Evening star., 1940-08-14
Public Utility Issue
Is Expected 10 Play
Big Political Role
Wilkes Background as
Power Man Is Offset
Somewhat by McNory
BY CHARLES F. SPEARE
Consolidated News Writer.


Consolidated News Writer.
NEW YORK, Aug. 14.-It will be
if Wendell L. Willkie,
Republican nominee for President,
does not have something to say in
his speech of acceptance at Elwood,
Ind, next Saturday on the public
utilities and Federal power projects.
There was plenty about both in the
platform of the Democratic party
and an impersonal reference to Mr..
Willkie as the former head of great
public utility company.
After the Willkie nomination there
was brief bull market in public
utility stocks on the theory that his
election would definitely change the
public power situation for the better.
This boom faded quickly and was
not revived. The nomination of
Senator McNary of Oregon, as Mr.
Wilkes running mate, had some
thing to do with this. Wall Street
had not followed Senator McNary's
political philosophy closely enough
to know that it ran contrary to that
of Mr. Willkie on the important
question of Federal control of the
country's water power facilities.
"Antidote for Handicaps."
In his sketch of Senator McNary
in the current issue of Life, Richard
L. Neuberger, than whom no one
is better qualified to write about
him, draws a picture of the two
men. He says:
"McNary is a specific antidote for
all political handicaps the No.
member of the ticket carries into
the campaign, particularly West of
the Mississippi. Willkie has been
the head of a far-fung utilities en-
pire, the Commonwealth g. South
ern Corp. and became a national
figure waging its battles against the
competition of the Tennessee Valley
Authority. McNary has been the
most consistent Republican Senate
supporter of the T. v. A. and was
scolding the power trust in the days
of Coolidge normally Willkie has
said it is 'uneconomic and fallacious'
for the Government to construct
power dams. His running mate is
the sponsor Of the SIC, ,000- horsepower
colossus that cost Uncle Sam s75,-
100000 to build at Bonneville on the
Columbia River" Later in his
article Mr. Neuberger says: "The
President has always been more
cordial to McNary than to a lot of
the members of his own party. AS
he signed the Bonneville authorize
ton Mr.. Roosevelt said, I've got to
give Charlie his DAM"
Fight Looms Over Districts.
The bitter fight now on between
the private utilities of the Pacific
Coast and the great new Federal
power projects, in production there,
or soon to be, is over the formation
of what are known as peoples pub
lie utility districts which directly
compete in distribution of electric
power with the private companies.
The centers of this activity are in
the States of Oregon and Washing
ton. The corporations most af-
fected are the Puget Sound Power
e. Light Co., which serves the Sc
attic district, and the Portland Gen.
eral Electric Co. in Portland, Greg.
The Republicans, as sworn
enemies of New Deal socialism,
says Mr. Neuberger, "are in an awk-
ward position when their leader de-
mands that peoples utility districts
organized by the farmers in the
Pacific Northwest be given prior
claim over power companies to the
juice from the Bonneville Dam
Favorable Court Decisions.
The Washington State courts,
however, have lately been coming
to the rescue of the private utilities.
Twice in recent months they have
made favorable awards, once to the
Puget Sound Power & Light Co.
and again in behalf of the Washing
ton Gas g. Electric Co. These will
prevent public power districts from
purchasing properties of such cor
porations much below their actual
values. After the elections last
spring, in which the public power
interests were defeated, an organi-
zation known as the Consumers
Non-Profit Public Power Corp. Of
fered to buy the entire properties
of the Puget Sound company for
$83,000,000. Officers of the concern
appraised the value at $128,000,000.
This spread is only little greater
than that at the start of negotia-
tons between T. V. A. and the
Commonwealth g. Southern for
eventual sale of the Tennessee elec-
trio assets to the former.
In California the Great Central
Valley project, which includes the
proposed Shasta Dam, impinges on
the territory of the Pacific Gas &
Electric Co. and that of smaller
private producers. In that State
there is strong Federal pressure to
place the P. G.. & E. facilities in
San Francisco under municipal
ownership. Secretary Ickes has
been pushing this matter hard for
several years. He now has a lever
age in recent United States Su-
preme Court decision, compelling
action by the local utility. In the
Los Angeles territory Boulder Dam
and strong municipal competition
limit private company net profits.
Setting up a presidential ticket
composed of an opponent of and a
champion for public power, is a po-
litical anomaly, but shrewd Repub-
lican politics, and no stranger than
selecting a former Democrat and
public utility executive to head the
Republican ticket. This is the kind
of political liberality that the Amer
ican people today appreciate and
which they will doubtless support
next November.