Leland Olds

Leland Olds
Member of the Federal Power Commission
In office July 7, 1939 – January 1, 1947
President	Franklin D. Roosevelt
Personal details
Born	(1890-12-31)December 31, 1890
Died	August 5, 1960(1960-08-05) (aged 69)

Leland Olds (December 31, 1890 – August 5, 1960) was an American economist interested in labor, development of public electric power, and ecology.

Education

Olds was a son of George Olds, president of Amherst College. He studied mathematics at Amherst where he was influenced by the social work movement and the Social Gospel. He was a graduate student at Union Theological Seminary and then served as pastor of a small Congregational church in Brooklyn before spending some months in the army.

Early career

"Jolly, witty, informal" as well as "very fair-minded" and an accomplished cellist, Olds had been a minister, a teacher at Amherst, a researcher both for the federal government and the American Federation of Labor and a labor journalist. During 1918 and 1919 he was, along with Thorstein Veblen, part of the original Technical Alliance- a forerunner to the Technocracy movement In 1920 he met Franklin D. Roosevelt, Governor of New York, who appointed him to the Power Authority of the State of New York.

From 1922 to 1929 he was Industrial Editor for the union financed left wing news agency Federated Press, which had close links to the Communist Party. He also carried out research for the Railroad brotherhoods.

In 1929 he became an economic adviser to the Community Councils of the City of New York, a civic group that among other things campaigned for the reform of public utility regulation.

In 1936, Olds served on Roosevelt's Presidential Inquiry Commission on Cooperative Enterprise in Europe.

Philosophy

Olds was a deeply religious and idealistic man, who after a long search for a worthy cause to give purpose to his life, had completely dedicated himself to the public power fight. Wide availability of cheap power was crucial, Olds felt, for the social well-being of the mass of the American people.

He believed in the "complete passing of the old order of capitalism". A complete transformation of the American economic system was needed, which had to depart from its laissez-faire impetus and economic individualism. As an alternative, Olds favored consumer cooperation as the basis of a new American economic model. Complementary to his cooperative beliefs, Olds was "very much consumer oriented". Olds believed that, together with regulation and community owned power generation and distribution, consumer cooperation was the key to a fair power policy. In 1927 Olds advocated the operating of all hydropower utilities as "giant consumer cooperatives".

Olds's cooperative beliefs had come in the place of his earlier radicalism. In 1930 and 1931 he served as the "manager" of the American lecture tour of the famed Irish poet and cooperative propagandist Æ (George Russell). AE's charisma convinced Olds even further of the necessity to organize all of society along cooperative lines.

Chairman of the Federal Power Commission

Roosevelt appointed him to the Federal Power Commission in June 1939, and he served as chairman of the commission from January, 1940 until 1949.

Under his leadership the Federal Power Commission successfully pressured electric utilities to extend power into neglected rural areas and to lower electricity rates in order to increase use. When the rate reforms went into effect in Chicago the dramatic increase of usage actually resulted in an increase in the profits for the now regulated utility. This paved the way for much of the success of the American middle class in the duration of the 20th century.

Although there were some opposition to his renomination in 1944, he served a second term.

However his third term was not approved by the Senate. The relevant subcommittee, chaired by Lyndon Johnson, expressed concerns about both Olds' economic interventionism and his supposed past closeness to the Communist Party due to his writings for the Federated Press. There was also a lot of opposition from the oil and gas industry. The Olds hearings were seen by many as a template for later McCarthyite purges.

Later Career

In 1950-51 Olds served on the President's Water Resources Policy Commission.

He was also instrumental in setting up the Basin Electric Power Cooperative, although this took its final form after his death.

Personal life

Olds was married to textile artist Ruth Reeves from 1916 to 1922. His second wife was Maud Agnes Spear, with whom he had four children, including James Olds.

Legacy

When he died in 1960 John F Kennedy, then a presidential candidate, called him a "dedicated and tireless public servant" saying that the St. Lawrence Waterway would be "a permanent memorial to him".

His concept of "Giant Power" led to the creation of the Basin Electric Power Cooperative, in 1961 the new cooperative named the Leland Olds Station after him for efforts towards the power cooperative.