Government hydroelectric project.
At Muscle Shoals in northern Alabama, the Tennessee
River drops more than 140 feet along a 30-mile stretch, giving the area huge hydroelectric potential. The government
began construction on two dams and two nitrate plants for
hydroelectric power to manufacture nitrates for munitions
during World War I. The war ended before engineers completed the projects, so the government no longer needed the
nitrates for munitions. Since no agreements about postwar
usage existed, President Warren G. Harding and Herbert
Hoover, then secretary of commerce, developed plans to lease
the installation to private companies that planned to use nitrates to manufacture fertilizer. Henry Ford expressed interest in the area and even proposed to build a “Detroit south”
at Muscle Shoals.
The issue became heated after World War I when automaker Henry Ford attempted to buy the area and the dam
from the federal government. Republican Senator George
Norris of Nebraska, the chair of the Agriculture Committee,
argued that the Muscle Shoals facilities should become the
center of a public works project to develop fertilizer, flood
control, and power for the welfare of the people. In 1925
President Calvin Coolidge appointed a committee, the Muscle Shoals Inquiry, to investigate whether private or public
administration would operate more efficiently. The commit-
tee members, unwilling to entrench themselves in this controversial issue, declared the problem political rather than
technical.
Norris would lead the fight to keep governmental control
of the Muscle Shoals property. He demanded that the government administer the facility for the benefit of the people
living in the Tennessee River Valley. Norris engineered the
passage of two bills calling for governmental control of the
facilities, one in 1928 and another in 1931. Both bills fell victim to presidential vetoes. Both Hoover and Norris refused to
budge on the issue.
The Democrats remained committed to public ownership
of the area, and the stalemate ended in 1933 with the election
of Franklin D. Roosevelt to the presidency. Roosevelt visited
Muscle Shoals and charged the Tennessee Valley Authority
(TVA) with planning the usage, development, and conservation of the natural resources in the Tennessee River basin to
the combined advantage of agriculture, forestry, and flood
prevention. The TVA served as a model for the nation of revitalization of an area through government projects. Charges
of unconstitutionality were lodged by private companies,
which said that government ownership of utilities prevented
private companies from entering the market. The TVA accomplished many of it goals and objectives and, as one of
Roosevelt’s most successful New Deal programs, TVA created
three million jobs.
—Lisa A. Ennis
References
Clements, Kendrick A. Hoover, Conservation, and
Consumerism: Engineering the Good Life. Lawrence:
University Press of Kansas, 2000.
Hargrove, Erwin C. Prisoners of Myth: The Leadership of the
Tennessee Valley Authority 1933–1990. Knoxville:
University of Tennessee Press, 2001.
Olson, James Stuart, ed. Historical Dictionary of the New
Deal: From Inauguration to Preparation for War.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985.