The Bemidji daily pioneer., 1913-11-29
WATER POWER FIGHT
CAUSES INTEREST
Observers Think Conservation Meet
ing QUARREL Merely Forerunner
Of What Will Happen
WAIT FOR ACTION OF CONGRESS
Tavenner Tells How Ten Groups Of
Power Have Advanced in Control
During Last Two Years.

UurlnS Last IWO Years.
BY Congressman Clyde H. Tavenner
Washington, November 29-Ob.
servers who think for the future see
in the water-poWer fight in the re-
cent National Conservation Congress
merely the forerunner of a more in
tense fight that will occur in the
United States Congress. The contest
in the Conservation Congress was
severe enough, but that in the fed
eral Congress will be a death gfapple
The former was over the wording oi
the water-power report: the latter
will be for the power itself.
However one may feel on the ques-
tion of state versus federal control
of water-power, the minority report,
submitted by Clifford Pinchot, Henry
l.. Stimson anu Joseph N. Teal con-
tanned much food for thought. 1t
emphasized the rapid concentration in
the corporation control of water
power.
1t declared that ten groups of pow
er in the United tSates. Two years
ago the ten greatest power groups
controlled 3,270,OO0 horsepower de-
veloped and undeveloped; today ten
groups control 100000.
It is commercially possible and
practicable now to develop 30,O00,-
600 horsepower of hydroelectric pow
er within the United States. AS the
coal deposits are exhausted and the
price of steam power rises, this fig
ure may be greatly augmented. OF
the 3O,OOO,0OO horsepower that can
now compete with coal, the govern
ment, the people, still own 10000
600 horsepower, a priceless posses
sion, since it will never become eX-
hausted as long as rain falls and
streams flow
1t is commercially practicable now
to develop enough electricity from
water power to turn every wheel
in the United States now turned by
team and have a good margin lett
over. WaterpOWer will be pOsterity s
substitute for coal. Under what con-
ditions are the people who still own
most of the power, going to give
franchises for power development? Is
it better to trust this treasure to
the judgment of Congress or the
Judgment OF the individual states?
The Imagination of the scientists
and the financiers engaged in power
acquisition and development knows
no bounds. Already traveller can
look about and see evidence Of the
civilization of the future. Through
the South and West and in New Eng
land, run the great transmission
lines held aloft on steel skeleton
towers. Here is a stream with a
dam and turbine. 1t throws it's 100
500 or 1000 horsepower into the
heavy current on the transmission
wires, as a brook runs into stream
Over hills, acrossh valley, throug
forests, runs the zigzag line of the
wires, verging here to tap power,
turning there to run into mill town
while trolley cars flash between com
munities, mills hum, villages glow al
night, all drawing the magic power
from the transmission lines.
In the future the country will be
crisscrossed with these overhead
trunk lines Today this same power
is being used to draw the very nitro
gen from the air and sack it for fe:.
tilizer The power magnates foreset
the day when the current will oper
ate farmers trucks along mode
country roads. These are glimpses O.
the future. Another is the rapid for
nation of power companies to oper
ate public service functions of cities
single companies controlling tht
light, power and transportation O.
scores of cities.
Will the country awake some day
to find it's cities and industries il
the control of a single giant cor
poration, with a new and greater
generation of Rockefellers and Nor
gans? 1t is the opinion of Louis D
Brandeis, of Boston, that there vii
be only two monopolies in the flu
ture to deal with-the monopoly o.
credit, which is the money trust, an(
the water power trust, which vii
be the mother of all other monopo
lies. AS Congress deals with this wa
ter power problem it will deal with
the destiny of comming generations
&c. M. Peterson of Solway was il
Bemidji yesterday on his way home