The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-05-10
Toledo and Cincinnati Had Their Gorgas

In 1917 the Alabama Power Company was planning the construction of an ad- ditional unit at its Gorgas plant on the foundations and substructures which it had heretofore laid for the purpose; but the capital necessary for this con- struction was difficult to obtain from an issue of bonds in market floodedswith Liberty Bonds.
 The first suggestion, therefore, made by the officials of the Power Company, when by invitation they appeared in Washington for discussion of the mat ter of furnishing power for the construc- tion and use of the nitrate plants to be located at Muscle Shoals, was that if the Government would advance a definite amount of money the company would construct the additional unit desired by the Government to furnish this block of power for wartime needs.
 It is necessary to bear in mind thatthe unit desired by the Government was,one of 10000 horse power, while that the company had planned to install was of 27,000 horse power, the same in uniform capacity as the unit originally built and then being operated by the PowerI Con- pany at the Gorgas plant.
 Colonel Joyes, who was head of the Nitrate Division of the Army during the war, and who was charged with these negotiations with the Power Company, testified recently before the Military Af- fairs Committee as follows:
 "When we started out we hadi la prop osition from the Alabama Power Con- pany which said if we would advance them about two and a quarter million dol lars they would put in there necessary fa- cilities as their own investment and would then furnish us the power that we wanted, give us firm demand for it, and some- thing like seven mills would be the price they would ask for it on every hlowatt hour which we bought from them, at whatever price might be agreed upon, and they would give us back so much, imme- diately, or set it aside to make ansamorti- zation fund to pay us back what timoney we had advanced.
 If more money than the two and a quarter million dollars should be re- quired for constructing the additional unit, the Alabama Power Company ex- pected, of course, to furnish such taddi- tional funds.)
 "When we could not make the loan, we thought we would make the construction ourselves, because we could see color of a way to do it. We then cast about to see how we would be sure to get some of that money back. We figured we would try to have some kind of repayment to us each time we made a payment to them for power, that we would get some back into our own pockets, or rather into the Gov ernment's pockets, to go toward the re- payment of good, substantial part of the money we had put in for that structure :. Referring to similar arrangements made late in 1918 to supply power for two additional nitrate plants to be locat- ed at Cincinnati and Toledo, Colonel Joyes said:
 'The reason for that location of these two plants at Toledo and Cincinnati was the power question The same thing we were up against, the same proposition in relation to power. We had to get power, and we had to get it by certain time So we went to going concerns and we did precisely what we did here, in this 'un- conscionable' contract. We repeated it over again. only worse We did the same thing by building absolute extensions on peoples property at Toledo and Cincn- nati and we would do it again under like circumstancesn