The gazette-times. [volume] (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925, 1916-09-28
WILSON GOES BACK
ON CONSERVATION
By Clifford Pinchot.

issues of our time. In the campaign
of 1912, it formed one of the chief
planks in the Democratic platform,
and was often endorsed in Mr.. Will
sons speeches. His inaugural address
committed him fully to support it.
For these reasons it is important
to know what the Wilson Administra-
tion has done. AS one man deeply in
terested in Conservation and familiar
with the record, am writing to lay it
briefly before you.
When he took office, Mr.. Wilson
ceased to say much on Conservation,
preferring to let the members of his
Cabinet speak for him. After his in
auguration, the friends of Conserva-
tion, regardless of partisanship, offer
ed him their help in putting the Con-
servation policies through. The op-
portunity invited action. The fight
to save Alaska from the Guggenheims
had created a living body Of public
opinion which lacked only official
Leadership to save what resources still
remained in public hands. 1t seemed
at first that President Wilson would
lead.
At the outset the work of the Will
son Administration in Conservation
was good. Congress passed. and Mr.
| Wilson signed, the Alaska Railroad
] Bill and the bill which assured Gov
ernment control of coal lands in AL
aska. These measures were excellent,
and President Wilson deserves praise
for their enactment. So he does for
his veto of bill to give away Nation
al Forest lands.
Unfortunately these creditable in
stances form but little of the ercord.
Politics came into control. Thus a
bill seeking to turn the natural re-
sources of Alaska over to a political
commission was repeatedly recon-
mend by the Administration through
the mouth of the Secretary of the In
terror. If passed it would have thrown
Alaska into the hands of the special
interests and established a policy al
most certain to destroy the National
control Of natural resources every
where else as we'll. This measure we
were fortunately able to stop.
When Wilson became President,
the Reclamation Service, in its great
work of irrigating the arid lands of
the West, was wholly free from pol
itics By the mouth of his Secretary
of the Interior Wilson advocated, and
later signed, bill which leaves the
choice of lands to be reclaimed to a
Committee of Congress, and so makes
politics dominate the Service. as-
Director Newell was the man who
created the Reclamation Service. He
made and kept it one of the most eff
cient Bureaus under the Government.
The Secretary of the Interior forced
him out, and replaced him by Com
mission in which politicians control.
The Newlands bill is a Conserva-
tion measure which proposes to devel-
op all the resources of our inland wa
terways-waterpower, navigation, ir-
rigation, and domestic supply,-for
the public benefit. Although Wilson
strongly endorsed it during his cam
paign, as President he let it drop, and
instead has signed two waterway bills
of the old pork-barrel type, which are
everything the Newlands bill is not.
Waterpower is the most valuable
resource still in public hands. There
is undeveloped waterpower in our
navigable streams equal to twice the
power of every kind now used in the
United States. 1t is huge prize. For
years the waterpower interests have
been fighting to seize it, and the Con-
servationists to save it for the people
A waterpower measure, the Adam
son Bill, came before the House in
1914. 1t favored monopoly, and gave
the special interests, for nothing, the
public water power on navigable
streams. Nevertheless Wilson en-
dorsed it.
On its way through the House, the
bad parts of the Adamson bill we're
stricken out, and the public rights
were secured. Thereupon Wilson re-
versed his previous stand, and en-
dorsed the amended bill. This good
bill then went to the Senate where
it was shelved, and the indefensible
Shields bill was reported in its place.
The Shields bill gives away the public
waterpowers forever and for nothing.
Both Roosevelt and Taft vetoed bills
drawn on the same principle. Yet,
by another reversal, the Wilson Ad-
ministration got behind it, and when
widely circulated public appeal was
made to the President for his help to
defeat It, he refused.
AS to waterpower on the public
lands, there is but one reversal in
stead of two. Wilson first, by the
mouth of member of his Cabinet,
endorsed the Ferris bill, which was
mainly good. 1t was replaced in the
Senate by the Myers bill, which is
thoroughly bad. Among other things
this bill actually throws the Grand
Canyon, the greatest natural wonder
of America, wide open to individual
appropriation. Nevertheless, Wilson
reversed himself in order to give it in
the same Way his endorsement