The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-06-04
MINORITY REPORT
 FLAYS CHAIRMAN
Continued From Page One)

(OOntlNucU TTOkN Y ASO OuOJs have the government engage in an un dertaking in which any plant, however we'll designed admittedly may become obsolete even before it's construction is completed.
 How can any reasonable man insist upon taking the taxpayers money by the scores of millions of dollars and sinking it in great fertilizer plants under such conditions, when under the Ford offer private capital agrees to research these improved processes on commer- cial scale and to adopt such processes as prove their worth, insuring that the nitrate plant will be kept up-to-date without one cent of expense to the United States government"
 ''The fertilizer monopoly and the Ala bama Power company and their asso- ciates could not have drawn a bill that would have more effectually freed them from any real competition at Muscle Shoals than this government corpora tion,' the report asserted.
 See Wide Gateway
 "The power companies see in this bill wide open gateway to the power that they long have coveted and which they could not get directly by offers of their own. ..e 1T
 Tt is a we'll known fact that the Ala bama Power company and it's associates have heeh endeaypring to secure control of the Muscle Shoals power for years and if under government operation we are merely to operate the hydro-electric plantgfor the benefit of the power com panies, turning the power over to them to distribute and sell, then, in our judg- ment' we would deal more honestly with the country if we accepted the offer of the power companies directly"
 Declaring there was no limit to fer tilizer production in the Ford offer, the report said the maximum amount to be produced is limited only by demand, and he is the only bidder that has placed no maximum on the amount of power to be devoted to fertilizer production which would eventually require more power than is available at Muscle Shoals.
 The power should be devoted pri- maEily to fertilizer production, the re- port contended, declaring that to utilize the power for public utilities would vio- late "the pledge to the farmers of the country and to decline to bring this effective aid to the farmer at the time of his greatest distress"
 Public utilities already control 90 per cent of the water power of the coun try, yet they have done nothing to help the farmers reduce their expenses by the sound and feasible method of in creased production at less cost through the use of cheaper and better ferti- lizers." <.. '
 Defend F0rd's Attitude
 Defending Ford's unwillingness to come under the federal water power act, the report said the Ford bid applies to an entirely different form of enter prise from those, which the federal water power act is intended. to cover. The report further contended that the terms of the Ford bid regulated Ford in the public interest more than the water power act would do.
 We repudiate the extravagant state ments that have been made by the chair man of the committee, and the other to the effect that the government is selling $S5, 100000 worth of property for $5,000,000," the report said. Cheap fertilizer cannot be produced at either nitrate plant until they are completely rebuilt, it continued.
 Neither of these unsuccessful and obsolete plants, nor any of their appuE< ttenances of properties, is to be con veyed in fee simple to Mir. Ford. He does not get clear title to any real esate, improved or unimproyed, for the provisions of his offer are written into his deeds and become a cloud on the title for 100 years"