"I can, Blanchard, because it isn't anything that is specifically a part of the report. It's principle, and principle belongs in everything. I merely apply it to the case of water-power in this state." He went close to his caller and beamed down on him in a sociable manner. "I rather questioned my own good taste and the propriety of my effort to get on to the commission and be made its chairman. As an owner of power and of an important franchise I might be considered a prejudiced party. But I hoped I had established a bit of a reputation for square-dealing in business and I wanted to feel that my own kind were in touch with me and would have faith that I was working hard for all interests. You and I can both join in damning these demagogues and radicals and visionaries and Bolshevists. We must be practical even when we're progressive, Blanchard." "Now you're talking sense!" "I hope so!" But his next statement, made while the millman glared and muttered oaths, fell far short of sanity in Blanchard's estimation. "I'm fully convinced that one of the inalienable rights of the people is ownership of water-power. We franchise-proprietors ought to content ourselves with being custodians, managers, lessees of that power that comes from the lakes that God alone owns." "Are you putting that notion in your confounded report?" "I am." "Are you sticking in something about confiscating the coal and the oil and the iron and--" "Oh no!" broke in Morrison, calm in the face of fury. "Those particular packages all seem to be nicely tied up and laid on the shelf out of the people's reach. And whether they are or not is not my concern now. I'm only a little fellow up here in a small puddle, Brother Blanchard. I'm not undertaking the reorganization of the world. I'll say frankly that I don't know just what kind of legislation in regard to the already developed water-power in this state can be passed and be made constitutional. But now when coal is scarcer and high, or monopolized, at any rate, to make it high and scarce in the market, the exploiters are turning to water-power possibilities with hearty hankering, and the people are turning with hope." "I'm afraid I'm getting hunks out of that report of yours, ahead of official time." "You're getting the principle underlying it--and you're welcome." "Morrison, the idea that the people have any overhead right and ownership in franchise-granted and privately developed water-power is ridiculous and dangerous nonsense."