The Atlantian (Atlanta, Ga.) 19??-current, December 01, 1911, Image 6
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THE ATLANTIA N
BERNARD SUTTLER
“Who is fighting the Water Power Merger”
The Water Power Trust
The citizenship of Atlanta embraces a few very dangerous men.
These men are prominent in financial circles, they control a great
deal of money. They stand well in the community, in a business
way, but they are more dangerous to the present and future wel
fare of this community than an equal number of dynamiters would
be. These men are not pre-eminent for culture, nor for ability,
nor for learning, nor for sagacity, nor for patriotism; and their real
pre-eminence lies in an abnormal degree of cunning. They would
make Fagin take second place, for while they have no more con
science than Fagin, their cunning is so much more shrewd that they
will never fall into the hands of the law, as Fagin did. But, while
Fagin, in his Thieves’ College, tought boys how to pick pockets of
a few shillings, or to steal pocket-handkerchiefs, these gentlemen go
out under the forms of law, and appropriate to themselves the hard-
earned millions, of the common people, without giving in return
equivalent service. The whole idea of these men is to get something
for nothing—that is their code of life; and they have been so suc
cessful in previous operations, that they are now striking for so
many millions that it takes one’s breath to think of it. If our peo
ple had as much courage as they have got sense, these men would
not have the insolence to come before the public with their thinly
disguised scheme of spoliation—but we seem to be losing our cour
age. Atlanta and its tributary towns all seem to be terrorized by
these few cunning men, because they can control some money. The
sentiment was voiced by one man, when he said: “you cannot buck
against money.” If this is true, the best thing that the American
people can do is to turn all their affairs over to a syndicate of
shrewd and wealthy gentlemen, with the humble petition that they
will at least leave us bread and water.
Now let us get down to particulars. The Georgia Railway and
Power Company comes before the State Railroad Commission, ask
ing it to validate a bond issue of thirty million dollars, and a stock
issue of twenty-seven million dollars. The assets of the Georgia
Railway and Power Company consist of the undeveloped water
powers of North Georgia, upon which they have secured contracts
and options, or agreements, by which the present owners will merge
all their interests in this one corporation. The potential horse
power of all these merged companies would be, say, three hundred
and fifty thousand horse-power—the actual power delivered for
use would be, say, two hundred and twenty-five thousand horse
power. The probable outside cost of installation and building of
dams will not be over fifty dollars per potential horse power, or
say seventeen million, five hundred thousand dollars. We know
that this concern has had its thirty millions of bonds underwritten
at eighty-five, which would be twenty-five and a half millions; and
we know that the shrewd fellows who have organized the scheme
are too shrewd not to get some velvet out of that twenty-five mil
lions. Thirty-one and a half millions, in excess of the twenty-five
and a half millions, does not represent an investment of one nickel,
but is merely the expression of their unlimited confidence in their
ability to gull the people of Georgia into making them a present of
a fabulous sum of money.
As an example of the impudence of these people, it may be cited
that they were so sure of their ability to handle the Georgia Rail
road Commission, that they sold ten millions of their bonds before
they made their application. They must have felt very certain
of their ability to handle the Commission, or they would not have
ventured to that length. It begins to look as if they had made
their application to the Commission merely as a formality and
intended to carry out their scheme without regard to the laws of
the State of Georgia; for we all know that these gentlemen of
“big business” regard themselves as superior to the laws made for
“common folks.”
Read the following argument, which, appeared in the Atlanta
Georgian on December 9th, over the signature of Mrs. Helen D.
Longstreet, and then see if, as a citizen of Georgia, you ought not
to bestir yourself to prevent this wicked scheme from being foster
ed on our people:
Mrs. Longstreet Shows Danger of Big Merger—Writes Vigorous
Card on the Proposed Water Power Corporation Now Planned.
Gainesville, Ga., Dec. 9.—Mrs. Helen D. Longstreet, president of
the Tallulah Falls Conservation Association, gave out the following
statement this morning, pleading for the protection of the falls from
the approaching destruction by the water power companies now
seeking legal authority for a vast merger of interests:
To the People of Georgia:
The proposition now pending before the railroad commission in
behalf of the Georgia Railway and Power Company, asking the com
mission to validate $30,000,000 of bonds arid $27,000,000 of stock,
is as iniquitous a scheme as has ever been proposed in any American
state.
It is a merger of a lot of water power companies in north Georgia
with one in South Carolina. It has secured a charter from the
state of Georgia which is to run 101 years. It has made a lease
of the Georgia Railway and Electric Company’s properties, in return
for which they guarantee interest on the bonds, 8 per cent, dividend
on the stpck and to give to that company a large stock bonus.
“Watered Stock” Charged.
This makes the Georgia Railway and Electric Company in effect a
part of the merger and raises the total capitalization to $77,000,000,
$40,000,000 in bonds and $37,000,000 in stock. Twenty-seven mil
lions of this stock has at the present moment no sort of value. The
moment the railroad commission validates that stock it will have
value, and in a few years the effect of that decision would carry
that $27,000,000 of water above par, just as our folly in the past has