Arizona republican., 1910-02-18
The Farmers Side of the Power
 Question.


 ton to congress. is quoted as saying at a public meeting Tuesday night:
 The United States government stole from me and my people the heritage electric power) we thought so much of and gave it to corporation
 If Mir Bell were gifted with clear ness of ideas in proportion to his fluency of speech, he might look with more reason for confidence upon that seat in congress. Assuming for a moment that the government made a bad contract with the local light com pany, we are unable to understand how that fact throws any light on the question whether it would be safe for the city of Phoenix to enter as a competitor into the business of re- iaiIing power to sundry consumers.
 Let us not confuse the question of municipal ownership with the merits of the governments contract
 In view of Mir. Bells remarks and the other foolish talk of the same strain that has been heard for a year or more, it has become worth while to set some facts clearly before the  community-facts which have no re- lation whatever to the question of municipal ownership. which we are not now discussing but which do re- late very pertinently to the question of the power created at the Roosevelt dam.
 Let it be understood. now and for ever. that we" the city of Phoenix. don't own the reservoir power plant It has not been created by the waving of somebody's wand as a gift for this city. It has been created out of the pledged credit of the farmers of the Salt River valley. It must be paid for by the farmers of the Salt River valley. from dollars earned in the sweat of their fields We have no right to grab it from the farmers. If we use it we must pay for it on the same basis as other wholesale buy CTS of power.
 The government. acting for the farmers. desires to secure as many customers for power as practicable. and proposes to get the best possible price for the power By handling the power asset wisely. the farmers, will be enabled to reduce materially the burden which they have assumed in agreeing to pay for the reservoir and power plant-an agreement which will require them to pay some s7.OOOO 900 within ten years.
 Did the making of the contract be- tween the government and the light company constitute a theft of the power from the farmers and a gift thereof to the light company, as Mir. Bell says? Under the terms Of the contract the farmers are getting some ss0,O0o a | year for this power from this single l customer. The price is approximately l s75 per horse power per year--thc | highest price at which power is sold l at wholesale from a water power plant anywhere in the United States, we understand Do the half-addled | sgtators who are bowling about the iniquties of this contract object to the receipt of this high price by the farmers?
  even intelligent children may under stand it, that the farmers are not in- terested in the slightest degree in the fact that the light company. buying the power at s75 per horsepower per year. turns around and retails this power to people in Phoenix at figures which many of us in Phoenix believe arc too high. That is a matter for the people of Phoenix to settle be- tween themselves and the light com pany-and it is bound to be settled satisfactorily in some form or other. The efforts to draw the farmers into this city controversy. and 10 make them believe that they should