There is a class of corporations owing their existence to special privileges granted by communities to furnish a service to the people, providing greater comforts and making inter-communication more convenient. Such corporations are known as public utility or public service companies, and comprise those engaged in supplying transportation facilities, gas, electric light, heat, water, and power. In one field only are they analogous to other corporations, and that is in transportation. In all other fields these corporations belong distinctly to an individual class. The street car lines provide a convenient service to a congested community, allowing cheap and quick travel from one place to another. They supply on a smaller scale the service the steam railroads give in covering greater distances.

But only in recent years have public service corporations come to occupy their present position of prominence and importance as a field for the profitable exploitation of capital. It might also be stated that the golden age, if there can be said to be such in the history of corporations, came to them with the advent of electricity, that subtle force which introduced an economic revolution in low operating cost. In the days antedating steam and electricity, when horse cars were the mode of transportation, the service was so slow there was little profit in the business and next to none if the capitalization was large. Nor was there much improvement with the change from horse cars to cars propelled by cable. While it was a step forward to haul cars in trains of two or more coupled to a cable car, the coal required to provide the power to run the cable ate up almost all that was saved by dispensing with horse power. Likewise breakdowns occurred so frequently with cable power as to make that an expensive item in the operating cost. All these disadvantages, however, were finally overcome with the advent of the first electric trolley car. The cost of producing power was reduced to a minimum. It made possible transportation facilities to serve remote sections of large cities. It gave to the smallest towns a street car service - a direct stimulus to growth. But what may be regarded as the most phenomenal development has been the unbuilding of interurban traffic, which is today making electrical roads keen and aggressive competitors of the steam roads. All this is possible because it costs less to operate the lines; the service is maintained at low cost and is more efficient.

Electric Interurban Lines

In what a strong position electric interurban transportation is entrenched in this country will be readily appreciated when it is known that it is possible now to start in a trolley car from New York City and travel across the whole state. Interurban electric roads practically parallel the New York Central Railroad all the way from New York to Buffalo. In fact they have become such keen aggressors for the short-haul business, which, by the way, is the most profitable traffic, as to compel the big railroads in self-defense to absorb the principal electric interurban lines in order to maintain their dominating position. The New York, New Haven & Hartford was actually forced to take under its wing, through a separate corporation, the interurban lines touching every place of importance in Connecticut and Massachusetts, or face the penalty of heavy inroads upon its passenger and light freight business. The management of the Southern Pacific, seeing far ahead the possible encroachment the electric roads in Southern California might make upon its earnings, did not wait until this stage was reached, but secured control of all the important lines at the first opportunity presenting itself. Today a traveler can, by means of these long-distance trolley lines, reach almost every part of Ohio. In Indiana and the larger portions of Illinois and Pennsylvania similar conditions prevail.

Nowadays a person may obtain a berth in a trolley sleeping car in the evening at Dayton, Ohio, and be in Indianapolis early the next morning. He may travel in similar comfort from Peoria to St. Louis over the Illinois Traction lines. All this but gives a faint idea of the remarkable evolution electric power has brought about in transportation. There are prophets, whose claims are by no means disbelieved, who say that it will not be long before the monster steam engines used now to haul long trains of passenger coaches and freight cars will be dis-placed and become antiquated and a memory, as are the old horse cars of twenty years ago. That this is the tendency is borne out by the present use of large electrical Westinghouse motors by some railroads, notably the New York Central and New Haven. The experiment is even now being tested of propelling cars with electric storage batteries, so far with some measure of success. If this new power is perfected, even greater economy in operation will be introduced, dispensing with trolley wires and costly power-generating stations which it is now absolutely necessary to maintain. The interurban electric roads have another important advantage over their older rivals, the steam roads, in that the motorman, by simply turning his controller, can stop for passengers anywhere. The steam roads can stop only at designated stations according to schedule.