Public development of hydro-electric power on the St. Lawrence model, with national control of interstate transmission

I insisted that the actual dam or dams and the actual power houses should be constructed by a public authority and always remain in the physical possession of that public authority.

if Government is not able to find private individuals or corporations willing to do this, then Government must step in and do it itself.

where a public service like the transmission of electricity passes beyond State lines and becomes interstate in its actual operation, in such a case the control cannot effectively be maintained by States alone, or through agreements between neighboring States. That problem is national in its scope and can be solved only by the firm establishment of national control.

The conservation, development, and use of the nation's water power in the public interest.

I do not hold with those who advocate Government ownership or Government operation of all utilities. I state to you categorically that as a broad general rule the development of utilities should remain, with certain exceptions, a function for private initiative and private capital.

Explicit limit on the position.

That where a community -- a city or county or a district is not satisfied with the service rendered or the rates charged by the private utility, it has the undeniable basic right, as one of its functions of Government, one of its functions of home rule, to set up, after a fair referendum to its voters has been had, its own governmentally owned and operated service.

State owned or Federal owned power sites can and should and must properly be developed by Government itself.

Each one of these, in each of the four quarters of the United States, will be forever a national yardstick to prevent extortion against the public and to encourage the wider use of that servant of the people -- electric power.

Federal dams in the Northwest and the TVA delivered public power on a scale the campaign only sketched.

Huge dams--Grand Coulee and Bonneville--transformed the economy of the Pacific Northwest. Still more important was the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).

Roosevelt is prepared to put the federal government into the power business, and his Senate supporters are pledged to it.

The Democratic candidate has declared that under the same conditions which may make local action of this character desirable, he is prepared to put the Federal Government into the power business.