CITY STANDS IN DARKNESS NEAR HUGE U. S. DAM
CITY STANDS IN DARKNESS NEAR HUGE U. S. DAM i I v of Muscle Shoals Still Goes to Bed by Light of Kerosene Lamps I Special to The Progressive) MI.SCLF, SHOALS CITY, Ala.— Standing beside one...
...These men came to this region visualizing a city of 100.000 or more built around the great power and nitrate plants...
...They have been opposed to the sale of the plants to the Alabama Power Company, The Cyanamid Company, or other private interests because they believe government ownership and operation of the nitrate plants and the hydro-electric plant would mean cheap fertilizer and raw material and cheap electric power for the development of the surrounding territory...
...With the completion of the plants they believed the prosperity and development they had worked and wailed for was to begin...
...Florence, and other towns in the locality have always preferred government ownership...
...They cannot understand how congress can knowingly allow the great hydro-plant costing millions and the $81,000,000 to lie in idleness...
...The people of Muscle Shoals City, Sheffield...
...Many of them blame the big private utilities and other interests opposed to government ownership for the situation...
...Instead, the great plants remained idle...
...The private utility's franchise expires soon, and so far the city has refused to renew it...
...Apparently these people who are struggling to hold 011 in these little towns where they have sunk their all have ample reason to believe in the industrial future of the locality...
...Stagnation gripped the towns of the region while Congress squabbled over the question of selling or operating Muscle Shoals, and utility Interests sent their lobbyists to Washington...
...They know that if a big private utility succeeds In getting the plants, that the cost of electric power will be high and most of It will be transmitted to industrial districts far away...
...Natural resources abound, with a wealth of such raw materials such as coal, iron, cotton, bauxite from which aluminum is made, timber, cotton, and raw chemicals...
...Instead, congress has done nothing, and the recent session adjourned without taking any actiou...
...CITY STANDS IN DARKNESS NEAR HUGE U. S. DAM i I v of Muscle Shoals Still Goes to Bed by Light of Kerosene Lamps I Special to The Progressive) MI.SCLF, SHOALS CITY, Ala.— Standing beside one of the largest hydro-electric developments in the world, this little city goes to bed every night in dejection and despair by the light of kerosene lamps...
...The government refused to sell, and today the plant still stands idle...
...For the past 12 years the group of citizens who have invested their every dollar In Muscle Shoals City have waited in vain for congress to say the word that would start the big dynamos humming'at the now completed $51,000,000 Muscle Shoals power plant, and make this region the Industrial center of their dreams...
...Adjoining Muscle Shoals City U the town of Sheffield which has had to buy its electric power from the Alabama Power Company...
...At one time, too, Muscle Shoals City tried to buy at a good price the government's idle water works there...
...Meanwhile, the great power plant is virtually idle with Muscle Shoals City without light or power and adjoining towns buying electricity from a big private utility...
...Bitterly, many of them gave up the struggle against starvation and moved out...
...The people of the locality are bitter toward the federal government...
...It has tried to buy surplus power from the government, but has always been refused this right...
Vol. 1 • August 1930 • No. 36
