Excerpts of the President's News Conference

I have very little information about the investigation going on before the Federal Trade Commission relative to the electric power companies. I had some talks something more than a year ago with a Harvard professor, who had two or three articles in magazines relative to the organization of electric power concerns—

PRESS: Professor Ripley, Mr. President?

PRESIDENT: Yes, and from such thought as I gave the subject at that time it seemed that the matter was almost entirely one for state action as distinguished from action by the United States. This investigation by the Trade Commission may perhaps reveal facts that will be helpful to state commissions in administering the powers that have been conferred upon them for the regulation and control of electric companies and the Commission may develop some facts that would call for national legislation, though the facts that they have developed so far that have come to my attention seemed to me pretty much matters for the states, rather than for the Federal Government.