Strangely taking its inception on the field of battle, this great international organization of the Red Cross for the conservation of human life was born, has passed from infancy into a strong and noble maturity ever ready to protect and preserve human life, for which the Conservation of all material things has its reason and its purpose. (Applause)
Chairman Condra—We shall now have the privilege of hearing the Commissioner of Corporations, called to that responsible duty by President Roosevelt, and continued in his responsibilities by President Taft, Honorable Herbert Knox Smith, whom I have great pleasure in introducing (applause).
Commissioner Smith—Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: My text is that superb word "power"; and it has no more appropriate place for enunciation than this center of gravity of imperial power, the Mississippi valley.
In our complex civilization there are many things that are necessaries of life. Control over any of them represents a power that is essentially governmental. This is plainly true of basic necessaries like food, clothing, transportation, heat, and light; it is true also of the natural resources that are back of these. It is no less true of the mechanical power that produces and delivers them. Private control of any one of these, unrestrained either by business competition or by governmental authority, means that irresponsible individuals hold a command over the daily life and welfare of the citizen which the men of our race have never willingly granted to any except their own representatives chosen by them.
For us of our generation, mechanical power is a basic necessary. Our daily existence is borne on its current, and our power demand steadily increases. Our chief present sources of power supply—coal, petroleum, and natural gas—although at present ample, are absolutely fixed in quantity and cannot be replaced. Water-power is the one important source of mechanical power now practically available which is self-renewing. Its importance, therefore, to our present vision, must steadily increase.
Effective restraint, imposed by competition on its control, is becoming more and more improbable. There has been a marked concentration of water-power control in private hands, and this process is advancing rapidly. Public regulation of water-power, the only other alternative, therefore, becomes a necessity.
Electric transmission has worked this change within the last decade. As now commercially practicable, such transmission allows a given water-power to reach a market area of at least 80,000 square miles. It has raised water-power from purely local work, and made it the vital energy for great communities and distant enterprises. It has brought our water-power resources suddenly within the sweep of great economic forces.