F.D.R., AN OLD REGULATION MAN
McMillin, Miles
F. D. R., An Old Regulation Man By MILES McMILLIN LIBERALS in the nation's capital are currently watching a new development there for a clue to President Roosevelt's present attitude toward...
...Some liberals, impressed with such magnificent achievements as TV A, Bonneville, Grand Coulee, and REA, mistakenly argue that one who has been so devoted a champion of public power as Roosevelt is not likely to change his position...
...The regulatory commissions such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Power Commission are hamstrung by interminable delaying actions in the courts...
...This fight against Government projects is just beginning...
...It is in his naivete concerning the effectiveness of regulation that he differs with such confirmed champions of public power as George Norris...
...Norris, who has done some of the most penetrating thinking of any person in public life on this subject and who recognizes the vital necessity of public ownership, puts it this way: "Electricity can't be stored...
...Perhaps if such a monopoly were privately owned it might be operated for a time by public-spirited men...
...Hence there is considerable interest in the high pressure campaign to ditch Gregory Hankin, the only public-minded member of the Public Utilities Commission in the District of Columbia...
...The vast difference in the thinking of these two men on this problem is obvious...
...Speaking in Portland, Oreg., in 1932 he expressed his theories and program as follows: "I do not hold with those who advocate government ownership or government operation of all utilities...
...Many of them think that along with his abandonment of the progressive ideas of the early New Deal days he has turned his back on the fight against the power trust...
...I state to you categorically that as a broad general rule the development of utilities should remain, with certain exceptions, a function for private initiative and private capital...
...Insiders in Washington are predicting that lily liberals and plain, old fashioned reactionaries who hold the keys to the White House will prevail on Roosevelt to appoint a commissioner in Hankin's place who will be more acceptable to officials of the North American Company, the huge, scandal-ridden holding company whose subsidiary serves the District...
...Meanwhile, the President's cherished "yardsticks," such as TV A, despite their very successful records, are being subjected to a vicious campaign of lies and slander from the utilities...
...If it isn't used as soon as it is produced it is lost forever...
...The utter failure of the President's superficial approach is even more obvious...
...And it will continue until either a complete program of public ownership goes into effect or the power trust has taken over those great developments which now belong to the people...
...But it is human nature to get the most it can out of such a situation...
...The result is that some kind of monopoly is necessary to get the most out of it—a gigantic monopoly, bigger than any we've ever known...
...Even in the early '30s, when the nation, outraged at the economic havoc wrought by the graft and corruption of the power trust, was more public ownership-minded than ever before, Roosevelt was remarkably cool toward the Idea...
...F. D. R., An Old Regulation Man By MILES McMILLIN LIBERALS in the nation's capital are currently watching a new development there for a clue to President Roosevelt's present attitude toward utilities...
...Today the power trust is as great a menace as it ever was...
...There have been no clear cut tests in recent months to indicate in which direction the White House winds are blowing on this issue...
...Meanwhile, as the fight grows in intensity, even the staunch Roosevel-tians are, doubting whether the President still clings to his old views—anemic and superficial as they were or are...
...Eventually it would come to tyranny...
...And I can't think of a free people permanently submitting to the private monopoly of a necessity of life...
...The fact is, and with all due tredit to him for early contributions ef Ihe New Deal in this field, that the President has never been convinced of the need of public ownership of utilities...
...Judson King, one of the nation's outstanding authorities on the utility problem, sums up Roosevelt's position this way: "Roosevelt holds the competitive force of public plants to be the most effective regulator of private rates...
Vol. 8 • June 1944 • No. 25
