The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1928-10-29
Smith, Norris, Hoover, Trust Busting

Smith, Norris, Hoover, trust buSClng
generation ago this nation was swinging into
the trust-busting era. Hgh-handedness in big bust
ness circles brought public reaction, which, reflected
in wave of regulatory legislation gave big business
a couple of decades Of hell
During those decades both business and the public
suffered.
Today we have the trust issue again with us.
The same sort of gh-handedness that brought
public retaliation generation ago against railways
steel and oil has been appearing in the methods en-
poyed by the great power companies today. Those
methods strkingly sttacked by Senator Norris in
his Omaha speech Norris says:
There is no avenue of human activity that the
power trust has not undertaken to control. 1t has
undertaken to poison the minds of boys in the
Boy Scout organizations 1t has sent its secret ennis
saries to influence andeontro womens clubs. 1t has
undertaken to bride the minister in the pulpit and
with it's sinister stealthy tread it has entered
our public schools and tried to poison the minds of
our children.
at secretly has controlled college professors and
high school teachers, and Systematically has under
taken to build up sentiment in it's favor by control
of the press.
"And where did it get the money to carry on this
wonderful campaign of deception? The power trust
has but one source of income and that is the conri-
buttons made from end of the country to the
other by those who use electricity in some form.
"The manufacturer who makes the things we eat
and wear must increase the cost of his production to
cover the eXorbitant power rates which he must pay
The washwoman who has electric washing machine
or an electric iron has made her contribution to this
fund. The man who reads his evening paper by the
electric light has added his mite.
I'm other words the people of the country, in
every activity of life, rich poor have contributed
to billions"
Norris prefers Smiths power program to HooverS
Smiths program calls tor this:
The government to finance, build and equip the
DAM make the power and then sell to the private dis
tributng companies who in turn resell it to the ult
mate consumer.
AS a trust-busting weapon, that resale Is the
weakness of the Smith plan. Why? Because those
private distributing companies the very thing that
Norris refers to as the trust.
Being trust, monopoly would exist at the buy
ing end. There would be competition among buy
ers of the governments power Accordingly the gov
eminent would put up the money, build the dam,
equip and operate it, and then sell its product to the
trust at what the trust might to bid.
If the trust doesn't bic enough to make good the
governments investment there is no other market
for the governments wares
Hooyers is that Hoover would have the private con-
Germs put up the money for building the dam. He
thinks the federal water power act contains sufficient
authority to protect the public interest without it be-
ing necessary for the government to do the financing
and the operating.
AS a problem in st-busting. do not believe
that either method, the Smith or the Hoover,
tans the answer.
Purely as a war measure-as trust-busting meas
ure-the government would have to go into the dis
tribution as we'll as the creation of power
The ultimate of this whole question will be found
in the attitude that the private power concerns them
selves take toward the public.
If they are going to conduct themselves III the
manner of the buccancer, they will get what Booth
Harrington callsFther "come-uppance, just like the
railways did back in the days of Teddy and the big
stick"
If they are wise enough to see the light and to
benefit from the experience of big business in the
past they can by decent conduct, ward off the storm
that unquestonably as things stand today, is gath
er1ng. If they not wise if they must have their
punishment in order to be good, they will not get it,
in our opinion through any process contained in
either the Smith or the Hoover program.
Certainly they will not undergo any great suffering
through purchasing at their own price what the gov
eminent has put up its good money to make for them
The Smith program has this advantage in the pub
lie interest.
1t does constitute warming to the private opera
tors. For what the government owns and creates it
can distribute But distribution is not part of the
Smith proposal. And only through distribution can
completely effective rIlst-bustng weapon be created