If we fail, the great
interests, increasing their control of our natural resources, will
thereby control the country more and more, and the rights of the people
will fade into the privileges of concentrated wealth.
There could be no better illustration of the eager, rapid, unwearied
absorption by capital of the rights which belong to all the people than
the water-power trust, perhaps not yet formed but in process of
formation. This statement is true, but not unchallenged. We are met at
every turn by the indignant denial of the water-power interests. They
tell us that there is no community of interest among them, and yet they
appear by their paid attorneys, year after year, at irrigation and other
congresses, asking for help to remove the few remaining obstacles to
their perpetual and complete absorption of the remaining water-powers.
They tell us it has no significance that there is hardly a bank in some
sections of the country that is not an agency for water-power capital,
or that the General Electric Company interests are acquiring great
groups of water-powers in various parts of the United States, and
dominating the power market in the region of each group.
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