The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-06-02
KEEPING UP
With
THE NE WIS
by LtJDWELL DENNY

may become a bigger issue before
the voters go to the polls in Novem-
Der.
State by State, the Federal tpade
commission investigation of public
utilities is uncovering a spider web
of power propaganda blanketing the
country.
These wires of control reach into
schools, colleges, clubs, the press,
Legislatures, primaries, Congress
apparently everywhere.
eve use everything but sky-writ-
ing" one of the utility witnesses
confessed under cross examination.
Politicians are shaking their heads
and saying that Teapot Dome and
the oil scandals were only "a pikers'
side show" compared with this.
These same politicians, who have
grown so accustomed to public in
difference to Washington investiga-
tons, see signs that at last public ir-
dignation and resentment is rising.
Issues raised by the power inves-
tigation are considered significant
from the political point of view be-
cause they touch directly practi-
cally every family in the country.
Il VERYONE uses gas and cleo
II tricity, the high price of which
is fixed by companies openly and
secretly trying to manipulate public
opinion and laws in such way as
to escape public regulation or
Government manufacture of cheaper
power, it is pointed out.
There has been so much said in
recent sessions of Congress about
the power lobby against Govern
ment power projects such as
Muscle Shoals and Boulder Dam,
and about activities of the insult
and other utility interests in State
primaries, that such revelations by
the Federal trade commission we're
taken for granted
But Washington is startled, as it
rarely has been in the past, over
the fact that such a complete
propaganda net could have been
drawn around practically the en-
tire educational system of the
country-touching hundreds Of
school boards, thousands of teach
erS and millions of students-with-
out anyone apparently being aware
of what was happening.
If advocates of one economic
theory can perfect such an invisible
mechanism, controlling the mind
of the Nation from the cradle to
the grave" what is to prevent any
/ other organization with money and
cunning from perverting free edu-
cation in the interests of a partic-
ular social, political or religious
creed, it is asked.
= r
DOLITICAL implications Of this
T. are obvious.
Some of Al Smiths advisers want
him to make this one Of his major
campaign issues and hit hard from
a dozen angles-polluted education,
political corruption, economic eX-
ploitation, capture and private mo-
nopoly control of the natural re-
sources of the states and nation,
and so on.
Because the Federal Trade Com
mission revelations re-emphasize
that one of the most crucial sectors
of this long battle line has been in
New York, with Governor Smith
fighting the power interests Of that
state for control of hydro electric
resources, some of his friends think
this presents a rare combination OF
"the man. and "the ISSUE which
cam be capitalized in the national
campaign
They want something TO make
voters think of Smith not as a
Tammany chief, a Catholic, or
wet, but foremost as a leader and
crusader for the rights and welfare
of the common people Of all parts
of the country
| For this reason Democrats are
watching with unusual alertness the
increased interest of the press and
public in the Federal Trade Com
mission investigation.
That investigation, starting in a
small way and competing for pub
lie attention with an exceptionally
exciting windup of Congress, with
the more spectacular coal strike and
oil probes, and with the bitter pre-
convention campaign fights, is only
beginning to sift out to the public.
a BOUT the time the political
[ n conventions are over and there
is the customary Summer news fam
inc in Washington, the public util-
ity hearings will be reaching their
climax. Presumably they then Will
be played" as big news through
out the country.
AS to whether this will become a
Democratic or Republican issue,
Smiths friends and the Republican,
progressive group think much will,
depend upon President Coolidge's
disposition of the Muscle Shoals bill.
After a. seven-year fight in Con-
gress, headed by Senator Norris Of
Nebraska. who inherited the senior
La Follettes leadership of the pro-
gressives. the Muscle Shoals bill
finally was passed over the opposi-'
ton of "the biggest lobby in his
tory"
1t provides for Government oper-
alton of that Alabama llvhro-elec-'
trio project through manufacture Of
cheap power and fixed nitrogen. and
also saves the important Cove Creek
dam site for the Government.
Coolidge has until June 7 to act.
There is a dispute whether his fall
IRE to sign would kill the bill or
permit it to become law.
But if the President robs Con-
gress of the fruits Of its hard-won
victory in the Muscle Shoals fight.