The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1917-03-07
WHERE RAINEY,s SHOE PINCHEs.

T. he's been suggested that Kaosak, Bufiiiiig-
ton Quincy, Fort Madison, Hamilton, Dallas
CITY and the other places profiting by the.
Harvesting of the Mississippi for public use
should not blame Congressman Rainey too
much for his pernicious and absurd antagon-
ism to the Keokuk waterpower institution II
If be admitted that he should represent hrs
constituents in his home district, it may easily
be admitted also that he is justified IN hgntInS
their battles both extensively and defenslvels
The admirable things in Rainey are his con-
sistency and foresight. He had penetration
enough to see from the very beginning that the
Keokuk waterpower would be forInIdaoie
competitor of coal, Away hack yonder when
Keokuk and Hamilton were still promoting
the project Rainey made speech in congress
maintaining that the Keokuk waterpower
could not operate in winter because the Mis-
Isissippi would be frozen up then! he has
been feeding congress and the newspapers SINH
lar wise savings ever since with the utmost
consistency.
What he foresaw In relation to competition
with coal came TO pass His district IS chief
part of the great Illinois coal fields adjacent to
ST. Louis HIS influential constituents and
thousands of his nei ghbors live by mining and
selling coal a month after the KeoSak water
power plant began operations, the St. LOUIS
papers stated that steam coal IN st. Louis. pre-
viously dollar a ton, went begging at twelve
cents a ton and finally some was sold for ten
cents ton. the reason given being the arrival
there of electric power from keokuk. As the
representative of his constituents, Rainey Is
the representative, and the most open and
prominent representative of the coal barons-
He may be expected to fight the Keokuk wa
terpower until he breaks his persistent skull on
the immovable concrete dam. Probably his
visit to Keokuk, If he comes here, will be 10
get some ammunition to use in his warfare
Rainey, the gentleman from Illinois, prob
ably is the most skillful press agent in con-
gress, bar none. All his opposition to the keo-
kuk waferpower has resulted in much news
paper publicity-and nothing more 1t has
never had any real basis of fact and has gen
orally been as absurd as his statement that the
Mississippi would freeze solid here and as his
introduction of bill to empower the govern
ment to buy the dam. The bill was smothered.
but Rainey's name got into all the newspapers
again.
/ To convert the Keokuk dams tremendous
energy. enough to light every home in the
United States. into the making of government
munitions plant and to throw the manufac-
turing now being done with its electricity back
upon steam engines would help Rainey's con
istituenIs 1t would need about eight hun
/! bred thousand tons of coal per year to re-
place the present output of the big Keokuk
Ipowerhouse. When completely in use. the
] Keokuk dam will save about eight million tons
of coal every year The coal barons viii have
that much more demand for their product. No
wonder Rainey. from big coal district in the
Keokuk power zone, fights Keekuk water
ipower.
| The Des Moines Register and the Marshall
| town Times-Republican are the sole Iowa
newspaper apologists for Senators Cumnins