The New Leader Literary Section
The New Leader Literary Section Democracy's Own Proving Ground By RANDALL RUBENSTEIN ffl.DEMOCRACY ON THE MARCH. By DavidE. Lilienthal. Harper A Bros. $2.60. ll DISPATCH appeared in the daily...
...He came to alt job on the Tennessee Valley Atthority, of which he today is chairilia, from the Wisconsin Public Utilities Commission...
...Such a river valley has a unity that is of nature...
...Certainly no single individual serving private industry could have enjoyed the free play of a practical, socially sensitive Imagination that Mr...
...This indeed is a •Report to the Nation," a prologue to ibj larger and later work that will be written by historians of the future on the century of the common man...
...And he has helped, more than any other man in public life in recent years, to pay back part of the debt which many have felt the North ants the South, ever since that region wsj first considered a colonial dependency...
...Lilienthal means by unified resource development in the broad sense and multipurpose projects in the particular...
...Lilienthal reseals on almost eve*y page of this volume, recording the fruits of his labor Mfl that of his co-workers...
...Two score engineers and agriculturists from s dozen republics of South America...
...This condition is a prerequisite of employment, for all research and laboratory experiment at TVA must ultimately become applied research, applied at the grass roots, the level of the people...
...f this story is equally refreshing and informative, studded with bits of sound, Went lie philosophy, known as "grass•ssts philosophy," applied' to "unified resource development," synchronized at the source...
...Few are written by a leader, still in the thick of the unfolding action, retarding an epochal accomplishment...
...In fact, some crop*, formerly unprofitable, are now raised in the south only because* electric freezing slid cheap water transport both devised by TVA engineers are at hand* to move them to other regions for sales...
...SlK'H development is, of course, good for free enterprise, notwithstanding the unfounded fears in many parts of the country in the past of loss of business...
...The project has in fact already served as a training ground for foreign technicians...
...But Mr...
...its development in accordance with this oneness would require an international agency...
...ll DISPATCH appeared in the daily press the other day carrying the A\ caption, "Move to Overhaul History Teaching...
...Here Mr...
...The sound of its name changes as it flows along—Doneu, Dunau, Dunav, Dunarea—but the river Itself is a* little affected by political differences as by the different names by which it is known...
...textfoaks teaching techniques...
...a similar contingent from China, singularly enthusiastic and intense...
...From the same ¦>¦*• that furnish electric power has been ?rnawned a fisherman's paradise, supply¦f '40 different species and a catch of WWiWO pounds...
...The TVA area embraces seven states, eevering about the same land area as itgland and Scotland...
...To that school of thought which holds there are no new frontiers at home here is well-documented denial...
...A river has no nationality...
...Many books are written by facile stylfett who embroider an idea, or a shadow ef one...
...to progressive labor groups that know the value of rank-and-file social and economic education and to cynical liberals this book should be required reading...
...It recalls to mind the much-quoted and misinterpreted remark made by VicePresident Wallace about a "TVA on the Danube...
...The same water that pror*f...
...the TVA public-private prototype might be the best available...
...One educator from the Middle West decayed: "We must write more about the history of the common man and lets about public events and sterile government happenings...
...Particularly in view of the current emphasis on closer world labor relations, the labor policy of TVA deserves much wider knowledge...
...Another very interesting chapter deals with "TVA and World Re-Construction...
...Figures and facts are cited sparingly, but judiciously with •""iking effect For example, in the development of measures for flood control •td power generation such as dams and Wservoirs the TVA created for the South hs own "Great Lakes" whose man-wade snore-line totals 9,000 miles, equal to S* grand aggregate of the United tttes on the Atlantic, the Pacific and »e Gulf of Mexico, at the same time ••king the TVA region the second ¦test power producer in the country, *|th a 1944 yiekTof 12 billion kilowatt of electric energy...
...This is one example among many of what Mr...
...People who say he might have been a lawyer for the utilities, if ht hadn't started on the public power lid*, are probably wrong," according to eee well-known Southern writer, "beesose he is smarter than that...
...They have numbered in ten years nearly a quarter tf* 8 million TVA'ers—builders for onaocrscy, he likes to call his associates ~fjanagers, farmers, architects, enfetters (SO types of engineers alone), chemist*, construction workers, merilats, . accountants, preachers, many different kinds of persons, to whom the hook is dedicated...
...It told of an annual conference of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association and the ihtional Council for the Social Studies...
...It is based on self-education and leadership, achieved by continuing consultation and collaboration with unions of both the AFL and CIO in a joint council...
...There has been a group of Russian engineers working with TVA technicians ond Lend-Lease hydro-electric plants that in 1944 will be producing power on streams 'somewhere beyond the Urals...
...We need SB pill IWIV W* «"».»^• w* - fee* life in our texte...
...The discussions, as are customary k such conferences, covered a wide agenda, including revision of...
...TVA's magic touch has been good for heavy and light industry alike, and even for hand crafts...
...Lilienthal has also learned from TVA's experience that pay or the profit motive are not the only Incentive to "keep men on their tdes," for he points out that many of its top men left betterpaying jobs to serve and share in this unique demonstration of synthesized democratic processes, where specialists, technicians and experts of all kinds, regardless of talent or calibre, must live and work closely with the people anil the project...
...Lilienthal talks with his usual undogmatie selfassurance and social vision: "Whether a river is wholly within a single nation or flows through several countries does not affect the technical problems of its development or the necessity of dealing with it as a unity...
...The Danube River, for example, runs along its course f romtheBlack Forest through Bavaria, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Rumania, until its three mouths pour its water into the Black Sea...
...That was the catch...
...It has created new markets for older industrial areas, cheap electric power to entice manufacturing, and in turn finally has brought to this part of the South in greatly increased measure what economists and educators had so long contended it lacked—technological development and industrial capital...
...This policy, described in a chapter headed, "The Release of Human Energies," has been largely responsible for the complete absences of strikes since the inception of the TVA...
...Here aa unassuming young man writes of practical miracles in a lucid style of exciting understatement...
...kilowatts and breeds fish also MP*- boating, commercial and reerefrom costly yachts to homemade stuns My rationalizing the now of the otherwise erratic, traditionally desti hi tive Tenneasee river and its branches with technical controls as simple and reliable as gear shifts on motor cars, the TVA has provided another valuable asset besides flood control, namely, water transport to counteract the evils of the unfair deferential in rail rates that retarded the normal development of the industrial South as did other factors...
...Lilienthal, author of this book, was educated in a Yankee university, Harvard...
...U is expected to increase to P#HM>00...
...The book under review might fairly be considered a tjMple of this new projected type of history, particularly if it is written for etoaent* of all ages...
Vol. 27 • May 1944 • No. 22
