The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 95, July 1991 - April, 1992 Page: 356
598 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
County District's lawyer, J. E. Starley, of questionable dealing with Syn-
dicate Power. Starley hotly denied this statement, then claimed that the
Insull interests controlled the Syndicate Power Company.
This accusation was a serious one. Samuel Insull then controlled a
utility empire from his headquarters in Chicago. Charges that he had
purchased the election of an Illinois senator and was deeply involved in
the "power trust" appeared almost daily in the national news. A Syndi-
cate Power representative immediately responded to Starley's assertion.
He read a prepared statement from Middle West Utilities Company, an
Insull corporation, stating that Middle West had no direct or indirect
interest in the Syndicate Power Company, but admitting a contractual
arrangement with it. Middle West claimed that if these hydroelectric
developments were determined to be not in the best interests of Texas,
then Insull would not pursue them.'"
At the conclusion of the meeting, a resolution proposed by Senator
Woodward was adopted. The resolution expressed the hope that the
State Board of Water Engineers would reopen the Syndicate Power
Company permits and deny them "because they are void, contrary to
law, and detrimental to the public welfare." Senator Woodward called
the meeting a great success because it showed that the people of West
Texas stood together."
Up until this time, the opposition had been relatively silent and un-
organized. Before the Abilene meeting, state senator A.J. Wirtz of
Seguin, representing several of the rice irrigation company protestants,
had assailed the WTCC for using "every effort to influence the deci-
sion" of the Board of Water Engineers on the Brown County District
case. He had also called attention to the benefits of the dams proposed
by the Syndicate Power Company to the lower Colorado River Valley:
they would mitigate floods on the river from Austin to the Gulf of Mex-
ico, supply power to the city of Austin, and increase the normal flow of
the river so that additional water would be available for irrigation. But
Wirtz was hardly a disinterested observer. Besides representing the rice
irrigation protestant, Wirtz represented Emery, Peck and Rockwood
Development Company, which was closely related to the Insull inter-
ests, in its efforts to build hydropower dams on the Guadalupe River
near Seguin.'i
16McDonald, Insull, 262-269; Abilene Evening Times, Aug. 18, 19, 1927
'7Abilene Evening Tzmes, Aug. 18, 19, 1927, Homer D. Wade to Gov. Dan Moody, Aug. 20,
1927 (quotation), Governors' Papers Moody; Austin Statesman, Aug 22, 1927.
18Brownwood Banner-Bulletin, Aug. 11, 1927 (quotation), Alvin Wirtz Papers (Lyndon B.
Johnson Library, University of Texas, Austin), Comer Clay, "The Lower Colorado River Au-
thority, A Study in Politics and Public Administration" (Ph D. diss., University of 'Texas at Aus-
tin, 1948), 75, 79.356
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 95, July 1991 - April, 1992, periodical, 1992; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117153/m1/416/: accessed May 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.