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A Desert? At Pendleton, Neuberger pointed out that Coon's bill eliminates the "preference clause" in federal-power development, which now gives publicly owned municipal and rural electrification systems priority over private companies in getting federal power. Replied Coon: Oregon gets only 24% of the Northwest output; eliminating public preference would "give Oregon consumers a break." Countered Neuberger: By setting a precedent for eliminating the traditional safeguard, Washington State might conceivably be entitled to 83% of all Northwest power on the basis of its proximity to dam sites.
Then the Senator cited the Bonneville Power Administration's rates as lowest in the U.S. (an average 2.3 mills per kw-h to industrial customers) v. one of the proposed partner's rates (averaging 8.2 mills). "How many industries do you think we could get at 8.2 mills?" he asked. "None. N-O-N-E."
Defended Coon: "I want to see these dams and these payrolls now, not in 12 or 27 years . . . I sometimes think the Senator would rather see Oregon turned into a desert than let one kilowatt of power be generated by a private firm." Insisted Neuberger: The shortage can be solved if the Northwest patiently fights for bigger federal appropriations.
For ten frenetic nights, the debaters brought out the biggest crowds in years. They tended to sympathize with Sam Coon. "Sam's sort of one of them," observed a small-town editor, but he added: "Neuberger easily out-debated him."
Neuberger needled Coon to "tell all these people exactly who wrote the John Day bill," declared that it was drafted by the president of a power company proposed as one of the Government's partners. Coon admitted that he had "expert consultation," but that he was the author.
In Bend, as the debate ended, Neuberger summed up: "Speeches for free enterprise won't bring industry and payrolls to the Pacific Northwest. Low-cost power will." But to Neuberger's reiterated faith in federal enterprise, Sam Coon replied that his opponent favors "socializing the electricity industry . . . He has lost this debate because he has been on the wrong side of the fence." Oregonians, enlightened and titillated at the same time, had learned much about one of the most important (and still unsolved) issues in their lives.
*John Day was a hunter who worked for Fur Baron John Jacob Astor, suffered such hardship while lost for a winter in the Oregon wilderness that he was insane when found in May 1812, and died soon after. In memoriam, Day's name was given to a small Columbia River tributary near The Dalles.