The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-08-09
Lide Attacks Alabama Power Company for Its Alleged Efforts to Con-
 trOl States Water Power
Continued from Page Five)


 state to give away It's great natural water power, one of the greatest in the world. It now asks the government to contribute s16, GOO 600 toward the development of this water power and it finally asks the state to exempt it from taxation for 10 years.
 What does 1t propose to give in return? Is there any son for thinking that it will not sell fertilizer to the farmers of this state just as it is selling power to the people of this state, namely. As high the market will stand? If they are selling power strictly in competition with Alabama coal, will they not sell fertilizers in competition with Gillian nitrates?
 Electric Steel
 There is another problem to which I invite your serious attention, namely: Muscle Shoals is located in brown ore field. Within the last few years the pro- cess of making electric steel has been greatly improved. book recently pub lished in Germany states that America should become the scene of the greatest activity in this art. The actual facts are, as shown by the Scientific American, that the actual production of electric steel in this country has decreased, while in Germany it has gone steadily forward. The reason assigned for this fact is that the water power resources of this country are QODilndleu Dy ldIBts SlOSel| dlnlidtCo corporations, which have maintained the price of water power at a point where 1t Is unprofitable to produce electric steel.
 There are the greatest possibilities in this state for the production of electric steel. The steel itself is of the highest grade, since it is rid of the impurities in it's manufacture incident to the usuage of fuel in heating 1t. To place the future of this great industry in the hands of a single power corporation Is most doubt ful experiment-one which the experience of the past does not justfy-a tremen- dous power and privilege which cannot safely be entrusted to one man. The final phase of this general power proposition should be well considered. After the power corporation has secured all necessary rights there Is little chance of any state control over the price which it charges for it's comnlodi- ties. The very great probability is that doing an interstate traffic, the national government will seek to control it's prices.
 Any man who has studied the history of public service regulation in this country, knows that the inevitable re- suit of this procedure is litigation and high prices for the consumer. If the state of Alabama ever wants to get cheap fertilizer and cheap power, and too, get the industrial expansion resulting from cheap power. it must own the Muscle Shoals water power. It is interesting to note the activity of the Alabama Power company in com mon with other water power companies | of the country, in securing water pow | CT legislation whereby all the water power of the country would pass into private ownership. In the lower house l of Congress a bill was introduced whereby under certain specific condi- t1,oe | tain private corporations the usuage l of all the water power in this coun- | try. On reaching the Senate committed l this bill was so amended that the gov ernment would grant to state a sub division of a state, county, a munich pality. or a public service corporation the right to develop the water power | of the country under certain condi- I tions.
 | As a corallary to this general dam bill, the Muscle Shoals Power company 1 a subsidiary of the Alabama Power company, has submitted a proposal to l the government whereby the govern | ment Is to spend $1S,701 ,000 for dams locks. and power house foundations at Muscle Choals-$S,5 ,575,000 of which is | to be charged to navigation and the re- mainder, sS,260,000, to power develop ment
 1 The power company will refund | $S, 900, 900 of this investment after the | government has completed the construc- tion and will refund the remaining 1 S5, O00,00O at the rate of l per cent per annum for 99 years and will also pay | 8 per cent interest on the $5,000,000 Public Ownership
 | As a matter of public policy the gen 1 eral consensus of opinion in this coun- l try is rapidly crystalizing toward the | rs1,i nf I ly and private ownership of competi- | tive business
 The present situation in this respect presents a striking anomaly. The gov l ernment has recently spent hundreds of thousands of dollars endeavoring to dissolve the steel corporation on the | theory that it was monopoly The
 courts decided that 1t only controlled about 40 per cent of the output and, | therefore, was not monopoly and not l being a monopoly was entitled to re- main corporate.
 l In Alaska the government is build
 i ing a S40,0O0,000 railroad to prevent <. equalization of the Sdtural resources
 of Alaska by private interests. Where
 as, the state of Alabama is endeavor . | ing to create a monopoly which may be
 far more despotic in dispensing a na-
 tural resource to the farmers of this state than the Morgans and Guggen- helms have ever been.
 | There is no more place in a demo
 cratic state like Alabama for the ab- | solute control and domination of its
 natural resources by foreign corpor-
 ation than there is for the exercise
 of absolute power by a foreign prince upon throne at Montgomery. If his- l tory shows anything. it shows that | arbitrary power cannot safely be en- | trusted into the hands of men.
 | The legislature should make a keen distinction between corporate wealth and diffused wealth. Kansas. a state | with no large cities, and no large cor porations has the greatest wealth per | capita of any state in the union, and the prosperity of the individual citi-
 zen means the prosperity of the state. Suppose that there was no water
 works and no electric light plant in