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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2012
The Nebraska public-power paradox is more than a case study of the elimination of private enterprise. It illustrates how, in a seemingly homogeneous economic setting, familiar social, political, economic, and geographic factors can blend uniquely to produce a nonconformist entity, explicable only in terms of its history.
1 I am indebted to Professor Charles J. Kennedy who suggested this topic and read the original study completed in his economic history seminar at the University of Nebraska. Professor Harry Trebing, Public Utility economist at the University also read and criticized the original study and this article.
2 See, for example, McNeill, Clarence Earnest, Municipal Electric and Water Systems in Nebraska (Nebraska Studies in Business No. 41, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, 1938)Google Scholar; Hamaker, Gene E., Irrigation Pioneers: A History of the Tri-county Project to 1935 (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Nebraska, 1958)Google Scholar; Firth, Robert C., “Power on the Plains” (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Nebraska, 1960), to be published by the Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
3 Chief among the men interviewed were C. C. Sheldon, retired treasurer of the Consumer Public Power District and the man for whom the atomic energy plant at Hallam, Nebraska, was named; R. W. Beck of Beck and Associates who appraised the private companies for Consumers Public Power; and Frank Wolf, presently with the Omaha Public Power District, but formerly with the Nebraska Power Company.
4 Glaeser, Martin G., Public Utilities in American Society (New York, 1957), p. 174Google Scholar, defined the diversity factor as “the ratio of the sum of the maximum power demands of the subdivisions of any system, to the maximum demand of the whole system, or the part of the system under consideration, measured at the point of supply.” The load factor is defined (p. 173) as “the ratio of the average power (average load) used to the maximum power (peak) used during a certain period of time.”
5 Boyer, Glen C. and Crist, Marion L., “Economics of Rural Electrification,” Nebraska Municipal Review, no. 135 (Aug., 1935)Google Scholar. These authors were in the employment of the Burns and McDonnell Engineering Company.
6 William Schwalm, “Electric Companies in Omaha, 1872–1917,” p. 1. (A term paper, based upon newspaper clippings, in the possession of Professor Kennedy, University of Nebraska.)
7 Interview with Frank Wolf, April 18, 1960.
8 Moody's Manual of Investments American and Foreign: Public Utility Securities (Moody's Investors Service: New York, 1930)Google Scholar. The bond rating Aaa is the highest given by Moody's. Bonds rated Baa make a good showing but must be watched more closely than A-rated bonds. Ba bonds have some characteristics of uncertainty.
9 Interview with C. C. Sheldon, March 12, 1960.
10 Dewing, Arthur Stone, The Financial Policy of Corporations (New York, 1934), p. 330Google Scholar.
11 Moody's Manual of Investments defines the operating ratio as “the margin between gross and net operating revenue after deducting operating expenses and taxes.” It is here described as a measure of operating efficiency.
12 Hastings Tribune, Feb. 18, 1930, an editorial raising the question whether or not the Hastings, Nebraska, municipal plant might face similar competition.
13 McNeill, Municipal Systems, p. 10.
14 The full text of this decision may be found in the Nebraska Municipal Review), Nos. 63 and 64 (Aug. and Sept., 1929). “Recent Important Court Decision in Electrical Controversy,” Nebraska Municipal Review, No. 37 (June, 1927Google Scholar), the story of events and early court action in this controversy.
15 McNeill, Municipal Systems, p. 31. Constitutional reference, Compiled Statutes of Nebraska, 1929, chapter 16, article 6, 16–656 to 659.
16 “Effects of the Sargent Case on the Electrical Development of Nebraska,” Nebraska Municipal Review, No. 70 (March, 1930)Google Scholar.
17 Official Report of the Nebraska Canvassing Board on the Election of November 4, 1930, p. 5. For an interesting account of private-power attempts to frustrate this petition by circulating a couple of petitions of their own, see newspaper clippings in C. A. Sorensen's Scrap Book (running through several volumes), part of the Sorensen papers at the Nebraska State Historical Society Library.
18 Electrical Light and Power Census of the Electrical Industry (1937), Table 34, p. 55, U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census.
19 Strode, Hudson, Sweden: Model for the World (New York, 1945), pp. 190ffGoogle Scholar.
20 Editorial, Hastings Tribune, Feb. 18, 1930, previously cited.
21 C. A. Sorensen, MSS 2951, p. 3, Sorensen Papers, deposited in Nebraska State Historical Society Library.
22 Dart, J. W., “Interesting Story of Bloomfield's Municipal Light Plant,” Nebraska Municipal Review, No. 32 (Jan., 1927)Google Scholar.
23 Interview with Robert Beck, March 31, 1960.
24 Ibid.
25 The Interstate Plant at Spencer, Nebraska. According to Moody, the Central Power Company also had hydro plants at Kearney on the Platte, and Boleus on the Loup.
26 Interview with C. C. Sheldon, March 12, 1960. See Firth, Power on the Plains, for a fuller account of the Babcock endeavors.
27 See Hamaker, Irrigation Pioneers, for a full account of this project.
28 Interview with C. C. Sheldon, March 12, 1960, also interview with Sheldon and Beck, March 31, 1960.
29 Ibid.