Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-09-28
WATER BIC ISSUE
IN CONSERVATION
Secretary Wilbur Finds Old
Covered Wagon Region
Awake to Progress.
BY FREDERIC WILLIAM VILE.

Economy as a watchWord for the
country seems to have served its pri-
mary purpose. The people have set their
eyes in the direction of constructive
progress. They demand an economic
status that would have been luxury to
king of hundred years ago."
Such is the impression gained by DR..
Ray Lyman Wilbur, Secretary of the
Interior who has just returned to
Washington after practically an all
Summer survey of the transmississippi
country. He spent his time studying at
close range the vast variety of problems
which lie within the sphere of the In
terror Department. All and sundry
connected with oil conservation. the
public domains, Indian reservations, ma
tional parks, reclamation and irrigation
engaged his attention. Secretary Will
bur declares water is the overwhelm-
ingly outstanding question confronting
the West. He found it responsive to
"forWard-looking progressive measures
for the common good" and ready to
practice communal living and think
ing in spirit of rigid cooperation
and fair play"
Building Spirit Omnipresent.
You cannot help but be struck" said
Secretary Wilbur in special interview
with this writer, by what may be called
the building spirit now omnipresent
throughout the old covered-wagon
country. 1t is, of course, nothing else
than the traditional American pioneer
bent finding new expression. To no
other problem is the constructive spirit
being applied with more determine ton
than to the Vests water necessities.
There has been good deal of con-
Servation. The real conservation prob
lem of the West is the conservation of
water Plant life demands water. We
must have plants suitable for our own
uses or We can have no civilization.
From Nebraska west. water and water
alone is the key to our future. We need
the mountains and the hills and great
protected back country, or we cannot
have sufficient water for our valleys.
We must replace homestead-thinking
with watershed-thinking, since water
sheds are primary to Western homes.
We can no longer afford to think only
in terms of immediate uses and selfish
interests. There must be a great West
ern strategy for the protection of our
watersheds and the plant life on them.
however undesirable and unimportant
some of it may seem to be"
Importance of Water.
It is because of waters paramount
importance to the West that Secretary
Wilbur approves of the public land pol
icy advocated by Presit' ent Hoover. A
commission is to consider plan where
by there will be transferred to those
States willing to accept the RESPONSE
bility control of the surface rights OF all
public lands not included in national
parks or monuments or in the national
forests. These States of the West, )"
says Secretary Wilbur, ARE water-con-
scious. They can more readily build up
these wise water conservation measures
upon which their very life depends than
can the distant Washington Govern
ment. 1t would be fair, too, for the cit
liens of Western States to have the
privileges already in possession OF those
of the East. With sound State policies,
based on factual thinking, it may event.
ually develop that it is wiser for the
States to control even the present ma
ional forests. Such policy will need to
be worked out so as to hold the oil,
coal and mineral rights of public lands.
subject to some form of proper Federal
prospecting law. with development on a
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