The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1907-10-04

| lished on the arid regions and the
population and wealth of seventeen
states and territories have been largely
increased through irrigation. Yet this
means of national development is still
in its infancy, and it will doubtless
long continue to multiply homes and
| increase the productiveness and power
| CT the nation. The reclamation of
! overflow lands and marshes, botn in the
| interior and along the coasts, has al
ready been carried on with admirable
results, but in this field, too, scarcely
more than a good beginning has yet
| been made. Still another fundamental
! iy important question is that OF water
| power. Its significance in the future
development of our whole country, ana
| especially of the west is but Just be-
ginning to be understood. The plan or
the city of Los Angeles. for example,
to bring water for its use a distance or
| nearly $50 miles-perhaps the boldest
| project of the kind in modern times
promises not only to achieve its pur-
pose, but in addition to produce a
water power sufficiently valuable to
pay large interest on the investment
of over $23,0O0,0O0.
Power Going to Waste.
hitherto such opportunities for
using water to double purpose have
recently been shown that water enough
is flowing unused over government
dams. built to improve navigation to
produce many hundreds of thousands
the annual value of the available but
unused water power in the United
States exceeds the annual value of the
products Of all our mines. Further
more, 1t is calculated that under judi
c1ous handling the power of our
streams may be made to pay for all the
works required for the complete de-
velopment and control of our inland
waterways.
Forests are the most effective pre-
venters of floods, especially when they
grow on the higher mountain slopes
The national forest policy, inaugurated
Der famine which is now beginning to
be felt, has been effective also in Sc
curing partial control of floods by re-
tard1ng the run-off and checking the
erosion of the higher slopes within the
national forests. Still the loss from
soil wash is enormous. It is computed
that one-f1fth of a cubic mile in volume,
or one billion tons in weight of the
richest soil matter of the United States
is annually gathered in storm rivuIets.
washed into the rivers, and borne into
the sea. The loss to the farmer is in
erect tax greater than all other land
taxes combined, and one yielding alb
solutely no return. The department of
agriculture is now devising and testing
means to check this enormous waste
through improved methods of agricul-
ture and forest management.
Citizens of all portions of the coun-
try are coming to realize that, however
important the improvement of naviga-
ton may be, it is only one of many
ends to be kept In view. The demand
for navigation is hardly more pressing
than the demands for retaining lands
by irrigation in the arid regions and by
drainage in the humid lowlands, or for
utilizing the water power now running
to waste, or for purifying the waters
so as to reduce or remove the tax of
Soil waste, to promote manufactures
and safeguard life. 1t is the part of
wisdom to adopt not a tumble of I'M
related plans, but single comprehen- |
sive scheme for meeting all the de- |
mands so far as possible at the same |
time and by the same means This is |
the reason why the inland waterways
commission was created in March last |
largely in response to petitions from
citizens OF the interior, including many
of the members of this congress-
Broad Instructions Given.
Broad instructions were given to the |
commission in accordance with this |
general policy that no plan should be |
prepared for the use of any stream for |
a single purpose without carefully con-
and so far as practicable act
ually providing for, the use of that |
stream for every other purpose. Plans |
for navigation and power should pro-
vide with special care for sites and |
terminals not only for the immediate
present but also for the future. 1t is
because of my conviction in these mat
tiers that am here. The inland water
ways commission has a task broader
than the consideration of waterways
alone. There is an intimate rela ton
between our streams and the develop
ment and conservation of all the other
great permanent sources of wealth. 1t
Is not possible rightly to consider the
one without the other. No study of the
problem of the waterways could hope
to be successful which failed to con-
slider also the remaining factors in the
great problem of conserving all our re-
sources. Accordingly, 1 have asked the
waterways commission to take account |
Of the orderly development and conser-
vation, not alone of the waters, but
also of the soil, the forests, the mines
and all the other natural resources of
our country.
Many of these resources which we
nave been in the habit of calling in
exhaustible are being rapidly exhausted,
IT in certain regions have actually dis
Coal mines, oil and gas
1elds, and iron mines in important
numbers are already worked out. The
,oal and oil measures which remain are
passing rapidly, or have actually pass
ID, into the possession of great cor
oorations, who acquire ominous power
through an unchecked control of these
prime necessities of modern life; a con-
rol without supervision of any kind. |
We are consuming our forests three
lines faster than they are being re-
Produced. Some of the richest timber
andS of this continent have already
,een destroyed, and not replaced, and ,
'ther vast areas are on the verge of
Yet forests, unlike mines,
an be so handled as to yield the best
esults of use, without exhaustion lust
ike grain fields.
Our Public Lands
Our public lands, whose highest use !
s to supply homes for our people {
lave been and are still being taken in |
reat quantities by large private own
rs, to whom home-making is at the {
cry best but a secondary motive sub $
rdinate to the desire for profit To t
llow the public lands to be worked '
w the tenants q rich rnar for the 1