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scribed earlier. Another group of bulletins reported on speeches in which he usually advocated public power and methods for acquiring private utility facilities. He reported on his Washington, D.C. trips, budget requests, the objective resale rate (October 25, 1938), the transmission grid master plan (January 20, 1939), and, as related in the next chapter, construction progress.

First BPA Annual Report. "J. D. Ross - His Book" would be a fitting title for the first annual report of the Bonneville Administrator. The report reflects his power development philosophy, infectious enthusiasm, and penchant for telling a story. The 81-page volume, largely written by BPA staffers Bloch and Alvey, covered the 8 months ending June 30, 1938. Since the Bonneville Project had no power to sell in that period, Ross used the report as a platform to tell the world, and a skeptical Secretary of the Interior, of the opportunities for developing the Pacific Northwest by means of low cost power.

He explained how the desire for a navigable waterway led to building Bonneville Dam and the need for irrigation led to building Grand Coulee Dam. He reported on the FPC cost allocations for Bonneville and the FPC approval of the rate schedules. He recorded the progress in forming new public power institutions in Oregon and Washington. He emphasized the demand for more low cost power for home use, farms, shops, existing industry, and new industries. He closed the section with a forecast of possible additional needs for national defense purposes.

Ross on National Defense. On March 18, 1938, President Roosevelt directed the FPC to cooperate with the War Department in surveying the nation's power facilities. The July 1, 1938 confidential report advised the President of a situation "so serious as to require immediate attention."

In August, Roosevelt asked Ross to investigate the feasibility of linking the nation's power resources. In her history of the Bonneville Power Administration from September 1939 to January 1942, Lillian Davis refers to Ross' report to the President:

"According to Ross, the proposed 'lifeline' would protect America's electric supply by permitting distance transmission of direct current through underground cables. Such a system, he said, would be safer from aerial attack in time of war."

Roosevelt held a conference at the White House on September 1 to establish the National Defense Power Committee (NDPC) with Louis Johnson, Assistant Secretary of War, as chairman. NDPC considered many proposals in

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cluding the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) financing new generation for private power companies. On November 3 Ross urged FPC Commissioner Leland Olds to insist that any power facilities financed with government money should be owned by the Government.

In his first annual report as Administrator, completed December 1, 1938 Ross included a 15-page section entitled "Growth of Consumption and of Installed Capacity." In it, he used national defense production needs as the basis for urging early installation of all generators at Bonneville Dam:

"It is logical to expect these industries to make increasing demands upon the installed capacity of the Pacific Northwest. Bonneville's output will therefore stand as a safeguard against acute power shortage.

"The existence of all these circumstances makes it inevitable that the growth in consumption will outstrip installed capacity. As a result, the Bonneville installation of 10 units, with a total generating capacity of 504,000 kilowatts, will barely meet the urgent need for power.

"Shortly before the end of the World War the country was gripped by a most serious power shortage. The generators of the Nation were taxed to their utmost capacity. Power for a time was the 'bottle neck' that threatened the necessary expansion of industrial production. Manufacture of sorely needed materials was threatened by the grave power shortage. This Nation wants peace and it must be prepared to maintain it. Modern warfare is fought in the factory as much as in the air or trenches. America must be ready to meet not only peacetime needs of power for home, farm, and industry, but must be assured of her ability to cope with emergency demands for large blocks of electricity. In the hydroelectric streams of the Pacific Northwest is potential power far in excess of that available in other regions of the Nation. It should be developed at an economic rate to meet mounting peacetime needs and the equally important possibilities of emergency drains.

"Preparedness requires foresight."

The Master Plan. In another 10-page section Ross unfolded the 220,000 volt transmission grid "master plan." It was based on a central triangle with a double-circuit between Bonneville and Grand Coulee Dams, augmented by backbone lines to Spokane, Seattle, and Portland, south through Oregon to California, southeast into Idaho, and east through Spokane to Montana. It approximated the PNWRPC plan of November 1, 1935, which was also drawn by Charles E. Carey.

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Ross built up the construction organization, initiated the surveys, right-of-way clearing and ordered the materials, as discussed in the next chapter. Then his time ran out.

J. D. Ross As We Knew Him. The unexpected, sudden death of Ross on March 14, 1939 at age 67, due to a blood clot, brought an avalanche of tributes approaching adulation.

The special March 1939 46-page edition of The Bonneville Spark, the employes' monthly bulletin, reproduced many of the tributes and newspaper editorials under the caption "J. D. Ross As We Knew Him." The last item was a reprint of the article "J. D.'s Dream" that he wrote for the October 11, 1937 Portland Oregonian. It emphasized his goal for Bonneville: to provide the greatest good to the greatest number.

Boettiger's eulogy expresses the legacy Ross bequeathed:

"If you have sailed on the Alice Ross on the man-made lake above Diablo Dam, and have suddenly heard over the lap of the waves, seemingly coming from nowhere, the soft strains of 'Beautiful Isle of Somewhere,' you will appreciate one trait of that great man who has just left us, J. D. Ross.

"If you have seen the bewitching gardens, a veritable tropical paradise, which have been nurtured by his hands at the dam site, and which have filled thousands of visitors with wonderment, you have come into contact with still another facet of J. D. Ross.

"If you have beheld the dam itself, and the great house of

turbines which feed power into the maw of our metropolis, you have sensed the mechanical genius of J. D. Ross.

"If you have read of his plans to transmit the power of harnessed rivers over this whole land of ours; if you have heard of his learned discussion of Einstein's theory of relativity; if you know of his researches in the chemist's laboratory, then you comprehend a bit of his renown as a scientist.

"But if you have not sat in the presence of J. D. Ross, if you have not learned from his lips his love of his fellow man, if you have not witnessed his gentle, persuasive way with a child, then you have forever missed that part of J. D. Ross which was his strength and his comfort and his real greatness.

"What a pity it is that 'J. D.' had to turn the last page of life at the very time that his greatest dream was being realized.

"He sought above all else to transmit the blessings of natural power into the service of mankind. He had found joy in the building of Bonneville and Coulee Dams on the Columbia, and he grasped with utmost eagerness the task given him by President Roosevelt to perfect the grid system by which the power of those projects will be delivered at low cost to homes and farms and factories over this whole Pacific Northwest.

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"The work will go on, and the imprint of the genius of 'J. D.' will be on it. Let those who carry on for him be inspired by the honesty of his purpose, and make full use of the heritage of wisdom he has bestowed.

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"Seattle has lost a loyal son who gave without stint and asked naught. The President has lost one of his most valued and trusted aids.

"And the 'Beautiful Isle of Somewhere' has gained a dauntless spirit."

Ross remains a part of the BPA spirit and tradition. The dedication of BPA officials and employees derives in part from the philosophy he taught and the motivation of public service he practiced. He established the BPA tradition of serving the people of the Pacific Northwest.

15. BUILDING THE BIG LINE

I believe that the Government owning these plants should build a proper system of transmission lines and also own and operate them, then sell wholesale to districts, to cities, and companies... -J. D. Ross

Thus, Ross, then a member of the Securities and Exchange Commission, opened his testimony May 9, 1936 before the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry hearing on marketing Bonneville power. Would power from the two dams be sold by two separate agencies in competition? Would the dams even be interconnected? The issues in 1936 were very much in doubt. Just prior to the hearings the PNWRPC December 1935 report became available in book form. It featured a large, foldout map of a "Proposed Super-Power System" for the Columbia River Basin. The map later basically became Ross' master plan for the BPA transmission grid.

Nothing much happened after the Senate hearing. Congress adjourned.

In Our Promised Land, Neuberger recalls that early in 1937 President Roosevelt showed Ross the bill, drafted by the Committee on National Power Policy, which would become the Bonneville Project Act. Ross said, "All the responsibility is placed in one man. He can't pass the buck to anyone else." Roosevelt replied, "And you are that man." This anecdote explains a letter Ross sent April 27 from Washington, D.C., to Robert Beck at Seattle City Light: "I was with the President about an hour and a half today and he assured me of the tie line and his help to put it in the budget for next spring. The plant will be running then and we can now study the specifications & plans. If I could get you on some of that work would you like to go? . . . This whole letter is confidential. I never quote the President."

This reveals Ross's expectation of becoming the Administrator, the start of his thinking toward recruiting top staff, and his preoccupation with a quick start on constructing the strategic transmission interconnection between Bonneville and Grand Coulee Dams. Ross recognized this intertie as the critical line of the grid system, the jugular vein, possibly more so than he knew. When Roosevelt dedicated Bonneville Dam September 28, 1937, he emphasized the goal of regionwide benefits.

Ross directed his six survey crews to locate rights-of-way for the two transmission lines to the Portland-Vancouver area. They would prompt power sales, and bring in revenue that Ross felt was needed. He also initiated the big line

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