Less Cost & Propaganda

Famed NELA (National Electric Light Association) last week convened at Atlantic City for its 52nd convention and exhibition. There able Matthew S. Sloan, head of New York Edison Co., said that the electric industry could well grant lower rates on current for domestic use, that such rates would result in greater use of vacuum cleaners, of electric irons, clothes washers and other household electric appliances, that rate reductions were always followed by pleasing increases in amounts of current consumed. Delegates also heard Oklahoman J. F. Owens, head of NELA's publicity, concede that there was "food for thought" in the suggestion that utility propaganda bureaus be discontinued, added, however, that it was vitally important that the "youth of the land" should be allowed to "drink from the running stream of current facts [concerning power and public utilities] rather than from the stagnant pool of wornout ideas, pools poisoned ... by the sophistries of discredited theorists."