Belding banner., 1916-02-23
CLIFFORD PINCHOT
WRITES TO BANNER
Editor, The Banner,
Belding, Mich,

| DciuiflB, MiCu.,
My Dear Sir:
| write to ask your help to defeat
most serious attack on our public
resources. Since the fight over the
Alaska resources was won there has
not has not been so pressing a threat
against the conservation policy as the
present effort in Congress to give our
public water powers for nothing into
monopolistic control.
The Shields Bill, now before the
senate, gives to the power interests
without compensation the use of wat
er power on navigable streams. The
amount of water power these streams
will supply is larger by far than all
the power of every kind now in use III
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
I 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 authorized
to sieZe upon any land, private or
DuDilN, lilCl NDOOoO w NOitNitaAs
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 encou-
ragged monopoly by permitting cor
poration to take as many public wat
er power sites as it may please. Under
it the corporations could not even be
kept from fastening upon the Grand
Canyon, the greatest natural wonder
on this continent. This bill takes the
care of water powers on National
Forests from the experienced and
compentent Forest Service, and gives
il to the Interior Department, thus
entailing duplication and needless ex-
pense.
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- |
recent report shows, control
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 develop
ment. The Houston report shows, on
the contrary, that the most rapid de-
is in the National Forests,
where conservation is best enforced.
On the other hand, 100 public service
own and are holding un-
developed 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 Janu-
ary 20 to the President:
Natural resources lie at Che foun-
iation of all preparedness, whether
for peace or for war. No plan for
rational defense can be effective un-
ess IL provides for adequate public
control of all the raw materials out of
which the defensive strength of ma
lion is made. OF these raw materials
water power is the most essential, be-
cause without electricity generated
from water power we can not manu-
facture nitrates, and nitrates are the
basis of gunpowder. There are no
great natural deposits of nitrates in
the United States as there are in Chill.
II would be folly to allow the public
water powers, which can supply this
basis of national de-
tense, to pass out of effective public
control"
A concerted movement is on foot to
break down the conservation policy. |
Feeble resistance or none at all is be- |
ing made by official Washington. Un-
less the press and the people come to
the rescue. the power interests are
likely to win. This is public matter
wholly removed from political parti-
sanship. Your help is needed. and
that of your paper. For nearly ten
wears this fight for the public water
powers has gone on. We ought not to
lose it now.
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