The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1947-10-24
Preview Of Conservation Issues In the 1913 Campaign

Presented herewith is an excellent
preview of 1948 campaign issues by
JUDSON KING, able director of Ma
tional Popular Govt League.
If 1T is CONCEDED
That our annual crop of floods, ma
tionwide, is conducive neither to safe
ty nor prosperity;
That our deposits of top soil in the
Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans are not good invest
ments;
That appalling dust storms, again
threatening, which denude the Great
Plains from the Dakotas to Texas are
neither hygienic nor profitable;
That if the Nation desires to pro-
duce its own lumber supply, it had
better hurry up reforestation
That opportunity for settlement on
reclamation prospects by land-hungry
veterans and weary city jewellers
would be a national benefaction;
That really efficient inland water
ways are needed as new arteries of
commerce;
That next to land and water an
enormous supply of really cheap cleo
trio energy is basic necessity in this
modern time;
That on the threshold of the Atomic
Age and with a world in flames, the
achievement of economic justice for
ourselves, and in all nations, is as es-
sential for world peace as just for
eign policy;
If 1T BE FURTHER ADMITTED
That these detectives can be best
and most economically achieved by a
co-ordinated river and land control
operation under a single management
as demonstrated by the success of
iva;
That these are public tasks, outside
the domain of free enterprise, and
will not be undertaken by private
capital; therefore,
That these are federal undertakings
for the national welfare because the
states have neither the legal juris-
diction nor the will to plan, finance
and adequately meet the critical stu
alton that now exists which ignores |
sectional and state boundary lines;
Then the attitude of the present
congress becomes of acute concern
70 l1lTkinQ americans anu Calls lot
prompt and vigorous action on their
part unless the constructive gains
of the past 40 years are not to be
impaired and progress halted by the
reactionaries of both political par
ties.
The Purpose of This Bulletin
I propose in this bulletin to point |
out revolutionary changes of existing
policy in this field which will be
fought for in the second session of
this congress and undoubtedly go over
into the presidential campaign of 194S.
I am by no means forgetting that in
the present postwar effort of Toryism
to return to power, a whole galaxy
Of problems are involved-the atomic
bomb, foreign policy. finance, indus
trial and commercial monopoly, the
cooperative movement, agriculture,
labor, clean government and politics,
the spiraling cost of living, education,
public health, race relations, civil Ii
berries, the press and even the atti-
tude of religion as examples.
All are important and if the prob
lens cannot be answered with "The
People, Yes" to use Poet Carl Sand
berg's phrase, in peaceful fashion then
an appalling fate awaits the coming
generation or perhaps our own.
The Washington and Back Home {
Lobbies
In sizing up this situation it is ger
name to consider the fact that since
World War the private utilities have
been one of the most, if not the most,
influential factors in our political life,
local state and national, and are today
the spearhead and chief financial sup
port of the movement to halt multi ;
purpose valley development which in
cludes direct use by the people of their !
own hydro electric power as one OBJ
iective among many.
1t is a mistake to think that the
electric industry has been idle since
the Trade Commission investigation of