Many other power consuming chemical and electrochemical industries will be logically located at Muscle Shoals once the power is available. Their mutual influence with the fertilizer production lies in the fact that the same type of administrative, technical, and marketing talent are adapted to all these industries. The advantage from such community of technical interests also lies in the interchange of available power. The various power consuming processes may arrange for utilizing all the available power, primary and secondary, through scheduling their respective operations according to seasonal and market demands of their products, repair and reconstruction periods, seasonal supply of raw materials, and other conditions. Such a cooperative organization will contribute greatly to the overall economic efficiency of the entire Muscle Shoals industrial scheme, in which the fertilizer production, and hence the farmer, will share in due participation. The presently developed chemical industries in reference include calcium carbide, which has a normal market as such of over 10,000 tons annually in the southern area. From calcium carbide many derivatives of interest are produced through acetylene. These include acetic acid, acetone, sovent alcohols, plastic reagents and, very recently, synthetic rubber. Incidentally acetylene, and hence its countless derivatives, may be produced from barium carbide, which can be made in the electric furnace from barytes which occurs in abundance near Muscle Shoals. The coproducts of the barium smelting operation will be barium hydrate, from which all barium compounds entering into pigments, chemicals, medicinals, etc., are produced; carbon monoxide, from which poison gases for war purposes, methanol, oxalic acid, formic acid, and countless other products may be made; and carbon bysulphide, used in the rayon industry, rubber industry, insecticides, and many other uses. Bauzite and coal are in proximity of Muscle Shoals which, with the electric power under favorable terms, can make abrasives, refractories, aluminum, and compounds in competition with any other points in the world. Unlimited supplies of pure silica and coke provide likewise conditions for producing silicon carbide, widely used for abrasives and refractories, which uses will be greatly extended with decrease in cost. The ever increasing consumption of ferro alloys in the steel industry can find low cost production in the Muscle Shoals situation. Ferrosilicon, ferromanganese, ferrochromium, silico-manganese, calciumsilicon, ferrotitanium, ferroaluminum, ferrophosphorus, ferrovanadium, and ferrotungsten have all their required raw materials either contiguous to Muscle Shoals or within freight zones competitive with any present producers. The water transportation conditions provide delivery of these alloys to the great consuming centers of St. Louis, Chicago, Wheeling, and Pittsburgh district, well within freight costs presently paid on these commodities. It is therefore logically obvious that the favorable availability of Muscle Shoals power and facilities will naturally draw future expansions of power consuming industries there. New processes and new products which consume power or that may benefit from proximity to the production points of these resulting products and by-products will naturally locate in this district. With all the natural and economic advantages provided at Muscle Shoals, it appears safe to predict that the entire available power from the Tennessee River Government generating stations would be consumed in fertilizer and allied chemical industries by the end of another decade. While the benefits from this program through a lower cost and vastly superior fertilizer development will be of immense effect to the greater part of the farmers of the entire country, the effect upon the people of Alabama and Tennessee through the establishing of these great industries will be enormous. The creation of this new source of wealth will provide new taxable capital of great magnitude; employment of thousands of people, otherwise in dire need; definite and profitable markets for the products of the mines, fields, and forests now lying idle and untouched; great increase in freight tonnage for the suffering railroads; enormous revenues from the products and by-products, strengthening all the banking institutions; and vast other incidental benefits. These by-products are mentioned because they directly follow along the line of the chemical manufacture of fertilizer. It is not necessary, I am sure, for me to offer any detailed analyses of the great number of chemicals that can be manufactured at Muscle Shoals that are now being manufactured at Niagara Falls. I do not look upon the leasing of the facilities at Muscle Shoals for fertilizer-manufacturing purposes as a subsidy, because a law drafted along the lines suggested contemplates a reasonable return to the Government, and there should be no difficulty in obtaining such reasonable return. Cheap electric power is the basis of the electrochemical industry, both in the electrothermic and the electrolytic processes. There is sufficient available power at Muscle Shoals at this time to demonstrate beyond any measure of a doubt whether or not Muscle Shoals can be another Niagara Falls without costing the Government a single cent. The raw materials for the manufacture of chemicals similar to those manufactured in New York State and Ontario are closer and cheaper to Muscle Shoals than are such raw materials to Niagara Falls. The markets available for the quantity that could be manufactured at Muscle Shoals are very much closer to that point than they are to Niagara Falls. It seems impossible that one could ask for a more striking example of what the chemical industry under private enterprise can do in the development of an area than to compare the rate of growth of those industries on the American side of Niagara Falls with that on the Ontario side. In 1926-and I am sure there has been marked growth from 1926 to 1929-the total amount of kilowatts consumed by the chemical industry drawn from Niagara Falls was 400,000 per year. For your information I am submitting herewith list 1, showing chemicals manufactured at Niagara Falls, and list 2-the latter to show the great consumption of electric energy in the world chemical industry-showing the world power consumption of important basic materials in 1927. In the effort of Congress to settle the Muscle Shoals question it has been said that the people of the South have refused the cup of happiness and contentment that was extended by friendly hands, because they did not agree with certain suggestions that have been made. If such a statement is correct, their attitude was prompted, not by any lack of a sense of gratitude but rather by a belief that, while the act was friendly, the results would have been unfavorable. I refuse to condemn the purpose of those whose views concerning this question differ from mine. "We must extinguish our resentments." There is one point on which we may agree, and that is that 8 or 10 years ago we reached a stalmate on this question. My plea to-day to you is to give the plan of the governor's commission an opportunity to prove itself. No harm can come of it. It does not involve the expenditure of a single dollar at Muscle Shoals on the part of the Government and promises a reasonable return. There is a certain amount of despair among the people in my section of the country, and if I am correctly informed, it is more or less general. Education, with the development and progress that follows in its wake, makes the temper of a people more responsive to economic changes. The Congress of the United States can not suggest remedies which will be generally adequate in their results. As for Alabama, I can think of no renascence of spirit comparable to that which the fair working out of this program would bring. The South, in justice to itself, can not remain static. Too long, have Muscle Shoals and the South been ground between the millstones of politics. I say again there is need "to extinguish our resentments."-there is need, indeed of the temper of the statesman in this decision. LIST 1.-NIAGARIA FALLS INDUSTRIES The industral district around Niagaria Falls and in the State of New York, includes plants to produce the following materials: Ferro-alloys, abrasives, and chemicals, all of the industries being served with power from Niagaria: (23) Methyl alcohol (24) Methyl acetone (25) Hydrocholoric acid (26) Carbon tetrachloride (27) Sulphur chloride (28) Caustic potash (29) Potassium perchlorate (30) Barium chlorate (31) Cyanamide (32) Electrodes In 1926 the power consumed in the above industries in the State of New York was approximately as follows: Approximately an equal amount of power was used in Canada for similar industries. LIST 2.-World energy consumption of important basic materials in 1927 Senator NORRIS. Mr. Fies, I want to commend your attitude when you say to begin with that you have an interest in this legislation, a selfish interest. And I agree with you that while that has something to do with the way in which it should be considered, yet it is not the dominating feature. A man may have a selfish interest and still be perfectly fair. Mr. FIES. I certainly want to be fair. Senator NORRIS. You represent the coal operators of Alabama? Mr. FIES. Yes, sir. Senator NORRIS. If the President's commission, so-called, had their way about it there would be an addition in your judgment to the financial returns of the coal operators of Alabama? Mr. FIES. I so stated. Senator NORRIS. I think that was very fair of you. If, on the other hand, the bill that we have before us for consideration to-day were enacted into law, and this Muscle Shoals power, as you think, would be operated for power purposes and distributed, it would decrease your financial return by coming in competition with you. Mr. FIES. I so stated. Senator NORRIS. That is another fair proposition stated by you. Now, let me ask you: Are you a chemist? Mr. FIES. Not a practical chemist; no, sir. I have some knowledge of chemistry, and have made a study within the last four years of the chemistry of coal, which of course led me into industrial chemistry. Senator NORRIS. And I think what you have said about the chemistry of coal is exceedingly interesting. Are you familiar with the cyanamide process? Mr. FIES. Yes, sir. Senator NORRIS. For which nitrate plant No. 2 at Muscle Shoals was constructed? Mr. FIES. Yes, sir. Senator NORRIS. You have given that some study? Mr. FIES. Yes, sir. Senator NORRIS. Is it your opinion that that plant No. 2 could be operated successfully, financially, and otherwise, in the manufacture of fertilizer? Mr. FIES. No, sir. Senator NORRIS. You do not believe it could? Mr. FIES. No, sir. Senator NORIIS. In the manufacture of fertilizer, then, in your opinion it would be necessary to practically scrap plant No. 2 down there? Mr. FIES. Yes, sir. Senator NORRIS. What would you do with it? Mr. FIES. I would use it, as I said in my statement, for the manufacture of phosphorus. Those same furnaces, by changing the hoods, could be utilized in volatilizing phosphate rock to phosphorus, and then to phosphoric acid. Senator NORRIS. Where would you get your phosphorus rock? Senator NORRIS. How far from Muscle Shoals? Mr. FIES. Well, I should say probably 150 miles. Senator NORRIS. You would have to mine that phosphorus rock in Tennessee and ship it by rail to Muscle Shoals? |