the same population. To quote the Civic Federation Report: "It is only in cities below 30,000 that municipal (electric) undertakings are found." The only cities of over 100,000 population to-day which own and operate their electric light systems are: Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Seattle, Columbus, and Birmingham-and of these none has a monopoly of the field, while some do not supply private customers. There figures characterize municipal ownership in the electric field—a fairly high degree of development, but one almost exclusively confined to the smaller cities-precisely the opposite, as we have seen, from that in the field of water supply.

3. Gas

A survey of the gas business reveals a somewhat similar situation. In 1899 there were in the United States 965 gas plants. Of these 14 (1.5 per cent) were municipally owned and operated. In 1914 there were 2,109, of which 125 (6 per cent) were socialized. The number of municipal plants increased in this period 11 per cent, while the private plants increased as much as 46 per cent. In 1912 of over 100 municipal plants only one (Richmond) was located in any city of over 100,000 population.

In the gas business, therefore, as in the electric, the private companies have captured the big plants. But in the case of gas, public ownership, even in the smaller towns, has not made anything like the headway that it has in the field of electricity and water.

4. Telephones

The telephone business, it is needless to say, is entirely in the hands of private capital, although its service in all its essentials is similar to these other utilities.* Not a single city in this country owns and operates a commercial telephone system. The closest approximation to public ownership we find in the police and intradepartmental systems which some cities maintain. But even these lines are often (as are the police and fire department telephones in

The necessity for inter-city and inter-state connections makes the telephone, however, more of a national than a municipal utility.

New York) owned and operated by the Bell or some other corporation.

5. Markets

The public ownership of markets has gone far. Of 195 cities. with a population of over 30,000 no less than 112 own and operate markets. Nearly three-fourths of all cities of 100,000 and over (41 out of 56) have one or more. They flourish in the larger cities.

6. Street railways and ferries

In the whole of the United States only three cities (San Francisco, Seattle, and Monroe, La.) own and operate portions of their street railway systems, only two (New York and Boston) own and operate ferries, and but two (New Orleans and San Francisco) any large per cent of their water front.

The publicly owned water front of New Orleans with its municipal terminal railway and the water front development of San Francisco are two exceptional and remarkable examples to show the public advantages to be gained from resistance to this trading on people's necessities-advantages, it might be added, which almost every German and many English cities have long since recognized and acted upon.

7. Docks and waterfront

Of the 63 principal sea and lake port cities of the United States there are but eight which do not own some portion of the waterfront within their limits. It is interesting to note that of these eight no less than six, including so large a city as Milwaukee, are on the Great Lakes. Galveston and Port San Luis, Cal., are the only ports in this class on the seaboard. Of the remaining 55 port cities there are 14 which own some frontage but do not own any wharves, and 41 which own both frontage property and docks, piers, or wharves. Portland, Me.; Charleston, S. C.; Buffalo, N. Y.; Duluth, Minn., and Erie, Pa., are the more important cities which do not own any docks.

There are only eight ports in which the public owns the major portion of the waterfront or is in a position to acquire the bulk of it: New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, Oakland, Sacramento, Stockton (Cal.), and Washington (D. C.). In New Orleans and San Francisco the ownership is vested in the state, in Washington in the Federal Government, and in the others in the city. Although in the remaining ports the public ownership

is less than one-half the entire waterfront property there are sev eral important cities whose frontage ownership is a substantial interest. Among these the more notable are: New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore on the Atlantic, and Seattle and Tacoma on the Pacific Coast.

There are some 548 publicly owned (city or state) docks, wharves, and piers in the United States. Of these New York City owns almost one-half the total number with 258. The income from these in 1915 was $4,912,202. Philadelphia owns 21 docks, Baltimore 12, New Orleans (state) 21, Oakland 17, San Francisco (state) 38, and Stockton 16.

It is probable that the total amount of waterfront and dock property owned by the public in the United States is somewhat less than 5 per cent of the total used for commercial purposes.*

8. Miscellaneous

There are a few more sporadic cases of municipal ownership which conclude this tale of increasing socialization. They may be conveniently tabled as follows:

*Compiled from Jones, "Ports of the United States," U. S. Department of Commerce, Misc. Series No. 33, 1916.

CHAPTER XXX

THE FOOD SUPPLY

GOVERNMENTAL control of the food supply was not undertaken very seriously or on a wholesale scale until the present war. Examples of partial control were very common before the war, and in many instances the control was successful. However, this control was seldom on a national scale, being mostly limited to the municipalities-and especially during the food riots all over the continent of Europe in 1911. National governments have undertaken to enlarge the food supply, that is, to encourage agriculture and to facilitate economic marketing. But such encouragement may be taken rather as a subsidizing of agriculture than as an effort to cheapen food, since no serious or effective effort was made to control prices. In some instances, no doubt, the natural law of supply and demand might be expected to somewhat lower prices (or to prevent their continued rise) without any special governmental effort. It is possible, therefore, that such activities as those of the United States Government to increase meat production may be taken as an effort to lower the price of meat to the consumer.

By far the most important part of "War Socialism"-or, more accurately speaking, "War Collectivism"-is the governmental control of the food supply. For this there are two reasons: governmental control of railroads, shipping, and mines had advanced very far before the war, and there was no question that the rapid development of collectivism in these fields would have continued had there been no war-as our chapters on these subjects have indicated. On the other hand, as we show below, the Government control of the food supply, although distinctly in evidence in several directions, was at a very rudimentary stage of development before the war.

The second reason why the governmental control of the food