The Fight for Public Water Power
As corporations scramble to monopolize the nation's rivers, the Times argues that the government must intervene before water becomes a private commodity.
The story, cleaned up
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Enough water flows past St. Louis to turn all the wheels of the United States. It is said upon excellent engineering authority that enough water power is still undeveloped in the state of Massachusetts, where water power is already extensively utilized, to equal the flow of Niagara. The extent of the water power going to waste in this country is beyond human comprehension. But this is no reason why the government should give away immeasurably valuable water power privileges to corporations, free of cost and free of federal control. President Roosevelt, in his special message to congress stating his reasons for vetoing the James River tunnel bill, gave warning that the people of this country are threatened by a monopoly far more powerful than anything known to our experience. President Roosevelt estimates that 14 corporations directly or indirectly control water power and advantageous sites equal to more than a third of all the developed water power in the entire country. The right time to control a monopoly is before it is created. The time to determine that there shall be no further private ownership of public water power is now.
“Water power is one element that man cannot waste. But he can monopolize it.”
Early 20th-century anxiety over private monopoly of public utility infrastructure echoes modern debates about the privatization of essential resources and energy grids in the Pacific Northwest.
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