CONSUMERS PAYING VAST TRIBUTE TO POWER TRUST, REP. RANKIN SAYS
Rankin, Rep. John E.
Consumers Paying Vast Tribute To Power Trust, Rep. Rankin Says Mississippi Solon Tells How States are Overcharged Up In Milions Through Excessive Rates By REP. JOHN E. RANKIN (Of Mississippi THE...
...New Mexico...
...The Power Trust is now running Wendell L. Willklc, president of the Commonwealth and Southern, which is one of the worst offenders of all these power monopolies, for president of the United Stales...
...They cannot get help from the governor, who has not only joined the opposition, or has been with them all the time, but who is actually waging war against the United States to prevent the development of a project for their relief...
...erv, fascination in her waters, and wealth in her soil...
...Miss., my home town, used an average of 227 kilowatt-hours each...
...11,010,583...
...Vermont, $2,791,629...
...To Continue Fight I expect to continue this battle as long as I am in public life, or until we get electric energy to the people in every state at reasonable rates— rates they ca nafford to pay, rates based upon the cost of generation, transmission, and distribution...
...There are 214.000 residential consumers of electricity In Oklahoma, and every single one of them is overcharged more than 100 per cent every month that rolls around...
...32,942,007...
...Missouri, $21,000,411...
...Alabama, 57.300,505...
...6,414,474...
...The record shows that the residential consumers of Oklahoma last year used on an average of less than 60 kilowatt-hours a month...
...5,681,543...
...2,172,940...
...514,461,697...
...and I want to serve notice now that we are not going to be on the defensive...
...Utah...
...They cannot expect to get relief through the state legislature as long as a large number of the influential members of that body, who occupy key positions, are on the pay rolls of the oil Interests, the coal interests, or the power Interests, either as attorneys, agents, directors, or stockholders...
...54.557.821...
...Oregon...
...2,737,207...
...Colorado, $8,532,935...
...He announced that a survey which he made shows that the upper 19 per cent of the farmers, including corporations with farm lands, receive "the lion's share of government aid to agriculture...
...Nevada, $941,585...
...We win our greatest victory over these monopolies, these selfish interests, when we unmask them and drive them to open rebellion...
...Yet her people are comparatively poor, with a few shining exceptions...
...4,319,264...
...She has practic-' ally everything necessary for the happiness and prosperity of mankind...
...California...
...Lousiana, $9,463,871...
...72,513,570, as I have just stated...
...The rates in every one of these states could be reduced so as to wipe out these enormous overcharges, and still afford ample returns on all legitimate investments...
...North Dakota...
...Pennsylvania, $72,513,570...
...Tennessee...
...He is out prating about democracy and talking about dictatorships, when he knows that these utility monopolies to which he belongs constitute the most ruthless Fasclsti, the most eon-sumate dictatorship ever organized and operated to control governments and to wring the lifeblood from the...
...The same conditions prevail in the legislatures, or, at least, in one house of the legislatures of a large number of other states...
...Ohio, $47,-871.987...
...Maryland, $13,191,408...
...They know that if this dam is com-pleted, and a yardstick provided enabling the people of that area to secure electricity at reasonable rates, it will crash these overcharges and ultimately lift this burden of more than $8,000,000 a year from the shoulders of the struggling electric light and power consumers of Oklahoma...
...One of our greatest weapons is the blessed sunlight of pitiless publicity which we have been turning on their evil practices, their watered stocks, their inflated valuations, their waste, their extravagance, and the exorbitant overcharges they impose upon the helpless consumers of electric light and power...
...There is "balm in: her climate, sublimity in her seen...
...16,432,306...
...Massachusetts, $44,487,091: Minnesota...
...Carl T. Schmidt of Columbia University says...
...amounting to S40.030.420, according to the T. V. A. rates, and $47,-000,000...
...These are the tributes the people of the various states are paying to these utilities, including these vast holding companies, stacked, as I have said, three or four deep upon the top of one subsidiary or operating company, and reaching down through that maze, or network, of corporate entanglements and sucking the economic lifeblood from the ultimate consumers of electric lights* and power, and paying to a few useless officials salaries so large that they were denounced by the president of the United States as "thievery within the law...
...Yet at the same time her coal and mineral resources are being gobbled up...
...her own governor is using, or misusing, the powers of his position to block the development of her hydroelectric power...
...Maine, $6,278,767...
...the people of Illinois, $69,915,257...
...4,427,614...
...To U. S. for Relief Those people have to look to the this Egyptian bondage in which the federal government for relief from utilities are now holding them...
...the navigation of her streams and the control of floods, while the people of that state are paying in overcharges for electric lights and power the enormous sum of $8,494,000 a year, and the average farmer is denied the use of any electricity at all...
...Rhode Island, $7,535,927...
...Oklahoma's Record Nature, with her lavish hand, never, created a domain more bountifully | blest from every standpoint than the j state of Oklahoma...
...4,115,411...
...Kansas, $10,774,695...
...District of Columbia, $3,-025.477...
...the people of Wisconsin paid overcharges during that year amounting to $20,858,-242...
...2,005,452...
...Half of Farmers 'Submerged,' View NEW YORK CITY—Almost half of America's farmers are politically as well as economically "submerged," Dr...
...No wonder they can pay large income taxes out of these exorbitant rates they j are wringing from the helpless : consumers...
...Oklahoma, $11,-452.668...
...we are going to continue the offensive and fight the battle within the enemy's lines...
...It will also increase the consumption of electricity to where the people of Oklahoma can begin to enjoy the real blessings of this electric age...
...Nebraska, $7,099,169...
...The record also shows that during the month of January 1940, the residential consumers of Tupelo...
...West Virginia, $10,117,190...
...according to the Ontario rates...
...Indiana, $24,110,278...
...her oil is being drained out largely j for the benefit of foreign capital...
...Idaho, $3,-497.009...
...Arkansas...
...New Hampshire...
...South Dakota, $3,331,189...
...Pennsylvania...
...Mississippi, $4,-649.439: Montana...
...31,096,962...
...And I might say in passing that the legislature of Oklahoma is no exception in that respect...
...New York, $157,872,433...
...Cicero once said of Cataline that he achieved his greatest victory over him when he succeeded in driving him from secret treachery to open warfare...
...7,274,287...
...her farmers are discouraged and overburdened with taxes, and her unemployed are clamoring for work with which to earn their daily bread...
...New Jersey...
...Florida, $15,496,148: Georgia, $11,026,411...
...S8.904.411...
...Connecticut, $17,605,938: Delaware...
...enough gas is going to waste to generate electricity for a half-dozen such states...
...Cheap rates bring increased consumption, and increased consumption of electricity means brighter homes and better living conditions...
...unprotected consumers of electric, lights and power...
...South Carolina, $5,719,937...
...Texas...
...Virginia...
...The battle Is on...
...Iowa...
...JOHN E. RANKIN (Of Mississippi THE RECORD shows that the people of Michigan paid an overcharge for electric lights and power in 1938...
...according to the T. V. A. rates...
...Wyoming, $2,088,863...
...We might as well strip our gloves off now, because this is going to be a fight to the finish...
...48,077,342...
...Arizona...
...North Carolina, $11,582,712...
...Kentucky...
...Washington, $10,492,265...
Vol. 10 • April 1940 • No. 15
