BY JOHN H. GIRDNER, M.D.

THERE is much writing and talk about municipal ownership in these days. When you talk about a municipality or an individual owning something, it implies that there is something to own. It is about this “something” that I want to write. I want to make it clear to the reader what I mean by franchise wealth or franchise property, and exactly how it differs from private wealth or private property.

When you buy a house and lot in a town or city, your property is of two kinds, private property and franchise property. Your private property begins at the building line in front and extends backward the full width of your lot to the fence or line which divides your back yard from the back yard of your neighbor who fronts on the next street. Your franchise property extends from the building or stoop line, outward, the full width of your lot, across the sidewalk and on to the middle of the street where it meets the franchise property of your neighbor on the opposite side of your street.

The money to grade, drain and pave the street in front of your lot was raised by assessments levied on that lot. These assessments were added, by previous owners, perhaps, to the cost of the lot, and were a part of the price you paid for the lot. In other words, you bought and paid for the franchise property in front of your stoop line as directly as you did for the private property behind the stoop line, and you are therefore entitled to the usufruct of the one as much as the other.

The aggregate of the franchise wealth of all the individual owners in any given street is the sum total of the franchise wealth of that street. And the aggregate of the franchise wealth of all the streets of a given town or city is the sum total of the franchise wealth of that city. And it is absolutely owned by all the inhabitants of that city, for everyone contributes in some manner to the creation and maintenance of this franchise wealth.

There is another thing about this kind of property which the people ought to keep in mind. Like their private property, their rights in this franchise property extend from the surface right down into the earth, as far as it is practical to dig; and, from the surface, right up into the sky, as high as it is practical to build. It is well, I say, to keep these facts in mind; they may come in handy when a corrupt mayor and board of aldermen, or an eminently respectable board of rapid transit commissioners, are about to hand over to a private corporation a city subway or elevated road.

The tremendous importance of the franchise wealth on all social and economic questions in a city like New York may be more fully appreciated if we call to mind this fact, viz.:

That the value of any piece of city real estate is determined almost entirely by the character of the franchise property in front of and nearby it.

Why does a lot one hundred feet deep, with twenty-five feet front on Fifth avenue, sell for so much more than a similar lot fronting on Second avenue? They are the same size. They are composed alike of earth and rock. You can dig as deep a foundation and build as high in the air on the one as the other. But why the great difference in price? You say because Fifth avenue is a better street than Second avenue. But this answer does not explain much. What you mean to say is, that there are certain characteristics, which I have not time to discuss here in detail, connected with the franchise property in front of and contiguous to the Fifth avenue lot which make it more valuable than similar characteristics connected with the franchise property in front of and contiguous to the Second avenue lot. And this is my point, that it is at last the character of the franchise property of a street or a city which determines the value of the private property or real estate of that street or city.

The streets of New York City, which I have called franchise wealth or franchise property to distinguish this kind of property from the private property of the individual, were built and are maintained with money contributed by all the citizens; and all the citizens are as fully entitled to the usufruct of them, as is any individual to the usufruct of his private property.

The individual manages his private property or he employs an agent to manage it for him. And he holds this agent to a strict account. If the agent appropriates the income from the use of his private property the law steps in and justly punishes him. Acting collectively, the individuals elect by ballot a mayor and board of aldermen and members of the State legislature as agents to manage their franchise property for them.

“Wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.” In every large city there is a fat carcass of franchise wealth, and there you find the corporation eagles, and the political eagles gathered together to gorge themselves on it. The corporation eagles deceive the unsuspecting citizens by a pretended desire to serve them. They call themselves “public service corporations.” There never was a worse misnomer than this. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They fatten on the people’s franchise wealth and serve no one except themselves and their congeners, the political eagles. So far from being servants they become the masters of the people whose property they have obtained by every corrupt device that the vulpine instinct of man can invent.

The political eagles that feed on the franchise carcass have a different way of deceiving the people. They organize themselves into what they call a political party, and, by working three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, while other men are attending to their legitimate businesses, they get control of the legal political machinery of one of the great national parties. The name by which they call their organization will depend on the particular city they are operating in. In New York, for instance, they call themselves Democrats, not because they know or care anything about the principles of Democracy, but because a majority of the independent voters are Democrats, and then they secure the votes to elect their candidates from the very people they intend to despoil once they get in. For a similar reason the political eagles of Philadelphia call their organization Republican. If the majority of the voters of any city favored prohibition, you would have that city’s organized political eagles calling themselves Prohibitionists. New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, every city in this country which has a fat franchise wealth carcass, has its corporation and political eagles gathered together to devour it.

When a complete history of New York City for the past forty years is written, not the least interesting chapters will be an account of the development, growth and present perfection of the system by which the corporations and politicians enriched themselves at the expense of the people, and how the people were so hypnotized that they were unable to rise in their might and drive out these cormorants. This era of corruption began with William M. Tweed. The enterprise was in its infancy then and Tweed was a blunderer. He and his associates robbed the city treasury on false vouchers, fraudulent bills, etc. Then came Jake Sharp, who bribed the aldermen outright with cash to induce them to hand over to him some millions worth of the people’s franchise wealth. Tweed and his people, Jake Sharp and the boodle aldermen got into trouble, state prison or exile.

Politicians do not like striped clothes when the stripes all run one way any better than other folks do. So a new and safer system had to be found for exploiting the people. Money in the form of campaign contributions from the individual or corporation who wants something to the head of the organization who could deliver that something after election, looked good and safe, and this is the plan which has been in operation in New York for some years.

During the last mayoralty campaign in this city I was told one evening by a man who is thoroughly reliable, and who is in a position to know, that the Consolidated Gas Company, of this city, had paid $300,000 into the campaign fund of Tammany Hall. George B. McClellan, the Tammany candidate for mayor, was elected. In less than one year after taking office he signed the so-called Remsen gas bill. Had it become a law it would have tightened the clutch of the Gas Trust more firmly on the people of this city and would have turned over to that corporation some millions more of their franchise wealth. Fortunately a Republican governor vetoed it and saved, for the time at least, further encroachments on the people’s rights.

And you have today the spectacle of this so-called Democratic mayor lined up with the Trust magnates and their money-bags at the big ends of the gas-tubes and against the people of all parties who suffer extortion at the little ends of the gas-tubes. He is actually opposing the efforts of the people of this city to secure the necessary legislation to permit them to build and operate their own gas-plants and deliver the gas to themselves through pipes laid in their own streets. And if you refuse to support such a man you are likely to be told by an insolent Tammany Hall henchman that you are no Democrat.

Talk about municipal ownership! Why, the municipality, which is another name for the people, already own everything they need. They own the streets and the right of way through them, and they own the money to build lighting plants, railways and telephone lines. The only thing they do not own is permission to use their own property. And this is withheld from them by greedy Trust magnates through their bought-up politicians.

We need MEN in this city who cannot be deceived by the names Democracy and Republicanism. We need men who will stand together and protect our franchise property against grafting politicians and grafting political organizations, no matter by what names they call themselves. New York City may be likened to a big “skyscraper” laid on its side. The streets correspond to the elevator shafts. Now, what would be thought of the sanity of a company of men who built a high office building, hotel or apartment house and allowed their agents to give away to outsiders the right to run the elevators and the further right to prey upon the tenants who are obliged to use them? Yet this is exactly what the politicians have done and are doing with the streets of this city.

Make an inventory of the Gas Trust’s property, find out how much it would cost to duplicate its plant, then subtract that sum from the capitalization of the Trust and the remainder is franchise property, and that belongs to the people. Go through the list of telephone, telegraph and railway companies the same way, and you will begin to get an idea of the value and earning capacity of your franchise property which has been stolen from you by your agents, the officeholders.

If the agent of an individual deeds away a piece of his private property and fails to make a just return to the owner, the law holds the title to be spurious and punishes that agent. But the officeholders, the agents appointed by all the individuals to care for their franchise property, deed it away to so-called public service corporations, pocket the proceeds and go scot-free!

The telephone, telegraph and all the corporations that use wires and electricity appropriate and use the people’s private property as well as their franchise property. Go on your roofs, New Yorkers, and count the electric wires that the thieving electricity corporations have attached to your houses or have strung across your lots without your permission. Remember that you own a space equal to the surface dimensions of your lot down into the bowels of the earth and up into the sky as far as you like to go. And nobody has the right to string wires across this space in the air or in the earth without your permission. The New York Telephone Company attached a wire to the roof of a house I had leased. I threatened to cut the wire. The company insolently replied that they needed that wire on my roof to carry on their business. I insisted on justice and my rights in the matter. The company then came round with a lease, which I signed, granting them permission to pass their wire over my roof, and I received a substantial annual rental for that privilege.

These corporations appropriate your private property as well as your franchise property for their own enrichment and pay nothing for it. They would string wires on your teeth if they needed them and you did not object. And to cap the climax they charge extortionate rates for service in order to pay dividends on watered stock. I wrote these facts a few years ago and offered the article to two daily newspapers in this town, and they did not dare to publish it. But thank God Tom Watson’s Magazine exists to tell the truth. New Yorkers, you ought to examine the fences around your backyards. You surely own them, and they are valuable property. They produce an enormous income to—the telephone company. Tens of thousands of yards of telephone wires are strung on these fences. The company uses them to get wires into your houses, in order to charge you extortionate prices for ’phone service. The company will tell you they need these fences to give you ’phone service. That answer reminds me of the answer given by a negro girl caught stealing raisins from her mistress’s bureau drawer. “Why did you steal those raisins?” asked the mistress. Sally replied, “Why, missus, dey’s good.”