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The Early Days of the Rural Electrification Idea: 1914–1936

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Morris Llewellyn Cooke
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Extract

The genealogy of the rural electrification idea and the story of its gradual development through the years 1914–36 may have important implications in the study of governmental and social institutions. Up to a comparatively recent date, there have been no generally recognized laws influencing progress, whether as to science, government, or society. Progress has been recognized in the main as a matter of chance, or perhaps as something like a 100-to-1 shot in poker or horse-racing. With science, however, there is noticeable the small beginnings of a workable technique for making progress along predetermined lines. This might have been expected, since in science the items under study are relatively stable as compared with actions in government and society, and are more likely to be uniform when encountered.

In recent years, many scientific inquiries have been quite adequately financed, and coöperation on a national and international basis between thousands of researchers operating in the same or related fields, with full and free publication, has become a rule of the game. Note the strategy developed for the attack first on tuberculosis, and now in formation on the much more complex cancer problem. Yet these campaigns must be considered child's play compared with what is happening in the field of atomic fission. While it is true that in science team-play has become more and more the practice, notably in the medical field, the lone worker still persists in the academic world, where it is held that organization, especially in times of peace, means regimentation.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 42 , Issue 3 , June 1948 , pp. 431 - 447
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1948

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References

1 “The warmest friends and the best supporters the Constitution has do not contend that it is free from imperfections; but they have found them unavoidable and are sensible, if evil is likely to arise therefrom, the remedy must come hereafter…. I do not think we are more inspired, have more wisdom, or possess more virtue, than those who will come after us.” (George Washington in a letter to Bushrod Washington.)

2 “Giant Power—Large Scale Electrical Development as a Social Factor,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Mar., 1925.

3 These tables were published in the report of the Bureau of Gas for 1914.

4 For the private industry's story, see “Pioneering the Electric Farm, 1882–1923,” a section in Farm Electrification Manual, published by Edison Electric Institute, 1947.

5 See Public Utility Regulation (New York, Ronald Press, 1924).

6 See Power, Giant issue of Survey Graphic, Mar., 1924Google Scholar, a very remarkable publication, edited by Robert W. Bruere and having, because of its imaginative sweep, plenty of present-day interest.

7 See Economic Power Production, edited by Rau, Otto M. and privately printed in Philadelphia, 1920.Google Scholar

8 Died May 20, 1947.

9 Report of the Giant Power Survey Board to the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1925.

10 Among those who worked on this problem who were carry-overs from Giant Power days were: O. M. Rau, August Ullmann, Jr., Judson C. Dickerman, George M. Morse, Clayton W. Pike, with new recruits including Willard E. Herring, T. Herbert Clegg (killed Nov. 21, 1933), Horace E. Kiefer, J. D. Ross, Roy Husselman, Ernest Bradford, and Harlow S. Person.

11 “What Electricity Costs in the Home and on the Farm; A Symposium” (New Republic, 1933).

12 Tennessee Valley Authority Act of 1933, Sec. 10 (48 Stat. 58, 64; 16 U.S.C., Sec. 831 et seq., 1940).

13 Ibid., pp. 64, 65.

14 Ibid.

15 See “Report of the Mississippi Valley Committee of the Public Works Administration, Oct. 1, 1934, pp. 51–53, with accompanying illustrations.

16 See “National Plan for the Advancement of Rural Electrification under Federal Leadership & Control with State & Local CoÖperation and as a Wholly Public Enterprise.” A note on the title-page read: “This report can be read in 12 minutes. Supporting details will be found in the appendices.”

17 Fellowes is now putting in an Ethiopian five-year plan or its equivalent for Haillie Selassie, Lion of Judah, and direct descendant of the Queen of Sheba. Perhaps it includes rural electrification.

18 See Rural Electrification News, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Nov., 1935).

19 Moet of the publications and documents cited above—several of them the only known copies—have been filed with the Library of Congress under the title of this paper.

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