Yankee Power

Rearing a few surprising skyscrapers above the rich alluvium of the Connecticut River is Hartford, capital of the third smallest State in the Union, home of a considerable proportion of the U. S. insurance business, birthplace of J. P. Morgan the Elder. There, where Secession was debated long before the South was tempted, old Yankee families grew rich and conservative in the manufacture of textiles, tools, machines. When Thomas Alva Edison devised a lamp which never needed filling, the gadget appealed to a good Hartfordian whose fortune had come from linen. With $20,000 capital Austin C. Dunham founded Hartford Electric Light Co. in 1881.

Typical of Hartford management was the company's practical progressiveness, its stanch independence. Hartford Electric was the first U. S. utility to use high-voltage transmission, first to use aluminum lines, first to install a steam turbine, first to use that marvel of efficiency, the mercury turbine. But the spirit of innovation never pushed its way into the treasurer's office. Not only is Hartford Electric completely free of a holding company; its capitalization is the simplest conceivable--840,000 shares of common stock and not a dollar of bonded debt.

Last week this pioneering power company reported a profit of $2,500,000 for 1934, a slight increase over the year before. At the same time President Samuel Ferguson was elected board chairman, succeeding the late Samuel G. Dunham, the founder's brother. Upped to the presidency was Viggo E. Bird, a Danish-born engineer who has been a vice president for years.

Small potatoes in the U. S. power basket are Hartford Electric and its affiliate Connecticut Power Co., which serves a few other counties in the State and is not to be confused with Connecticut Light & Power, a United Gas Improvement subsidiary. Yet Samuel Ferguson is keenly and sometimes enviously watched by most of the industry. Instead of spending his best time and talents defending the status quo, he has slaved to promote the use of his power. As a result of his efforts, Hartford Electric's domestic rate has been reduced from 9 1/2-c- per kwh. in 1921 to 4 1/2-c- in 1935.

Two years ago Samuel Ferguson started to rent electric ranges "on trial" for 30-c- per week. Now he has more than 1,700 out and hundreds more have been sold. Last week he reported that the average domestic consumption of power jumped from 793 kwh. in 1933 to 858 kwh. last year. His latest innovation is to offer free current to customers who increase their consumption by certain amounts. Thus, if a householder boosts his meter reading 10 kwh. per month, he may have the next 50 kwh. without charge.

Utilitarian Ferguson has never had a really hostile Hartford on his hands, although the power company is by no means popular. Throughout Depression he has never cut wages or laid off employes. He abandoned a rate scheme based on floor area because some of his 70,000 customers objected, although he considered it to be more scientific than ordinary meter rates. Almost all earnings are paid out in dividends or returned to customers in rate reductions. In addition he paid customer dividends from 1925 to 1932, amounting in the latter year to a 40% discount on one month's bill. With $32,000,000 in assets, Hartford Electric has a surplus of less than $3,500,000, which is not enough to arouse anyone's wrath. The only melons ever cut are issues of rights to buy stock to finance expansion. Samuel Ferguson grouses about taxes and the TVA like any other powerman but there the likeness stops.

Quiet, genial, sixtyish, Samuel Ferguson is the son of the late Henry Ferguson, onetime rector of St. Paul's School. In his youth Henry Ferguson and his elder brother survived the burning of the clipper Hornet on the Equator in 1866 and the subsequent 4,000-mi. voyage in an open boat to Hawaii which Mark Twain recorded in My Literary Debut. Although the harrowing 43 days is one of the sea's great sagas, Father Ferguson hardly ever mentioned the adventure to his son Samuel. After talking about it, the old gentleman could never sleep. An entry in his carefully-kept diary:

"June 11. Ate the meat and rind of our hambone, and have the bone and the greasy cloth from around the ham left to eat tomorrow. God send us birds or fish, and let us not perish of hunger, or be brought to the dreadful alternative of feeding on human flesh."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.