VICE-PRESIDENT HARRIES:-Unless objection is offered, the Report of the Committee will be accepted and printed in the proceedings.

The next order of business calls for the Report of the Committee on Individual Membership, which the Secretary, in the absence of the Chairman, Mr. James F. Shaw, will read.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON MEMBERSHIP

(Formerly Committee on Associate Membership.)

GENTLEMEN:- Your Committee on Membership — individual — submits a report which it hopes will meet with the approval of our membership.

It first of all would call attention to the change in the designation of the individual members, they now being known as Members" instead of "Associate Members" as heretofore.

The Committee was appointed early in the year and consists of 36 members comprehending the entire country. The work of the Committee has been augmented during the year by that of the Committee on Company Sections, by a Committee of Three appointed by the Transportation and Traffic Association, by the efforts of the Presidents of the Affiliated Associations and officials of a number of our companies as well as the officers and members of our allied Manufacturers' Association.

The year just closed has seen a number of new movements inaugurated in the Association, all of which have tended to increase our individual membership, as for instance, the approval and the actual institution of the Company Section plan, the development of the arrangement between the Manufacturers' Association and the parent body, involving the membership of all representatives of members of the Manufacturers' Association in attendance at the Convention, and the inauguration of an individual membership class in the Accountants' Association - these new departures are mainly responsible for the enrollment which your Committee is able to report at this time. Furthermore, the attractiveness of the individual membership class has been added to by the decision of the Association to publish the monthly AERA. The wisdom of this step has been apparent since the first issue in August and everywhere is heard commendation of the book itself and approval of the broad policy of your Executive Committee to by this means keep in touch with the membership throughout the year.

While the individual members in other years have, undoubtedly, received good returns for the amount of dues paid, the monthly message to them through the AFRA will, in the judgment of the

Committee, bear fruit in largely increased membership and aid greatly in maintaining the interest of this individual membership and in arousing its enthusiasm to do splendid work in support of electric railway interests.

Another change which we are sure will work for permanent good is the action of the Executive Committee in declaring all sessions of the American Association, both Convention and Mid-year, open to all members.

At the beginning of the present year, your individual membership stood at 1202, and your Committee is able to report that at this date it has reached 2550.

As Chairman of your Committee, I wish to express personal obligation of the co-operation of the members of this Committee, throughout the year and, at the same time, on behalf of the Committee extend thanks to Messrs. C. N. Duffy, of Milwaukee; R. E. Danforth, of Newark; W. G. Gove, of Brooklyn; W. R. Alberger, of Oakland, and C. B. Wells and W. M. Casey, of Denver, for the active work performed in developing membership among the officers and employees of their respective companies.

Respectfully submitted,

October 8, 1912.

JAMES F. SHAW,
Chairman.

The full personnel of the Committee on Membership for the

year 1911-1912 was as follows:

James F. Shaw, Chairman, New York, N. Y.

Geo. H. Harries, Louisville, Ky.

Chas. N. Black, San Francisco, Cal.

C. G. Goodrich, Minneapolis Minn.
J. C. Hutchins, Detroit, Mich.
Robt. McCulloch, St. Louis, Mo.
Frank Hedley, New York, N. Y.
J. F. Calderwood, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Wm. A. House, Baltimore, Md.
R. E. Danforth, Newark, N. J.
C. N. Duffy, Milwaukee, Wis.
H. E. Huntington, Los Angeles, Cal.
Jas. H. McGraw, New York, N. Y.
T. H. Tutwiler, Memphis, Tenn.
L. S. Storrs, New Haven, Conn.
R. I. Todd, Indianapolis, Ind.
M. C. Brush, Boston, Mass.
H. J. Davies, Cleveland, Ohio.
A. H. Ford, Birmingham, Ala.
R. S. Goff, Boston, Mass.

F. E. Smith, Chicago, Ill.

D. A. Hegarty, New Orleans, La.
W. H. Glenn, Atlanta, Ga.

E. T. Moore, Dallas, Tex.

E. F. Schneider, Cleveland, Ohio.
H. W. Fuller, Bluefield, W. Va.

L. H. Bean, Tacoma, Wash.

A. B. Skelding, Wilmington, N. C.
E. H. Davis, Williamsport, Pa.

S. R. Inch, Missoula, Mont.

J. J. Johnson, Oklahoma City, Okla.
P. S. Young, Newark, N. J.
E. O. Ackerman, Columbus, Ohio.
H. K. Bennett, Fitchburg, Mass.
J. N. Shannahan, Hampton, Va.
W. L. Conwell, New York, N. Y.

VICE-PRESIDENT HARRIES:- The Report will be filed and printed in the proceedings unless objection is made.

The program calls for the report of the Committee on Education, H. H. Norris of Ithaca, N. Y., Chairman, as the next order of business. Prof. Norris not being able to attend, delegated the duty of presenting the report to Prof. A. S. Richey, but Prof. Richey not being present at this time the report will not be presented now.

The projected address on "The Future of the Interurban" by Randal Morgan, First Vice-President and General Counsel, United Gas Improvement Company of Philadelphia, cannot be presented this afternoon. Mr. Morgan found it impossible to be here and we have not his manuscript.

"Water

We will, therefore, move on to the address on Power Development and its Relation to Public Utilities." This paper will be presented by Mr. James E. Hewes, of H. M. Byllesby & Company, Chicago. Mr. Hewes has a relationship to the Association that ought to be mentioned. He was in direct charge of the construction of the West Jersey and Sea Shore Road under Mr. Potter, the chief engineer. The work has always been regarded as being a very excellent specimen of what could be well done and done in a very brief time. Most of us know a good deal about it, and most of us have used the road. I think the period of construction from its

beginning to the time the road was in service was within six months. What was looked upon then as a good deal of an experiment is a rather thoroughly established proposition to-day.

I will now ask Mr. Hewes to present his paper.

ADVANTAGES TO COMMUNITIES BY THE DEVELOPMENT OF WATER POWERS

By JAMES E. HEWES,

H. M. Byllesby & Co., Chicago, Ill.

It is a long distance between the electrification of a steam railroad and an address on the “Advantages of Water Power Development to Communities", but there is a law in physics that states that the breadth of view enlarges as the square of the distance between two points, and it should be an easy matter to be on the affirmative side of a subject which has no negative.

I will not attempt to go into a technical discussion of this subject, but present some facts which, possibly, you will recognize as old, familiar thoughts expressed in new words.

At the recent convention of the Byllesby Companies, Governor Eberhardt, of Minnesota, sounded the key-note of this very broad subject.

He was introduced in the following manner; after dinner was well underway:

66

Governor, shall I permit the people to enjoy themselves a little longer or shall I introduce you?"

The Governor stated that in the little town of Rapidan, Minnesota, they had a 50 horsepower flour mill and water power with a dam measuring about 8 feet in height, which was considered as quite an investment in the little village. "The Byllesby Company conceived the idea of constructing a dam with about a 60-foot head and a capacity of 3600 horse power. That dam was constructed by the Byllesby Company and the power generated is turning practically every wheel within a distance of 40 miles. Such public utilities render great service and that is what is needed and what is meant by a well-managed public utility. Rapidan River together with Cannon River, nearby, for many years did nothing but a large amount of damage and in its wildest moments caused many people to look at it purely as scenery. To-day, there are a number of power developments and storage ponds on these two rivers and the water which formerly was a menace to life is now compelled to work over-time at about ten different locations. The floods have been harnessed and impounded and to-day the flow of the river is almost uniform throughout the year.

"The State of Minnesota wants to encourage capital to come in and take a hand in the development of its great natural resources. We believe in conservation but we believe in the kind of conservation that enables the present generation to get its fair share of the enjoyment of these resources without interfering with the proportionate enjoyment thereof by future generations. I can say nothing better for my state on the encouragement of the investment of capital than that it should be given a fair return. The time has come in our state and I believe it is coming in most states when the muck-raker and the demagogue shall be banished. Minnesota is progressive and the best I can say for a progressive state is that it believes in the fair treatment of both labor and capital to the end that they may work side by side for the development of our natural resources."

In the United States, during the past year, the damage and direct loss to the citizens of the United States, due to floods, exceeded $100,000,000. During the preceding years, corresponding losses to property and life occurred.

The advantage to humanity at large due to the development of water powers in its broadest sense is to prevent these awful catastrophies.

In addition to the financial loss due to erosion of the land and ruining of crops, there is an enormous loss of life. Unless one had visited the flooded valley of the Mississippi river last spring, one cannot conceive the picture of suffering humanity that existed. In addition to the loss of life, crops, real estate and cattle, there was a great loss to river navigation companies due to the floods alone, and many acres of valuable agricultural land and timber were deprived of producing power.

The first great benefit to mankind which would occur by the development of water powers would be the prevention of floods, and the increase in efficiency of river navigation. This should be the first point where the Government must use its energies to the conservation of water power.

Without in any way criticizing the conservation policy of the United States Government, I feel that the present policy, if you can call it a policy at all, is "Saving at the spigot and leaking at the bung." In other words, it is beginning at the wrong end, or it is going too far upstream.

The small quantity of water that the Government may conserve on some little rivulet trickling down the mountain side, the only possible use of which may be to encourage tourists to come out and look at it, is but a raindrop compared with the billions of tons of water carrying in suspension a million tons of the cream soil skimmed off of valuable land in the Mississippi Valley.