Persistent and ruthless war should be declared upon these
unnatural monopolies, because as long as they exist they are an absolute
bar to any thoroughly democratic and constructive system of municipal
economy. Measures should be taken which under other circumstances would
be both unfair and unwise for the deliberate purpose of bringing them to
terms, and getting them to exchange their permanent possession of these
franchises for a limited tenancy. Permanent commissions should be placed
over them with the right and duty of interfering officiously in their
business. Taxation should be made to bear heavily upon them. Competitive
services should be established wherever this could be done without any
excessive loss. They should be annoyed and worried in every legal way;
and all those burdens should be imposed upon them with the explicit
understanding that they were measures of war. In adopting such a policy
a community would be fighting for an essential condition of future
economic integrity and well-being, and it need not be any more
scrupulous about the means employed (always "under the law") than would
an animal in his endeavor to kill some blood-sucking parasite.
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