The Prescott daily news., 1910-08-29

I have done ar r couId- 70 E..
 action in the same direction. Unforrun- stcly, in the east we have in this matter paid the penalty of not having our forest land under National control and the pen atty has been severe. Most of the states although they are old states-have not protected their forests, each failing to act by itself because the action was real ly the common concern of all; and where action is tho common concern of all ex- perienes has shown that it can only be profltably undertaken by the National government
 As result of the impossibility of get ting such wise action by the several state governments in tho east, we are doing our best to get National legislation under which the National government at the expense of millions of dollars shall undey- take to do as regards the Appalaohians and White Mountains of the east what h Is now doing in the Rock Mountains here out west. It would De both a calamity and an absurdity for the National govern ment now to do in the west the very thing that at a heavy peouniary cost 1t fs trying to undo In the east. By actual ex- perience in the east we have found to our cost that the Nation and not the .ev- erai states. can best guard the interests of the people in the matter of the forests and the waters. and that if # fails f attempt this duty at the outset 1t vii later on have to pay heavily in order be allowed to take up the work whic because it is done go late, cannot be well done as If 1t had been begun earlier
 Water Power.
 Take the question of the control of tn water power sites. The enormous impor tance of water power sites to the futur Industrial development of this country has only been realized within a very few years. Unfortunatly. 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 here after the power sites are kept under the control of the general government. for the use of the people as a whole The Tee should remain with the people as whole, while the use Is leased on terms which shall secure an 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 tho power to do this effectively, and it is for this reason that you will find those corporations which wish to gain improper
 
 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 fin 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 ant to he owned outside that state as within it In this country, nowadays, capital has a National and not a 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- zona have been genuinely amused du- ring the past two months at having argu- ments presented to me on behalf of cer- tain rich men from New York and Ohio Tor Instance, as to why Colorado and oth- CT Rocky Mountain states should manage thelr 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 ioouSn enough 10 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 hat should be kept Tor the public good 10 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 cannot state too strongly my belief that these measures are unwse, 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 a bill would be victory of the special interests over the general welfare. and a long backward step down the hill of progress we have of lats been climbing
 Our people have for many years pro- cesdsd upon the assumption that the Nation should control the public land. If is to this assumption of National outlook that we owe our wissst land legislation. irnm tSs- Horn nsstsad Iaw> to th,-Irr,rstico