Imperial Valley press., 1936-05-13
Editorials and Comment
WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 1886.
News Behind the News
Tide HUHeSSmg FiaScO Becomes
GrOtesQue =. s.. VIII New Deal
Bow:9 q. Congress BaIkS

WASHINGTON-The PasSamaquoddy fiasco
has gone beyond the screwy stage and into the
grotesque.
Gov Louis J. Brann of Maine has been in
WASHINGTON lately and says he will stay around
until he is promised that work on that great
visionary tide-harnessing power project will be
resumed. The terms on which it would proceed.
it is said, would mean a New Deal flip-flop and
Salaam to the power trust
Recently the army engineers working on
the project who have gone ahead Just as if
Congress hadn't baked at spending any more
money on it, decided TO build Diesel plant At
the site Tnls would produce power during the
nine-hour daily slack tide period when the
tides wouldn't produce it.
This plant would be known as standby
but it would develop much power in an hour
as would be produced in the other Is hours OF
the day and it would cost only s30oO0OO, as
compared with the S36 100000 estimated for the
cost of the whole project
You have a perfect right to ask why the
government doesn't simply build Diesel plant
or a couple of them-and forget all about har-
Messing tides. But the engineering aspect OF the
Quoddy mess IS nowhere near as smelly as the
political aspect
The original Quoddy conception OF Col. Dex-
ter Cooper called for collaboration between the
United States and Canada on Sl50000,OOO prof.
ect which could have supplied great gobs of
cheap power.
Canada wasn't interested. Cooper reduced
his plan to a $50 100000 scheme. which would
later. with water to be pumped to take care OF
the ninehour slack tide period.
The politicians realized that lot of
money and cut the sum to S360OOOOO which
was all right eXcept-eXperts now Say-the
final project wouldn't produce enough-Or cheap
enough-power to be worth anywhere near It's
salt
The Diesel plant was finally proposed when
engineers found the basin into which they had
intended to pump water had sandy bottom
and wouldn't hold it.
No official group of engineers ever approx
ed the Quoddy project after it had been Whitfield
down. The chief factor behind White House
approval appears to have been the romantic
imagination of President Roosevelt. to whom
the thrilling notion Of harnesSing the ocean has
great appeal
Louis Howe, who always stressed the Importance
of achieving Democratic victory in Maine in
her September, 1886 elections.
After about s5OO0OOO had been spent Con-
greSs refused to appropriate another S9000O0O
requested by Roosevelt to carry the work
in the next fiscal year.
The administration regarded Quoddy and
More and more it has come to lean solely on
Brann, but if Quoddy is resumed this year it
win be because of Branns insistence.
The life of westerner was saved
when a bullet was deflected by a cigar
lighter, which would seem to justify its
existence.
There can be no extenuating circum-
stance in that dastardly mailing OF
bombs, since it appears they did not
accompany income tax payments.
For the past month, a Glens Falls
n. Y, man has lived on honey, whereas
during the depression, number of men
lived on their honey's parents