THE PUBLIC MIND: READER CRITICIZES `MONOPOLY' TACTICS OF GAS STATIONS HERE

To the Editor:

The damnable monopoly of gasoline prices in Cape is horrible!

We were forced as of April 2 to pay 99.9 cents a gallon, whereas just 28 miles away in Sikeston the price is 88.9 cents; and even at Fruitland just 10 miles from Cape the price is 89.9 cents.

This long-standing monopoly needs to be broken once and for all, and the only way is for Girardeans to go elsewhere for their gas. At a cost of 4 cents a mile to drive your car, it would cost you $2.24 to drive to Sikeston where you would get 18 gallons for your car and 5 gallons for your lawn mower, and you would save 75 cents which would tell our monopolists you're disgusted with them and save you money.

Or go to Fruitland about 10 miles away at a driving cost of 80 cents round trip and you would need buy eight gallons to break even, and for 20 gallons you would have a net savings of $1.20.

We shouldn't have to go on forever enriching these monopolists. The wholesale of gas can't be that much different. We would stop this if we'd spend a little more of our time to get gasoline elsewhere at fair and decent rates not only now but in all the future, until they mend their ways.

The average car today gets 20 miles per gallon and is driven 10,000 miles a year, so it uses 500 gallons a year at a cost in Cape Girardeau of $499.50; if bought in Sikeston, it would be only $444.50, a savings of $54 a year as long as you drive your car, usually five years, so you'd save $270 with this car, which would be a fair down-payment on a new one. If you're 18 when you start driving and continue until age 71 when the average person dies, you would save $2,862, about the cost of your funeral.

These are the savings you would make if the Cape monopolists were forced to be fair and honest and were forced to sell at decent prices, as so many other gas stations do.

Charles E. Stiver

Cape Girardeau