I ACORN fought for and won the right to have public representation at the University of Arkansas Medical Center;

I ACORN has organized successful tenant's groups all over the state;

I An ACORN group won a free busing service for school children;

I ACORN has elected city directors, school board members, justices of the peace, and state legislators sympathetic to the needs of ACORN members;

I ACORN has challenged the real estate interests in Little Rock to stop blockbusting; and

I ACORN is currently fighting the Wilbur Mills expressway which will go right through low-income neighborhoods in Little Rock.

And right now, ACORN is leading the fight against Arkansas Power and Light Company. The farmers of Jefferson County are out knocking on doors, getting their neighbors to take a stand, asking them to join ACORN and to join the fight to save their farms. "What's the power plant going to do to our source of income one, two, three or twenty years from now?" they are asking each other.

But, despite all this activity, the farmers of Jefferson keep coming back to the question which the farmer who wondered whether the power plant belonged to "some New York concern" was getting at. That question is, "Who is responsible for putting what is quite possibly the greatest single source of pollution in the entire world in the middle of our fields?" And the answer to that question, it is becoming more and more clear to these farmers, is not the "people of Arkansas." They're not entirely sure what the answer to that question is, but one answer which is increasingly being thrown around down in Arkansas is "Harvard."

After all, Harvard is the largest single shareholder of Middle South Utilities, the giant holding company which owns all the stock of Arkansas Power and Light Company. And Harvard is perceived as part of the Northern Establishment which has been trying to run the affairs of the South since the time of the Civil War. The farmers of Arkansas are politically astute enough to know that he who owns the stock pulls the strings.

Even more important, the farmers know that the strings can be pulled in more ways than one. They know that Harvard is in a position to see to it that if AP&L builds their plant they build it in such a way as to minimize the threat which the plant poses to the economic livelihood of rural Arkansas. Consequently, the farmers of Wright, Redfield, Ferda, and Plum Bayou, organized into the ACORN Protect Our Land Association, ask Harvard to exert pressure on Middle South Utilities to do the following things:

I Not build the power plant until the farmers of Jefferson County get a written promise from AP&L/MSU offering to pay for any damages which are caused by emission from the plant; and

I Not operate the power plant until effective sulfur dioxide controls are installed on the plant.

In addition, the ACORN Protect Our Land Association asks Harvard to:

I appoint a committee of students and professors to study the projected power needs of Arkansas in order to determine whether the power plant is even needed; and

I appoint a committee of students and professors to study the environmental and economic effects of the plant.

The two studies should then be substituted for the white-wash Environmental Impact Statement which AP&L drew up, and should become the basis upon which the Arkansas Pulbic Service Commission evaluates AP&L's application for a permit to build the plant.

ACORN and the farmers of Jefferson County, Arkansas, are offering Harvard, as the largest shareholder of Middle South Utilities, the choice of either acting in the interests of the people of Arkansas, or of acting in the interests of those whose only desire is to make money at the expense of the people of Arkansas. Harvard, which side will you choose?

Steven Kest '74 is presently working in Arkansas for ACORN.