The Waterbury Democrat., 1941-11-28

was sent. The drattS expressed what was felt, all right, which was to the general effect that Harold could Ro jump of any or all of his Depart- ment os Interior dams, facing either way. All suave banker Jones ever admitted was that to be accused of making 10 contract tinfaVorable 4 to the government was c novel OK. pertence." It was . classic of un- statement, Ills reply to Ickes was Q short telegram.
 What got the Ickes goat was pri-. [ uterlly the fact that power for one of the plants ai e0-million- -pound-, per-yEar plant to cost $ii million, or $i2 million was to be located in the I vicinity Of Bonneville where the power would have to come from Grand Cotllee and Bonneville dams, Department of Interior pets. Tckes has consistently battled the Alum. mum Company because he believed it to Do e monopoly. THE SECRETARY
 SAW RED
 With this background, Ickes had a natural opposition to giving Alcoa Q contract to build and operate any big new government plant. Even as 6 private citizen, fckes would have q perfect right to this opposition, but as secretary of the interior, with overlordshlp of the Bonneville Pow. or Authority, he saw red ct being nlaneuvered into e position of hay. ing to furnish big block of poweS to this one of his many personal devils.
 Perhaps Ickes had c natural cllag- rin that Jones' Defense Plant Corp- oratiotl stood to make e6 per cent of the profits from this contract, while 1ckes' Bonneville Power Authority had to furnish power at fixed maximum rate and like 1t. Anyway, Ickes baked on the contract threat ening to withhold his approval of granting power to the Aluminium Company even though to do so would put Ickes in the position of being the gent holding up expansion of aluminium production for defense.
 The way Jones negotiated the contract, however, there was c pro- vision that If electric power were not available at any of the proposed sites, that plant need not be built. If 1ckes granted no power to the company for the Bonneville plant, the plant would 90 some place else, and 1ckes would be In the position of cutting off his own nose by pre- venting Q new industry from coni- ing into the northwest.
 MORE KICKING
 AROUND
 Earlier, there had been another Squabble with Ickes on the matter of picking Q site for one of these new. northwest aluminium plants, IckeS wanted it at Cascade Locks, near one of his new reclamation pro- Jects. Both the Aluminium Company and the Reynolds Metals Company turned down the site and the OPM rejected 1t because there was no h. Dor supply immediately available, That made Harold feel kicked on the mental shins, too.
 Not having his way worth e darn, tckes sulked. He picked the contract to pieces, A newspaper column ap- peared with Q blast at Jones for still being a capitalist who could be counted on to trade the govern- mentS shirt away. The Truman committee Investigators went into action, summoning Arthur Davis, chairman of the Aluminium Com pany's board to Washington. When the investigators were told that Da- wis had pneumonia, the doctor was ordered to bring the fever charts to Washington to prove 1t. The feud was on with ali the fury that can characterize only New Deal policy battle. The end is not in sight yet, and 1t will probably 90 on all through. the defense effort. W.
 An indepenedent appraisal of the affair would seem to indicate that Jones, by horsetrAding, has done as much to break whatever real or theoretical monopoly the Aluminium Company of America had, as the governments three-year aslti-trugt action failed to do when Federal Judge Caffey recently decided Alcoa was not q monopoly. But the end of that hasn't been heard, either.
 Meantime, Jones is negotiating another contract with Alcoa, for two more plants.