Items of Interest July 11, 1914 Issue

Items of Interest

Aimed to prevent commercial monopoly of valuable natural energy, the bill for the development of water-power in connection with the use of the public domain, one of the measures on the Democratic program for conservation legislation, has been reported to the House of Representatives from the public lands committee. The measure would preserve to the people ownership of all public lands available for hydroelectric purposes and provide for their leasing.

"Hearings," the report said, "conclusively show that more than 90 per cent of the developed water-power in the public land states is owned by twenty-eight private corporations and their subsidiaries, and that six of these control together more than 56 per cent of the developed power. Of the twenty-eight companies, seventeen are either subsidiaries of the General Electric Company, or closely associated with it through holding companies, interlocking directors, and banking connections."

Cuyahoga county, Ohio, will add sixty miles of rural brick road to its four hundred miles of similar pavement, according to the 1914 road improvement plans. A minimum width of sixteen feet has been adopted and the expenditure, including fills, bridges etc., will be in excess of nine hundred thousand dollars. The adaptability of brick to rural roads was early proved in Cuyahoga county. The county had expended more than eight million dollars on this type of road, and the repair bills have amounted to practically nothing. In spite of the cost the county is money ahead, for the increase in taxable rural land values has yielded more than the total cost in revenue. Cleveland, with six hundred miles of brick-paved city streets, will pave about eighty miles of streets this year, including repaving.

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