Maine Votes

For 20 years the state of Maine has had a law forbidding the export beyond the state boundaries of hydro-electric power. Moreover, Maine is the seventh largest producer of hydro-electric power in the U. S., third largest potential producer east of the Mississippi. Last week Maine voters were offered a referendum on a new law permitting the export, under supervision of the Public Utilities Commission, of power generated in excess of local consumption.

On one side stood the Insull-controlled New England Public Service Co., parent company of Central Maine Power Co., and four Maine textile mills. It openly and expensively campaigned for power export. Leader of its fight was Walter S. Wyman, President of the Central Maine. He reported that the funds expended in the campaign were the result of Insull profits in Texas, were not profits taken from Maine consumers. On the same side were former Governor Percival Proctor Baxter (1921-25) and numerous newspapers including the papers published by Guy Patterson Gannett.* Together they bombarded Maine with advice to permit power export.

Actively opposed to the export law was only one newspaper, the two-year-old Portland Evening News, edited by Dr. Ernest Henry Gruening. It campaigned against "Insullism," propounded again and again the question: "Shall the voters of Maine become yes-men for Samuel Insull?" It estimated that the power interests had spent $300,000 for the export bill, that the opposition had spent less than $1,000.

Chief political figure on the anti-export side stood former Governor Ralph Owen Brewster (1925-29). No good friends are ex-Governors Brewster and Baxter. More than once has Baxter accused Brewster of being a Ku Kluxer. More than once has Brewster implied that Baxter is dull if not dreadful. Each hopes to succeed Maine's Senator Arthur Robinson Gould in next year's election. These two sunk their teeth into the power export bill and pulled in opposite directions. Last week Maine defeated power export by a majority of some 10,000 votes in 125,000 cast.

Maine's present Governor, William Tudor Gardiner, called "the most popular man in Maine," was largely an innocent bystander in the power export fight. Yet he too was mauled upon election day. He appeared before the G. A. R. convention wearing bandages on hands and wrists. Teddy, a half-grown bear cub he keeps for his children, had chewed and scratched him.

* Not to be confused with his able distant cousin, Publisher Frank Ernest Gannett of Rochester, Brooklyn, Syracuse.