MUSCLE SHOALS 1
(Knoxville Sentinel)
As is well known the Ford offer
for Muscle Shoals was tremen
dously popular with the country
and was credited with correspond
ing: popularity in the congress,
which, it was believed at the
time, would have certainly di
rected the sale or lease to be
made to Mr. Ford if it had been
permitted to vpte on the proposi
tion. In the light of Secretary
Weeks' action in closing with the
Alabama Power Company’s offer
between congresses or sessions of
congress the suspicion seems to us
justified that there was design
and trickery in the fight that was
successfully made in the last con
gress to delay a vote on the Mus
cle Shoals matter. Why was there
so much said and done in the
Sixty-Seventh congress looking to
that body authorizing the sale or
lease of the plant to Mr. Ford,
why did committees junket to
Muscle Shoals at much expense of
time and money to study the prop
osition if the executive department
of the government had the power
to dispose of the plant, or any part
of it, by private sale, so to speak,
without reference to congress?
Whatever may be the merits of
Mr. Ford’s charge as above stated,
certain it is that congress pro
posed and Mr. Weeks disposed, In
this instance. Inaugurating the
breaking up of this great govern
ment plant for the consideration
of three to four million dollars Js
of a piece with the haggling ov!*r
Ford's cash offer of five million
for the entire plant and annual
payments for the life of his .lease
that would have more than reim
bursed the government for every
dollar it has put in the plant.
