New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1916-03-29
Sees Momopol1st1c Control
In Shields Bill.

control according to Clifford Plnchot's
understanding of the Shields bill now
pending before Congress. While many
there are who do not believe as does Mr..
Pinchot in matters of conservation, it
must be conceded that he has done a
great deal in warning the public against
the avarice of capital in its efforts to
wrest from control of the people the
natural resources of this land.
1.-THE Shields bill, now before the
Senate" says Mr.. Pinchot, ''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 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 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. Private
corporations are authorized to seize upon
any land, private or public, they choose
to condemn.
"Bills which gave away public water
powers without due compensation were
vetoed by President Roosevelt and Presi-
dent Taft. The Shields bill would do
precisely the same thing today.
"Another water power bill, the Ferris
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 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 COM
petent forest service, and gives it to the
Interior Department, thus entailing
duplication and needless expense.
I'm my opinion, there is undue care
lessness as to the disposal of public re-
sources at present in Washington. The
water power legislation now before the
Senate is too favorable to the men who,
as Secretary Houstons admirable recent
report shows, control through Is cor
porations more than one-half of the total
water power used in public service
throughout the United States. The
water power men charge that conserva-
ton hampers development. The Hous-
ton 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 undeveloped 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.'
In recent letter to the President, Mr..
Pinchot calls attention to the preserva-
ton to the government of it's forests and
water powers as foundation for pre-
paredness, whether for peace or for war.
"No plan for national defense can be
efective," he says, "unless it provides
for adequate public control Of all the raw
materials out of which the defensive
strength of a nation is made. Of these
raw materials water power is the most
essential, because without electricity
generated from water power we can not
manufacture nitrates, and nitrates are
the basis of gunpowder. There are nc
great natural deposits of nitrates in the
United States as there are in Chilli, Il
would be folly to allow the public wate1
powers, which can supply this indispens
able basis of national defense, to pass ou
!. of effective public CONTROL
Whether or not the fears expressed b.