The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1912-02-20
Charge FACTS ARE
MISREPRESENTFD
Especial to the Silver state)

grossly incorporating the facts re-
garding the couptry's natural re-
sources that eredulous public has
come to believe there should be a re-
versal of the government 3 theory and
policy; that title to water powers,
coal, oil and phosphate lands should
be held in perpetuity by the govern
ment, and that the right to exploit
them through leases, John G. Ralston,
formerly city engineer of Spokane
and member Of the American Society
of Civil Engineers, said in the address
at the northwest mining convention
in Spokane that the policy of with
holding the power sites constitutes a
perversion of national conservation
and development.
Mr.. RaIston said that of the 37..
100000 horsepower minimum available
in the United States not more than T.
100000 is developed, while Of the 2O,-
OOO, 900 horsepower minimum available
in the rivers west of the continental
divide not more than FIVE per cent is
developed. III these waterpowers
were in use there would be saving Of
coal and oil annually amounting to
81, ,721 ,040, ,45O. The minimum water
power available in the Columbia river
basin alone equals one third of that of
the United States. The state of Wash
/ ington contains the largest amount of
available waterpower of any state in
the Union. 1t totals 100000, of
which less than six per cent is devel-
oped. If in use this would represent
the equivalent of 0S,00O,0OO tons of
coal every year.
With the waterpower sites with
drawn or their development restricted
by the federal government, Mr..
Ralston continued, cit needs no fan
ciful imagination to understand how
effectively and malieiouslv the theory
of encouragement and national devel-
opment is being perverted More
startling, this perversion of our dear
est tradition, this theory of discourage
ment and strangulation is the first APP
palling evidence of national decadence
1t must be evident to those who
are familiar with conditions, that
whereas by virtue of a benign and
fostering policy ON the part of the
federal government, wherein the
boundiess west 1eapad from infancy
to adolescence under the theory of en-
couragement and national develop
ment, it now finds itself struggling
for life under the antithesis of that
theory which is expressed by discour-
agement and strangulation.
"While it is too often customary
in these days of bureaucratic nostrums
to condemn without offering recon
struction material, / desire to submit
for the consideration as a substitute
the present form of power ugree-
ment now enforced by the forestry
service of the United States the fol
lowing:
"The government should make
grants to responsible parties on an in
determinate franchise similar to that
adopted by the state of Wisconsin for
franchises for public utility COM
panies. This would be grant practi
cally during good behavior, this ques
tiOn to be subject to review by the
courts only. The government should
retain the right to regulate service
and rates in case the state in which
the property lies neglects to provide
for such regulation. Probably where
the property lies within more than one
state, or where the business served is
should retain jurisdiction in its own
that the advanced conservationists can
making it possible to obtain private
capital to such enterprises.
'No rental should be charged for
the concession. The reason for this
provision is that in the first place, if
the enterprise is able to pay a rental,
it should take the form of reduction
in price for the power sold, which
gives the benefit directly to the con-
sumer, whereas if a rental be charged
it becomes an indirect tax upon the
consumer for the benefit, not of his
community, but of the federal treas
ury. The people of the west feel that
as practically all eastern wterpowers
are in private hands and pay no taxes
to the federl treasury, the west should
have the benefit of its waterpowers
for the localities in which they exist.
"WlAre streams are improved at
the expense of the government or
state, the power should be reserved to
the government to assess the power
companies occupying sites upon the
rievr affected, for the reasonable bene
fits conferred by said government inn
provement the assessment to take the
form of an annual interest charge !
payable to the government or state.
"Probably it would be desirable to /
extend this last named feature to the /
extent that if private corporation /
makes an Improvement upon stream I
which will benefit not only its own
property but other property upon the /
stream, some means should be had of /
the sharing of it with the
cost of said Improvement among the
other parties benefited
CIT might be provided that in ease
the lands thus granted shall later be
required by the government for its
own use, that the grantee be recon
pensated for the reasonable value of
the Improvement which they have |
made upon the sites, and for such i'm
as they have made which,
while not situated upon the govern-