Document: Deep South; The symphony of Southern power

A. Document deep south little or fields of cotton forests and factories in the heart of Dixie. A revealing story of progress documented on the spot recordings and produced by the radio broadcasting service extension division. University of Alabama. For the next 30 minutes you will make a transcribed trip through the day. You will see the significance of a new industrial south changing South. You will see how determined people are nature's plug into prosperity a move that more than ever is making itself felt in our nation's economy. Sump on a Southern Power.

Hour is music a symphony. It's a vibrant surging sizzling sound that's a hum the heartbeat of home an industry. It's look ashamed of crushing metal. The trickling movement of the mountain stream. It's the click of a switch. Just one of the river the sweep of an electric train. Listen. Power is the whistle the rush the roar. It's a metallic clank of a time clock the clatter of the changing shift it's the whine of the wheels of industry. How is a musical performance of many movements factory noises for instance

production on a theme in nothing flat. But leave the factory the man the day and move into the open countryside. The music of power is everywhere in the high lines over the fields of harvest in the floodlights of Night Baseball and the two car garage in the toaster. And the hum of the transmitter. The heart of broadcasting all morning hello. The media. In the rush of the river current diving headlong over the dam of great dimension leaving in its wake. How are people to music. This is a company that had none of the fun of him.

Wrong with the way drones and markets for problems. In the US is not horrible the bottom's in agriculture. That has when the essential element in Berlin have prosperous agriculture and those probably. There are better organised better schools and better judges. Progress observed. In a recent trip I took over the region. Ruddock heard what the chains that as governor of our state and in the entire south as a result and arrives most of the developer the power outage transmission the globe some of those distribution to the small communities and thence to the. It isn't the stuff you remember Dr. Thomas W. Martin but many years he pioneered in the development of power in Alabama. If anyone could tell you what part power plays in the New South he was the man. And so you sat near him at the head of the long highly polished conference table now lined with empty chairs and listened to his story. It was an enthusiastic story you remember.

Yes the transmission of electric power has and why that may have influenced changes throughout the entire south by stimulating industrial development creating thousands of new jobs. And that's good morning everybody our standard of living with more of the comforts and conveniences of life bother people of our region. The power is a powerful thing you discovered capable of doing much more than brute strength power can move a mountain. Yes but it can move a community just as easily. It can lift tons and tons of honor and yet it can also raise a man's wages power is a promise it provides the essential element for modern industry. The basic need for better living the peak for which progress is scaled. But there is a question which comes first the chicken or the egg industry or power

industry needs power. True but doesn't power need industry too. You put the question to the assistant to the general manager of the Alabama Power Company. Mr C T Brasil Mr. Brassfield is a big friendly sort of person the sort you start calling Charlie. These were his measured words and go invest whatever given your own dedicated to that area and all of the economic development of the area. On that particular do not have insurance and or not on my community and the ordinary I shan't. Very accurate. Living in a park

community in my show is very hard. There was just to move a human body for and bring a human by a. To get two things I am shareable one cannot prosper with that and so it's a duet you learn from a performance of progress in which both the community and the utility participate. The course of action was clear. Power companies throughout the Southland could not content themselves with the mere task of providing power for present day needs. It was necessary to create new customers to build better prosperous communities. Indeed a better prosperous South Dr. Martin one of the early leaders spoke for his company. All the power companies of the South. When he said in very practical degree. How ways we brothers people less our brothers are able to buy our power we

perish. Therefore we ended upon what we have chosen to say it was the manufacture of customers. And. Customers we mostly needed to manufacture was the industrial customer. Alabama was always has been and remains a predominantly agricultural state. More and more in the years of agricultural poverty it was a power to our economic philosophy is that the well-being of the farmer could be enduringly improved or only if there were industrial to absorb the surplus products and populations and to have at home the profit the profits of manufacture. First the philosophy then the effort based upon that sort of philosophy and we organize an industrial bureau or division of our country

and. That. Was. The being the means of presenting the possibilities of our state to the issue were largely concentrated in that industry in other parts of America. And also to those who wish to engage an industry quite apart from any president's jobs. And have beginning and I didn't wedded to these efforts of ours began to show success through the years that effort has been one of the most significant in our whole program and did I. I have always thought that the investor problems of our state at the end of the South was largely the product of study of that kind. In a sense it is research most of which would be nonexistent. But those efforts of ours and

particularly if all the research laboratories which we felt must watch must soon come to the south. Thus in Alabama and Arkansas to join you in the Carolinas throughout the South an organized movement was soon underway its goal to bring industry Southwood to search out new mediums new methods for progress through research to develop Dixie's natural resources to awaken everyone everywhere to the untapped potential of trees of their. Own. Since the South was predominantly an agricultural area the farmer could not be overlooked and while the encouragement of industry would help him indirectly power companies were quick to see the need of a more tangible direct means to deliver him his meager backwoods environment had washed in the

house and stopped at the first row calibration line and the bottom line was a modest beginning. Typical of similar movements in other southern states. Where did it lead. Where you traveled the Deep South. Dr. Walter B Jones a man vitally interested in the new South. You've been through the bayous of Louisiana and the lowlands of Mississippi the marshlands of Florida. And wherever you've gone you've seen them singing wires of electricity leading the way along little travel roads into faraway remote places to compare the progress in Alabama. You visited the community Dr. Martin mentioned the scene of the first rural electrification experiment in the state. It's out there asking that. Flashlight which extended out a little a flag yesterday in one of the

most up to date areas. No and a matter of farming they have special staple cotton grown seed corn on various kinds of course after a while a flag their famous milk cow. What the little town left leg was named for cows. So it seems to me that they wrote a line in there. They're still having influence and I don't believe you got off on the saying we call civilization or play a lot. You're right Dr. Jones. I'm a dimly lit past to the modern day developments about the farm of the future. That's the score of the sounds simply of power to the rhythm of resolution. But it was not easy. There was a stunning job to be done even to the farming.

Part of the back to sleep in the city are doing fine the same service available to them throughout the state. That was the language of our poll tonight. But how much power does it take to change a sow. What is the power output of Dixie today as compared with the nation at the top of the private public and industrial power collapse in the. Area to which you're afford to live in the southeastern states. Roz at December 31 I did fifty one 15 minute here not out of the seventy two thousand five hundred forty one kilowatt that. At that time was seventeen point

seventy two percent of the installed capacity in the United States. About a seventh of the country's output at power originates in the south. And since power production is geared to current needs you consider that a yardstick of industrial development for the region and area that is still predominantly agricultural. Yes you're beginning to share sudden optimism in the future of the southeast. For it is a far cry from the days when a large power center elsewhere but used more power than all of the Southern states combined. Perhaps the most widely publicized power center of the South is the TVA. Most people when they think of TV Think of it in terms of electric power alone which seems to me not to be effective consideration consideration should also be made of these other elements of the TV program as TVA has been set up to control the flood in a regional floods in a regional area

and the control has been broadly based to include not just building dams but concerned with the overall development of the valley. You learn that TVA originally did not as you first thought for purposes of power or to relieve depression unemployment but rather as a move toward flood control of the Tennessee Valley and a step toward resource development and conservation. You're seated in the office of Dr. Paul H Rigby a resource economist. He's made a study of Southern Power. You feel he can tell you something about TVA. You wonder for one thing what would have happened had the TVA not developed. Maybe my best answer in terms of what TVA has done with these things have been done TV a view of a series of dams to control floods with these have been built if TVA had not done that. Possibly they may have been built some of them.

I'm all I know all private companies have been interested in building dams they may well have built these dams and we might also think in terms of construction of dams by the government but not through a TVA such as a dam to have been built in the Colorado River Valley and the Pacific Northwest. So if TVA had not come to the area of dams may very well have still been built. Would he work at TVA has done in terms of conserving and developing the natural resources have taken place had he not come. Possibly this might not have taken place as it was. That is if the dams alone had been dealt this other phase of the work may well have been neglected. And it seems to me that this other phase of the work TV has been very important very significant in the increasing

the purchasing power of the people in the valley. But TVA did develop and today is a tremendous influence on the economy of at least seven southern states. Spurred by the demands of the Atomic Energy Commission. The Tennessee Valley Authority has come to place a particular emphasis on power and expects to increase its capacity by more than nine and one half million kilowatts by January 1956. Even then authorities wonder if this will meet the heavy demand of such defense centers and so Ridge Tennessee and the duke with Kentucky. The TVA with its great dam spanning the turbulent Tennessee is a tremendous

show place. In fact last year 2000 technicians from 70 different countries came to see it. But it's more than a show place according to David. And one time head of the Atomic Energy Commission. You've read his latest book. Decades of development Mr. Little has not changed his convictions. It's a great enterprise. Nobody conceived and democratically administered. But for all of his praise the TVA is constantly on the block battling budget cuts battling accusations of socialism fighting criticism the age old controversy of private versus public power. But no matter the pros and cons of both public and private power has generated newfound hope and future for the South. And thus for the nation to see how a flag can extend as far as Little Falls

Minnesota. Is nothing more than to affect the price of milk and butter. But how is power generated. How is this symphony scored and conducted. In one. Who is gay. You're standing on the No-Name floor of the gorgeous Alabama steam plant. That's that war you hear is a turban with a steel jacket removed. It's making thirty six hundred revolutions per minute they tell you. So you won't bother to count it. At the tip. Well the speed is unbelievable but the tip of the large roll blade to miss her traveling by driving the speed of sound. It is in a neighborhood of 900 mile after mile. That's 80 Burnett. Superintendent of the Gaga steam plant. He's brushing up an awful lot of power compared to their weight and they must be a bristly him

bow so they run almost all the slang by 5 watts and what turns the turbans. Well you ask and you were told that there are two types of power plants. The steam in the hydraulic. Since you're in a steam plant you'd like to know something about that. Its story begins deep within a coal mine for a steam plant uses thousands of tons of coal per day. The coli shipped in by rail cars and unloaded automatically by vibration. The EAA. Taking it. Out. And about I'm with the plan.

No question about that. Look at everything bad at writing at enormous speed. You're probably better but I had to generate commercial power by steam requires 10 floors of engineering achievements. And while you don't understand the complicated process in detail the general idea is this part of coal is blown through a special boiler which creates combustion that heats water circulating through corals a pipe. This steam super heated forms the

power to propel huge turbans. If you look at the complex columns of machinery and motors that they control board with numerous dials and devices at the men whose faces form a study in concentration as you look beyond the sturdy brick walls beyond the hills that hide many miles of high voltage far beyond to the vast industrial centers and cities and homes which TONIGHT shall have lights you paused to consider generations of electrical power generation. How did it begin. It's Dr. Jones who puts the question to Charlie Brassfield that your own leg generating. We know it. Development of the generating and I promise I believe he had.

The more you dream of a leg or a tree in the New York area and at that Gunner a leg up and down with my much the same or very I have an air bag with bread from time beginning. I WANT TO HIS served as a source of power. And even today in the deep south you can see mouse laden water wheels disturbing the peace of ages mill palms. But the real thrill is to capture the dynamic scene of surging with rushing through the open gate we have concrete now sliding down the incline still. Churning itself into.

The valley is rich reaching at length another dam to perform another duty in the definition of power. Now Martin Damm. Hydro plants name for the Martin Company best site at historical. Last night.

Operation types of hydro plants one which is about water at the time comes down the river starring Martin pilot. Many turned up right which we could use during the dry season to produce like a chemical like water over a down the symphony of power has poured forth generating a memorable movement in a new industrial south and who sits in the orchestra pit. Men like Mr. J keen superintendent of production of the Alabama Power Company the man

who stood with you with Martin down men like Charlie Brassfield and superintendent Burnett. Men of foresight like Dr. T.W. marquee men of many companies in many states discuss it with these. You think that you would sit there want to discuss this whole subject with the most challenged of the board of directors of the office. And that leaving its formative Lousiana was the late 80s. He's seated by Mr. Dinwiddie then with the president of the New Orleans Public Service one of the four. Sighted men of the South. You want to discuss this with the wreck site of Brown president of the Misses of the Power Light Company a very. Very evil and foresighted citizens of Mississippi. You want to discuss it with Mr. long a piece with the president of the Mississippi. With James F.. Crist president of the Gulf Power Company a principal with

Harley. Ranch Jr. President George of how. To live with. There is not one who is possible in the government the current on a power like government an end of a genuine act or think to police whose goal is to Holdsclaw the genuflecting one of the great men of our business lived most of his life in different parts of the South. But you know those manhole have the same feeling of confidence and I want to areas and in the future that I've tried to express in a very simple way with you today. Discuss with them the prospect the promise the prosperity of a remarkable self discussed within the project of producing power when it's needed where it's needed. Discuss with him why it's needed. Walk within the new steel towers and transform us as you did with Burnett

and discuss with him the future that follows a watch that this day fulfills a dream wherein the substation and a business my home here is a transformer and you might say that the power going out of here now to all parts of us later and some of the parts of the southeast. This has been programmed 15 of the document Deep South a series of actuality documentaries depicting the increasing importance of the South and the economic development of our nation. This week the symphony of Southern Power. The music of prosperity conducted through today's Southland by high wires and high hopes of the power industry. Your narrator was Walt Whitaker. Document Deep South is written and produced by Leroy BANNERMAN As Dr. Walter B Jones as a

senior consultant. Documents cells is presented by the radio broadcasting services extension division. University of Alabama and is made possible by our grant from the fund for adult education. An independent agency established by the Ford Foundation. This is the ne e b network.