The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1945-05-18
THE eva AND MVA

1owndes Maury addressed the people
ect of a Columbia Valley Authority
lie to print his speech in full in one
value, we print a first installment in
it in succeeding issues.)
prevented the Muscle Shoals Dam
4 built to make nitrates for the first
World war, from being bought by
Henry Ford. This dam was the nu
cleus for his. dream to raise the stand
ard of American life in the Tennessee
Valley Authority All will accord the
first place among statesmen of the
Democratic party for this, and, in fact
for all time, to our late President
Franklin D. Roosevelt. Without his
power and help, Senator Norris could
never have established the IVA, and
that beloved President, whose name
is now written with the immortals,
left as a parting message of advice
and affection for the American people,
the recommendation for the immediate
establishment of the Missouri Valley
Authority and the Columbia Valley
Authority, and six other river valley
authorities. The reason for that was
the great experiment of the nation,
which was fought by all of the power
and other corporate interests as bit
terly as they are now fighting, had
proved to be the greatest success that
had ever been made in turning the
economy of this nation from an arti-
| fioia1 tO natural poOOOrnu
The IVA is one of the wonders of
the world Wise men have come to
study it's efficiency and it's success
from Australia, from China, from
Brazil, from Uruguay-in fact, from
all of the South American nations,
and all have gone back with the feel
ing and statement that beyond a doubt
nothing like it has been seen before.
The total of appropriations from the
federal treasury for the building of
this work has been SGT million dollars.
I use the figures of the World Almanac
for the year 1915. The net income
from power sales the last fiscal year
were above 10 million dollars, or about
30 per annum on the entire invest
ment On large sums of money, this
is fair going rate of interest. The
Milwaukee railroad, three weeks ago,
borrowed 100 million dollars at Il %
per annum The state of Massachu-
sets borrows money at 10 per an
mum. Before the great urge for buy
ing War Bonds to save our national
life, the banks in this state were lend
ing vast sums of money at 70 of 10
per year.
1t is estimated by the management
that the IVA will liquidate itself and
be a paid for asset to the people of
this nation in 80 years from 1914.
The Panama Canal in the days when
a dollar was worth more than it was
when the valley authority was built,
cost 367 million dollars. All of the
railroad interests of the United States
fought Theodore Roosevelt but he
built the Panama Canal In tolls it
paid for itself in about 80 years. No
one now would take step backward
should sell the Panama Canal for any
price at all; certainly not for three
times what it cost to build.
Besides paying for its cost out of
the power sales, our success in this
war has been due largely to synthetic
rubber, and, of course, to explosives.
A large ingredient of synthetic rubber
is calcium carbide, and, of course, we
all know that nitrogen is the basis of
most explosives. The IVA has manu-
featured for our war effect almost one
half of the calcium carbide going into
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