Evening star., 1941-07-10


of the Interior in a letter 10 Repre-
sentative May, chairman of that
committee, attempts to camouflage
his record and actually by the
language of his letter misleads the
public as to what has happened.
Mr.. Ickes admits he refused last
February to grant the Aluminium
Company of America-knoWn as
Alcoa-sufficient electric power with
which to make the aluminium it
wished to make this year. He says
that he refused because Alcoa is a
monopoly and that he turned around
and gave a new competitor-the
Reynolds Metal Co-an equivalent
amount of power so that they could
make an equivalent amount Of
aluminium.
Holds Facts Are Opposite.
The facts are the opposite. Alcoa
officials asked Mr.. Ickes to give them
electric power from Bonneville Dam
In the Northwest not i'll substitution
for what was given to the Reynolds
Metal Co., but in addition to it.
Instead of getting additional ca
pacity to produce 60,000000 pounds
of aluminium year, America has
lost that amount of production by
reason of Mr.. Ickes delays.
Alcoa has a record of fast con-
struction of plants. 1t wanted the
extra power at Bonneville so 1t
could add units to its already exist
ing plants in the Northwest. Mr..
Ickes takes refuge in the claim that
the statute forbids him to give more
power to a monopoly, but is not clear
how the granting of $1,000 kilowatts
OF electricity to a company which
already has throughout the United
States 5000 kiloWatts is step that
creates a monopoly. If the Alcoa is
a 100 per cent monopoly, as Mr.. IckeS
claims, it is not made less so by re-
fusing electric power equal to 10 per
cent of what it has already, nor is it
made more of a monopoly by in
creasing its electric power by only
10 per cent.
Mr.. Ickes evidently cares more
about the technicalities of an am
biguously worded statute than he
does about defeating Mr. Hitler. The
then Attorney General, Robert
Jackson. did not let little thing
like a legal technicality stop him
last year from rendering an opinion
constituting the neutrality laws so as
to permit overage deStroyerS to be
transferred to Britain, and he now
has been rewarded by being made
an associate justice of the United
States. The only thing Mr.. 1ckes
had to fear was his chief, President
Roosevelt, who isn't letting techni-
calities in and around Iceland
bother him as he keeps in mind
that the single object of the defense
UIUSI all 10 W lin 1lAIlSA'
More Units Possible.
II Mr.. Ickes last February had
granted to Alcoa sufficient power at
Bonneville to build extra units,
more units would have been ready
by August l of this year. Judging
bv the rate of production estimated
bv officials of the Reynolds plants,
there will be produced about 18,O0O,-
900 pounds of aluminium in their
Northwest plants in the remainder
of 194l. Had the Alcoa been given
electric power the Nation would
have had an additional 25,00O'OO0
pounds in the rest of 194l and Co.
10000 pounds more in 1912.
Taking 10000 pounds as the aver
age amount of aluminium needed in
a bomber of medium size, the United
States lost the chance to make 625
planes this year out of the 25,000' 900
pounds of metal it would have had,
and nothing has been done as yet
about that extra 60000,000 pounds
for 1912 which would give us 1,50O
bombers
Mr.. Ickes says he is already selling
over 40 per cent of the power at
Bonneville Dam to Alcoa, and that
had he granted their request OF last
February the total sold would have
reached So per cent. Yet another
Government agency-the Tennessee
Valley Authority-is cooperating
patriotically with Alcoa and selling
1t all the power it can command,
in some months as high as so per
cent of it's total output. Alcoa is the
T. v. AS biggest customer.
Refers to Statute.
Mr.. Ickes in his letter to Repre-
sentative May refers to the statute
which says Bonneville power must
be 80 administered as Ito prevent
the monopolization thereof by linn
tied groups" But could it not be
said that ALLEGATION of power to one
industry-Reynolds Metal and Alcoa
together - constitutes limited
group" and that Mr. Ickes has
violated his own Interpretation of
the statute already? Also there is
not single word or phrase in the
law which says the Secretary of the
Interior must make contract for
ever with anybody.
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