The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1910-08-31
not be so well done as if it had beer
begun earlier.

/
Water Power.
Take the question of the control
of the water power sites. The enor-
nous importance of water powersites
to the future industrial develop
ment of this country has only been
realized within a very few years. I'm
| fortunately, 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 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 people as a whole.
while the use is leased on terms
which shall secure an ample reward
! to the lessees, which shall encourage
the development and use of the
water power, but which shall not
create a permanent monopoly or per-
NIT the development to be anti-so-
cial, to be in any respect hostile t.
the public good The nation alone
has the power to do this effectively
and it is for this reason that you will
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 substitution of
state for national action.
Government Control of Water Power
There is something fairly comic
in the appeal made by many of these
mon in favor of state control when
you realize that the great corpora
tions seeking the privileges of de-
veloping the water power in any
given state are at least as apt to be
owned outside the 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 developing and using
the mines and water powers and for
ests of the new territories and the
new states. from Alaska to Arizona.
have been genuinely amused dur
ing the past two months at having
arguments presented to me on be-
half 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 these
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 clam
or to be put under the state in
stead of under the nation. If we are
foolish cough to grant their re-
quests, we shall have ourselves to
blame when we wake up and find
that We have permitted another
privilege to entrench itself and an
other portion of what should be kept
for the public good to be turned to
individuals for the purposes of pri-
vate enrichment. During the last
session of congress bills were intro
duced to transfer the water power
sites in abe national forests and the
public domain to the control of the
states l cannot state too strongly
my belief that these measures are
unwse and that it would be disas-
trous to enact them into law. In
substance their effect would be to
free these great special interests
from all effective control. The pas
sage of such bill would be a vic
tory of the special interests over the
general welfare, and a long back
ward step down the hill of pro-
gress we have of tate been climb
ing.
Let Nation Control Land,
"Our people have for many years
proceeded upon the assumption that
the nation should control the public
land. 1t 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
national action. The states can
greatly help, but the nation must
take the lead as regards 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.
1.-THE same principle applies with
peculiar force to the coal lands, aod
especially to the coal lands in Alas
ka, whose protection and ownership
by the federal government is so nee
essary, both for full ard free indus
trial development in the west, and
for the needs of our fleet in the Pa
cifc. 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 de-
mand the most vigilant trusteeship
on that part of that branch of the
federal government in charge of the
fuel resources of the United States.
Neutral Ground
Remember also that many of the
men who protest loudly against efS
fective national action would be the
first to turn round and protest
against state action If such action in
its turn became effective, and would
then unhestatingly invoke the law
TO show that the state had no con-
stitutional power to act. Long ex-
perience has shown that 1t is by no
m cans impossible. in cases of con-
stitutional doubt, to get Que set of
judicial decisions which render it diff
hCult for the nation to act and an
other set which render it impossi-
BILE for the state to act. In each case
the privileged beneiciarles of the de-
cesion invoke the aid of those who
treat the constitution not as a heal
thy aid to growth. but as a fetish to