The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-08-26
WATER POWER CONSERVATION
lchristian Science Monitor.l

IO1I1SL1dI ECIlCIlSC AhOll4lO1'J
 The old American phrase "frou Maine to California" formerly much in vogue to describe nationwide movement, might be applied with much directness and force today to the drift and thought in the United States toward the prevention of floods and the harnessing of flood waters, the conservation of water power, and the development of hydro-e electricity for the transmission and distribution of heat, light and power.
 There is no danger that the coal supply of the United States will give out for centuries; there is, however, danger that, without waiting for even quarter of one century to pass, and unless the people take possession of their own, coal production will be so controlled, and it's distribution so manipulated, that, if industry and comfort are left to depend upon the mines, the great mass of the people will be compelled to pay enormously excessive toll to the interests. Gov ernment control of the railways, even d war IlSdSul e dIlu lSlAlpOl a4 y , is a step away from this menacing possibility; permanent public control of transportation would be another and longer step, but public control of all the coal and oil lands would be a longer step still.
 Yet, assuming that all the mines now in operation, and all the coal and 1 oil fields still untouched and undevel- oped, were to be brought under gov ernment control tomorrow, so that output, distribution and cost might be regulated to public profit, greater work would remain to be accomplish 1 ed.
 Some day, no doubt, coal will be used, at or near the places of it's pro- duction, for the manufacture of gas which will be distributed by pipes to | gasometers at convenient points, and l from these distributed to local cor sumers; but even this time may be anticipated and discounted by the much more logical, cleaner and cheaper system of generating hydro electricity and distributing heat, light l and power for all purposes over all parts of the country.
 This is no idle dream. In Califor-
 mia, today much the greater part of
 the power used is in the form of hydro-electric energy; that part gen. l erated by fuel being, according Q in-
 formation obtained from the Pacific Coast bureau of this~ newspaper, 'in the nature of an emergency or supple 1 mentary service" California, there fore, has only an emergency or sup | elementary interest in coal. Many other states in the Union, in fact, a
 majority of them, are as well provided
 as California for the generation of hydro electricity. There is no reason known to engineers. so far as they
 have expressed themselves, why any
 of the New England states, or any of the Middle Western states, should be
 more dependent on coal than are the 1 Pacific states.
 Power is within their grasp, and,
 with it, all the heat and light for
 which they can have industrial or do-
 mestic use. California has fought, and is still fighting, to conserve it's
 water power, that 1t may eventually
 control the production and distribu- ton of electric energy within it's borders. It has fought harder and more persistentlX than many of it's
 sister states, because the fuel problem has, in the past, been closer to it. But
 the fuel problem is coming closer and
 closer to all the states, and it is high
 time they were working toward the
 only permanent solution of it. The 1 streams and rivers that, in most in- stances, are running idly to the seas,
 causing at times almost immeasura- | ble damage, can be made to serve the | people, if the people will only take
 measures in time to prevent them from falling into the possession of franchise grabbing corporations that
 will make dividend paying rather
 than put)ic service the primary con | sideration.