River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1910-09-01

he allowed to take up the work, which
because it is done SO late, cannot be SO
well done as If it had been begun earlier.
Water Power.
Take the question Of the control of the
water power sites The enormous impor-
tance Of water power sites to the future
industrial development of this country
has only been realized within a very few
years. unfortunately, 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 it our duty to see that here
after 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 people as a
whole, while the use is leased on terms
which shall secure ample reward to
the lesseeS, which shall encourage the de-
velopment and use of the water power,
but which shall not create a permanent
monopoly or permit the development to
be anti social, to be in any respect hostile
to the public good. The Nation alone has
the power to do this effectively and it is
for this reason that you will find those
corporations which wish to gain improper
advantage and to be freed from efficient
control on the part of the public, doing
all that they can to secure the substitu-
ton Of state for National action.
There is something fairly comic in the
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 that state as within it.
In this country, nowadays, capital has
National and not state use. The great
corporations which are managed and
largely owned in the older states are
those which are most in evidence in de-
veloping and using the mines and water
powers and forests of the new territories
and the new states, from Alaska to Ari-
IONA. I have been genuinely amused du-
ring the past two months at having argu-
ments presented to me on behalf of GER
tain rich men from New York and Ohio,
for instance, as to why Colorado and 9TH
er Rocky Mountain states should manage
their own water power sites. Now these
men may be good citizens according to
their lights, but naturally enough their
special interest obscures their sense of the
public need; and as their object is to
escape an efficient control exercised in
the interest Of all the people of the coun-
try they clamor to be put under the state
instead Of under the Nation. IF we are
foolish enough to grant their requests, we
shall have ourselves to blame when we
wake up to find that we have permitted
another privilege to intrench itself and
another portion Of what should be kept
for the public good to be turned over to
individuals for purposes of private en-
richment. During the last session of
congress bills were introduced to transfer
the water power sites in the National
Forests and the Public Domain to the
control of the states. I cannot state too
strongly my belief that these measures
are unwise, and that it would be disas-
trous to enact them into law. In sub
stance their effect would be to free these
great special interests from all effective
control. The passage of such bill would
be q victory of the special interests over
the general welfare, and a long backward
step down the hill of progress we have of
late been climbing
Our people have for many years pro-
ceeded upon the assumption that the
Nation should control the public land. It
is to this assumption of National 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 Ma
tional action. 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 almost all streams
are really Interstate streams.
Coal Lands.
The same principle applies with pecu-
liar force to the coal lands, and especially
to the coal lands in Alaska, whose pro-
lection and ownership by the Federal
government is so necessary, both for full
and free industrial development in the
west and for the needs of our fleet in the
Pacific. The coal mines should be leased,
not sold, and those who mine the coal
should pay back a part of the profit to
the people. 1t is the right and duty of the
people to demand the most vigilant trus-
teeship on that part of that branch of
the Federal government in charge of the
fuel resources of the United States.
The Neutral Ground.
Remember also that many of the men
who protest loudly against effective
national action would be the first to
turn round and protest against state
action if such action in it's turn became
effective, and would then unhesitating-
ly invoke the law to show that the
state had no constitutional power to
act. Long experience has shown that
1t is by no means impossible, in cases
of constitutional doubt, to get one set
of judicial decisions which render it
difficult for the nation to act and an
other set which render it impossible
for the state to act. In each case the
privileged beneficiaries of the decision
invoke the aid of those who treat the
Constitution, not as a healthy aid to
growth, but as a fetish to prevent
growth; and they assail the advocates
of wise and cautious progress as being
opponents of the Constitution. AS 1
have said before, / am strong believ-
er in efficient national action, where
such action offers the best hope of Sc
curing and protecting the interest of
the whole people as against the inter-
est of a few. But 1 am emphatically
in favor of state action, where state
action will best serve this purpose; and
am no less emphatically in favor of
cordial and hearty cooperation be-
tween the nation and the states where
their duties are identical or overlap.
If there is one thing which is more
unwise than another, it is the creation
by Legislative, by executive, or by
judicial action of a neutral ground in
which neither the state nor the nation
has power, and which can serve as a
place of refuge for the lawless man,
and especially for the lawless man of
great wealth, who can hire the best
legal counsel to advise him how to
keep his abiding place equally distant
from the uncertain frontiers of both
state and national power.
The Open Range.
1 am here at the invitation of the
Colorado Livestock association, and
desire to express my appreciation OF
their steadfast stand for decency and
progress in the handling of public
lands and national forests. They have
met and overcome the unrelenting op.
position of some of the most influential
stockmen of the state; they have won
because they have been right. / want
to express also my appreciation of the
work of the American National Livestock
association. 1t has been one of the really
important forces working toward eff
g.