Editing Wendell Willkie (section)

===TVA battle===
Soon after taking office, President Roosevelt proposed legislation creating the [[Tennessee Valley Authority]] (TVA), a government agency with far-reaching influence that promised to bring [[flood control]] and cheap electricity to the impoverished [[Tennessee Valley]]. However, the TVA would compete with existing private power companies in the area, including C&S subsidiaries. Willkie appeared before the House Military Affairs Committee on April 14, 1933.  He approved of the ideas for development of the Tennessee Valley, but felt that the government role should be limited to selling power generated by dams. Although the House of Representatives passed a bill limiting the TVA's powers, the Senate took the opposite stance, and the latter position prevailed.{{sfn|Bennett|pp=388–390}}{{sfn|Neal|pp=28–29}}

[[File:David E. Lillienthal and Wendell L. Willkie.jpg|thumb|left|Willkie (''right'') and [[David E. Lilienthal]]]]
Negotiations took place through the remainder of 1933 for C&S to sell assets, including a transmission line, to allow the TVA to distribute energy to retail customers, leading to an agreement on January 4, 1934.{{sfn|Bennett|pp=388–390}} TVA head [[David Lilienthal]] was impressed by Willkie, who left him "somewhat overwhelmed" and "pretty badly scared".{{sfn|Neal|p=29}} C&S agreed to sell some of its properties in part of the Tennessee Valley, and the government agreed that the TVA would not compete with C&S in many areas. In October 1934, holders of securities issued by a C&S subsidiary filed suit to block the transfer.  Willkie angrily denied that he had prompted the lawsuit, though plaintiffs' counsel proved later to have been paid by the [[Edison Electric Institute]], of which Willkie was a board member. Willkie warned that New York capital might avoid Tennessee if the TVA experiment continued, and when Roosevelt gave a speech in praise of the agency, issued a statement rebutting him. By 1934, Willkie had become the spokesman for the private electric power industry.{{sfn|Bennett|pp=390–391}}

Amid this tension, Willkie and Roosevelt met for the first time, at the White House on December 13, 1934.  The meeting was outwardly cordial, but each man told his own version of what occurred: the president boasted of having outtalked Willkie, while the executive sent a soon-to-be-famous telegram to his wife: "<small>CHARM OVERRATED&nbsp;... I DIDNT TELL HIM WHAT YOU THINK OF HIM</small>".{{sfn|Bennett|pp=390–391}} Roosevelt decided that the utility holding companies had to be broken up, stated so in his 1935 [[State of the Union address]], and met with Willkie later in January to inform him of his intent.{{sfn|Neal|pp=30–31}} In the meantime, the companies did their best to sabotage the TVA; farmers were told by corporate representatives that lines from the new [[Norris Dam]] could not carry enough power to make a light bulb glow, and the company ran "spite lines" that might not even carry power in an effort to invoke the non-compete agreement over broad areas.{{sfn|Bennett|pp=391–393}}

[[File:Wendell Willkie testifying - May 17 1939.jpg|thumb|right|Willkie testifying before a congressional committee, 1939]]
Through 1935, as the breakup legislation wound through Congress, and litigation through the courts, Willkie was the industry's chief spokesman and lobbyist. When the Senate narrowly passed a bill for the breakup, Willkie made a series of speeches asking the public to oppose the legislation, and a storm of letters to congressmen followed. After the House of Representatives defeated the breakup clause, investigation proved that many of these communications were funded by the electric companies, signed with names taken from the telephone book, though Willkie was not implicated. Amid public anger, Roosevelt pressured Congress to pass [[Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935|a bill]] requiring the breakup to take place within three years.{{sfn|Neal|pp=31–32}}

In September 1936, Roosevelt and Willkie met again at the White House, and a truce followed as both sides waited to see if Roosevelt would be re-elected over the Republican, Kansas Governor [[Alf Landon]]. Willkie, who voted for Landon, expected a narrow victory for the Republican, but Roosevelt won an overwhelming landslide as Landon won only Maine and Vermont.{{sfn|Neal|p=33}} In December, a federal district court judge granted the C&S companies an injunction against the TVA, and negotiations broke off by Roosevelt's order as the litigation continued. Willkie took his case to the people, writing columns for major publications, and proposing terms for an agreement that ''[[The New York Times]]'' described as "sensible and realistic".{{sfn|Neal|p=34}} He received favorable press, and many invitations to speak.{{sfn|Moe|p=154}}

The January 1938 Supreme Court ruling in ''Alabama Power Co. v. Ickes'', resolving the 1934 case, and the lifting of the injunction by an appeals court, sent the parties back to the negotiating table.{{sfn|Bennett|p=395}} Willkie kept the public pressure on: like most corporate executives, he had not spoken out against Roosevelt's [[New Deal]] policies, but in January stated in a radio debate that anti-utility policies were depressing share prices, making it hard to attract investment that would help America to recover. "For several years now, we have been listening to a bedtime story, telling us that the men who hold office in Washington are, by their very positions, endowed with a special virtue."<ref name="forbes" >{{cite news|title=The man who talked back|work=[[Forbes]]|last=Shlaes|first=Amity|author-link=Amity Shlaes|url=https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0525/017-opinions-obama-jpmorgan-current-events.html|date=May 25, 2009}}</ref> ''[[The Saturday Evening Post]]'' dubbed Willkie "the man who talked back".<ref name = "forbes" />

Willkie and Lilienthal negotiated for a year, with Willkie wanting $88 million for C&S's properties in and around the Tennessee Valley, and the TVA offering $55 million. After a final, January 1939, legal defeat for C&S in the Supreme Court, the pace of the talks quickened, and on February 1, 1939, C&S sold the assets to the TVA for $78.6 million. [[Securities and Exchange Commission]] chairman [[William O. Douglas]] deemed Willkie to have outsmarted Lilienthal.  Though defeated in the courts, Willkie had gained national stature for driving a hard bargain for his shareholders,{{sfn|Neal|p=36}} and was seen by some as a potential presidential candidate in 1940.<ref name = "forbes" />