It would seem to be our plain duty to discover how little oil we need to
use. To do this we must dignify coal by grading it in terms not merely
of convenience as to size, but in terms of service as to its power. We
should save it, if for no better reason than that we may sell it to a
coal-hungry world. We should develop water power as an inexhaustible
substitute for coal and if necessary compel the coordination of all
power plants which serve a common territory. New petroleum supplies have
become a national necessity, so quickly have we adapted ourselves to
this new fuel and so extravagantly have we given ourselves over to its
adaptability. To save that we may use abundantly, to develop that we may
never be weak, to bring together into greater effectiveness all power
possibilities--these would seem to be national duties, dictated by a
large self-interest.
I have gone only sufficiently far into this whole question to realize
that it is as fundamental and of as deep public concern as the railroad
question and that it is even more complex. No one, so far as I can
learn, has mastered all of its various phases; in fact, there are few
who know even one sector of the great battle front of power. A Foch is
needed, one in whom would center a knowledge of all the activities and
the inactivities of these three great industries, which in reality are
but a single industry. We should know more than we do, far more about
the ways and means by which our unequaled wealth in all three divisions
can be used and made interdependent, and the moral and the legal
strength of the Nation should be behind a studied, fact-based,
long-viewed plan to make America the home of the cheapest and the most
abundant and the most immediately and intimately serviceable power
supply in the world. If we do this, we can release labor and lighten
nearly every task. We will not need to send the call to other countries
for men, and we can distribute our industries in parts of the country
where labor is less abundant and where homes will take the place of
tenements. One could expand upon the benefits that would come to this
land if a rounded program such as has been but skeletonized here could
be carried out. I am convinced that within a generation it will be
effected, because it will be necessary.
The simple steps now obviously needed are to pass those primary bills
which are already before Congress or are here suggested. But beyond this
there is imperative need that some one man (an assistant secretary in
this department would serve)--some one man with a competent staff and
commanding all the resources of this and other departments of the
Government shall be given the task of taking a world view as well as a
national view of this whole involved and growing problem, that he may
recommend policies and induce activities and promote cooperative
relationships which will effect the most economical production of light,
heat, and power, which is more than the first among the immediate
practical problems of science, as Sir William Crookes said, for it is
foremost among the immediate practical problems of national and
international statesmanship.