Letter to the Governor

In the mail of New York's utility-baiting Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt there rested last week an open letter from Floyd Leslie Carlisle, Chairman of Niagara Hudson Power Corp., largest U. S. electrical power system. In it onetime Cornell-Debater Carlisle answered a recent radio speech by the Governor.

To the Governor's statements that a consumer in Albany would pay $19.50 a month for 250 kwh., one in Schenectady $9.30, Mr. Carlisle replied: "This is entirely incorrect, as in Albany for that number of hours use the rate would be $9.30 per month."

Equally positive was Mr. Carlisle in his refutation of the Governor's statement that a Buffalo consumer would be charged $7.90 for what a Niagara Falls consumer could get for a paltry $5.53. "I hope you will check and correct these errors," said Mr. Carlisle, then adding, with humor perhaps gained when he practiced law in northern New York, "The rates are on file with the Public Service Commission in Albany and can be checked, of course, by any one."

Another point Mr. Carlisle made seemed to refute the argument (heard in many anti-utility quarters) that Canadians get power cheaper. Briefly he showed that in 1928, the last year for which figures are available, the Hydroelectric Commission of Ontario sold 3,061,000,000 kwh. for $32,431,000 while the Buffalo, Niagara & Eastern companies, within Niagara Hudson's system, although generating 20% by steam, sold 4,436,000,000 kwh. for $32,911,000, and paid $4,546,000 in taxes whereas the Ontario system had practically no expense under this item. Concluded Mr. Carlisle, "If our companies were relieved of the payment of taxes to put them on the same basis with Ontario . . . they could have sold electricity for less than one-half of the amount paid by the householders in Ontario. Judged by any fair comparison, the companies within the Niagara Hudson system are furnishing electricity to all classes of service cheaper than it is furnished in Ontario."

After graduating from Cornell in 1903, Mr. Carlisle began practicing law in 1905 in Watertown, N. Y., his home. He entered business by organizing a bank, and in 1916 headed the group of men who bought St. Regis Paper Co., and was made its president. Four years later he again was head of a syndicate, this time to buy Northern New York Utilities, Inc., of which he was made chairman. For the past ten years he has gained fame as a dynamo in the electrical field, has also remained the head of St. Regis Paper which now is Niagara Hudson's largest stockholder with 16.6% of the 25,595.000 shares outstanding.

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