BATTLE ALONG THE COLUMBIA
Neuberger, Richard L.
Battle Along The Columbia By RICHARD L. NEUBERGER AS early as 1908 people in the Pacific Northwest began crusading for Federal development of the vast resources of the Columbia River. The crusade...
...Is the nation to leave the future development of this great frontier to political caprice ? Is it to be solely dependent upon the chance that another President will look with favor on Federal investment in dams, powerhouses, pumping stations, and transmission- lines along the broad Columbia ? Or, will Congress establish a permanent, continuing regional board with authority and responsibility to develop all the resources of the Columbia River Valley on a coordinated basis ? * * * THIS issue vitally affects the welfare and destiny of every man, woman and child in the Northwest...
...This, of course, is the attitude of the men and women of the Northwest...
...Its own roots are in the Tennessee Valley, not in Washington...
...The income of the entire country went up 29 per cent, in the Tennessee Valley 39 per cent...
...Lew Wallace of Portland pointed out that the legislature only debated the resolution for a few minutes, whereas it devoted days and weeks to wrangling with the Liquor Commission...
...I am astonished to hear men rise up...
...People are told that because of the difference in acreage, the Pacific Northwest cannot have a regional authority...
...Most of the doubts that attended its creation have already vanished...
...A Columbia Valley Authority would undertake most of these tasks, too...
...Yet despite this whole-hearted approval, from Presidents and editors, from farmers and merchants, still the Northwest hears that the TVA is not suited to another region...
...Is it not one more effort to thwart development of the Columbia River in the interests of all the people ? This fight is far from new...
...Jackson intend explicitly that the valuable personnel of the agencies already in the region shall be absorbed into the Columbia Valley Authority...
...Who inspired the anti-Columbia Valley memorial ? Who was so anxious to hurry it to passage...
...What are the facts...
...And if inter-bureau competition is so worthwhile, why not apply it elsewhere...
...The Army Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bonneville Power Administration—all these agencies and many more besides have done notable work in the Columbia River Valley...
...Northwesterners can succumb to the propaganda now being circulated against CVA...
...Last year the St...
...If the people of the Pacific Northwest are not afraid to let the Federal Government come into their homes and send a son or brother off to the Arctic Circle or to the tropics to fight for his country, then they are willing to let the Federal Government have complete charge of improving and managing the resources of the Columbia River...
...All of us have been hearing the same noise ever since 1933...
...Louis Post-Dispatch, eminent Pulitzer newspaper, asked the governors of the seven states in the Tennessee Valley whether the TVA had threatened states' rights or personal liberties...
...In April of 1937 the then president of the Portland Chamber of Commerce told a Congressional committee that he opposed placing the Bonneville Power Administration in the Department of the Interior...
...Chenery, "has increased prosperity in hundreds of towns and on thousands of farms in seven states...
...The Bu-reau of Reclamation plans and builds irrigation projects...
...it makes possible the establishment of new industries, new towns, and new businesses...
...YET despite this expert testimony of the distinguished governors whose states are in the Tennessee Valley, the Oregon State Legislature passed a resolution condemning a Columbia Valley Authority as a threat to states' rights...
...One would think, to read these slanders, that the TVA was a tyrannical, mysterious Gestapo that destroyed states' rights and enslaved the people of the Tennessee Valley...
...On its course from British Columbia to the sea, the Columbia is one river...
...The Federal Government sent Lewis and Clark to explore the Oregon Country...
...These are "marching orders" for a Columbia Valley Authority...
...The country now has a pattern for sound development of a major American region—the Tennessee Valley Authority—one of the most successful undertakings in the history of the United States' Government...
...But a Columbia Valley Authority would have on its staff both the engineers proposing the Umatilla Dam, and the biologists who fear that the dam will damage the salmon runs...
...It involves the livelihood of thousands of people...
...Quite the contrary is true...
...Down-river communities, near the ocean, which rely heavily on the fishing industry, tend to look on the dam with similar skepticism...
...WHEN it opposes a Columbia Valley Authority, the Portland Chamber of Commerce gives one cause to wonder whether it speaks for the great majority of merchants or for a few private power companies...
...Would you feel confident sending your son or husband off to battle under such circumstances ? Yet that is the way the Columbia River is now developed and managed...
...They can let their soldiers stand in breadlines or sell apples...
...Would such an agency benefit, the Pacific Northwest...
...it drains swamps where malaria has festered...
...At the present time all the Federal agencies associated with the Columbia River must report to Washington for final decisions...
...All basic policy matters must be referred to Washington, D. C. CVA, on the other hand, would have its headquarters right in the Northwest—at Portland, or Seattle, or Wentachee, or wherever else the offiee was located...
...The result is that after 11 years TVA has almost no enemies in its own territory...
...Are these not the same Chambers of Commerce that originally opposed creation of the Bonneville Power Administration in the Department of the Interior...
...millions of dollars in annual income are at stake...
...The Tennessee Valley Authority performs many functions to make life better in that region...
...The Columbia Valley Authority, as proposed by Sen...
...Prentice Cooper of Tennessee, "are enjoying low electric rates which the private companies used to tell us were 'fantastic and impossible.' The rights of this state and its citizens have been enlarged by TVA through enriched opportunities...
...The people of the Northwest have before them the outstanding example of the TVA...
...One of the most respected and experienced labor leaders in Oregon's history heard this criticism—the late Ben T. Osborne, secretary of the Oregon State Federation of Labor...
...An example will demonstrate the value of such coordination...
...OPPONENTS of the Columbia Valley Authority claim that competition among these various agencies is a healthy thing, that no over-all authority is desirable...
...in fear and dread of the Federal Government as though it was a great octopus...
...The Bonneville Power Administration sells that power...
...State Sen...
...The Army Engineers are responsible to the Secretary of War, the Fish and Wildlife Service to the Interior Department...
...The old-line agencies, competent though they were, failed utterly to put over the projects...
...I am a strong believer in states' rights," said Gov...
...The people of the Pacific Northwest will fall in step to this progressive cadence...
...Their engineers and technical men are among the best in the land...
...It generates and sells hydroelectric power...
...During three decades, leading citizens of the Northwest tried to work through such old-line Government agencies as the War Department and the Department of the Interior for the construction of dams at Bonneville and Grand Coulee...
...This is particularly true at a time when the Northwest needs thousands of new jobs to compensate for the war plants which are laying off workers each week...
...they gathered dust in files and drawers...
...I NTELLIGENT men and women in every section of A America realize that the model set by TVA is a pattern for such regions as the Columbia Valley to follow...
...J. Melville Broughton of North Carolna, "but TVA has done nothing which to my mind embodies any threat to the rights of this state...
...Harry S. Truman is a shrewd man...
...The New York Times had this to say recently, "The Tennessee Valley experiment has now reached a stage where it has to be regarded as a pattern for other river-valley developments...
...Can the Chinook salmon runs survive another dam below the mouth of the Snake...
...If TVA has been a good thing for the Tennessee River region, it should be a good thing for every other river region...
...The Fish and Wildlife Service safeguards aquatic life...
...Indeed, those accomplishments would be greatly enhanced...
...Small wonder that Mr...
...Yet the people of the-Pacific Northwest now hear the propaganda that an agency like the TVA would be a bad thing for the Columbia River Valley...
...Are we to throw away so opportune a chance...
...Lest anyone think this is impossible, just consider a recent episode with which westerners are well aoquainted...
...No verdict of importance can be reached on the scene in the Northwest...
...it prevents devastating floods...
...They are claiming that TVA is a failure, thus hoping to discredit the Columbia Valley Authority...
...T. Osborne...
...The CVA would study all the evidence on both sides and then reach a decision on the basis of cold, hard facts...
...The Army Engineers get their orders from the Secretary of War, the Bonneville Administration from the Secretary of the Interior—and the Interior Department is one of the most highly centralized of all Government agencies...
...Sen...
...If this region of ours is to be developed to the greatest good of all the people here, there must be some authority and that authority must be the Federal government...
...Will they discard that example in favor of regional anarchy, or will they coordinate the development of the great natural resources of the Columbia Valley in a single, integrated agency...
...After the Chamber of Commerce was all through, Ben T. Osborne got up...
...David Lilienthal, hard-hitting chairman of the TVA, advised them on their legislation, which would set up a regional authority in the Pacific Northwest patterned directly after the TVA...
...It reaches far back...
...Today, the Army Engineers want to build a new dam at Umatilla Landing on the Columbia...
...But the Fish and Wildlife Service is not so sure of the value of the proposal...
...When he established the TVA, President Roosevelt said, "If we are successful here, we can march on, step by step, in a like development of other great natural territory units within our borders...
...Up-river communities are in favor of the project...
...And shortly before his death, the President announced that the time had come to "march on" in other valleys by the creation of authorities similar to the TVA...
...The valleys of America await their full development...
...The future is still to be decided...
...He claimed that this would "mean divided authority and responsibility...
...The proposal for TVA's in every important watershed of the country," said the Journal, "has a certain logical foundation...
...They know it will provide cheap navigation far into the Inland Empire...
...The Army Engineers generate power...
...They also can demonstrate vision and insist upon the passage of the Mitchell-Jackson Bill for a Columbia Valley Authority...
...It is supported by Chambers of Commerce, by labor organizations, by farmers' organizations, and by men of widely differing political views/' One can only wish that Chambers of Commerce in the Pacific Northwest would show the vision demonstrated by these Chambers of Commerce in the Tennessee Valley...
...The report also praises the success of the Bonneville Administration, the same Bonneville Administration which the Chamber of Commerce feared in 1937 to place within the Department of the Interior...
...It would not lose the forest for the trees...
...The propaganda now being circulated today' against CVA misleadingly claims that a Columbia Valley Authority would be Federal "tyranny...
...The TVA touches seven states, including in its area 81,000 square miles and 5,000,000 people...
...Henry M. (Scoop) Jackson...
...In the Pacific Northwest, however, many Chambers of Commerce and private power companies are trying to revive those doubts...
...The crusade was persistent and determined, but nothing happened for nearly 30 years—not until a President entered the White House who had pledged himself to the systematic and orderly improvement of America's great river valleys...
...Yet there is no central point for coordinating the diametrically opposite views...
...One would think that our Federal Government was an enemy lurking outside the gates...
...A pair of progressive Congressional figures from the state of Washington has taken advantage of that pattern...
...This is a vital issue...
...In addition, it would develop and reclaim such potentially fertile areas as the Columbia Basin irrigation project in the state of Washington...
...Have not identical accusations been made against every policy adopted by the New Deal Administration ? Were charges of "tyranny" not leveled against the Wagner Act, against old-age pensions, against the Farm Security Administration, against the Securities and Exchange Commission, against all the progressive laws which are now an accepted part of our national life ? * * * THE attacks against CVA speak alarmingly of "Federal domination...
...The answer is yes, most emphatically yes...
...People throughout the Tennessee Valley," said Gov...
...The name of this President was Franklin D. Roosevelt...
...They would be responsible to the President and Congress...
...What about the TVA...
...Yet a whole galaxy of Government agencies has to do with its management...
...This is nonsense, of course...
...it distributes fertilizer and restores exhausted soil...
...This rivalry among bureaus, far from being beneficial, is one of the reasons that the Pacific Northwest had to stifle its ambitions and wait 30 years for Franklin D. Roosevelt to come along and begin construction of dams on the Columbia...
...Mitchell and Rep...
...Furthermore, they know that those who talk of "states' rigbts" never talk of "states' responsibilities...
...In 1935, exactly a decade ago this fall, the Portland Chamber of Commerce appeared before the Pacific Northwest Regional Planning Commission and condemned plans for a Columbia Valley Authority...
...They have just introduced, with the support of President Truman, a bill establishing a Columbia Valley Authority...
...The time has come—now that materials and manpower are more plentiful—to press forward...
...He knows a useful institution when he sees it...
...During the immediate pre-war years, retail sales for the whole country climbed 54 per cent, in the Tennessee Valley 67 per cent...
...Countless reports were written...
...Chenery heard this praise of the TVA from business men...
...The future of the Pacific Northwest was close to the heart of Ben...
...He knew that the welfare of the 75,000 Oregon wage-earners whom he led would be well served by a Columbia Valley Authority...
...When a regiment goes to war, let one Government department supply the rations, let another provide the weapons, let still a third check up on the security precautions, have a fourth issue the proper clothing and bedding...
...10, 1945, the President of the United States said: "By all except a small minority, the TVA is now regarded as a great American accomplishment, of which all of as are proud...
...The authors of the measure are 38-year-old Sen...
...How has business fared in the TVA...
...A few years ago the old U. S. Biological Survey was consolidated into the Fish and Wildlife Service, along with many other agencies...
...Their contributions have been outstanding...
...And it would decide each specific step with an eye on the entire long-range program...
...In 1935 the late Ben T. Osborne told the foes of a Columbia Valley Authority, "This Federal Government of ours has furnished the very life's blood that has kept the nation alive in the last two or three years, and I still have a lot of confidence in it...
...Mitchell and Rep...
...They know that the Federal Government built Bonneville and Grand Coulee...
...Even the Wall Street Journal, organ of business, can set them right on the subject...
...Now, this same Portland Chamber of Commerce is circulating a report which condemns CVA because it would allegedly eliminate this very divided responsibility and "centralize power...
...There hasn't been an argument that hasn't convinced me of the desirability of the type of organization similar to that of the Tennessee Valley...
...Chenery of Collier's was told by merchants, bankers and real-estate men that the TVA had boomed business throughout the entire valley...
...Wages for the whole country increased 46 per cent, in the Tennessee Valley 56 per cent...
...These facts are important to remember...
...William L. Chenery, publisher of Collier's Magazine, one of the nation's foremost periodicals, visited the TVA this year...
...Jackson, would also touch seven states, taking in 279,000 square miles and 3,500,000 people...
...The accomplishments of these agencies would not end with the establishment of a Columbia Valley Authority...
...Ever since a regional authority was first proposed for the Columbia Valley, a campaign of misrepresentation has been carried on against the TVA...
...it encourages the use of electrical appliances...
...They are liberals and New Dealers...
...They can let the money which would finance CVA be spent in some other region...
...Some of these agencies report to the Secretary of War, others to the Secretary of the Interior...
...There is no coordination point...
...But not an ounce of concrete was poured, not a single rivet hammered home...
...it improves navigation...
...The New York Times stated in January: "TVA has shown that Government itself can be decentralized...
...On Oct...
...I am stronger now for a Columbia Valley Authority than when I came here," he said...
...These governors included Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, New Dealers and anti-New Dealers...
...President Franklin D. Roosevelt, four times chosen by the voters of all the states in the Pacific Northwest as the leader of the nation, knew the right answer...
...They know that a regional authority is the one sure way to continue development of the Columbia Valley...
...Have the Chambers of Commerce in the Northwest any consistent policy or are they merely interested in opposing, step by step, the full development of the resources of the Columbia River Valley in the interests of all the people ? * * * CHARGES of "tyranny," "centralized control," and "super-bureaucracy" are being hurled against CVA...
...We will not listen to the whispers of the timid, that dreams like those of the Tennessee Valley are impossible to accomplish...
...These charges have a familiar sound...
...The Tennessee Valley Authority," concluded Mr...
...What did he find out...
...Yet, without exception, they agreed that the TVA, far from endangering state's rights, had actually strengthened and helped the states of the Tennessee Valley...
...He discovered that TVA had saved soil, improved public health, eut light rates, helped business, and reduced farm indebtedness...
...Such illustrious and nationally known Northwestern biologists as Stanley Jewett and Albert W. Moore, formerly with the Biological Survey, now continue their eminent work in the Fish and Wildlife Service...
...The three directors of CVA could make a decision at Portland or Wenatchee, without having to report to any cabinet officer...
...Have the so-called "states' rights" advocates ever generated a kilowatt of power or installed a single pumping station on the Columbia River...
...CVA will make worthwhile use of the talents and skill of these men...
...No cabinet officer would stand between CVA and these elected representatives of the people...
...Hugh B. Mitchell and 33-year-old Rep...
...You know as welt as I do what that means toward efficiency...
Vol. 9 • December 1945 • No. 48
