The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1916-02-22
WATER POWERS
ARE ENDANGERED
CLIFFORD PINCHOT WRITES ABOUT
ATTEMPT TO GRAB Ma
TURE'S POWER.
MIR. PmchOt Says Grand Canyon Could
BE Seized-Calls on AN Citi-
ZenS to Resist.

Under date of February Is, the Lea
der received letter from Clifford Pin
chot in which he calls on all citizens
10 resist bills now before congress
relating to public water powers
MI. Plnchot has been interested for
years in the conservation movement
and needs no introduction to our
| readers.
| His letter follows:
The Leader, Watertown, Wis;
| write to ask your help to defeat a
most serious attack on our public re-
sourses. Since the fight over the Alas
ka resources was won there has not
been so pressing threat against the
| conservation policy as the present eff
tort IN congress to give our public
water powers for nothing into mono
| polistic control.
The Shields bill now before the SEN
ate gives to power interests without
compensation the use of water power
on navigable streams The amount of
water power these streams will sup
ply is larger by far than all the power
OF every kind now in use in the United
States. 1t pretends to, but does not.
enable the people to take back their
own property at the end of fifty 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. Pri-
vate corporations are authorized to
seize upon any land, private or public,
they choose to condemn
Bllls 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
good bill as it passed the house. AS
reported to the senate, it encourages
monopoly by permitting a corporation
to take as many public water power
sites as may please. Under il the cor
porations could not even be kept from
fastening upon the Grand Canyon, the
greatest natural wonder on this con-
tinent. This bill takes the care of
water powers on national forests from
the experienced and competent For
est service, and gives it to the Interior
department, thus entailing duplication
and needless expense.
In my opinion there is undue care
lessness 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 Houston's ad-
mirable recent report shows, control
through eighteen corporations more
than one-haf 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 en-
forced. On the ether hand, 12O public
service cOrpratiOns own and are hold
ing undevelped 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 corpora
tions in the whole United States.
AS | said in an open letter of Janu-
ary 20 to the President:
Natural resources lie at the
foundation Of all preparedness,
whether for peace or for war No
plan for national defense can be
effective unless it provides for ad-
equate public control of all the
raw materials out of which the de-
fensive strength of a nation is
made. OF these raw materials
water power is the most essen
tial, because without electricity
generated from water power we
can not manufacture nitrates, and
nitrates are the basis of gunpow-
der. There are no great natural
deposits of nitrates in the United
States as there are in Chilli. 1t
would be folly to allow the public
water powers, which can supply
this Indispensable basis of nation
al defense, to pass out of effective
public control"
A concerted movement is Oh foot to
break down the conservation policy.
Feeble resistance or none at all is be-
ing made by official Washington I'm
less the press and the people come to
the rescue, the power interests are
likely to win. This is a public mat
ter wholly removed from political par
tizanship. Your help is needed, and
that Of your paper. For nearly ten
years this fight for the public water
powers has gone on. We ought not to
lose it now.
Sincerely yours,
Clifford Pinchot-