Gas & Electric

President John J. O'Brien's report last week that Standard Gas & Electric Co. of Chicago owns public utility properties worth $873,135,568 and has total assets of practically a billion dollars ($973,859,382) may startle governmental officials already queasy with suspicion of public utility holding corporations such as this. Prudent, President O'Brien warded off aspersion: "Public utilities cannot be operated economically in small units. Only by grouping them into large, strong organizations can they be favorably financed, scientifically engineered and successfully operated so as to render services at the lowest reasonable cost to the user."

The corporation and its subsidiaries last year sold 3,487,593,823 kilowatt-hours of electricity and 64,952,297,000 cubic feet of gas to 1,-503,424 customers (166,000 were consumer-stockholders in the service companies) in 1,382 communities (including Pittsburgh, Louisville, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Oklahoma City, San Diego and San Francisco) whose populations totaled 5,700,000. Total net profits were $8,453,761.