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Thursday, April 28, 1960 „ THE CLINTON CHRONICLE \ By SPECTATOR ... COMMENTS v ] ON MEN AND THINGS Mr. R. Beverly Herbert, Sr., has announced his candidacy for the U. S. Senate. Mr. Herbert is a very extraordi nary man; a 'patriot of the old school of Virginia statesmen; emi nent lawyer, man of ideals and ideas; student, scholar, man of vis ion but no viaionary; man of heroic courage; always sincere, faithful and true. Mr. Herbert la guided by his sense of pi^>lk concern and obligation. Mr. Herbert never seeks anything for himself; but with a complete dedication or himself he always vol unteers to serve. * * • Do you think of the farmer as a poor man operating on about fifty acres with two mules, one of which he uses to come to town on Satur days and the other for his Sunday drive to the Community Church? Well, wake up; the farmer of today is a businessman who uses a lot of machinery and drives about in an attractive car. He may have an old car for visits to the outlying parts of bis plantation but he and the fam ily have an up-to-date car that goes to all the neighboring towns as well as to church. Hie farmer of today is a man with quite an investment. I know several brothers in Clarendon County who as a partnership and they operate have at least thirty or forty thou sand dollars in great tractors. You will see, then, all about you the truth of the item which I quote from The Wall Street Journal: “Capital investment, per worker is higher in farming than in manufac turing, a Federlil study shows. Capi tal investment in manufacturing last year averaged $15,300 per worker, compared with the farm average of $20,700. For the higMy-mechanired grain farms of the Corn Belt, the average was $112,000 per worker.” That item is quite an eye-opener, isn’t it? A heavier investment per person on the farm than in manu facturing |!! » • • Now and then someone dreams of navigating the Congaree River. The dream is to haul heavy freight from Charleston to Columbia, by way of the Cooper River, the Santee Canal, the Santee River and over the Con garee River. That is a natural dream; many of us have had it. Years ago I organized a company and we even bought a boat in Char leston and started on our way. We abandoned the project and returned to every stockholder the full amount of his investment. Mr. W. D. Mc- Clary, a prominent citizen and busi nessman of Summerton, was the treasurer. On the boat with me in the ven- ACCURACY IS OUR WATCHWORD Your registered pharmacist flils every prescription with pro fessional precision. WHEN YOUR HEALTH IS CONCERNED . . GET WHAT YOU _ NEED HERE! At Your Service At All Times! McGee's Drug Store Telephone No. 1 ture were two wed known citizens, Dr. Edward W. Barron (late o( Co lumbia) and Mr. Joseph Nimmer of Manning. Our project grew out of numerous surveys and explorations. Some years later Mr. T. C. Wil liams, our foremost explorer of the rivers, made several trips from Charleston with a boat. But Mr. Wil liams abandoned his plan, just as we abandoned our plan. I have no <loubt that boats may some day find it feasible to operate from Charleston to Columbia, but that wid be only after the spending of hundreds of millions of dollars. Now is the game worth the can dle? If hundreds of millions of dol lars were spent and a clear channel made available who would use it? If the railroads can’t carry all the freight the trucks stand ready to carry it. I have no figures as to the volume of freight carried by trucks, but I am tremendously impressed by such a fact as the operation of trucks to haul the output of some cotton mills to New York and New England. We live in an age of speed; no body wants to wait two weeks for freight he can haul from Charleston in a few hours. We live in a new day; the slow river freight from Charleston to Columbia is as out-of-date as the hydro-electric plant. As proof of that our Santee-Cooper today has a great steam plant, although Santee-Cooper was intended to use the water power resulting fro mthe natural fall of forty-two feet from the Santee and Cooper Rivers. The vast TVA, an other great hydro-electric project, today is the greatest steam generat ing plant in the world, as I recall. We may come even nearer home and cite both the Duke Power Com pany and the South Carolina Elec tric and Gas Co. Years ago the Dukes developed water power near Anderson and Anderson became ‘known as the Electric City. Later Duke developed hydro-elec tric power near Fort Mill, then at Great Falls. Today Duke plans to build enormous steam plants. Most of us remember the great Saluda Dam and the dream of hy dro-electric power. Today, the South Carolina Electric and Gas Co owner of the great Saluda Dams, depends on steam. In a very interesting explanation by S. C. McMeekin in a report to the stockholders I find very read able expositions of the progress in his field. By the way, a renewal of the Con garee dream would almost remind me of the canals in France, Bel gium and Holland. They would be about as suitable here as oxen to draw your carriage to church. Before I quote that excellent re port of Mr. McMeekin, I am re minded of a letter by Prof. Rogers of Clemson College, a Sumter man wlio is a brilliant teacher of Agri cultural Engineering at Clemson College. Mr. McMeekin I regard as the outstanding alumnus of Clemson —a boy from the farm of Fairfield County who has achieved nation wide recognition as a utility man ager. Let me use that letter from Prof. Rogers, the Sumter County boy who has achieved distinction: “On March 31 there appeared in South Carolina and Georgia papers news of action taken by the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Har hors in approving proposed plans for faclities on the Savannah River. All of the press releases seem to indicate the controversial attitudes concerning this proposal are based on a fight between the Duke Power Co .and the U. S Army Egineers. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most of us who have opposed this waste of tax money have done so for reasons which have nothing to do with Duke Power Co. or any proposal made by Duke. “If Duke is to be made a principal in this controversy, why not other companies which have indicated an interest in developments along the river? Tbe Mead Corporation, in testimony filed with the board, stat ed that their plans to build a plant would be terminated if the proposed Carters Island-Goat Island projects are built. An official of the Sea board Railroad has stated that he knows of several other companies with similar plans and abttiudes Charles E. Daniel, the greatest builder the South has ever known; stated his views clearly in the fol lowing statement before the board: .‘I think the future of our power plants and our river developments are left to private enterprise rather than to the fedeal government.’ “The right or wrong develop ments, as proposed by the Corps of Engineers, is ont in any way as sociated With the plans of any com pany. The basic question is whether or not Congress will continue to al low a governmental agency to use mission show the McMeekin steam- electric generating station of the company to rank number one in America tor 1958, with a heat rate of^9Q93 per net kilowatt-hour. Tkws charged to'operations con stituted the largest single operating expense item for 1959, taking 23c out of each dollar received in reve nues. As a comparison, taxes of the REA cooperatives operating in South Carolina amounted to oidy Mic per revenue dollar and taxes of all the RE Acooperatives in the United States amounted to only 2.81c per revnue dollar irt 1958. Federal, state and local govern ments, without any investment, re ceived ovqr 2V« tunes as much out of the business as the common stockholders. The government re ceived almost two times the oper ating payroll of the ^ompany and IV* times the cost of all fuel used in the generation of electric ener gy The tax bill of your company continues to rise, amounting to $12,- 598,590 in 1959, an increase of $723,- 068 over 1958. Federal taxes amount ed to $7,811,244, or 26% of the total, and state and local taxes were $4.- 787,346.” Those patriotic, pubUc - spirited and excellent citizens who urge the cfevdQpnvent of river freight haulage are either a hundred and fifty years late or a hundred years ahead of time. That isn’t being facetious. A hundred and twenty-five years ago— more or less, the Santee Canal was cut so that freight was hauled from Charleston to Wright's Bluff for Orangeburg. Clarendon, Sumter, and other counties. It was long since abandoned—a hundred years ago. If we try to persuade the nation to throw away hundreds of millions of dollars we shall be in a position FINAL SETTLEMENT Take notice that on the 16th day of May, 1960, I will render a final account of my acts anckdoings as Guardian of the estate of Emily. Frances Bailey in the office of the] Judge of Probate of . Laurens Coun-, ty, at 10 o’clock a. m. and on the same day will apply for a final discharge from my trust as Guar dian. Arty person indebted to said estate is notified and required to make payment on or before that date; and all persons having ^claims against said estate will present them on or before said date, duly prbven or be forever barred. OUIDA C. BAILEY Guardian April 1*. 1960 4t — T — IT YOU DON'T HEAD THE CHRONICLE YOU DO NT GET THE NEWS PHONE 74 J. R. Crawford SURVEYING get your Fur Care Here and NOW! All altoard for our cold •storage vaults, where furs enjoy a '“ool and *afe summer. Try us! CLINTON. S. C. SUNSHINE CLEANERS INSURED FUR STORAGE West Florida St. Phone 436 false interest rates, fictitiously ere- 1 worse than McCormick County cc \ . < * ~ v ated benefit figures and other er roneous fiscal determinations for the self perpetuation of a bureau cratic empire to the detriment of our economic system. Such inten tional deceit amounts to an act of fraud against the people and the re sponsibility for such should be fixed and answered to.” My reason for quoting Mr. Me- Meekin's report is to emphasize how conditions change with the years. Among the items quoted are the following: “The average annual use of the 155,010 residental customers of the company during 1959 was 4,943 kilo watt-hours and the average rate was 2.21c per kilowatt-hour. The annual use was 38% higher than the na tional average of 3,585 kilowatt- hours, whereas the average rate was 12% below the national average of 2.5c. The total capability of the system generating facilities is 890,000 kilo watts, of which 82% is steam and 18% hydro. Hie output of these fa cilities during 1959 was more than 3.9 billion kilowatt-hours, of which 88% was produced by team and 12% by hydro. The hydroelectric output of 488 million kilowwtt-hours was 4% above normal, as compared with 543 million kilowatt-hours, or 16% above normal during 1958. The steam-electric generating sta tions of the system have been de signed to produce electricity as economically as possible. As a re sult, the efficiency (the number of heat units of fufcl required to gen erate one kilowatt-hour!) has im proved as new plants have been con structed. The efficiency of such plants in 1959 was 10,11 7BTU per ulowatt-hour of net generation as compared with 16,020 BTU in 1949, or an improvement of 37% during the past ten years. Efficiency comparisons recently released by the Federal Power Com- which once dreamed of stupendous developments from the Clark’s Hill project; and the same will follow the Hartwell Dam. IF YOU DONT READ THE CHRONICLE YOU DONT GET THE NEWS PHONE 74 J. R. Crawford SURVEYING CLINTON. 8. O Phene 3493 Jeanne 9 ! ;s A * Af- . im* *5 i ■ ,4 «u • • • • We Get Letters and results hear YOUR HIGH SCHOOL HIT PARADE With JERRY STEPHAN SON—Mon. Thru Friday 3:80-5:30 P. M. 1410 on your Dial WKC RADIO Pepsi WE PAY 5% Assets *8,500,000.00 I Each (KCOunf <n\u J up f0 S M. 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