The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-01-16
BIG CORP lRkTlONS
 GRAB WATER POWl R
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dams" Their report set forth an elab- crate legal argument intended to show that the federal government has no power to impose any charge whatever for such a privilege
 The fact that the proposed policy is new is in itself no sufficient argument against it's adoption. As we are met with new conditions of industry seriously af- fecting the public welfare, we should not hesitate to adopt measures for the pro- lection of the public merely because those measures are new. When the public well fare is involved Congress should re- solve any reasonable doubt as to its legis- lative power in favor of the people and against the seekers for a special privi- lege.
 Protecting the Public.
 My reason for believing that the federal government in granting license to dam navigable river, has the power to im- pose any conditions it finds necessary to protect the public, including a charge and limitation of the time, is that it's consent is legally essential to an enter prise of this character. It follows that Congress can impose conditions upon its consent. This principle was clearly stated in the House of Representatives on March 2s, 1908. by Mir. Williams of Mississippi when he said:
 There can be no doubt in the mind of any man seeking merely the public good and the public right, independently of any desire for local legislation of this general proposition, that whenever any sovereignty, state or federal, is required to issue a charter or a license or a consent, in order to confer powers upon individuals or corporations, 1t is the duty of that sovereignty in the interests of the people so to condition the grant of that power as that 1t shall rebound to the interest of all the people, and that utilities of vast value should not be gratuitously granted to individuals or cor porations and perpetually alienated from the people or the state or the govern ment.
 ''It Is admitted that this power to erect dams in navigable streams cannot be ex- ercsed by anybody except by an act of Congress Now, then, if 1t require an act of Congress to permit any man to put a dam in a navigable stream, then two things follow: Congress should so exercise the power in making that grant as, first. to prevent any harm to the navigability of the stream itself, and, secondly, so as to prevent any individual or any private corporation from seeur- ing through the act of Congress any un- compensated advantage of private profit"
 The authority or 1OuBTeSS III lilS Ildt- ter was asserted by Secretary Taft on April 17, 19OS in his report on Senator Newland's inland waterways commission bill (S. 500), where he said:
 "In the execution of any project and as incidental to and inseparably connect ed with the improvement of navigation. the power of Congress extends to the regulation of the use and development of the waters for purposes subsidiary to navigation"
 And by the solicitor general in mem orandum prepared after a careful investi- gation of the subject
 Threatened By Monopoly.
 Believing that the national government has this power, I am convinced that it's power ought to be exercised The people of the country are threatened by monopoly far more powerful, because in far closer touch with their domestic and industrial life, than anything known to our experience. A single generation will see the exhaustion of our natural re- sources of oil and gas and such a rise in the price of coal as will make the price of electrically transmitted water power a controlling factor in transporta- ton. in manufacturing and in household lighting and heating. Our waterpower alone. if fully developed and wisely used Is probably sufficient for our present transportation industrial, municipal and domestic needs. Most of it is undevel-