The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1910-03-13
DAVIS CLEARS THINGS UP.

| AS the attacks on Secretary BalllnGer
proceed, the real root Of the conflict
becomes ever more clear. MIR. Arthur
p. Davis is the most Illuminating wit
ness that has appeared, IN the dlsclos-
urc indicated. He SAYS that he told Sec
rotary Ballingcr, i'm language as strong
MS poltcncss would permit" that his
entire course had tended to the demor.
alization of the service. And further,
that "he had found Mr.. Ballinger
deeply preiudiccd against the reclama-
tion service
That clears up the situation remark
ably well. Secretary Ballinger found
the Interior Department being conduct
ed with little reference to or regard for
the law. 1t was doing things, and many
of them, because various of its agen-
cies were of opinion that the things
ought to be done, whether there was
law authorizing IL or not. All the prime
officials OF that Department were full Of
the idea that when they came to the
conclusion that anything would be ad-
vantagcous, they should do it, assum.
ing that any lack Of legal authority was
mere oversight of Congress which it
was their duty to remedy by their acts.
And they went forward accordingly.
But when Secretary Ballinger came
into the headship of the Department
and began to inquire into the lawful
ness of this or that which had been
done or was doing. CONSERVATION at once
ensucd, The official who derived the au-
thority for what he was doing from his
own inner consciousness, and not the
law. became demoralized A new reign
had come in, where the law was held
up as in control, and those who had
been active from caprice or their sense
of obligation or duty, without regard TO,
or in contravcution of. the law, became
dismayed. WheIf they pleaded that
what they were doing was right, the
Secretary asked TO be shown; and
where no authority in the law could be
found for the act, he demanded why
they substituted their own notions of
duty for the plain definition of those
duties defined in the statutes, The De-
partmcnt, naturally, was disorganizcd;
but Mr. Davis, singularly enough, fails
to apply this designation in the right
direction, The disorganization was real
ly under the old regime, where the law
was ignored; the reorganization came
when the law became the guide and SUI
preme dictator,
Incidentally. Mr. Davis sheds food
of light on the former Department
ideas in other respects. Tacitly and
subconsciously there seems to have been
Il realization that what the Department
was doing in its cooperative agreement
with Mr. Pinchot (Which the First Comp
troller of the Treasury pronounced con-
trary TO law had no basis in the stat
utes. For, in Secretary Balinger's S de
termination to work solely under the
law, Mr.. Davis saw "deep prejudice
against the reclamation seryice'' 1t is
a clarifying explanation, illustrating
strongly both Mr., Davis s idea that the
work of this service should proceed
according TO personal notions. whether
the law permitted it or not, and
in the active defiance Of law that
had so often distinguished it, and Sec
retary Baliinger requirement that the
law should be observed in all that is
done
The investigation is throwing vivid
light on many things that were well
known and understood in the West, and
that il is hoped, may now be also un-
dersInnd in fhn East