HETCH HETCHY ISN'T THROAT RASPING
McMillin, Miles
Public Power News Hetch Hetchy Isn't Throat Rasping By MILES McMILLIN HETCH HETCHY is an intriguing name that frequently bobs into the news. Usually it's in connection with Secretary of the...
...The city's Public Utilities Commission has estimated that acquisition of the P. G. and E. distribution system would add another $2,000,000 a year to the city income, but in campaign after campaign the voters have turned down the acquisition proposal...
...The power rights were turned over to the city of San Francisco on the condition that the city sell none of the power yield to private distributors...
...He specifically cited San Francisco as one of the cities where this fund was used to swing the election against acquisition...
...Ickes Kicks Up A Fuss North American has also been named in the civil suit brought against its officials by Frank Boehm, former vice president of the Union Electric Company, who alleges that he took the rap for his superiors in that mess...
...In a letter to Mayor Roger D. Lapham, Ickes bluntly charged that the utility is the chief source of opposition to the city's complying with the law...
...In other words, if you can imagine anything so ridiculous, the city of San Francisco generates its own electricity, sells it to the Pacific Gas and Electric for distribution to the citizens of San Francisco...
...In 1944 this neat little arrangement was worth $152,091,000 in gross income to the P. G. and E. San Francisco has invested about $100,000,000 in the development of its power rights at Hetch Hetchy...
...I hope that under your leadership," Ickes said, "we will not, this time, have to waste time, energy, and newsprint in the fruitless pastime of beating the devil around the P. G. and E. bush...
...A recent court decision ruling the P. G. and E. arrangement illegal gives San Francisco until July 1 to do something about complying with the Federal law...
...Lately Ickes, whose department has jurisdiction over Hetch Hetchy and whose supply of patience where the power trust is concerned has never been inexhaustible, has been kicking up a fuss...
...MayoiTapham thinks he has a solution that is "technically legal...
...One of the charges in Boehm's complaint is that North American used a $5,000,000 kitty to bribe public officials and to defeat referendums for municipal ownership...
...The shortage of electric power in the first World War put that restriction on ice where it has remained ever since...
...Louis...
...In a few weeks they may find it as much a topic of discussion in the Golden Gate city as is the United Nations' conference...
...North American was involved, you will remember, in the notorious Union Electric case in St...
...The case is still gathering dust in the Department of Justice...
...San Francisco is going to have to make up its mind whether it will continue to allow the privilege it enjoys at Hetch Hetchy to be exploited by the power trust...
...Perhaps there is a reason for this...
...Bad And Illegal Business The power has been sold in late years to the Pacific Gas and Electric Company for distribution...
...Hetch Hetchy is a water power development opened up in the High Sierras by the Federal Government in 1913...
...But to the people of San Francisco Hetch Hetchy is more than some throat rasping...
...P. G. and E. is a subsidiary of the giant North American holding company, famed in song and legend as one of the most scandal-ridden utility systems in the country...
...Usually it's in connection with Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes' blasts at the power trust and is no doubt taken by many readers as an onomatopoetic effort to put the sound of the "Old Curmudgeon's" voice down in print...
...Investigation of that case by the Securities and Exchange Commission resulted in a recommendation that North American and its officials be prosecuted for the bribery and corruption that attended the Union Electric scandals...
...It gets about $2,000,000 a year from P. G. and E. This is not only bad business, but it is illegal business as well, for the city has been coasting along all these years in violation of the terms under which it holds its rights from the Federal Government...
...There have been any number of attempts to remedy the situation by some of Frisco's more progressive elements...
...He intends to present it to the Department of Interior before July 1. Ickes, however, has given every indication that it's time for a showdown with P. G. and E. and will no doubt do a lot of thrashing around until San Francisco decides to municipalize the distribution system...
Vol. 9 • May 1945 • No. 21
