[D8936AAY], Letter from Edison Electric Light and Power Co (Kansas City), Edwin Ruthven Weeks to Edison Electric Light Co, William Preston Hix, December 13th, 1889
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Title
[D8936AAY], Letter from Edison Electric Light and Power Co (Kansas City), Edwin Ruthven Weeks to Edison Electric Light Co, William Preston Hix, December 13th, 1889
Editor's Notes
Edison Electri Light and Power Company Kansas City, December 13, 1889, Dictated. Mr. W. Preston Hix, General Agent Edison Electric Co., # $4 Wall st., New York City.##My dear Mr. Hix: herewith return Mr. Tate's letter and enclose a letter to Mr. Edison which, after reading, I trust you will kindly favor me by deliering to him in person.##From the letter to Mr. Edison you will at once understand the importance to the Kansas City Edison Company and to me personally of securing the promised discussion. You know better than any one else in New York City the difficulty of raising moneding the increase to our capital. Our light is growing in popularity and we are obliged to put into plant, in addition to our net earnings, from one thousand to three thousand dollars montly to supply the demand. You well know my personal aversion to being placed in a position where we have not only to borrow money for extentions, but to do without paying a cash dividedend which we are earning. Our plant account now amounts to about $120000., twenty thousand of which is covered by a floating debt which worries me not a little, and from which there seems to be no escape except by means of the proposed increase in capitalization.##You will remember that the Kansas City conention will be the first meeting of the Association under the new constitution which limits the membership to central station men who, as a rule, have no interest in any parent company but whose money is invested in the manufacture of electricity for light and power purposes. I believe you agree with me in the opinion that nothing can so assist the Edison interests among those already in the central station business as to hae the actual results achieved by Edison apparatus in the hands of such men as Marks, Beggs and Edgar made known to those the success of whose investments will depend upon the commercial value of the apparatus whih they use.##As an instance of what ccan be done in the west, would remind you that in Texas alone there are about one hudnred growing cities having a population of from three thousand and upwards only about 25% of which are supplied with any kind of central station electri light service. The proposed discussion of the Five Wire system will, as I have before written, greatly facilitate the extension of the Edison business in the west, and I have no doubt that Mr. Edison's phonograph discussion at the Kansas City convention, followed up by a proper canvas, would result in the formation of thirty or forty central station companies in Texas alone.##Mr. F.J Sprague and Prof. Henry A. Rowland have accepted my invitation to attend the Kansas City convention, and the promised discussino from Mr,. Edison only is needed to make the meeting a great success.##I rest my case with you, hoping that you will at the earliest favorable opportunity so present it to Mr. Edison that I may be saved the mortification of having to announce both among my fellow townsmen and throughout the country the failure of that part of the programme.##Please let me hear from you as soon as convenient, and oblige. Yours very truly, Edwin R. Weeks [Enclosure follows]
Recipient
Date
1889-12-13
Type
Folder/Volume ID
D8936-F
Microfilm ID
126:333
Document ID
D8936AAY
Publisher
Thomas A. Edison Papers, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers University