18 Main Lines of Thought and Action 



of tideland oil to the states and by them to a more rapid private ex- 

 ploitation. 



By 1947 it became all too clear that the Communist world was 

 enemy and not ally. By 1950 the cold war flared into actual combat in 

 Korea. Henceforth considerations of national defense were to influ- 

 ence, if not dominate, much of legislative and administrative policy. 

 In this setting the Paley Commission produced its restrained, states- 

 manlike report on materials policy. It provided the best factual, scien- 

 tific base yet for holding the scales between exhaustion and discovery 

 of strategic vital materials and sources of energy. 



Conservation as a movement and as a policy was reaching maturity. 

 Intensive management, multiple use, foresight were coming into their 

 own. The mood was obvious on many fronts. 



In the whole area of water resource development, while public vs. 

 private power remained a sharp political issue, the operative differ- 

 ences were narrowing. Whether by the aid of Madison Avenue or by 

 a sharpened conscience or both, the private power group now ac- 

 cepted the premise that its tenure must be justified in terms of the 

 pubHc interest. On the other hand, public projects were required in 

 Congress to justify themselves through an appropriate cost-benefit 

 ratio, else appropriations (if not authorizations) would not be forth- 

 coming. If "pubHc relations" occasionally glossed over sharp practice 

 on the part of the utilities, so too did legerdemain in bookkeeping and 

 estimates from time to time induce Congress to accommodate local 

 desires for construction, flood control, cheap power, or irrigation. Yet 

 private and public alike accepted the requirement that what they did 

 or wanted must be justified in terms of a fairly concrete national in- 

 terest. As experience sharpens the tools of analysis, we may at least 

 hope for greater conformity to public norms. Although water develop- 

 ments, particularly for municipal and industrial consumptive uses, 

 will continue to rise, probably opportunities for the economically jus- 

 tified large-scale public hydroelectric power projects have about run 

 out with those already authorized. The Columbia may be an excep- 

 tion. The battle ground of public vs. private power has shifted to 

 atomic energy. Attacks by private interests on demonstrably success- 

 ful public programs, such as rural electrification, have been virtually 

 stillborn. A poUcy of "containment" on both the public and private 



