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 Exchange 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 exchange 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 franchisesstreet railways, electric lighting, gas, telephone, refrigerating and heat and power service-are under private ownership and operation. A variety of conditions 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,

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 origin the sinking fund for their further reduction.

inal purchase issue, being $1,100,000. In the same period bonds were retired. 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 flushing 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 onehalf 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 ownership. 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 earnthey 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

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 detail 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 distributing 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 established a solution of lime and alum is used to precipitate the foreign substances 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 containing fewer than five hundred germs per centimeter is considered wholesome. In the samples taken no pathogenic, or disease-producing, germs were discovered. 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 mortality can be prevented by improving the water service. Dr. Walter M. Cross, the city chemist, explains that while turbid water is not more likely

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 conduct 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 employees of other municipal departments.

The officers, in July, 1908, are: Board of Water Commissioners: Robert L. Gregory, president; Lynn S. Banks, R. H. Williams, Wallace Love; superintendent, S. Y. High; chief engineer, William G. Goodwin; and assessor 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 Metropolitan Street Railway Company and the Kansas City Electric Light Company. 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 dollars, 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 lines 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.

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 residue 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 railways 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 single 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 under any one or all of several varying franchises that were granted to original 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, arc street lights are furnished at $65 each year. The Electric Light Company's gross earnings for the fiscal year ending May 31, 1907, were $893,436.66.