TVA's Triumph:

For decades the 42,000 square miles of the Valley of the Tennessee were ill-faring land. Floods devastated the lowlands and rains eroded the deforested hills. There was little industry. The malaria-ridden people were as impoverished as the soil. Like Aesop's fabled dog in the manger, Tennessee's paunchy, vituperative Senator Kenneth McKellar championed the land and the people; he wanted no improvements without patronage. When the vast, experimental Tennessee Valley Authority was created in 1933 he set out to force the spoils system upon it.

He failed. Year after year TVA shunned politics, awarded jobs on a merit basis. Shaking with rage, Kenneth McKellar time & again rose in the Senate to denounce quiet, smooth-faced TVA Chairman David Eli Lilienthal, 45. Time & again, in the hope of clubbing TVA into submission, he sought to bring its day-by-day finances under the control of Congress. Frustrated, he bided his time and nursed his grudge. This spring many a Washington politico believed that the 76-year-old spoilsman had TVA squarely in his sights at last. His enemy, David Lilienthal, faced reappointment for a nine-year term, and McKellar's influence in the Senate and the South could not be lightly considered by a fledgling President.

After Twelve Years. But time had worked for TVA. In twelve years it had become one of the wonders of the New World, and a pride of the South. In the beginning it had been something from outside, alien: a plan for dams, turbines, reforestation, agricultural improvement, and who knew what else, flung like a Technocrat's nightmare across the sacred boundaries of seven states. Dave Lilienthal was simply another of Felix Frankfurter's young men from the Harvard Law School, a New Deal wonder boy who had fought utility companies. But as the dams rose in the Tennessee Valley, the reputation of Dave Lilienthal rose with them.

He fought attacks by power interests and partisan politicians; he also ignored the advice of quacking liberals, refused to cram TVA down anyone's throat. Said he: "The test of a plan is not just whether it is good for people. It is whether they will accept it." He refused to set up special experimental farms. Instead, by offering free fertilizer for the beaten soil, he persuaded thousands of farmers to experiment for themselves. TVA encouraged communities to form their own power districts. It never used its authority in attempts to compel acceptance. TVA did not destroy state boundaries; it kept reassuringly aloof from all state and local political squabbles.

The Green Valley. This spring found the Tennessee Valley greener and richer than ever before. The river, which had once run brown with precious topsoil, was as clear as in Indian days -- 21 dams had harnessed and controlled the floods.

TVA's electricity made aluminum for wa'r, lighted houses and ran machinery for thousands who had read by coal-oil lamps. Malaria was declining. There were still poverty and scarred hillsides, but there were also great reforested areas, fields green with new crops. Since TVA's inception, incomes in the valley had risen 73%-The South found this new possession too precious to be risked for the satisfaction of one man's anger. As McKellar moved in for the kill, his friends and his political supporters deserted him or stood in silence. Boss Ed Crump's Memphis machine refused to back him. Then President Truman reappointed Dave Lilienthal (TIME, May 14).

Last week, in one last flow of thin and bitter accusation, McKellar admitted defeat. The words were read by his fellow Senator from Tennessee, Tom Stewart: "Mr. Lilienthal is not entitled to credit for . . . good work. . . . [He] is personally and politically obnoxious, offensive and objectionable to each of us. ... We have therefore concluded simply to make this statement and to vote against his confirmation and leave the matter there." That was the end of McKellar's opposition. This week, Dave Lilienthal's appointment was confirmed by the Senate.

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