The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1916-03-03
PLANNING RAID ON WATER
POWERS.
Dangerous Bills Before Congress
Clifford Pinchot Sounds
Warming.

L
Clifford Pinchot Sounds
Warning.
Since the fight over the Alaska
resources was won there has not
been so pressing threat against the
Conservation policy as the present
effort in Congress to give our pub
lie water powers for nothing into
monopolistic 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. It
pretends to, but does not, enable the
people to take back their own pro-
perty 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 power without due compen-
sation 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 permit
ing corporation to take as many
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
competent Forest Service, and gives
it to the Interior Department, thus
entailing duplication and needless
expense.
In my opinion, there is undue
carelessness as to the disposal of
public resources at present in Wash
ington. The water power legisla-
ton now before the Senate is tool
favorable to the men who, as Secre-
tary Houston's admirable recent re-
port 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 Conservation hampers
development. The Houston report
shows, on the contrary, that the
most rapid develpement is in the
National Forests, where conserva-
ton is best enforced On the other
hand, 120 public service corpor-
tions own and are holding unde-
veloped 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 I said in an open letter of
January 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
adequate public control of all the
raw materials out of which the de-
fensive strength of nation is made.
OF the raw materials water power
is the most essential, because with
out electricity generated 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.
1t would be folly to allow the public
water powers, which can supply this
indispensable 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 being made by Official Wash
ington. Unless the press and the
people come to the rescue, the power
interests are likely to win. This is
public matter wholly removed
from political partizanship. For
nearly ten years this fight for the
public water powers has gone on.
We ought not to lose it now.
CLIFFORD PINCHOT.