The Alabama Experience; TVA Town Revisited

I don't know if it's true or not, but I think it's true, I think it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true it's true it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it is true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true, it's true

it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's true it's here in the deep south our people always lived on cotton and corn in the good years cotton was our cash crop in the bad

years cotton was the cause of our poverty cotton was the crop that gave us our basic food most years in my grandfather's time cotton and corn were perfect crops but year after year they robbed out of its power to hold against the heavy rains by the time our people realized what was happening to their land it was too late since I was a boy a heavy rain was an enemy striking fear into the hearts of the farmers and terrorizing river towns like mine decadre Alabama decadre is the center of a

50 mile circle of farmlands as editor of the only newspaper here I think I knew the personal problems of most of all 11,000 people and I shared their fears when the big rain of 1932 started to fall the first day of the downpour two friends of mine came to see me one of them was worrying about his farm beside the river the other was just worrying the way a jobless man was he hadn't had a job since decadres only factory closed down a casualty of the national depression they needed help

but what could I do for them with a typewriter words couldn't stop the rain news paper editorios couldn't check the river once again our plundered earth paid the price of a century of devotion to row crops like corn and cotton the Tennessee River flowing through our farmlands and bordering our city rose up to claim a heavy price for our mistakes the river spared nothing our farms were swamped our little city suffered along with the farms around us the flood of 1932 was a disaster from which

none could escape the darkest hour in our history had begun while the river slipped back to its banks the sun beat down on our wretchedness in the national elections that year the people of decadre joined the majority of the American people in electing a new national administration that promised direct action against the economic crisis that gripped the whole United States in April 1933 we got the action we voted for right at our doorstep I newspaper can the story the government had created a new agency TVA the Tennessee Valley

authority that was going to build dams to control floods in the seven states through which the Tennessee River and its smaller tributaries flow the new government said that this TVA could help us to win a better life at what cost to our way of life I wondered all of us were curious and some of us like Sam Tyler wondered if it last our fate had really changed the TVA sent engineers to explain their plan to the peoples of the Tennessee Valley only a few of us on hand agreed to first TVA engineer for we couldn't quite believe that there was a cure for decater sickness

Sam Tyler spoke for most of us when he asked what the TVA had to offer him personally TVA the engineer answered offered us nothing but the twos with which we could help ourselves some wanted to know if the electric power generated by the dams would be given to us free the answer was no the electricity as well as the fertilizer the TVA planned to make it Wilson dam would be sold to us at very low cost for the TVA had to be self-supporting I was worried what the TVA would do to our freedoms would TVA come to our valley as a super government to run our lives just to opposite the engineer said the TVA would be and could be

only what the people in the values of the Tennessee themselves made it this TVA engineer spoke as one of us because he was one of us TVA was made up of people like ourselves and even as we spoke that day TVA was coming to life up and down the river less than 50 miles from decater TVA was coming to life up and down the river less than 50 miles from decater when the TVA of building ended great shining dynamo stood ready to turn in wheeler dam 35 miles from the city limits of decater our river was trapped and the strength of it wasted for centuries

was spent to the dynamos and the dynamos made electricity out of this strength and they sent this new power across quiet hills and meters to farm families that had never known electric light electric power electric tools before but there was something more our river had become a highway at each of the new dams on the Tennessee River there were now giant canal locks far in building the flood control dams the TVA's engineers had converted our river to a chain of gigantic lakes now by passing ships and freight barges through the canal locks at each dam cargo could be sent from lake to lake along the thousand mile route of the formerly useless river when I saw the first

bar sliding through the big lock near decater I knew that navigation had become more than just a word on a TVA poster even the children understood that their city was no longer an isolated victim of the river but a protected member of a vast new family of towns and cities along a controlled waterway now we realized that for the first time in our history our city could be a port now we will link to the commerce of our nation and if the world by cheap water routes the products of our own farms and the products of mines and mills and factories a thousand miles away could become cargo on the ships that now sailed hundreds of miles through the locks of TVA dams on the Tennessee River River transport lowered the cost of goods we bought from other regions and it made

our products cheaper for those who bought from us we waited for industry to move into our city we forgot that we still had something else swamps that bred mosquitoes mosquitoes that carried malaria factory machines must be run by men by healthy men the doctors in our city knew the discouraging facts one third of our people were knocked out by malaria every year one third of us were two week to work or even to care the doctors also knew how little they could do to prevent malaria we took the problem of malaria to the TVA and TVA sent us engineers with a plan

to eliminate malaria and machines to do the job we listened carefully to these men drain the swamps where the mosquitoes breed they said and you will drive malaria away from your city the machines dug ditches in the swamp land row after row to the river when the last ditch was cut TVA built a powerful pumping station to drain the swamp and the pumps were powered by electricity from our dams we knew that industry would never come to decay if we lost the fight against malaria but we didn't lose it we won it

the pumps sucked a hundred thousand gallons of swamp water every minute enough to dry up the marshes and mosquito breeding season the barges that applied our river had few reasons for stopping indicator it was old Walt Gilbert finally decided to do something about those barges just waving at them he said didn't help us much Walt had an idea that might make the care a good place for a grain mill he asked some of us to meet him at the railroad depot near his store Walt had it all figured out this way the big grain millers along the great lakes ground their grain and shipped it as flour to the south by rail but suppose they could ship

their grain down in barges and grind it here without cheaper power the millers would save money and we'd have a new industry that made a lot of sense to me and the next thing I knew I was a member of a Decayda committee making a thousand mile trip to Nebraska to tell the big grain millers that Decayda was the five deal place to build a grain mill the Nebraska millers took us at our wood and I'll always say that the rehabilitation of Decayda got underway when giant machines broke the ground for that grain mill on our river front I went down there every day to be sure I wasn't dreaming at long last the barges stopped at Decayda loaded with wheat from fields a thousand miles away to be ground in our gleaming new mill and out of our own fields safe from the ravages of flood

came more grist for the mill we had a new market for corn hundreds of our people went to work in the mill no longer afraid that Malay would pull them away from their jobs a contagious spirit of confidence swept over Decayda our county agricultural agent brought every business man in town to the new mill look he said there's no reason on earth why our cotton farmers can't grow wheat for this mill no reason at all he was right some of our businessmen organized a team to sell our farmers the idea of growing wheat Sam Tyler laughed when they tried to sell him the idea he said his cotton was doing fine thanks to TVA fertilizers now I wasn't part of the team but I believed in the wheat idea and maybe I

said so a little too fiercely and maybe Sam said yes just to keep me quiet anyway Sam was one of the first group of farmers to plan a test crop of wheat under supervision of the county and the TVA we had new harvesting machinery specially designed for our region it was good machinery but more important than the machines was the lesson we learned we proved to ourselves that we could grow our own wheat and we were soon growing enough of it to supply the new mill with all the grain it needed with enough left over to feed a few cows and a few small flocks of chickens for family use at first we couldn't raise enough poultry to send them out but we were getting impatient

with little plans action that was the answer of decaters people we had stopped surrender into challenges like this one from businessmen and farmers came the cry let's create our own market we talked a problem over at one meeting after another and finally we decided to take a big step together we were learning to help ourselves by joining our strength in mutual cooperation more than a thousand farmers and city people agreed to put up the money to build a cheese plant we were no longer afraid of the future indicator when the new cheese plant opened the whole community felt the benefits from the very first day the plant paid case for every pound of milk our farmers delivered to the door and it paid wages to those who filled the new jobs it created

after the cheese plant got started we suffered a bad cotton year our old enemy the bow we will destroy most of the crop cotton crop ruined all right don't cry about it find a new crop a cash crop easier to produce and more resistant to blagues and cotton we asked county agents and the TVA farm advisers to help us find such a crop when they came around they were two jumps ahead of us they told us that some decadent businessmen were so encouraged by the success of the cheese plant that they would finance a poultry packing plant if the decadent farmers could deliver enough foul they surveyed every farm in the valley again Sam Tyler was one of our first farmers to say he'd try a new cash crop the chicken house that Sam built on the money he borrowed was not long in

paying for itself here every 10 weeks Sam and his wife raised 5,000 birds from chicks to eating size that gives them five cash payments a year for their poultry the grain fed to the chickens is grown and milled right here in the care and the birds never leave the house until the day they are taken to market cheap electric power made it possible for Sam to install automatic watering troughs and raise thousands of chickens with a minimum of labor and with the introduction of large scale poultry raising in our farmlands a new industry rose along the decadent riverfront a poultry packing plant like the cheese plant the new packing house bought and still buys every pound of chickens our farmers can raise and like all new industries this one created new jobs

for the people of the city confidence born of success encourage our farmers to expand their cattle yards beyond their original plans our cheap electric power enabled their men to use milking machines and milk production climbed so high that decadent bid as men were convinced we were ready for our local bottling plant we were less than 20 years after the floods that nearly destroyed us decadent has twice the population we had before TVA our main streets are lined with busy stores new factories home where the weeds used to grow along a deserted riverfront we still grow cotton sure there will always be cotton in the south but today cotton is our slave

not our master the cotton field ends where the factory begins decadent today has many factories like this one the world's largest copper tube mill but we have more than machinery crops and stores we have new hope and faith new houses good houses are going up steadily all over the city most of us own our own homes new old our goal of a better world for our children comes closer to reality already we have given them not only better homes but better schools good schools have become as important to us as good crops

and successful industry we want our children to learn to use the tools of science that left a decadent out of despair all of us have caught the spirit of learning county home economics workers are busy teaching farm wives in the remote sections of our valley at the agricultural experiment station our region scientific work is underway to increase the quality and the quantity of our farm products for we have learned that it is up to man himself where the nature helps him to live our breaks him for trying after 15 years I still manage to join our school children when they make their annual visit to the TV a damn near decadent and each year it seems to me that the children breathe a unique life

into that great creation of steel and stone their joyous presence makes the damn a monument to the eternal dream of every father the indestructible dream of making his children's life better than his own we have tried to show them the truth in the rebirth of decadent the knowledge that people who live and work together in freedom can always find a will and a way to rise above disaster that is the secret of the story of decadent you