New Commission

The Federal Power Commission, that small but potent dynamo of political disturbances, generated fresh currents of news last week when President Hoover appointed its five new members. Until Congress at its last session reorganized it on a full-time basis, this Commission was composed of the Secretaries of War, Interior, Agriculture. Selected as chairman was big, wavy-haired George Otis Smith, since 1907 director of the Interior Department's Geological Survey. Maine-born and Colby-graduated, Dr. Smith learned about water power from charting and gauging streams, selecting power sites, serving as technical adviser to the old Commission. His other activities have included a superpower survey of 1920 in the East, service on the U. S. Coal Commission (1922-23), advice to the Federal Oil Conservation Commission, presidency of the American Institute of Mining & Metallurgical Engineers and a trusteeship at the University of Chicago.

Other Power Commissioners appointed: Frank R. McNinch, onetime mayor of Charlotte, N. C.; Ralph B. Williamson, Washington irrigation lawyer; Marcel Garsaud, member of the New Orleans Dock Board; Claude L. Draper, organizer and member of the Wyoming Public Service Commission.

When these Power Commissioners' nominations arrived at the Capitol, many a Senator bristled with innate suspicion. Opposition quickly developed to Mr. McNinch. By law his place on the Commission must go to a Democrat. But Mr. McNinch, recommended by North Carolina's "lame duck" Senator Simmons, helped lead the 1928 anti-Smith movement which turned his State Republican. Senate Democrats doubted his Democracy, sought to question him on his 1930 vote. Another charge against Commissioner McNinch--which he loudly denied--was that he had covert connections with the Duke power interests and from them secured political funds, still unaccounted for, with which to combat the Brown Derby. Because of the power-&-politics nexus, all five Commissioners were ordered to appear this week before the Senate Interstate Commerce Committee to undergo a grilling. One prime question to be asked each appointee: Did he favor retaining Frank E. Bonner as executive secretary of the Commission? Secretary Bonner was accused of favoring private power companies by radical Senators who wanted the new Commission to dismiss him at once. What made Secretary Bonner persona non grata to this senatorial group was exemplified by him last week in a Manhattan speech to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. There he declared that the Federal Government should "confine itself to a minimum of interference" with the water power industry and leave regulation to the States. Prof. Guido Hugo Marx of Stanford University promptly flayed him for non-feasance of duty. Power also made the following Washington news last week: Muscle Shoals. The House and Senate deadlock on this legislative antiquity seemed near the breaking point. Reports spread that the House, which has long held out for private operation of the government plant, would shortly be given a chance to vote directly on the Senate's demand for Government operation. Trade Commission. The prolonged investigation of the "Power Trust" veered back to propaganda activities when George Power Co. was questioned about its publicity in behalf of private Muscle Shoals operation. Meanwhile the experts continued to study bales of data on the financial set-up of power concerns and holding companies throughout the land.

Supreme Court. In an inconclusive decision in the Chicago telephone rate case which sent that seven-year-old controversy back to a lower Federal court for settlement, corporation lawyers thought they detected a significant inclination on the part of the High Court to widen the regulatory powers of State agencies over local utilities doing an interstate business.

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