PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO RUNNING WATER 



By HARRISON WILLIAMS, Spokane, Wash. 



IT IS quite safe to assume that, in the 

 absence of any Government inter- 

 position or restriction, combinations 

 of capital would monopolize the greater 

 water-powers of the country, especially 

 the enormous unimproved water- 

 powers on the public domain ; and those 

 properties would, as a rule, be capi- 

 talized as high as steam-power com- 

 petition admits. How and to what ex- 

 tent would the people, considered as a 

 political and social unit, be affected by 

 such monopoly control, and its incident 

 capitalization? That is the question of 

 the hour. 



Examination of a large amount of 

 available data will, I believe, establish 

 an average ratio of the cost of steam- 

 power to that of water-power at not 

 less than three to one. Assuming that 

 ratio ; to capitalize as above would be 

 to capitalize at three times as much as 

 the actual investment; so it will be seen 

 that two-thirds of such capitalization 

 would consist of something which is 

 not investment. This something is 

 simply the usufruct of running water ; 

 nothing else is discernible in it. But 

 running water is Nature's gift, wholly 

 apart from anything that man has done, 

 and of such a nature that it cannot be 

 set apart as property (proper to a per- 

 son), nor can its usufruct rightfully 

 be capitalized by individuals or cor- 

 porations for profit. 



This usufruct element is the people's 

 rightful, equitable interest in running 

 water when used for power. It would 

 seem to be a self-evident proposition 

 that only the earnings of capital should 

 inure to capital and that the benefits 

 of Nature's endowments should inure 

 to the community, the people as a social 

 unit ; inure in the way of cheap motive 

 power, cheap electricity, and in kin- 

 dred wavs, not in the way of a revenue 



t<> replenish the national treasury- 

 regarded with alarm by the reactionists : 

 though even that were incomparably 

 better than that it should materialize 

 in swollen fortunes. 



Water-power trusts having the benefit 

 of two dollars of Nature's gift to one 

 of their own contributions, and in a 

 field so vast as a water-power monopoly 

 would provide, would inevitably beget 

 swollen fortunes exceeding that mon- 

 strous progeny of Standard ( )il. 



To get a good perspective of the mag- 

 nitude of the people's stake in this 

 problem, let us consider a single stream. 

 The Pend Oreille River, in the pan- 

 handle of Idaho and northeastern Wash- 

 ington, has a potential capacity which 

 could not be duplicated by steam-power 

 for less than $35,000,000 a year, in sup- 

 port of which allegation I submit the 

 following data : 



Water-supply and Irrigation Paper 

 Xo. 135, United States Geological Sur- 

 vey, gives the average rate of discharge 

 of that stream for the year 1904 at 

 28,130 second-feet. But that is not all 

 "commercially" available for power, as 

 there is not available reservoir capacity 

 to hold back but a small part of the 

 water of the freshet season ; and it is 

 not practicable to equip for a stage be- 

 yond that which can be maintained for 

 a considerable portion of the twelve 

 months. To illustrate : The maximum 

 rate of flow in May, 1004, was 92,000 

 second-feet, and the average for the 

 month was 74,540 second-feet. For 

 June, the rates were 93,000 and 85.040 

 second-feet, respectively, while the av- 

 erage for the seven lowest-water 

 months was but 10,756 second-feet. 



Calculations based upon the best ob- 

 tainable data show a reservoir capacity 

 which will give an average rate of 

 7.600 second-feet during the above 



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