The people's voice., 1959-10-16

continued the hearings, and the pri-
vate utility people were running all
over Missoula dragging witnesses in
to keep the show going, until around
2 am, when they gave up from sheer
exhaustion and lack of witnesses.
was reminded of this, especially,
when the statement was made at the
close of the Monday hearings by the
Upper Columbia Development Council
that they had been denied the right
to be heard.
1t is true the testimony, was, by
and large, for planned development
and the factors to be considered in
any development. 1t bore strongly
on specific phases and by-products of
any development and pointed out the
best ways to go about evaluating,
planning and using our great water
resources, and there was only one
witness for the Committee For Para
disc Dam.
When Senator Kerr, at about 1915
closed the hearings l was at loss
to understand where the witness for
the private power organization the
Upper Columbia Development Council
was, and went up front to find out.
was told because of weather
the military aircraft carrying the
committee had to leave early; that
Ray Loman, chairman of UCDC,
had been told by Senator Kerr's
assistant he had one-half hour in
which to present testimony if he
wanted to appear on the stand.
(There was only one witness who
had taken more than 10 or is
minutes); that Mr.. Loman said
his organization preferred to file
testimony.
Senator Kerr took the man at his
word.
1t may be unfortunate that the
Oklahoma Senator did not plead with
Mr.. Loman; that he didn't insist on
an appearance.
1t could be Mr.. Kerr didn't realize
that Mr. Loman's organization saw
at hand a propaganda splurge and
were not about to lose it by 80 min
ites-nor probably did Kerr care.
The UCDC chairman complained
about representatives of the federal
bureaus from Portland and Boise .ap-
bearing, however, General Clark only
made very short preliminary state
nent and Kerr asked him some spe-
cific questions on which Clark didn't
nave the figures so the Boise bureau
nan simply stepped to the stand long
enough to provide the statistics the
Senator wanted. The time taken by
either of these men was not enough
% affect the time the UCDC might
lave used.
There are those who believe the
uture of the nation may we'll rest on
development of our water resources.
they believe we must start now plan
llng for the best way to take ad-
7antage of what we have for the
'reatest benefit of all the people.
1ost of the witnesses were people
Il vlslon-people who think as big
S the potential of this country really
s-people who can look forward to
ne fate of future generations. The
ecofd OF CneSe hearings Is going to
e one of the tremendous documents
n resource development of our time.
am told.
So it is small wonder that the
JCDC couldn't quite bear to speak
ut loud the words that would cast
shadow over the forecasts of the
right future possible for Montana
nd the nation. The only purpose of
ne UCDC is to speak for the private
over companies and private power
have only one objective
. to make profit from electricity.
hey can not, and are not expected
undertake jobs from which there
no profit-the shame is they are
OF willing to consider the welfare
the people and the country when
'bs they can not assume need to be
one.