The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-04-21
THE CHIEF SHOALS ISSUE


 plenty of power being developed to take care of all power Requirements within the area to which Muscle Shoals current might req sonably be supplied, and there are as yet within the. sanie area many potential sources of water powert that await only the hand of man to conrert them to human and indus trial use. To concentrate development within an efficient radius of Muscle Shoals would deprive no section of power that would other wise receive it, and would serve the national purpose of maintaining source of chemi- calls and explosives at an inland point we'll supplied with power and industrial equip ment. Henry Ford's offer is the only one that gives adequate promise of maintaining such d statuss l There is also little sincere thought for the public welfare in the suggestion that all present bids be thrown out and the properties sold to the highest bidder There are sev- eral objections to this. One is that the high est bidder may not be an individual or com pany to whom it would be wise to entrust such a gigantic enterprise. There would also be the potential if not the actual sacrifice l of the basic purpose of the government in- vestment ,as a preparedness measure. There is public interest vested in Muscle Shoals which appertains to no other power site. Congress cannot safely ignore this interest nor expose it to mismanagement. Therefore, only the bids of responsible character, such as now pending, can be considered
 AE. the owners of chemical soda and potash plant at Niagara Falls. testifying before the senate committee, spoke in glowing terms of the offer of the power companies and said: Il want right off the bat to scotch the report that in any way we are connected with the Alabama Power Company. We are independent. At the same time the power company,s offer is three times as good as the Ford offer and our offer is four times as good This is warm praise indeed, but it suffers somewhat from coming from a not disinterested source. In the first place, what feature of the power companys bid would especially appeal to Mir. Hooker? Naturally, that part which reserves an indefinite amount of power to be sold at an indefinite price for the manufacture of chemicals, that is, fertilizers. All Mr. Hooker is interested in is such manufacture, and, perhaps, the blocking of new competitions. Mir. Hooker, who wants only. such power as he may need for chemical manufacture, is willing for the government or the power interests to have the rest of the power over and above what he may need for his plants. : ..
 And as ito the comparative sums offered by the power interests and by Mir. Ford for the project. Mfr Gray Silver, Washington representative of the Farm Bureau Fedora tion. on the Eleventh of last January, said that examipation of the two offers disclosed that Ford you'd pay total of $130,5 800 over a 50year period, whereas the power com pany would pay $S7, ,S00,OO0. This so-called offer of one hundred millions became upon investigation neither a bona fide offer nor is it a payment of one hundred million dol lars. It is merely a suggestion that these allied power companies may subscribe enough to pay four per cent. interest on the cost of the Wilson Dam"
 As to the power trusts intentions with regard to the manufacture of fertilizers MT. Silver said:
 The offer made by those power inter-
 ests adroitly leaves the manufacture of
 fertilizer out of the question, and it does
 not indicate how much power they would e
 he willing to sell to any one who is will
 ing to invest his millions in the rebuild
 ing of the nitrate plants for the manu-
 fracture of fertilizer and who is willing
 to experiment and advance the air ni-
 trate business both for farmers and for
 the nation at large which must have i'm
 limited and cheap nitrate in time of war.
 Neither do nor can they tell what the
 power wOuldAcost the manufacturer.
 And vet, this protection of source of war nitrates is the very essence of the Eoy- ernment's original and present concern in this particular site as differentiated from all other water-power sites in tlis country. The only interest the power companies have in the latter is to monopolize this power and to merge it into its interlocking system If this power were needed by industry and there was no possibility of developing other sources. then the situation would be some what altered But that is not the case There are other undeveleped power sites, some of them already controlled by the power trust. Let them turn their attention to these, and let the widest public interest and the assurance of national preparedness be given complete precedence over any 1ues- tions of private profit. To be sure nobody expects Ford to fail to make q profit, but there is assurance that, while making that profit, he wilI also be failing into line with policies of great public value
 LOCATING IN BIRMINGHAM
 The announcement that q manufacturing plant using raw materials produced in this district and to have about two hundred and fifty nmnlnrns u.ill snnn more frnun nnnthar