Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1910-09-08
James J. HIPS Address.

James j. Hill, duQTeSSlIS Tic Gull
servation congress today on Practical
Conservation" said, in part:
Belief in a comprehensive system OF
conservation Of all resources has now
taken possession of the public mind.
What remains to be done Is that most
difficult Of all the tasks Of statesman
ship-the application of an accepted
principle and making it conform In all
it's general outlines to the common
good.
To pack the fact into a single state
ment, the need of the hour and the end
to which this congress should devote
itself is to conserve conservation. It
has come into that peril which no great
truth escapes,-the danger that turks
in the house Of its friends. 1t has been
used to forward that serious error of
policy, the extension of the powers and
activities Of the national government
at the expense of those OF the states.
The time is ripe and this occasion is
most fitting for distinguishing between
real and fanciful conservation. and for
establishing sound relation Of means
to ends.
We should first exclude certain ac-
tivities that come only indirectly under
the term conservation" The reclama-
ton service is one It's work is not pre-
servation. but utilization. The arid
they now are, the streams have flowed
past them uselessly ever since Adam
and Eve were in the Garden Of Eden.
Irrigation was practiced in prehistoric
time.
They are dangers inseparable from
national control and conduct Of affairs.
The machine is too big and too dis
tant: it's operation is slow, cumbrous
and costly. SO slow is it that settlers
-, 4 ;otr fpr
| ised long ago.
The work of irrigation would have
been more cheaply done If turned over
to private enterprise or committed to
the several states within which lie the
lands to be reclaimed. This is not crit
icism upon any individual. 1t is merely
one more proof of the excessive cost of
government work.
Toward the conservation of our min
eral resources little can be done by
federal action. The output is deter
mined not by the mine owner, but by
the consumer. The withdrawal of vast
areas Of supposed coal lands tends to
increase price by restricting the area
of possible supply. 1t is foolish to talk
of leasing coal lands in small quaint
tes in order to prevent monopoly. Min
ing must be carried on upon a large
enough scale to be commercially pos
practical difference between resource
withheld entirely from use and a re-
source dissipated or exhausted. They
understand by conservation the most
economical development and best care
of resources.
The attempted federal control Of
water powers is illegal, because the
use of the waters within a state is the
property of the state and cannot be
taken from It,
The determination in each case as tC
what extent a given resource should
be utilized and how far reserved fol
the future is an intensely practical, in
dividual and above all it is a local
question. 1t should be carefully con-
sidered in all it's aspects by both nation
and state, and should finally rest
within lines determined by proper leg
islation, as far as may be under the
control of local authority. Experience
proves that resources are not only best
administered but best protected from
marauders by the home people who are
most deeply interested and who are
ust as honest. Just as patriotic and in