The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1908-04-23

WASHINGTON, April lin the
judgment of many far sighted men
water is to become the king of Ameri-
can industry and prosperity. AS the
coal supply decreases, water power
becomes more and more important, and
its Importance is still further increased
with every forward step in the develop
ment of electricity
So clearly have the financial and
industrial leaders perceived the inn
portance of water power that they
have already gobbled up practically
every available source of such power
in the United States. The officers Of
| the reclamation service tell me that
E. H. Hartman controls the water
power situation in California as abso-
lutely as he controls the railroad stu
alton. At last accounts there was only
one stream in California whose water
power resources had not been gobbled
up. The reclamation service was after
this stream, but it was feared that
private enterprise had gotten ahead
of it.
The water power resources of the
country are supposed to be in a very
few hands. Investigation has led the
government sleuths to the door of
three or four men-and these men by
a strange coincidence control also the
other sources of heat, light and power
in great measure. Coal, oil, timber and
water power are the only sources of
these indispensables of business, COM
fort, and even of life. Hartman Is
one of these men; j. Pierpont Morgan
is another; John D. Rockefeller is a
third, and Frederick Weyerhaeuser is
a fourth. Hartman is reckoned as the
active agent of the others in punching
the water power of the country under
one management.
The water power companies are
merging daily, and all are heading
toward the General electric company
as the fountain head. Morgan and
Hartman being directors of this COM
Ipany. Perhaps Rockefeller is, too.
The government officers who are
watching these moves predict that
within three years all the water power
of the country that is not held by
the strong hand of the government it.
self will be in the grip of a single
trust.
PURPOSE OF POWER TRUST.
The water power trust intends to
revolutionize business in due time. Al
present railroads are operated with
coal or oil, both of these motive fuels
being very expensive and unsatisfac-
tory. The Hartman lines use up
about one-third of their freight car
rying capacity IN hauling the other
two-thirds. That is they are forced
to haul big loads of coal, oil and water
to feed their engines in order to keel
traffic moving. In the big stretches
of western desert the operation resem
bles the addition of a string of water
laden camels to a caravan to keep the
freight camels from perishing. 1t is {
costly way of doing business. The
Santa Fe works even more extrava
gantly on account of the deserts il
must cross. 1t is estimated that one
half of the freight on the Santa Fe is
eaten up in moving the other nalf
Hartman expects to revolutionizt
this way of doing business by utll
izing water to develop electricity.
IS easier and cheaper to transpor
electricity than coal or oil. The chang
will cost millions, but it will say,
millions more. A few years more viii
see the entire Southern Pacific line
from Ogden and New Orleans to Sal
Francisco operated by electric powe
generated by California streams which
1 the people of the state think they own
Hartman, through his agents ant
Z small corporations, apparently inde
pendent, has acquired these waite
? rights. By benefcially using then
/ he can hold them, even agains
the people, unless the procedure of tn,
public against a corporation has un
dergone a radical change.
The experience of San Francisco witt
the Spring Valley water company is
sufficient to show how slowly the peo
pie can make Roadway when struggling
with a corporation.
e+C%c&C+eS9eS8GS 4G+&S4SA G%S%Sa
THE WORLD INVISIBLE.
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps is writing
for Harper's Bazaar on "The World In
visible"-a topic surely most appealing
to the author of The Gates Ajar
Speaking of this early book, so famou
in its day, she says, in the May Bazaar
81 am often asked if l still believe il
the doctrines of the little book who's
heresies marked the incident of m,
youth. In the main-yes In substanc
assuredly / do. With whatever discon
tent / may now rate the book as
specimen of literary art, ] cannot ceas