MINERAL ORES AND WATER POWER 



a failure to employ the primary asset of the TVA most 

 effectively towards the ends sought. 



The TVA was to provide a yardstick to measure the 

 rates charged for electrical power by the privately 

 owned public utility companies. Interpreted literally, 

 as we, the people, supposed it to be, this yardstick was 

 expected to check not only the comparative operating 

 efficiencies of public and private enterprise, but also 

 their respective public service in the social meaning 

 of those words. This yardstick idea and the promise that 

 this ambitious project would be self-liquidating were 

 the most pressed arguments for the establishment of 

 this enormous publicly owned public utility. They 

 made a strong appeal to many who instinctively disliked 

 or mistrusted this major invasion of the field of private 

 enterprise by the Government. It certainly influenced 

 many of the votes in Congress, possibly sufficient votes 

 to have secured passage of the bill. 



That this yardstick has proved to be useless surprises 

 nobody who had considered this proposal at all real- 

 istically. But it is most disappointing to many who are 

 deeply interested in the economic good health of the 

 South that the TVA bookkeeping is so obscure and its 

 activities have become so diversified that it has made 

 no constructive "contribution to power economics and 

 has so far been little help to forward industrial planning. 



The expectation of more practical results may have 

 been incorrigible wishful thinking. However, it was 



221 



