The Washington herald., 1913-11-19
Real Saving.

Prevention of waste of our natural
tesources is palpably so excellent an
end to be attained that everybody
echoes it as a slogan of conservation.
Waste is so intimate, in the associa-
ton of ideas, with woe and want and
Sin that it has no champion. In econ
omy, waste products have the most
despicable place.
In the problems which the Conserva-
tion Congress in session has before it
now prevention of waste is tremen-
deus item. 1t is easy to observe that
Some of our resources have been
wasted The maximum of enjoyment
has not been gotten out of what has
been expended from the once-thought
immeasurable stores which Nature
planted in this wonderfully rich land.
Forests, lands, mines, streams, and all
the beasts of the field, fowls of the air,
and fishes of the sea, have been ex-
plotted extravagantly. The United
States is only now beginning to recover
from the wild prodigality of their
youth to recognize that they have been
wasting a splendid patrimony, and must
pause and take stock before there is
nothing left.
But this pause should not be COM
plete stop of the enjoyment of our re-
sources. Prevention of use is hardly
better than prevention of waste. A re-
source which lies idle may hold high
potentiality, yet profit no one. In its
consideration of this delicate line be-
tween wastefulness and usefulness the
Conservation Congress, whose opinions
naturally are a high power in the de-
termination of questions relating to Our
natural resources, has a difficult prob
lem.
Into that part of this problem re-
lating to water power differences be-
tween States and Federal rights have
come, perhaps more bitterly than ever
before To give over to the States the
exclusive control of forests and streams
and mineral and agricultural lands
within their respective borders would
be impossible. To take away from the
States absolutely all the control over
those resources they now exercise
would be unwise. Finding the happy
mean is the task before the Conserva-
ton Congress.
The "federalists" in the Congress
have a fine theory for conservation un-
der the direction OF the national gov
ernment, and many of their practices,
too, are proper. At the same time it
has to be recognized that there are now
in use-benefcient use-water powers
which, under the "federalistS' theory,
would not be in use They would be,
the States rights men" assert, locked
up'-reserved rather than conserved.
What is needed is that the conserva-
tionists of the two parties should agree
upon a way III which to permit a use
of these water powers without permit
ting them to pass entirely out of con-.
troll of either the Federal or State gov
ernments. Perhaps the wisest way of
conserving water powers would be to
allow no "indeterminate" or permanent
charters to the private developers of
these resources; to keep vested in the
Federal Government control of all
water power developments in inter
state streams or directly affecting the
navigability of streams; and to leave
with the States the control of intrastate
streams except where they are naviga-
bic. In these enlightened days, when
all the Dustin in the world does not
suffice to make trusts an impossibiIity
but when public sentiment and the
power it wields can make trusts good"
there surely can be found better way
to defy a water power trust than TO
lock up that resource.