Lobby

Story, first published: Astounding Science Fiction, April 1944


In "Lobby" ..., cheap atomic power frightens the power companies so, much that a power lobby blows up the pilot plant. The World Committee makes a deal with the criminals to let them go unpunished if they will provide the funds to complete the research. "Lobby" is an obvious appeal for international control of atomic power, rather than leaving it in the hands of private enterprise. The behavior of big business continued to worry Simak enough that he would later make it the subject of full-length novels in the early fifties like "Ring Around the Sun".

Ewald, Robert J.: When the Fires Burn High and the Wind is from the North, p.31-32