REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON CONSTITUTION

AND BY-LAWS

The Committee's activities during the year were limited to the two matters brought to its attention: viz., the amending of Article XIV-Company Sections; and Article XVII (Section 1) -Geographic Section Refund.

The proposed amendment to Article XIV was drawn up by the Committee on Company Sections to enable the Company Sections to have a grade of membership to be designated as "Limited Members"; i.e., employees of Class A Members, who are not yet qualified for Class B membership but who desire to participate in the activities of the Company Sections.

Article XIV at present reads as follows:

SECTION 1. Upon the application to it by any Class A member, the Executive Committee shall authorize the organization of any or all of the officers and employees of said Class A member into a Company Section of the National Electric Light Association.

SECTION 2. No person not a member of the National Electric Light Association shall be eligible to membership in a Company Section of the National Electric Light Association.

As amended, this Article would read:

SECTION 1. Upon the application to it by any Class A member, having in its employ not less than ten Class B members, the Executive Committee shall authorize the organization of any or all of the officers and employees of said Class A member into a Company Section of the National Electric Light Association, the Officers, Executive Committee and Committee Chairmen of which shall be elected from the Class B membership.

SECTION 2. A Company Section may include as Limited Members those employees of Class A members who desire to participate in the local Section's activities, but who are not yet qualified for Class B membership. The dues.

from such Limited Members shall go into the local Section treasury.

Prior to being submitted to the Committee, this amended Article had been carefully considered and had been endorsed by a specially appointed Sub-Committee on Limited Class B Membership and by Mr. Henry L. Doherty representing a special Sub-Committee on Company Sections, of the Public Policy Committee.

The Committee has studied this amendment both with regard to its effect on the Company Sections and with regard to its effect on the Association as a whole, and unanimously recommends its adoption.

The proposed amendment to Article XVII (Section 1) was suggested by Mr. R. H. Ballard, in order that the portion of the Class A and Class D dues to be refunded to the Geographic Sections may be left to the discretion of the Executive Committee of the Association.

Article XVII (Section 1) at present reads as follows:

SECTION 1. Upon certification to the Treasurer of the National Electric Light Association by the executive officers of any Geographic Section stating the membership of such Section who have paid dues for the full calendar year, and upon approval of the Executive Committee, the Treasurer of the National Electric Light Association shall pay over to the proper officers of the said Section an amount not to exceed fifty (50) per cent of the fixed yearly dues received from all the Class A and Class D members of the Section, and an amount not to exceed fifty (50) per cent of the yearly dues received from the Class B and Class E members of the Section. The Executive Committee, however, shall limit these appropriations to any amount that it may deen advisable. The Section officers shall file a budget during January of the estimated expenses for the ensuing year for the approval of the Executive Committee, and shall also file a detailed statement of the actual expenses at the close of each year.

To amend Section 1 of this Article, it is proposed to omit the word "fixed."

The Committee has also carefully studied this amendment and unanimously recommends its adoption.

These amendments have received the approval of the Executive Committee, and in accordance with the Constitution are now submitted for the vote of the Class A members.

Respectfully submitted,

WM CL EGLIN, Chairman

H CABELL

W W FREEMAN

FRANK W FRUEAUFF

HT SANDS

CGM THOMAS

The President: A motion is in order for the adoption of the amendments submitted by the Committee on Constitution and By-Laws.

(Upon motion duly made and seconded, the amendments as read were separately adopted.)

THE PRESIDENT: The Chairman appoints as the Committee on Memorials in accordance with our regular practice, Mr. T. E. Bibbins, of San Francisco, Chairman, and Mr. S. A. Sewall, our Acting Secretary.

He appoints as the Committee on Resolutions Mr. Arthur Williams, of the New York Edison Company.

The United States Geological Survey, of the Department of the Interior, has spent a lot of time recently on the subject of power supply. It has worked out a plan for inter-connection of the power stations of the large power supply companies, and has developed a plan for what might be called a river of electrical power. We are honored in having with us today Director George Otis Smith, of the Department of the Interior, United States Geological Survey, who will address us on this subject. And it gives me great pleasure to present to you at this time Director Smith. (Applause.)

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PLANNING FOR POWER

BY GEORGE OTIS SMITH

Director, United States Geological Survey

The relation of government to business is in itself a topic too large for your three-day program, and I will therefore limit myself to the simple thesis that planning for the general welfare is a proper function of government. In the long years of public experimentation with business the restriction of excessive growth has been attempted by large and bitter doses of anti-trust prosecutions, followed by prescriptions of more direct regulation, and —concluding the series, we trust-by several governmental operations under the anesthesia of war. Fortunately, however, the patient has survived each course of treatment, and while our financial and technical journals are full of interesting fever charts that graphically tell the story of the depressing reactions of the past, American industry and American business still live. Before abandoning this figurative diagnosis of the case I may add my personal conviction that Uncle Sam as a doctor has on the one hand given too much medicine and performed too many minor operations and, on the other, paid too little attention to the patient's diet and exercise. In other words, supervision of industry can and should be constructive as well as restrictive.

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There has been, fortunately, some progress in our ideas of what is the true relation between government and business. Governmental cooperation with business is the next step. Industry itself is indeed cooperative and social by nature, and the bigger "big business" becomes the greater its need of socialization in the true sense.

In manufacturing, as in public service, the trend must be not toward price-lowering through competitive marketing but toward cost-lowering through competitive effort for efficiency. The operating official-the superintendent at the works-and not the sales manager may be the man who has most to do with the future success of the business. The idea that competition is productive of low prices has been over-emphasized in our laws, because public opinion has believed in that way of keeping big

business under control-but average prices can not for any very long period be lower than average costs. The Government bureau, board, or commission that seeks to protect the consumer will do well to help in the organization of industry on lines that will work out lower costs. And such planning must be on a national scale. As the efficient executive of the street railway system keeps before him a map of the city or district served, on which he plots the details of growth and of future needs, so the Federal administrative officer must plan for the future with the same foresight; and planning of this type is properly a function of your Government at Washington.

These are days of "changing gears" on the big industrial machine of our country. Under the war-speed conditions we took everything on "high," regardless of either economy or safety. Now we have slowed down to "look and listen," and Business must decide what speeds are best suited for the long pull ahead. The time is therefore opportune for broad planning, and there is no more urgent need than that of a power program.

A year ago, you may recall, the war boards at Washington outlined on the industrial map of the Eastern United States an area of high pressure—a danger zone, where mills were overloaded with work and railroads were congested with freight. Fuel famine and power shortage had been threatened, and drastic action seemed necessary. Within that area half a dozen rail gateways absolutely limit traffic, so that even now, with the war stress no longer active, the internal strain still exists in the transportation and industrial system of the Boston-Washington zone. Restriction of industry was the war-time remedy proposed; electrification is the peace cure.

To tell the National Electric Light Association at its fortysecond convention that electric energy is man's best servant may be too much like "carrying coals to Newcastle." However, my purpose is to sum up some of the outstanding facts in your business which ought to appeal to the general public, for whether we are public-service officials or public servants we are all American citizens interested in the public welfare. As I see it, power is the great industrial need of the day-without it the speeding up of our Nation in its recent great effort to help save the world would have been impossible. Try to think of our war-time pro