of us, Brother Dondero, myself and all of the other lawyers believe that people have a right to establish their own institutions, I doubt if there can be any quarrel with the fundamental thesis that if the people of a district want to go into the power business, no possible principle can rise which denies them that right. If they cannot have public power, or any other kind of power that they want, then you would deny to the people a fundamental thing secured to them by centuries of bloodshed and strife to enthrone democracy. If the people of the States of Oregon and Washington want public power, what possible argument remains to refute that right.

Mr. DONDERO. That is exactly the argument that I have been making, that from this record the majority of the people in both States have not yet shown that they want it. It may be that they have as to area, but not as to number-unless this is a false record.

Senator BONE. I am sure that my friend from Michigan did not read my statement. I will use what I think is a very apt illustration

Mr. DONDERO. I always pay close attention to what the Senator from Washington states.

Senator BONE. I suspect that you have had your moments of weakness and looked at a boxing match

Mr. DONDERO. The Republicans rarely have the money to go to them.

Senator BONE. I am able to borrow it once in a while. Every champion has a very active contender, and when they meet, the judges pile points up for or against one or the other, and it happens in this particular instance that the "champion" out there is the private power group and the contender the people.

Well, the champion has piled up a lot of points, but they have had return engagements, and by the time they had the third engagement, the champion had piled up so many points that he had 251,000 points, we will say, and the contender had 200,000 points.

But in about the thirteenth round of the third fight, the contender landed one on the right spot, and the champion was carried out on a shutter.

According to the number of points accumulated in these respective engagements which have been going on over a period of years out there, unquestionably the champion piled up a good record, but he was finally carried out on a shutter in the State of Washington.

As long as men engage in boxing and have return engagements, such things will happen, even to the best of champions, and if the theory behind those votes concerning which Congressman Jones inquired was true, then we do not even have a Democratic administration, for I can go back over 20 years and prove by numbers of votes that there is not a Democratic administration here. There have been cases where the majority of votes failed to go to a President, but we had a President even by minority vote. Lincoln was such a President.

Mr. DONDERO. Are these records which I have here true or false?

Senator BONE. The truth is, Congressman, that out of 39 counties. of the State, 30 of them have now voted to take over these systems. That is a grim fact.

Mr. DONDERO. But that is in the State of Washington.

Senator BONE. That is in the State of Washington. If the folks in Oregon are in the preliminary stages of this kind of fight, due to different local conditions existing, and if the result of the first fight necessitates a second, or a third, the champion there may also find after a while that the points that he accumulated are of no avail after he is knocked out.

That is a very accurate application of the idea that I want to emphasize.

Mr. DONDERO. The contender has asked the assistance of the Federal Government, to sit in his corner.

Senator BONE. If your theory is true, none of us from Washington would be today sitting around this table, for men have been defeated and elected on this fundamental issue of private or public power. To say that the people could not have public power when they wanted it would be a flagrant violation of the Constitution and make a hollow mockery of the death of every man who died for popular government.

Mr. DONDERO. Nobody here has said that.

Senator BONE. You referred emphatically to the question of whether or not private power interests would remain. That is for our people to determine. Whether they want these rivers and lakes, natural resources, to be taken over by a private utility company with headquarters in New York, or whether they want to own them as they do their sidewalks or their sewers, is for them to determine.

Now, that question is as fundamental as our national existence. If we have not the right to vote for that kind of an institution and achieve it, then this whole process of government is a hollow mockery and democracy is dead in this Nation.

It may be that people in some towns would prefer for any number of reasons to retain private plants. I would be the last man to say that they could not exercise that right; but, by the same token, and by the supreme right that you and I and all of us enjoy under our system of government, and so long as we have election laws, the people have a right to come back to that issue, to have a plebiscite, to determine whether they have made a mistake or not. They have a right to vote on me when I come up for election, and they may decide that they made a mistake in sending me to the Senate, and certainly they have a right to make that decision, and if I could deprive them of that elemental right, we would have a Hitler government here.

That is the reason for all of this business, and those votes that you have referred to. I am sure that the public-power movement will win in the State of Oregon. If one election was a finality, this Government would fall apart. It is this change of public opinion that makes Americans fight for the thing that we are fighting for in this war which is to liberate the minds of men so that they can change their minds. Any reversal of that would be a Hitlerian concept.

Mr. DONDERO. I think that Mr. Dittmer can answer the question fairly whether, in his opinion, the people would actually absorb public power and there would be no private power in the State of Washington or Oregon, if it is left to their own free will and judgment, without using the Federal Government as a strong arm.

You and I are in complete accord on the fact that the people have the right of self-determination. There has never been a point raised

on that at all, but in this case this legislation is brought about for the purpose of placing in the hands of the Federal Government the power to condemn these private enterprises and then immediately sell them back to the P. U. D. districts. If the districts insist on it now, why don't they take over the private power, instead of using the strong arm of the Federal Government to do so?

Mr. SMITH. They are doing it.

Mr. DONDERO. Then nobody could object. But why this legislation?

Mr. SMITH. They have done it in three of my counties-Thurston, Cowlitz, and Lewis Counties-where they went into the Federal court and they condemned these plants.

It seems to me that the complete answer to this entire discussion lies in the fact that in those counties where the people have voted adversely, they are not using Bonneville power. That is true of all those counties over in Oregon that you referred to.

As I pointed out the other day when I was testifying, in those counties in my district where formerly the people voted against public power, of course then they did not enjoy public power-they were not served by Bonneville-but since then other elections followed and have been held, and now in all the nine counties of the southwest portion of the State they have voted to get P. U. D. districts. They have applied for Bonneville power. They are going to use Bonneville power.

That is in accordance with their express will and wishes as indicated in the polls. Under our democratic system of government, I cannot see anything wrong in that.

Mr. DONDERO. That is the right of self-determination. We do not disagree on that at all.

Mr. SMITH. That is the right of self-determination, and that is the very thing we are contending for; and, under this legislation, that is the very thing that will happen.

Senator OVERTON. Gentlemen, I am going to make this suggestion. This debate is very interesting. I think this committee very largely is a fact-finding committee, and I think we had better put the facts in the record and do the talking afterward.

Mr. SMITH. I think so.

May I offer a suggestion, Mr. Chairman? I note the presence of our colleague from the State of Washington, Judge Leavy, who is very busy, and he is here prepared to testify. I suggest that Mr. Dittmer suspend and that we allow Judge Leavy to testify, and then Mr. Dittmer can resume after the judge testifies. Senator OVERTON. How much longer will you Mr. DITTMER. I have not very much more.

be?

Mr. DONDERO. May I inquire whether or not this tax study which we requested some days ago has been put in the record? By that I mean the taxes paid by private enterprises and the taxes which are not paid by the Federal power utility.

Senator BONE. They are being prepared, Congressman. It will take a little time to get that data assembled. We will keep track of it and put it in later.

Senator OVERTON. We have had some statement showing what the Puget Sound Power & Light Co. pays in the way of taxes, their

74169-42-pt. 1-15

excise taxes and the like. One is something like $300,000 and the other is something like $240,000.

Mr. DONDERO. That question came up with reference to the taxes and savings to the people.

Senator OVERTON. Those figures have not been put in as yet.

STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES H. LEAVY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON

Senator OVERTON. Will you give your name to the reporter and proceed with your statement?

Mr. LEAVY. Mr. Chairman, if I might, I would like to go through a short prepared statement that I have. I do not think it will take me over 5 or 6 minutes, and then, if that provokes any questions, I will do my utmost to answer them.

I do want to say this by way of preliminary: In the 6 years that I have been in Congress this is the first time that I have known of a procedure adopted just such as you have here, where a subcommittee of the Senate, together with a subcommittee of the House, sit in joint session and proceed to hear a matter. Then each reports back to its respective committee, and in that manner you are not only expediting the particular legislation that you have before you, but you are greatly reducing the expense to the Government in the preparation of record and time consumed. I compliment all those who in any way had any part in bringing about that situation. I hope that perhaps you are setting an example that we might utilize in other legislation.

I believe that consideration of the Columbia power bill should progress as rapidly as possible because of its importance to the people of the Northwest and to the United States Government.

This matter is close to my heart. Perhaps the fact that I am leaving makes it seem even more important to me. But I have watched this great power program grow on the Columbia River and have given a great deal of my time to it. Today it stands as one of the most vital mainstays of our country at war

I have had an unusual opportunity to observe the expanding activities of the Bonneville Power Administration as a part of my work on the Interior Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee.

The bill before this committee is a necessary next step in the program which began with the authorization of Bonneville Dam. It is important to increasing the security of the Government's investment in the Columbia River dams. Bonneville and Grand Coulee, in the long run, will yield commensurate financial returns to the extent that there is a broad market for the power that they can develop. Only if the power is brought to the people at the lowest possible cost will such a market be secured and maintained. The cost of generating the huge blocks of power at Bonneville and Grand Coulee is lower than anywhere in the country. It is to the interest of the Government that the costs of transmitting and distributing this power be kept down to the minimum. Integration of transmission facilities will accomplish a part of this; proper public distribution will do the rest of the job. If any unnecessary costs are interposed between the low-cost power that we have developed on the Columbia and the consumer, we will find our market diminished.

For instance, if this power is turned over to private companies that must maintain overloaded capital structures or pay dividends on watered stocks to distant holding companies, the farmer, the businessman, and the householder, for whom we have created these projects, will have to pay more for their electricity and will consequently use less of it.

Giant power developments such as this are possible only in few places in the world and are not feasible unless the market for power is maintained on the widest possible basis through low-cost distribution.

The people of the Northwest have long recognized the fact that the development of that region is intimately bound up with low-cost power. For that reason they have been making a determined effort. to bring under public control the power systems of the area.

In many localities in Washington and Oregon public power has been an outstanding success for many years. These shining examples have spurred the public power movement so that today there are throughout the State of Washington public utility districts, cooperatives, and municipalities seeking to get into the busines of distributing power to the people at whose instance they were organized. Some of the districts have sought to negotiate with the private companies. for their properties. But for the most part they have failed due to the fact that there was no agency that could acquire facilities on a system-wide basis and the companies were unwilling to sell on any other basis. Other districts have resorted to the condemnation of the private properties. They have invariably had to pay heavy severance damages that could in no way contribute to the value of the facilities acquired. The costs of such piecemeal acquisitions add to the distribution costs that the consumer must eventually pay for electricity. They affect and restrict the Government's power market.

One other point here: If the process of piecemeal acquisitions continues and there is every reason to believe that the people of the Northwest will of necessity continue on that route unless a satisfactory one is found-if this process continues, the power companies will be faced with a residue of generating stations and odds and ends of systems that cannot be operated economically. We cannot afford this, now of all times.

I believe that the Government should take a guiding hand in this matter right away so that its interest in the Northwest power program will be fully protected, and so that the public power program which the people of my State and of Oregon are pressing can be accomplished without economic waste and destruction of values. The bill before this committee provides an excellent method to accomplish this transition from private to public power in the Northwest.

My years of close observation have given me great confidence in the Bonneville Power Administration and in the Secretary of the Interior to see that this transition will be properly and honestly handled. I believe that the new responsibilities that this bill imposes will be in safe hands under an administrator appointed by the President, with confirmation by the Senate, and subject to the general direction of the Secretary of the Interior. We know from experience that this kind of arrangement offers advantages which cannot be obtained from the extremes of administrative freedom or control. The bill is care