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Coming back to the
watershed of the Columbia River, which covers
the greater part of the States of Oregon,
Washington, Idaho and a part of Montana,
it is increasingly important that we think
of that region as a unit, and especially
in terms of the whole population of that
area as it is today and as we expect it
will be fifty and even a hundred years from
now.
I appreciate and
I understand fully the desire of some who
live close to some of the great sources
of power in this watershed to seek the advantages
which come from geographical proximity.
More than eight years
ago, when I became Governor of the State
of New York, we developed plans for the
harnessing of the St. Lawrence River and
the production of a vast amount of cheap
power. The good people who lived within
a few miles of the proposed dam were enthused
by the prospect of building up a huge manufacturing
center close to the source of the power,
another Pittsburgh, a vast city of whirling
machinery. It was a natural dream, but wiser
counsels prevailed and the government of
the State laid down a policy based on the
distribution of the proposed power to as
wide an area as the science of the transmission
would permit.
We felt that the
Governor and the Legislature of the State
owed it to the people in the smaller communities
for hundreds of miles around to give them
the benefit of cheap electricity in their
homes and their farms and their shops. And
while the St. Lawrence project is, I am
sorry to say, still on paper, I have no
doubt of its ultimate development, and of
the application of the policy of the widest
possible use when the electric current starts
to flow.
That is why in developing
electricity from this Bonneville Dam, from
the Grand Coulee Dam and from other dams
to be built on the Columbia and its tributaries,
the policy of the widest use ought to prevail.
The transmission of electricity is making
such scientific strides today that we can
well visualize a date, not far distant,
when every community in this great area
will be wholly electrified.
It is because I am
thinking of the Nation and the region fifty
years from now that I venture the further
prophecy that as time passes we will do
everything in our power to encourage the
building up of the smaller communities of
the United States. Today many people are
beginning to realize that there is inherent
weakness in cities which become too large
for the times and inherent strength in a
wider geographical distribution of population.
An over-large city
inevitably meets problems caused by oversize.
Real estate values and rents become too
high; the time consumed in going from one's
home to one's work and back again becomes
excessive; congestion of streets and other
transportation problems arise; truck gardens
become impossible because the backyard is
too small; the cost of living of the average
family rises far too high.
There is doubtless
a reasonable balance in all of this and
it is a balance which ought to be given
more and more study. No one would suggest,
for example, that the great cities of Portland,
and Tacoma and Seattle and Spokane should
stop their growth, but it is a fact that
they could grow unhealthily at the expense
of all the smaller communities of which
they form logical centers. Their healthiest
growth actually depends on a simultaneous
healthy growth of every smaller community
within a radius of hundreds of miles.
Your situation in
the Northwest is in this respect no different
from the situation in the other great regions
of the Nation. That is why it has been proposed
in the Congress that regional planning boards
be set up for the purpose of coordinating
the planning for the future in seven or
eight natural geographical regions.
You will have read
here as elsewhere many misleading and utterly
untrue statements in some papers and by
some politicians that this proposed legislation
would set up all powerful authorities which
would destroy State lines, take away local
government and make what people call a totalitarian
or authoritarian or some other kind of a
dangerous national centralized control.
Most people realize that the exact opposite
is the truth - that regional commissions
will be far more closely in touch with the
needs of all the localities and all the
people in their respective regions than
a system of plans which originates in the
Capital of the Nation. By decentralizing
as I have proposed, the Chief Executive,
the various government departments, and
the Congress itself will be able to get
from each region a carefully worked out
plan each year, a plan based on future needs,
a plan which will seek primarily to help
all the people of the region without unduly
favoring any one locality or discriminating
against any other.
In other words, the
responsibility of the Federal Government
for the welfare of its citizens will not
come from the top in the form of unplanned,
hit or miss appropriations of money, but
will progress to the National Capital from
the ground up - from the communities and
counties and states which lie within each
of the logical geographical areas.
Another great advantage
will be served by this process of planning
from the bottom up. Under our laws the President
submits to the Congress an Annual Budget
- a budget which, by the way, we expect
to have definitely balanced by the next
fiscal year. In this budget we know how
much can properly be expended for the development
of our natural resources, the protection
of our soil, the construction of our highways
and buildings, the maintenance of our harbors
and channels and all the other elements
which fall under the general heading of
public works. By regional planning it will
be vastly easier for the Executive branch
and the Congress to determine how the appropriations
for the following year shall be fitted most
fairly and equitably into the total amount
which our national pocketbook allows us
safely to spend.
To you who live thousands
of miles away in other parts of the United
States, I want to give two or three simple
facts. This Bonneville Dam on the Columbia
River, forty-two miles east of Portland,
with Oregon on the south side of the river
and Washington on the north, is one of the
major power and navigation projects undertaken
since 1933. It is 170 feet high and 1,250
feet long. It has been built by the Corps
of Engineers of the War Department, and
when fully completed, with part of its power
installations, will cost $51,000,000. Its
locks will enable shipping to use this great
waterway much further inland than at present,
and give an outlet to the enormously valuable
agricultural and mineral products of Oregon
and Washington and Idaho. Its generators
ultimately will produce 580,000 horse power
of electricity.
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