26 Conservation of Natural Resources in California. 



are- not mutually exclusive, and that to obtain the full benefit of what 

 the stream can dp for us we should plan to develop all its uses together. 

 For example, when the National Government builds dams for naviga- 

 tion on streams, it has often disregarded the possible use, for power, 

 of the water that flows over those dams. Engineers say that many 

 hundred thousand horsepower are going to waste over Government dams 

 in this way. Since a fair price for power, where.it is in demand, is 

 from $20 to $80 per horsepower annually, it will be seen that the 

 Government has here, developed, yet lying idle, a resource capable, 

 under the right conditions, of adding enormously to the national wealth. 

 So also in developing the western streams for irrigation, in many places 

 irrigation and power might be made to go hand in hand. 



Danger of Monopoly. 



If the public does not see to it that the control of water power is 

 kept in the hands of the public, we are certain in the near future to 

 find ourselves in the grip of those who will be able to control, with a 

 monopoly absolutely without parallel in the past, the daily life of our 

 people. Let us suppose a man in a western town, in a region without 

 coal, rising on a cold morning, a few years hence, when invention and 

 enterprise have brought to pass the things which we can already foresee 

 as coming in the application of electricity. He turns on the electric 

 light made from water power; his breakfast is cooked on an electric 

 stove heated by the power of the streams; his morning newspaper is 

 printed on a press moved by electricity from the streams; he goes to 

 his office in a trolley car moved by electricity from the same source. 

 The desk upon which he writes his letters, the merchandise which he 

 sells, the crops which he raises, will have been brought to him or will 

 be taken to market from him in a freight car moved by electricity. His 

 wife w r ill run her sewing machine or her churn, and factories will turn 

 their shafts and wheels, by the same power. In every activity of his 

 life that man and his family and his neighbors will have to pay toll to 

 those who have been able to monopolize the great motive power of 

 electricity made from water power, if that monopoly is allowed to 

 become established. Never before in the history of this or any other 

 free country has there existed the possibility of such intimate daily 

 friction between a monopoly and the life of the average citizen. 



It has not yet occurred to many of our people that this great power 

 should be conserved for the use of the public. We have regarded it as 

 a thing to be given away to any man who would take it. We have 

 carried over our point of view derived from the early conditions when 

 it was a godsend to have a man come into the country to develop 

 power, and we were willing to give him anything to induce him to come. 



