The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-02-19
GIVING AWAY
 WATER POWER.
Evening Farmer:

l Evening Farmer:
 | I write to ask your help to defeat 1 a most serious attack on our public
 resources. Since the fight over the 1 Alaska resources was won there has 1 not been so pressing a threat against l the conservation policy as the present effort in Congress to give our public
 water powers for nothing into monop- | olistic control.
 The Shields bill, now before the i Senate, gives to the power interests
 without compensation the use of water
 power on navigable streams. The
 amount of water power these streams
 will supply is larger by far than all 1 the power of every kind now in use in the United States. It pretends to, but does not, enable the people to take ] back their own property at the end of 50 years, for in order to do so under the bill, the government would have
 to pay the unearned increment, and to take over whole lighting systems of cities and whole manufacturing plants. Private corporations are 4Nu-
 thorized to seize upon any land, pri-
 vate or public, they choose to con
 demn.
 Bills which gave away public water powers without due compensation
 were vetoed by President Roosevelt and President Taft. The Shields bill
 would do precisely the same thing to- day.
 Another water power bill, the Fer ris bill. relating to the public lands and national forests, was in the main a good bill as it passed the House. As reported to the Senate, it encour- ages monopoly by permitting a cor poration to take as many public water power sites as it may please. Under it the corporations could not even be kept from fastening upon the Grand | f6of Tao47 loy- on this continent. This bill takes the
 care of water powers on National Forests from the experienced and competent Forest Service, and gives it to the Interior Department, thus en- tailing duplication and needless ex- pense
 In my opinion. there is undue care 4essness as to the disposal of public resources at present in Washington. The water power legislation now be- fore the Senate is too favorable to the men who, as Secretary HousLon-s admirable recent report shows, con trol through Is corporations more than one half of the total water power used in public service throughout the United States The water power men charge that Conservation hampers de- velopment. The Houston report shows. on the contrary, that the most rapid development is in the National Forests, where conservation is best enforced. On the other hand, 12O public service corporations own and are holding undeve1oped and out of use an amount of water power equal to four-fifths of all there is developed and in use by all the public service corporations in the whole United States.
 As said in an open letter of Jan uary 29, to the President:
 Natural resources lie at the foun- dalton of all preparedness, whether national defense can be effective un- less it provides for adequate public control of all the raw materials out of which the defensive strength of a na- ton is made. Of these raw mate ria1s water power is the most essen tia1, because without electricity gener- ated from water power we can not manufacture nitrates, and nitrates are the basis of gunpowder. There are no great natural deposits of nitrates in the United States as there are in Chilli. It would be folly to allow the public water powers, which can supply this indispensable basis of national de- fense, to pass out of effective public contro1.''
 A concerted movement is on foot to break down the Conservation policy. Feeble resistance or none at all is be- ing made. Unless the press and the people come to the rescue, the power interests are likely to win. This is a public matter wholly removed from needed. and that of your paper. For nearly ten years this fight for the pub lie water powers has gone on. We I1t T10 n