The daily worker., 1924-01-25
The Public Ownership Myth

twenty-five years ago perhaps IL would nave
had some possibility of success
Today, the water-power, the oil and the coal
upon the possession of which the success of any
scheme of public ownership of power depends,
are in the hands of the most powerful indus
trial and financial groups in this nation.
Just why any group of citizens should pick
out, at this late date, one natural resource on
which to make what can be nothing but de-
fensive fight conducted by scattered groups is
a mystery but not an unsolvable one There
are, among the citizenry, quite large number
who can work up heated enthusiasm for re-
forms of this character when the position of
the enemy has become almost impregnable and
complete victory would interfere in no way
with such basic problems as low wages and un-
employment One has only to learn that
Samuel Gompers and other labor leaders who
support the capitalist parties have endorsed
this scheme to know that it is harmless enter
prise for which, however, money may be OBJ
tanned and jobs for friends created.
The public ownership of water-power oil
and coal or any other natural resource presup-
poses that the government friendly to such
enterprises is in power and so far as any sane
person can determine most of the sponsors of
the publicly owned super-power scheme are
extremely hostile to the only movement that
might be able to put such a government in
and other farmer-labor parties such as those
calling the May 80 conference in st. Paul.
We doubt very much if any group of work
ers in the United States can be induced to
strike to secure public ownership of water
power. The only organization that functions
in this field to any extent is the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; they have
endorsed the plan as an organization but the
sober truth is that under McNulty, late presi-
dent, and Noonan, his successor, organic alton
in the light and power-to say nothing of tele-
phone and telegraph-induStry has practically
disappeared.
The struggle, then, must be parliamentary
one.
In the Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain
States great water-poWer corporations not
only have grabbed the available and easily
developed power sites but actually control the
state governments. Their interlocking direc-
torates bind them to the national plunderbund
and they have nothing to fear from any demo-
crat or republican administration.
In California, the Pacific Gas and Electric
Company, the Great Western Power Company
and the Southern California Edison are the
state government In Washington, the Stone
and Webster interests enjoy similar power; in
Montana, the Montana Power Company, a
Standard Oil subsidiary controls every power
and power market in the third largest state in
the union. In Idaho and Utah, the Telluride
Power Company and the Utah Light and
Power rule as they please. In Colorado meet
ings of the State legislature are little more
than board meetings Of directors of light and
power companies.
The political influence exercised in the in
dustrial east by light and power companies is
typically illustrated by the dominant position
L n. !
it's great manufacturing suburbs. with the in
crease of railway electrifcation the strategic
position of power concerns becomes more ap-
parent.
To believe that initiatives and referendums
can overcome combinations of this character
is to confess that one is political infant.
Neither can the Liliputian forces of democracy
be rallied around one such issue in sufficient
strength to do more than irritate the giant light
and power monopoly.
When the advocates of revolution by capture
of light and power plants thru state legislation
and republican-democratic sympathizers in
congress and the senate begin to understand
that matters of this kind can be handled ef-
fectively only thru political mass movements
of farmers and wage-earners organized in a
class party challenging private control of nat
ural resources and public utilities in its en-
tirety we will begin to accord them something
more than an amused tolerance.
AT present such proposals serve only to di-
vert attention from the crying necessity of the
masses-org anization around their own eco
nomic interests in preparation for smash at
the head and front of American monopoly
the board of directors of American capitalist
enterprise that children call the United Stares
government.
Safe America