COPYRIGHT BY HARRIS & EWING.

develop ment. It is yet less than four years since President Roosevelt first told the country in warning tones that there was possibility of such a trust. He did that in his famous veto of the James River, Missouri, dam bill, in April, 1909. It wasn't a very big dam bill, but it afforded occasion for turning loose for National contemplation a detailed report which the Commissioner of Corporations had made, of water

SENATOR WINTHROP MURRAY
CRANE-ONE OF THE MOST ACTIVE
WATER POWER GETTERS IN
CONGRESS,

power conditions. The country wasn't just sure how to take that report. Some people yawned at "another Roosevelt alarm;" others found something humorous in the queer notion that water power was worth trustifying, or that there was a potential trust. Still others, a few of them, got the idea and have been keeping their eyes on this combination ever since. As for the water power promoters, who thus suddenly found the white light of publicity turned on their magnificent project, they redoubled their efforts and adopted clever tactics to allay suspicion. They drove off their forces, set their strategists at work, organized a plan of campaign, and right now they are on the point of making their grand dash to capture control of the whole situation. As I

write, their army of lobbyists-some of them operating from the vantage points of seats in House and Senate, some serving as dummy directors, promoters, manipulators and what-not-is just starting the charge up Capitol Hill. They propose to capture and destroy the Federal Sovereignty citadel and leave only the scattered outposts of State Regulation to defend the water resources, knowing full well that if they once establish the rule that the States own the water power, they can capture the State legislatures in detail and appropriate the whole treasure. Before this article appears in print, the charge will have been made; the critical battle will be on. What a stake is involved in the outcome may be judged from the solemn warning which Senator Burton of Ohio recently delivered:

at 36,906,000; that is, the power producible at periods of lowest water, dead of winter, etc. The maximum, without construction of storage reservoirs, is placed at 66,447,000. But with storage reservoirs, which would prevent floods and aid navigation, in addition to increasing water power supply, it is estimated by the Hydrographic Bureau that 200,000,000 horsepower could be developed. These are all conservative official engineering estimates. The late Dr. W. J. McGee, one of the world's foremost authorities, said of our water power possibilities, if storage were employed:

"Besides its enormous magnitude, this industry will become fundamental to many other industries which depend upon water power for their operation and success. The possibility of the control of the business of the country through the agency of water power is more imminent than any other form of control ever attempted in the history of human endeavor."

That is the language of a senator who doesn't deal in the spectacular or the superlative, who is most commonly criticised as too conservative, and who knows more about water power than any other man now in public life.

Senator Burton did no violence to his repute for moderation when he indulged in these observations. It is difficult to summarize, in the space available here, the possibilities of the water power combination for which lines have been laid throughout the length and breadth of this continent, and for the promotion of which the greatest financial powers of the country are enlisted. However, here are some impressionistic suggestions:

Industrial United States uses about 30,000,000 horsepower-gas, steam and water-annually. The available minimum amount of water power is placed

"It exceeds our mechanical power in use, would operate every mill, drive every spindle, propel every train and boat, and light every city, town and village in the country."

Whether you side with the man who calculates that water power is available to produce twice, or three times, or seven times, the entire amount of mechanical power now in use in the country, you will be forced to concede that these figures mean something.

But is it available for general commercial uses? That is the natural question at this point. Can it be harnessed to the mills, locomotives, lighting circuits of cities, and made to do the work?

One suggestion of the answer resides in the statement that though hydro-electrical development is in its infancy, there is 5,356,000 developed horsepower in water; that is, more than one-sixth of all the power we use. The use of water power from central stations increased, between 1902 and 1907, 208 per cent, while the use of steam power in like fashion increased only 90.4 per cent.

These figures suggest how increasingly important water power, turned into electricity and distributed over wide areas, is becoming. Yet the development is barely beginning. Thus far, water power is hardly used at all to operate railways. Consider, then, the possibilities of development in this field from two statements:

The Chicago, Milwaukee & Saint Paul

system expects to electrify its entire line from the Missouri river to Puget Sound just as fast as the preparations can be made for the change: as fast as dams can be built, turbines and dynamos installed, and electric locomotives constructed. It has bought power from the Great Falls Power Company of Montana for about 500 miles of this distance. It will make transportation so much cheaper by using electricity, that every other important railroad in the Moun

tain and Pacific West is today figuring on meeting this new competition by similarly equipping itself.

Second, consider this statement which the late Edward H. Harriman made to the writer about two years before he died. We will all concede that Harriman had real vision. He said:

"The trunk-line railroad of the near future will be of six-foot gauge, which means entire reconstruction of roadbed, bridges and tunnels. Cars built throughout of steel will handle 80 to 100 tons of freight each. West of the Missouri, practically all the mileage will be operated by electricity, which will be produced from the great water powers of the mountain country, the Missouri itself, and the Pacific slope. Besides that, there will be an industrial development in that region that we cannot yet conceive, due to the use of this same power for mining, factories, and operating the utilities of towns, cities and the farm."

That sounded visionary, even a very few years

ago. It isn't so visionary, in the light of what the Saint Paul road is actually doing and its competitors are planning to do just as soon as possible.

The economy of hydroelectric power is variously estimated. When the Puget Sound road is equipped with electricity it will haul no coal for locomotive fuel. That is one of the biggest tonnage items of other railroads. It will not need to use power, cars, tracks and terminals in this way. It is impossible to get an agreed engineering statement of the difference in cost per yearly horsepower between steam and hydroelectricity; it is extremely conservative to say that electricity can be produced from water at $40 or $50 and that steam power will cost at least $60. Many engineers would make steam cost twice as much as electricity. Moreover, steam is bound to cost more and more as coal becomes scarcer; water will continue running down hill for some time yet at the same old price.

Again and here is a most important detail in any appraisement of water

power resourcesthere is a more uniform and general distribution of

water power throughout the country than of coal. New England and New York have no coal, but they have water power that may easily be developed, far beyond any demands that can now be imagined. The Middle Atlantic section has great supplies of coal and also of water power; yet water power is being developed very fast in the

face of the fact that coal is still vastly cheaper than it will be in the near future. The Atlantic seaboard States of the South have riches in water power almost beyond conception. The North Pacific, South Pacific and Inter-Mountain States have the greatest water power supply of all, especially the North Pacific States. Finally, the great Central Valley has possibilities, in the Mississippi River system, which are suggested by the fact that one project, at Keokuk, on the Mississippi, is about ready for operation which involves a dam more wonderful than that on the Nile at Assouan, navigation locks as long as those on the Panama Canal, and a power-producing capacity of 200,000 horsepower! This company has contracted to sell 60,000 horsepower in Saint Louis, 125 miles from the Keokuk dam, dam, to operate the street cars and lighting system of the fourth city in the land. It will con

In Switzerland they have harnessed their water powers with a view to serving all the people. A rural mail carrier goes his round in an electric car. Alongside the road, wherever he goes, is an electric feed wire. When he needs "juice" he hooks to the main and loads up! Private automobilists buy permits to use power as they need it, in like manner.

Now, think what water power means, by projecting that system into an agricultural section of our Central West. Mr. Farmer has plows, trucks, traction engines, threshing machines, milking apparatus, pumps

all equipped with electric motors. He hooks them to his feedwire, soaks up the needed "juice," and farms by electricity. No, it's not a dream. Tremendously big farming operations in the Mid-West are even today being carried on in this manner. Many people have harnessed the small power supply available on their own farms and utilized it in these various ways. The future will see development along these lines that we can only imagine. Senator Brady of Idaho told the Conference of Governors that he hadn't had a fire in his house at Pocatello, for heat or cooking, in seven years. "Electricity, generated from the Snake River, furnishes heat and light, cooks, churns, washes, irons, washes the dishes, and runs the ice cream freezer. It will do all these things for the whole country, in a few years.'

vert the rich country within a radius of 200 miles from Keokuk into an industrial region of the first importance.

Yet, impressive as is this one project at Keokuk, another concern is now at work developing a power almost as great, a few miles up the Mississippi, at Davenport! Multiply those two developments by the unmeasured possibilities of the Ohio, Missouri, Des Moines, Cedar, Illinois, Tennessee, Cumberland, White, and all the rest of the magnificent streams of the Mississippi system, and you will have no doubt that the Central Valley is as well supplied with the "white coal" of the next generation, as any other part of the country.

So much by way of passing suggestion of what electricity, originating in water power, has in store for the country. And anywhere from two to seven times as much of it, waiting to be utilized, as the

country's present use of mechanical power!

Is it worth having? Is it worth saving to work for all the people on fair honest terms? Is it too good a thing to give away to build up a monopoly that today is "more imminent than any other form of control ever attempted in the history of human endeavor?"

If we can agree that a monopoly of this particular good thing, in private hands, without restriction as to the tolls it might lay on industry, transportation and domestic arts, is imminent, then we are ready for the next step in this presentation. We will take up the present development, financial strength, aims, possibilities of water power monopoly.

In 1908 the first survey of this subject was made by Herbert Knox Smith, Commissioner of Corporations. He reported that of the developed water power at that time, thirteen companies controlled thirty-three per cent. In the ensuing four years there was an increase of about fifty per cent in the total development; yet, despite this rapid development, the tendency toward monopoly had been so

fast that in 1912 Mr. Smith reported that sixty per cent of the total was controlled by only six interests! And he added:

"Our remaining water powers are fast passing into private control, making regulation thereafter very difficult."

With an eye to the future, the exploiters are seizing potential power opportunities wherever they can be had, and holding them for future development. The present campaign is less to harness powers, than to grab them. Hitching them to turbines and dynamos is a detail that can be looked after later. The present business of monopoly is to surround the opportunities-the waterfalls, the dam sites, the chasms, the rapids and the strategic commercial locations of promising streams, wherever they may be. "While you're gittin', git a-plenty" is the water power trust's motto. So the interrelated groups which constitute the trust are already shown to control, undeveloped, almost as much power as they have developed.

But this, again, does not indicate how far toward complete control they have traveled. It very often happens that control of a single power location will dominate an entire region filled with good power opportunities. This is especially true when the one site is in financially strong hands. There is economy in coupling up plants, making them auxiliary one to another. Thus "pondage"