The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-01-09
MATCHING MORE sHoALs S DELAY

The self-seeking attack on the Ford offer for Muscle Shoals, somnolent during the congressional recess when nothing could be done about it, has started again in Washington and else where. It need not be surprising if the press reports of the immediate fu- ture carry accounts of anti-Ford speeches delivered here and there at business luncheons and other gather ings throughout the country. The agents of the power companies and other trusts surely will let no oppor- tunity escape to turn Ford grudges into capital for themselves and their own purposes. Nor will there be any limit to the plausible reasons for de- lay in congressional action on the Ford offer.
 Already the house military affairs committee has intimated that the whole question will have to be gone over again, and shows an apparent tendency to yield reader attention to counsels for delay than for crisp and resolute decision. In the offing, near enough to attract political attention, but far enough away to consume considerable time in materializing, is the long-inti- mated counter bid of the Alabama Power Company and it's associates. With all the time the power company has had for the composition and sub mission of this bid, it still delays and accomplishes the indefinite postpone ments that have already cost the na- ton so much in potential benefits that inaction has forced to perish still born.
 In the face of all this subtle and covert obstruction, the representatives of the people are called upon to exer- else greater effort and more intelli- gent tactics to bring the question to an open vote. Those, who believe that only the operation of the Muscle Shoals project and the development of the industrial potentialities of that rich region can bring the greatest pub- lie benefit as return on the great in- vestment in the properties there, need now to bestir themselves all the more actively in behalf of the enterprise.
 The ennity to the utilization of the project for other than strictly power-exporting purposes has it's roots in widely separated soils, but they all contribute to the opposition. The power companies want the power for exploitation, and the fertilizer com panies dread the competition of Henry Ford. Those who say that he cannot manufacture fertilizer at a lower cost than now prevails have no reliable statistics on which to base their propa- ganda. But everybody knows that Henry Ford possesses the capital with which to accomplish his contractural obligations; and everybody knows what he has taught those who are veterans in the fields that he has recently en- tered. Henry can do it, if anybody can, and there is the significant thing in his favor that, to date, he is the only one who has been willing to pledge himself to do 1t.
 If there are really bona fide al- formative offers for Muscle Shoals in the offing, let them be forthwith pre- sented and made public, or let their proponents forever after keep their peace. Let congress act on this mat ter, and give no further exhibition of legislative paralysis on project of so momentous possibilities. Congress alone stands between the public and the public enjoyment of some profit from this investment of the public money.