The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-09-28

horsepower, put when they future they are going to faI For Ross Is working on a plan to build up a giant power pool of government owned plants, includ- ing Grand Coulee, Bonneville, Klamath Falls, Central Valley of California project, and finally, Boulder Dam. f.
 Reaching from Canada to the Mexican border, 1t would be the largest power pool In the world, and eventually wOulud squeeze out most private companies in the Far West.
 James Delmage Ross, the man who plans this polo, is one of the most colorful characters in the New Deal. Born of Canadian parents, he was stricken with tuberculosis as a boy and liter- ally walked 1t out of his system. That was before the days of hitch hiking and he walked first from Ontario to the Pacific coast, then to Alaska, then back again to Seattle.
 "That was how I got my pres- ent constitution" says Ross, ex. hibiting 8 body like 8 barrel.
 In Seattle, Ross is not only superintendent, of the city's power system, but also atirelesS sales. man of the policy of municipal ownership. He has built a park around his power plant above Seattle, illuninates the water falls with colored lights, has lodge to which he invites friends on weekend parties for public power proselyting.
 Ross was brought to Washing ton by Harry Slattery, power ex- pert fer ex.GOveFnOr Clifford PinchOt of Pennsylvania. His first job was aS power adviser of the PWA. Roosevelt got to know him, liked his western stories and his comfortable-aS- \ an-old-shoe personality, later
 appointed him to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
 Here he was a well-meaning misfit, knew almost nothing about stocks and bonds, doZed through securities hearings.
 But at Bonneville Dam he will be back in his own element. And if he retains the management of his Seattle plant, later aids in the distribution of power from Grand Coulee, Ross will be the most powerful distributor of power in the world.
 Fish.Lifting
 Administrator Ross IS not sup posed to know anything about fish, For the potential destruc- ton of Columbia river salmon- flashing threatens to be one of Booneville's chief worries.
 Actually this comes under the administration of the Army En- glneers who operate the dam. But the Bureau of Fisheries makes no secret of its worry industry employing 3,250 flsher- men and netting 24,0O0,000 pounds of salmon every year.
 How to give @ lift to 6 salmon has been argued back and forth ever since Bonneville was started, and the machinery finally evolved has cost one-eighth as much as the dam itself. The total Ash bill is $6,533, ,oo0.
 This Is for Q series of fish ele- vatorS and ladders" to lift the annual migration of salmon, desperately swimming upstream from the ocean up the 50-foOt height of the dam and into the headwaters of the river, where they spawn their young and die.
 In the past, salmon, have climbed ladders" of water to a height of eight or ten feet, but never 50 feet, and that is what causes such worry in the Fisheries Bureau.
 Merry.G Round
 Mount Hood Lodge Is the sec- ond 0overnment-owned tourist hotel to be visited by Roosevelt. The first was Bluebeard Castle Hotel. in Charlotte Ainalia, vir- gin Islands. Both hostels were built with PWA funds Mount Hood Lodge is the first hotel to be built with government funds in Q national forest. It will be leased to e concessionaire, but control will remain in the hands of Uncle Sam .. On the moun- tain slopes above tho lodge, snow fingers through the summer, and ski trails are open the year round .. Forest Srevice hopes to open the lodge January 1. Of. ficials expect full house, in sea- son, recalling that in Q single day last winter 25,000 people came to Mount Hood for winter sports <. Bluebeard Castle Hotel in the Virgin Islands does a flour ishing business in winter months, c lean business in summer {. Virgin Islands travel figures have more than doubled since the