The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-04-27

to have, fertilizer at "a savings of $15,000,000 annually, with all that cheaper fertilizer means, so urges to action as to make delay criminal.
 But what action? Obviously two courses are open, government opera ton and private operation. When we consider that Congress has already ex- pended at Muscle Shoals $107 ,S37 F10, and to operate the plants for the nianu- fracture of fertilizer at capacity $100,- 100000 additional must be spent. and further consider past failures of at- tempted government operation of in dustries, we are compelled sto dismiss the thought of government operation
 Bids For Private Operation
 The plants at Muscle Shoals were completed about gthe tin1e the armistice was signed in 1918. Shortly thereafter invita- ations were sent out to all the power and fertilizer companies to sug- gest upon what terms they would un- dertake the operation of the properties. This effort continued for two years and the only reply received from these companies was that all the government could do was to junk the whole thing. And the efforts of a quarter of a century had failed.
 After the whole thing seemed dead . gentlemen who has long been active in urging the development of Muscle Shoals called upon Mir. Henry Ford in an effort to interest him in the prop osition. A short time after that visit, July 8, 1921, MT. Mir. Ford submitted his offer. Immediately those who had advised junking the property became intensely active in opposition to MT. Ford's offer and it laid on the table of the Secretary of War for seven months. Finally public opinion forced him to transmit it to Congress and within five days thereafter one of those power companies submitted competi- tive bid. But this bid did not come any where near to Ford's bid and the fight was made not so much for their bid, as against Ford's, and almost wholly upon that part of Ford's. bid which included the purchase of the govern ment's steam plant at Gorgas. They claimed to have an option to purchase that plant But the Judge Adovate General and the, Attorney General of the United States held that they had no such option ands said of the contract (the power company had constructed the plant under cost plus contract) containing the alleged option that it was a most unconscionable bargain driven while the government was in an extremity brought on by war. Ford had made his offer to be accepted in whole and not in part and so they thought that by eliminating the Gorgas plant by themselves purchasing 1t, their purpose would be accomplished. And then after the determination of the invalidity of their alleged agitation, they claimed a moral right of purchase, and the Gorgas plant was finally sold to them. Again deferred hope made the heart sick. But it is now proposed to construct a duplicate plant so as to relieve the governments incapacity, brought about by that sale, to accept the Ford offer. And the battle which subsided upon that purchase and sale broke out with renewed energy.
 It is but natural that the position and the pro forma competive bids should be looked upon with some suspicion. Indeed, though the Ford offer had been under consideration by a congress sional committee for two years and a half, an additional smoke screen in the form of an amendment to their offer was thrown up until February, 1924, shortly after the majority of that com mittee had recommended the acceptance of the Ford offer and the House of Representatives was about to vote upon it-and this merely by bill introduced in the House.
 What Offer Comprises
 The government having provided the money to complete the Wilson dam and dam No. 8, ($25,000,O0O additional to tbat already appropriately the con- struction to be done by Ford without profit, Mir. Ford agrees:
 First, to operate nitrate plant No. 2 in the manufacture of nitrates at it's