The daily telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1901-1926, 1916-02-19
OXFORD PLNCHOT
SOUNDS WARNING
Against the Effort at Washing
ton to Break Down Con-
ServatiOn Policy.

Clifford Pinchot, OF Milford, Pa,
former chief forester of the United
States government. has written the
Telegram as follows:
write to ask your help to defeat
a most serious attack on our public
resources. Since the fight over the
Alaska resources was won there has
not been so pressing u threat against
the conservation policy as the present
effort in Congress TO give our public
water powers FOR nothing into mo-
nopolistic control.
The Shields bill, now before the
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 the power of every kind now
in use in the United States. 1t pre-
tends to. but does not, enable the
people to take back their own prop
erty 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
the 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 President Taft The Shields bill
would do precisely the same thing.
Another water power bill, the Fer
ris bill, relating 10 the public lands
and national forests, was in the main
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
waer power sites rs it may please.
Under it the corporations could not
even be kept from fastening upon the
Grand Canyon, the greatest natural
wonder of 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 enabling dplication 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
admirable recent report shows, con-
troll through eighteen corporations
more than one-half of the total waer
power used in public service through
out the United States. The water
power men charge that conservation
hampers development. The Houston
report shows, on the contrary, that
the most rapid development is in the
national forest. where conservation
is best enforced. On the other hand,
1870 public service corporations own
and are holding undeveloped and out
OF use an amount of water power
equal to four-tifths of all there is de-
veloped and in use by all the public
service corporations in the whole
United States.
As | said in an open letter Janu-
uary 90 to the president:
Natural resources lie at the foun-
dalton of all preparedness, whether
for peace or for war. No plan for
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
nation is made. or these raw ma
terials water power is the most es-
sential, because without electricity
generated from water power we can
not manufacture nitrates, and nj
trates are the basis OF gunpowder.
There are no great natural deposits
of nitrates in the United States as
there are in Chill. 1t would be folly
to allow the public water powers,
which can supply this indispensable
basis Of national defense, to pass out
of effective public control"
A concerted movement is on foot
to break down the conservation pol
Icy. Feeble resistance or none at all
is being made by official Washington.
Unless the press and the people come
to the rescue, the power Interests are
likely to win. This is public mat
ter wholly removed from political
partsanship. Your help is needed.
and that OF your paper. For nearly
ten years this fight for public water
nnu,nr har rnne IN We ought moi to