Status of the Muscle Shoals Project

Report Outline
Legal Status of Muscle Shoals
The Muscle Shoals Plant
Questions of Public Policy at Muscle Shoals

At Elizabethton in eastern Tennessee, a region deeply interested in water-power development and having a special interest in the policy to be pursued by the federal government at Muscle Shoals,1 Mr. Hoover said in a campaign address, October 6, that he did not favor “any general extension of the federal government into the operation of business in competition with its citizens.”

“Democracy, however, must be master in its own house,” he continued. “It can assure the conservation of our governmentally controlled natural resources in the interest of the people. It has demonstrated that by power of regulation it can prevent abuse; it can and must control natural monopolies in full public interest

“Violations of public interest by individuals or corporations should be followed by the condemnation and punishment they deserve but this should not induce us to abandon progressive principles and substitute in their place deadly and destructive doctrines. There are local instances where the government must enter the business field as a by-product of some great major purpose such as improvement in navigation, flood control, scientific research or national defense, but they do not vitiate the general policy to which we should adhere.”