The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1944-06-09

! plan. 100 many COOKS do not STIR IN
a., Tsee River broth.
ca ca ,Htstortc., last and our own ea
0,tol Bld sal Library : N7v ss,.s sh o,
thority can our ~. developed
to the full measure of its resources
: There must be an end to endless ant
futile struggle between one interes
and another We need unity, replac
ing civil war. There is before us, il
the Tennessee Valley, an object lessor
that sectionalism can give way to I'm
ity to the greater benefit of all.
These are the essentials of the
IVA idea:
!. A federal autonomous agency
with full authority to make de
cisions within the region.
2 Responsibility to deal with re
sources as a unified whole, clear
ly fixed in the regional agency
not divided among several cen
tralized federal agencies.
8. A policy fixed by law, that the
federal, regional agency work Co
operativeIy with and through To-
cal and state agencies.
Pick Plans Shortcomings
Governor Sharpe of South Dakota
might say, as he did recently in the
Christian Science Monitor, Why talk
of new plan when we already have
a plan? He offers the Pick Plan as
the sovereign cure for all the ills of
the river. 1t has merit. The trouble
is that, first of all, it is less plan
than statement of good intentions.
1t is rough sketch of flood control
and navigation proposals, with blank
spaces left open for irrigation and
power In itself, it is a very good
start on a unified program of develop
ment.
But the irrigation interests serious
ly object to the Pick Plan-notably
the provision in the Rivers and Har-
bors bill which would set aside for
navigation virtually the entire average
annual flow of the Missouri River on
the basis of figures for the past 10
years
In short, the irrigation interests
don't trust the Pick Plan or the Army
Engineers because they consider pro-
vision in the Rivers and Harbors bill
an attempt to steal their water. At
this point Mr.. Ickes, interested in rec
lamation only, comes forward with his
plan for stealing water from naviga-
ton interests for the uses of irriga-
ton. President Roosevelts criticism
of the Rivers and Harbors bill last
Friday, on the ground that it failed
to make proper provision for irriga- !
ton, shows once again the fallacy of
failing to consider a river and all its
problems as whole. And thus the |
conflict proceeds.
There are, therefore, two major OBJ |
jections to the Pick Plan:
The first, that it is impossible po-
The irrigation states won't |
it. Obviously; any legislation
that covers the whole region will have
to have the whole regions support.
The second, it is defective in an
sense. 1t would have
to be administered by the Army En-
gineer Corps, and the corps is re-
5tricted by act of congress to naviga-
ton and flood control and barred from
The field of irrigation.
The Pick Plan, as comprehensively
as it tries to approach our valley prob
ems actually demonstrates just what
IS wrong. 1t, or any proposal offered
by the Department of Agriculture, the
Department of the Interior, or parti-
sans of flood control, the navigation
or any other single, re-
'tricted agency, cannot fail to throw
he whole problem out of balance. All
.hese problems, all the questions they
'aise, travel the same old road to the
same old terminal: Where is the one
zig plan?
The Missouri's Special Problems
1t is not our contention that the
IVA plan can be transplanted in its
entirety to the Missouri Valley Our
liver has it's special problems, such
Is irrigation, which do not even exist
IN the Tennessee. The nature of the
River itself is different The
many able and devoted men who have
,iven years to the study of the Mis-
ouri know it to be rogue elephant
# river, testing mans ingenuity and
to the fullest.
Yet the basic idea of IVA can be
rought to our valley 1t is an idea
hat has passed it's laboratory test
With brilliance and is ready for use
wherever men seek to make a river
erve them. AS David Lilienthal,
hartman of the IVA board, has writ
en- in "TVA = Democracy on the
Iarch":
1t was not conceded that at the
hour of Creation the Lord had di-
vided and classified natural re-
sources to conform to the organiZa-
ton chart of the Federal govern
ment. What God had made as one,
man was to develop as one.
This newspaper confesses an error
the pasta preoccupation with the
interests of its own section, to the
of those of Montana, Kan
as, Nebraska and the Dakotas. All
long the valley, from the mountains
t $4,000 feet to the low plains of the
iver's mouth, men have given sim
ar loyalty to the interests of their
ections.
Iced for Unity
Yet is this not our common prob
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