MR. MOLEY: Yes, he had great vision. Now, in 1926
Mr. Hoover made a speech in Seattle. He then elucidated
the idea of a great Federal development in the Columbia
Valley, which after all was carried out later in the
Roosevelt Administration--I mean dams and so on. The
great monument to Hoover in this conservation thing--natural
resources--is the Hoover Dam. Now the Hoover Dam, unlike
these other Federal installations--dams and electrical
things--was built on a very solid principle. Before
any construction was undertaken he had firm contracts
for the sale of that power which would liquidate the
Government’s investment over the years. In other
words, he sold the power at the “bus bar”
as they called it. This is what I went to Roosevelt
in 1933 and said they ought to do about the Tennessee
Valley, because the Tennessee Valley started with a
Government dam, the Muscle Shoals Dam. I went to him
and said: The best way to do this, to be sure this thing
is going to be self-liquidating, is to sell your power
to the power companies at the bus bar and use it to
liquidate the cost of the Federal Government’s
installations.” Roosevelt said, “Go and
see Norris. It’s his baby.” I knew that
wouldn’t do any good, because he had an obsession
on public power, but the ironical part of it is that
gradually we’re coming back to that now. The latest
is, of course, that instead of building these huge dams
on the Colorado River--the Central Arizona project--they’re
bringing together the resources of several power companies--and
they’re going to build a coal-burning power plant
to get this water over into the valley at Phoenix and
Tucson--the Maricopa County and the Pima County and
Pinal County. This is as it should be, because the Government
doesn’t go into business to put power companies
out of business. Its job is to regulate them and, where
the investment is too much for the power companies,
to do the building itself and then let it pay off. But
hell! the way they keep their books now, they never
pay off; they never pay for Grand Coulee. Mr. Hoover
was right [said with growing firmness]. He had a vision
about this thing, and in many other respects he did.
It was just his misfortune that he happened to head
into a depression that actually he tried to prevent.
But Coolidge let things slip, and so did the Federal
Reserve System. They could have stopped this.
MR. HENLE: It’s interesting to hear you say that.
MR. MOLEY: He was a real Progressive in the best sense
of the word. |
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