18. ELECTRIFYING THE

RURAL NORTHWEST

There was only one discordant note in that first (1924) stay of mine at Warm Springs. When the first of the month bill came in for electric light in my little cottage, I found that the charge was eighteen cents per kilowatthour - about four times as much as I was paying in another community, Hyde Park, New York. That light bill started my long study on proper public utility charges for electric current, started in my mind the whole subject of getting electricity into farm homes throughout the United States.

So, my friends, it can be said with a good deal of truth that a little cottage at Warm Springs, Georgia, was the birthplace of the Rural Electrification Administration.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt Speech at Barnesville, Georgia August 11, 1938

Marquis Childs said of rural electrification:

"It is one of the most impressive stories in the history of American agriculture and industry. What has taken place is a peaceful revolution transforming farm life in America" (p. 72).

His 1952 book, The Farmer Takes a Hand, contains a chapter on electrifying rural areas of the Pacific Northwest. In 1979 Marquis Childs revisited the Pacific Northwest in connection with updating his 1952 book on rural electrification.

John Gunther in the 1951 revision of his 1946 book, Inside U.S.A., viewed rural electrification as social prog

ress:

"The work of the... Rural Electrification Administration to improve (the) situation and bring power into farming areas has been one of the most stimulating successful adventures in social progress made in this country in many years." (p. 142)

At another point he wrote:

"A family with rural electrification is at one jump removed from peasanthood" (p. 336).

He devoted a special chapter to BPA entitled, "Highways in the Sky," referring to BPA transmission lines. He praised the Bonneville Project Act as social legislation, citing the widespread use objective and the preference clause:

"The act creating the Power Administration was passed by Congress in 1937 and is one of the most striking pieces of social legislation in the history of the United States" (p. 129).

Morris L. Cooke launched the Rural Electrification Administration in 1935-1936 after many years of study and advocacy. In 1950 he chaired Truman's Water Policy Commission.

This optimism and praise for the success of rural electrification stands out against a backdrop of almost half a century of neglect, doubt and pessimism. There were some early exceptions to the dim view of electrifying rural America. As early as 1899, electric motors were used to drive pumps for farm irrigation in Tulare County, California. National Electric Light Association committees reported favorably on possible farm uses of electricity, notably in 1910 and 1923.

Despite such exceptions, investor-owned utilities viewed farms mainly as a very small electric lighting load. They set rural service rates high and insisted on a cash contribution, generally equal to the cost of extending the line to serve them. It was a long time before the value of using electricity was recognized in powering motors, and increasing farm production and income.

Morris L. Cooke, Philadelphia Public Works director in 1913, became interested in rural electrification through his studies of electric distribution costs, distinguished from generation and transmission costs. With scientific management methods in mind, he visualized streamlining the cumbersome, heavy-duty urban distribution system to serve rural areas, and thereby reduce the cost of rural electrification.

In transmitting the Giant Power Survey Board's report to the General Assembly of Pennsylvania in February 1925, Governor Pinchot recommended the "systematic extension of service lines throughout the rural districts." His recommendation was based on the 480-page report prepared under the direction of Morris L. Cooke. The report includes a 21-page bibliography which reflects the extensive interest in electricity and particularly rural electrification, including the papers at the First World Power Conference of 1924 and the forthcoming Annals of March 1925, on the theme of Giant Power, of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, of which issue Cooke was editor. Many articles, speeches, and chapters report on the success of rural electrification in Europe, New Zealand, and Canada.

When Governor Roosevelt signed the New York State Power Authority bill in April 1931, Cooke became a commissioner. In that position, he sponsored a study of electric distribution costs for rural areas.

The October 1934 report of the Mississippi Valley Committee, chaired by Cooke, had a strong chapter on power. It

In the early days of rural electrification called for multi-purpose hydroelectric projects, transmis

many farmers hitched up their teams and helped clear right-of-way, set poles, and string conductors.

sion grid systems, and rural electrification, the latter under Federal leadership. It noted the benefits of power

development and rural electrification:

"Of the returns in terms of social well-being, national safety, agricultural and industrial advance, and of individual happiness and security, there is no yardstick adequate for the measuring" (p. 53).

Congress included rural electrification as a project category in the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of April 8, 1935. President Roosevelt used this Act as authority for establishing the Rural Electrification Administration under Executive Order 7037 on May 11. He appointed Cooke Administrator on May 20. Cooke referred to May 11 in his first annual report (January 20, 1937) as a milestone date:

"For the first time, thousands of our rural communities have had hope of securing electricity" (p. 1).

The first annual REA annual report featured a map of the extent of farm electrification as of 1934 ranging from 53 percent in California to 0.5 percent in Mississippi, and averaging 10 percent for the nation.

Many states submitted applications for construction loans to the agency during its first year. As the program gained public support, Congress enacted the Rural Electrification Act of 1936, establishing a 10-year loan program.

Cooke retired as REA Administrator early in 1937. Kenneth E. Trombley quoted Eleanor Roosevelt in his 1954 biography of Cooke:

"There is little doubt that one of Mr. Cooke's greatest accomplishments to his Nation has been his contributions to the development of rural electrification. One cannot measure the extent to which back-breaking burdens have ceased to be a part of the farmer's daily existence through electrification. One cannot measure what electricity has done to give the farmer's wife and family better health, greater happiness, and, probably more important than all, human dignity" (p. 250).

The national rural electrification program did not exclude existing utilities. Cooke believed private and municipal utilities would apply for loans, but he was disappointed.

Cooperatives evolved as a last resort. They were welcomed by private utilities in some states and bitterly opposed in others, particularly in California, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Companies stepped up rural electrification enough to prevent establishment of cooperatives in the better service areas. In the Pacific Northwest the idea of rural electric cooperatives, called "mutuals," was long known in the Burley, Idaho and Tacoma, Washington areas, where at least a dozen co-ops began supplying electricity from 1914 to 1925, long before this became a national movement.

The REA Administrators' annual reports show the progress of rural electrification year by year and state by state, often in the face of many challenges. The War Production Board halted construction of rural lines July 20, 1942 because of material shortages. It revised the order in January 1943 to permit short rural line extensions if they would enable farm production to be increased.

In 1944 REA drafted a 5-year post-war electrification program. It earmarked $1 billion in REA loans for facilities and anticipated $4.5 billion in consumer purchases of wiring and appliances. Congress responded by enacting the Pace Act of September 22, 1944, reducing the REA interest rate to 2 percent and extending the amortization period to 35 years. In signing the bill, President Roosevelt pointed out that the Act would: