Message to the Convention of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association on Federal Power Policy.

I AM TAKING this opportunity to send you a special message about our Federal power policy, because of the extraordinary importance of that subject to you. Right now, there is a terrific fight raging over our Federal power policy--and the rural electric cooperatives have a very large stake in that fight.

Last September, speaking in San Francisco, I said something about our power policy.

I said then, and I say now, that I don't believe in Government for special privilege. Our resources should be used for the benefit of all the people, not just a few.

I said then, and I say now, that when electric power is produced with the people's money it ought to be used for the benefit of the people and not for the benefit of the private power companies.

Those are the principles on which the Federal Government has been operating. But the private power lobby never has agreed with those principles and it doesn't agree with them now. That is what is back of the attacks on our Federal power policy today.

The power policy which has been followed by the Federal Government in recent years is strongly supported by people who put the needs of conservation and the public interest first. That policy is entirely in accord with the American tradition.

It provides for multiple purpose river basin programs, including the development of hydroelectric power, and it assures widespread use of this power by preventing private companies from monopolizing it.

Pioneering in a field which the private power companies had willfully neglected, the Federal power policy actively encourages the growth of rural electric cooperatives so that rural families may have the advantage of electric service at reasonable rates.

This policy recognizes the long-established right of each American community, rural or urban, to undertake its own electric service on a cooperative or municipal basis, or to permit a private agency to perform that service under public regulation.

It assures communities that choose to provide their own electric service that they will not have to pay toll to private power companies for their supplies of power developed from public waters by public investment in river-basin programs. To this end our power policy gives a preference to rural electric cooperatives as well as to States, municipalities and other public bodies, and provides for transmission of the power by the most economic means to the points of wholesale delivery.

Now, these things are the heart of our Federal power policy. And anyone who is not blinded by prejudice can see that it is a perfectly simple, commonsense policy for increasing the strength of our country and the welfare of our people.

In bringing concrete benefits to the people, and in demonstrating to the whole world what American democratic methods can accomplish, the results of this power policy have been tremendous. Beginning with the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1933, it has provided a terrific stimulus to the entire electric power business of the country, public and private.

Residential rates for electric service have gone down, making possible about a threefold increase since 1933 in the average home use of electricity.

The number of electrified farms has increased six times over. We are rapidly approaching the time when virtually 100 percent rural electrification will be attained, at rates permitting constantly expanding use for all farm purposes.

Corresponding increases in the use of electric power per industrial worker have contributed to the phenomenal output of American industry.

Federal waterpower development has demonstrated that ample supplies of low cost energy lead the way to great industrial growth in regions which were formerly largely dependent upon raw material production.

The private power industry meanwhile, far from being hurt by this program, has expanded its capacity, its output, its revenues, and its profits, far beyond anything achieved in its previous history.

This Federal power program has created billions of dollars of new wealth by productive, self-liquidating investment, which has, in turn, created new industries and new jobs. It has thus broadened the base for State and local as well as Federal taxation.

It has produced constantly expanding demands upon the electrical equipment industry for turbines, generators, and other electric system equipment; for electric motors and other facilities for industry; for the many electrical devices and appliances which have become essential to our urban and farm homes and to our agricultural production.

Beyond this, it has made possible the development and expansion of new metallurgical and chemical industries, which have greatly increased the range of resources available to serve our people.

In short, the stimulating effect of this power policy on our entire economy has vastly increased the strength of the Nation, both in its domestic affairs and in its world position.

But in the face of this record of accomplishment, the forces of private monopoly are today attacking this policy on many fronts, behind one of the most vicious propaganda barrages in history.

Until recently, the power industry's propaganda campaign was largely aimed at the valley authority idea and at the yardstick concept in public power operations. The industry undertook to present figures, statistics, and what-not to show that Government ventures in the power field were inefficient and wasteful.

Then, suddenly, this propaganda line changed. It is easy to see why it changed. It wasn't convincing anybody, because it wasn't true. Millions of people including the members of rural electric cooperatives, could see by their own electricity bills that public power operations could be at least as efficient as private operations. The people were convinced, by concrete results, of the value of the Federal power program, and their representatives in Congress--who had learned at the polls how the people felt--repeatedly voted down every attack on that program.

So the private power interests shifted to a new line of propaganda. They raised the cry of socialism--apparently on the theory that if you can't persuade people, maybe you can frighten them; if you haven't got the facts, try a few "scare" words.

You can hardly pick up a newspaper or a magazine these days without seeing an expensive full-page advertisement denouncing the socialism of our public power program. Incidentally, the cost of these ads is mostly paid for by the taxpayers, because the costs of such advertising are deductible for income tax purposes. It looks to me as though that advertising campaign itself is pretty close to socialism, because the taxpayers finance so much of the cost.

I want to say right here that this propaganda campaign is one of the most cynical and dangerous developments in many years.

It is cynical because it assumes the people of this country cannot be trusted to decide on the basis of facts what is best for their own welfare. It assumes that the way to get things decided in a democracy is through big, expensive advertising campaigns in magazines and newspapers, and a big, expensive lobby in Washington.

This propaganda campaign is dangerous because it undermines faith in the free enterprise system itself.

People in this country are intelligent. They know what is good for them. They know that all the 'people ought to have a fair chance at the benefits of our great natural resources, and they know that these benefits ought not to be monopolized by powerful private interests.

If the people ever come to be persuaded that the free enterprise system means they have to pay tribute to private companies in order to enjoy the great natural resources that belong to all of us, then they are going to begin to be doubtful about the free enterprise system itself. That is not what the free enterprise system means to me. But it seems to be what it means to the crowd that is back of this vicious propaganda campaign.

It looks like these people are actually willing, in order to restore the privileges they had before 1933, to help destroy the very house in which they are living.

I firmly believe that this propaganda campaign is bound to backfire in the end. But in the meantime, we have a hard, tough fight on our hands, against a concerted, nationwide drive to reverse a Federal power policy which has its roots in the very beginnings of the conservation movement under President Theodore Roosevelt nearly half a century ago--a policy which has been strengthened and reaffirmed by the Congress of the United States time and time again in the last 20 years. This drive has the main purpose of restoring the unlimited right of 'private monopoly to exploit this Nation's water power resources.

You can see examples all around the country. The forces of reaction want to monopolize St. Lawrence power at the bus bar, and even take over Niagara falls itself for private development. They are trying to block the rural electric cooperatives in Missouri from tying together steam and hydro plants that will result in more power at lower cost. They are trying to grab the Hell's Canyon reservoir site on the Snake River--where public development would produce 600,000 more kilowatts than private development. They are trying to prevent public bodies in the State of Washington, acting under laws supported time after time by the voters of that State, from buying power facilities that private companies are willing and eager to sell.

The same campaign is being waged by the forces of reaction clear across the country. And we have to fight it every step of the way, just as we have had to fight for every gain made for the public interest in the last 20 years.

For my part, I am determined to do everything I can to see that the policy of conserving and developing our priceless water power resources for the public benefit shall go forward. I am sure that the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association will work hard for the same result. The country needs the continued help of your organization, which has done so much to make our power program effective.

We have a good program. We can be proud of it, for it has met the test. With the support of the rural electric cooperatives, and other great progressive organizations, we will continue to advance until the right of every American to enjoy the full benefits of the age of electric power has been assured.