OCR Text |
Show p .m ii ,. ' i HERE ARE THE FACTS Electric Light and Power magazine recently stated, in simple terms, four salient facts about the electric power issue which, apparently, are nowhere near as widely known to the general public as they should be. First, the business-managed utilities are the second largest lar-gest taxpayer in the nation. Second, despite all the vhooj-de-doo over hydroelectric energy, if all the available water power resources in the United Unit-ed States could be completely developed, this would produce only one-fifth of the total energy we will need by 1900. Third, since the war the business-managed utilities have been investing nearly $2,000,(100,000 a year in new plants and other physical facilities to serve the people. This is the largest construction program undertaken by any single in-1 dustry. Fourth, the rates charged by the business - managed companies are established not by the companies themselves, but by state commissions whose duty is to see that the rates are fair to all concerned the consumer, the employe, the investor. In this connection, electricity is the one item in the family budget that costs substantially less than in prewar days. Since 1939, the cost of living as a whole has risen nearly 70 per cent. The cost of household electricity has drop- i pod 26 per cent. And the United States is 97.5 per cent elec- trified ;oday. i What gives all this great public significance is, of course the intensive drive to put the government deeper and deeper deep-er into the power business, with the clear goal of eventual socialization of the entire private industry. The basis of that drive was laid down in 1925, when Public Ownership magazine maga-zine mapped out a nation-wide socialized power system. That year, Senator Norris introduced a bill to establish such a system. sys-tem. It shocked Congress and died in committee. Almost no ' one took it seriously. Yet now, 25 years later, a very similar 1 plan is being pushed with top administration backing, and we have already spent billions of our tax dollars on public plants and related facilities some of which duplicate existing exist-ing installations, and so represent almost total waste. Socialization of our primary energy industry, which provides an essential service for agriculture, industry and the consumer, could only lead to government domination of all our energies and resources. And that is the way free, representative re-presentative government government of the people is killed. |