Semi-weekly herald., 1910-09-01

SS&----ss---s :,
Legislation punder WHICH the national
governing, at ttae expense of mil
lions of shall undertake TO DO
as regards the Appaiachians and
White mountains here out west. II
would be both a calamity and an alb
surdity for the national government
now to do in the west the very thing
that at heavy pecuniary cost 1t Is
trying to undo in the east By actual
experience in the east we have found
tc our cost that the nation, and not
the several states, can best guard the
interests OF the people In the matter
of the forests and the waters. and that
II 1t fails to attempt this duty at the
outset will later on have to pay heay-
lily in order to be allowed to take up
the work, which. because 1t is done
so late, cannot be so well done as II
1t had been begun earlier.
TAKE the question Of the control
of the water power sites. The enor
nous Importance of water power sites
to the future industrial development
OF this country has only been real
lied within a very few years. unfor-
tunately. the realization has come too
late as regards many of the power
sites. but many yet remain with which
our hands are free to deal. We should
make 1t our duty to see that hereafter
the power sites are kept under the
control of the general government, for
the use of the people as a whole.
The fee should remain with the peo
PIE as a whole, while the use Is leased
on terms which shall secure an am
pie reward 10 the lessees, which
shall encourage the Development and
shall not create a permanent monop'
oily or permit the development TO be
anti-social, to be in any respect hos
tile to the public good. The nation
alone has the power TO do this effect
lively, and 1t is for this reason that
you will find these corporations which
wish to gain improper advantage and
to be free from efficient control on
the part of the public, doing all that
they can TO secure the substitution OF
state for national action.
There is something fairly comic
in the appeal made by many of these
men in favor of state control when
you realize that the great corporations
seeking the privileges of developing
the water power in any given
state are at least as apt to be owned
outside the state as within 1t. In this
country, nowadays, capital has ma
tional and not state use. The great
corporations which are managed and
largely owned in the older states are
developing and using the mines and
water powers and factories of the new
territories and the new states, from
Alaska to Arizona. | have been gen
timely amused during the past two
months at having arguments present
ed to me on behalf of certain rich men
from New York and Ohio, for instance
as to why Colorado and other Rocky
mountain states should manage their
own water power sites. Now those
men may be good citizens according TO
their lights, but naturally enough
their special interests obscure their
sense of public need; and as their
object is to escape an efficient con
troll exercised in the interest of all
the people of the country, they clamor
to be put under the state instead OF
under the nation. II we are foolish
enough to grant their requests. we
shall have ourselves to blame when
we wake up and find that we have per
mitted another privilege to intrench
itself and another portion of what
should be kept for the public good to
be turned over to individuals for pur-
pose of private enrichment During
The last session of congress bills were
introduced to transfer the water sites
in the national forests and the public
domain to the control of the states.
cannot state too strongly my belief
that these measures are unwise and
that it would be disastrous to enact
them into law. In substance their ef-
feet would be to free these great spe.
cial interests from effective control
The passage of such bill would be L
victory OF the special interests over
the general welfare, and long back
ward step down the hill OF progress
we have of late been climbing.
Our people have for many years
proceeded upon the assumption that
the nation should control the public
land II is TO this assumption of ma.
tional outlook that we owe our wisest
land legislation from the homestead
law TO the irrigation law. The wise
use of our public domain has always
been conditioned upon national ac'
ton. The states can greatly help, but
the nation must take the lead as re
cards the land, as regards the forests
and waters; and perhaps peculiarly in
the case of the waters, because al.
most all streams are really Interstate
streams
"The same principle applies with pc
culiar force to the, coal lands, and es.
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