Evening star., 1939-06-16

stricted. The protests from the elec-
trio power companies were brushed
aside as superf1uous. But when the
House Appropriations Committee
adopts a provision prohibiting mu-
inequalities from seeking Federal
funds to compete with industrial
plants, there is sharp outcry from
the P. w. A. administrator, who in
sists this is an undemocratic re-
striction upon cities.
Everybody knows that the Fed
eral Government has better credit
than private industry and that it
can put out of business anybody
from milk dealer to a department
store owner because it can borrow
money at a negligible rate of in
terest. For the Federal Govern
ment to encourage municipalities to
borrow money at rates lower than
private utility plants can borrow
especially when private companies
are being forced out of business in
a large territory in the South,
served by the T. v. Ais merely
to put the Government into COM
petition with the citizens of the
country.
To do this is naturally to put the
private citizen at a disadvantage
There are many members of Con-
greSS who believe in and want So
cialization of industry, who want
the Government to own everything
and run everything. Some of them
cjnnorn1v hollnun io1
Others believe in the political jobs
which would be created, while still
others have deep-seated political
prejudice which leads them to carry
on endless warfare against legiti-
mate businesses even though these
now are regulated by governmental
authority through new Federal laws
designed to correct abuses.
Undemocratic Use.
The House of Representatives and
the Senate, for that matter, have
been told that the Government does
not mean to encourage competition,
but that sentiment in cities just nat
urally rises up to ask that new plants
be built so as to get lower power
rates Evidence has been adduced
that engineers and contractors who
want to construct the new projects
do not hesitate to persuade the
cities to apply to the P. w. A., and
that the Government itself does
not discourage the competition, even
though it has often been claimed
that the p W. A. administrator looks
into each situation and determines
whether the competing plant should
or should not be built. depending on
whether the private utility gets its
rates down.
In other words, it is conceded that
the appropriations of public funds
have been used in far more un-
democratic way than is now attrib-
uted to the House Appropriations
Committee. For when the decision of
life or death is held over an electric
power company in given COM
munity by an administrator in
Washington, the investors who are
scattered throughout the country
have nobody to protect their proper
ties. They are not even accorded
public hearing by a disinterested
agency.
Big Factor in Recovery.
Even granting that the Federal
Government should be making loans
to municipalities and putting private
companies out of business, the
administration has been insisting
that investors are perfectly safe in
going ahead in putting their money
in electric light and power compa-
nies not yet visited by Federal CON-
petition.
The electric light and power in
dustry is one of the biggest factors
in economic recovery. 1t can spend
literally billions of dollars in provid-
ing new facilities for the growing
Use of electric power Heavy goods
purchases and big increases in en-
ployment have been admitted to be
the logical consequence of clearing
up of the controversy about Govern
ment competition. The Federal
Reserve Board has officially dis
closed the extent to which economic
recovery could be aided if the util-
ity row could be ended But it is
not being ended. Announcement
by the administration through it's
spokesman at the P. w. A. of an
intention to fight the sensible re-
strictions put on Government COM
petition by the House Appropriations
Committee will be taken to mean
that efforts to compose the dispute
and bring back employment to many
in the heavy goods industry have
again been frustrated by the de-
votees of the school of socialism in
our midst.
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