Counterfire

For many a year, the electric-power industry has proved a prime target for the Administration and the proponents of public power. Last week, as 3,000 delegates of the Edison Electric Institute gathered at their annual convention in Atlantic City, the target shot back, with a hot, well-placed barrage. One of the heaviest salvos was fired by General Electric's Charles E. Wilson, boss of the biggest U.S. electrical equipment company, and thus sensitive to attacks on "bigness." The industry, said he, was being attacked in many cases simply because it was big.

President Truman, snapped Charlie Wilson, "has been two-minded about bigness . . . He has said he would rather see a thousand insurance companies with assets of $4,000,000 than one company with assets of $4 billion . . . a hundred steel companies instead of U.S. Steel. This is pure nostalgia for the horse & buggy days of business, plus a fear that while bigness may be economically good, it is socially bad."

Bigger Business. While Truman publicly deplored bigness, Wilson continued, he went right on heading plenty of "big businesses"; an insurance system (Social Security), a bank (RFC) and a shipping system (Maritime Commission). "Apparently," purred Wilson, "he wants to make all of these bigger."

Charlie Wilson knew that the power industry had "made mistakes, it has been shortsighted . . ." But he thought it had also done a bang-up job -- though it would have to do a still better one. To meet the increasing demands for power, he said, the industry should spend $1 billion a year on expansion. He warned that power-men should not be lulled into thinking that long-term demands would lessen just because business had started to slip off. Said he: The current slide in business might last until the second quarter of next year. By the end of 1951, there should be an upturn that may bring production right back up to where it was in 1948.

Smaller Margin. Publisher James H. McGraw Jr. (McGraw-Hill Publishing Co.) also drew a bead on the Administration. He accused Harry Truman of causing the current power shortage in the Northwest by short-circuiting power projects. The result is that the area "may be set back for a long time to come."

The electric men thought that the Government's argument for more public power projects was based largely on spotty power shortages; the overall shortage was about licked. The institute estimated that this year's margin of reserve capacity should be 9.7%, or nearly double last year's reserve. But the U.S. would not have the 15% margin of reserve capacity it needs until 1951.

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