The Press: In Susquehanna | TIME

Few U. S. towns as small as Susquehanna, Pa. (pop. 3,203) have a daily paper. No U. S. small town has a daily paper more militantly enterprising than the six-page, 48-year-old Susquehanna Evening Transcript. Last week the Transcript’s 280-lb. Editor Ulysses Simpson Grant Baker successfully passed a major milestone in his three-year fight with the Canawacta Water Supply Co.

The fight started in April 1931 when the water company increased its rates from

$3.75 minimum per quarter to $6.50. Editor Baker claimed that the increase was unfair, splashed his front page with loud exhortations against it, called it “legalized robbery.” It looked as if the Transcript had a chance to win until May 1933, when Pennsylvania’s Public Service Commission approved the raise.

Editor Baker studied the Commission’s report, called on Governor Pinchot, went back to Susquehanna to fight in earnest. He urged his readers to pay only the old rates when they got their bills from the water company. When the water company shut off the supply, he argued that the company had no right to deprive citizens of a vital necessity. Susquehanna citizens took to standing on shutoff boxes to prevent water company agents from closing the valves.

Editor Baker lives in a house owned by Vice President Walter Edgar Bennett of the water company. When his landlord had his water supply cut off, because he failed to pay his bills in full, Editor Baker turned it on again himself, hired three guards to prevent agents from turning it off without court authority. The water company got an injunction against Editor Baker’s guards but the Transcript kept on with its campaign.

By June 1933, Transcript readers had started to dig wells at $1,000 each to avoid paying the rates which Editor Baker denounced. The public school and a parochial school run by Editor Baker’s ally, the Very Rev. James A. Walsh, did likewise. The Susquehanna fire department stopped using water company hydrants, pumped water up from the river. In nearby little Lanesboro, where W. E. Bennett is the village’s largest taxpayer, the fire company shut off all its hydrants, proposed to depend entirely on help from the Susquehanna fire department.

Last week Editor Baker’s fight with the Canawacta Water Supply Co. reached an extraordinary crisis. The water company had started suits against 200 of its customers to make them pay their bills. The customers had refused and their property was put up at auction. First piece under the hammer was none other than the Susquehanna Evening Transcript, which had balked at a water bill of $22.70. Biggest crowd that ever attended a Susquehanna auction gathered in the Transcript editorial room, hissed water company agents sent to bid prices high enough to satisfy their employers’ claims.

Members of the paper’s staff bought in desks, typewriters and office equipment of the Transcript for $15.84. Another bought in the Transcript’s $18,500 press for $41.93, deeded it right back to Editor Baker. In zero weather, Sheriff F. H. Brandt went about the town selling out other Susquehanna concerns. A house fetched 81¢ a lumber yard, $7.98, automobiles, 25¢. Because Susquehanna townsfolk were united allies of Editor Baker, all the properties went back to their original owners. The Canawacta Water Company lost $800 by the sales.

An hour after his paper had been sold, Editor Baker jumped in his Chevrolet coach, drove 40 miles to make a speech on “the finer things in citizenship.” First issue of the Transcript after the sale urged its readers to use the same tactics in “the next round with the octopus.” Editor Baker is campaigning for funds to defray legal expenses for 300 other water-rate strikers. Invited by the water company, after two denials, to attend a rate conference, Editor Baker refused to accept the settlement offer, has been barred from all future meetings. Meanwhile Editor Baker holds proxies for almost all the Transcript’s 1,713 readers.

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