Proceedings of the Second National Conservation Congress at Saint Paul Part 12

I listened yesterday afternoon with mingled feelings to the statements of the gentlemen who four short years ago I would have hailed as brother governors. I heard some most violent utterances concerning the feeling of the people of the Pacific-coast States in regard to State rights. One good brother governor said that 95 percent of the people of the Pacific Coast were in favor of State rights. We had in California on the 16th day of August (less than a month ago) a direct-primary election. At that election there was nominated as the republican candidate for Governor of the State of California Hiram W. Johnson. Out of something over 200,000 votes cast he received over 100,000 votes. His next nearest opponent received 55,000 votes. Mr Johnson's campaign was made on a platform containing three princ.i.p.al planks--Roosevelt, Pinchot, and Conservation.

(Great applause) If it be necessary, I can read a telegram from Mr Johnson in which he a.s.sures me that he has not yet recanted from his old Rooseveltism, his Pinchotism and his Garfieldism, or his Conservationism (applause); so I think I am safe in saying that instead of 95 percent of the people of at least one Pacific-coast State being in favor of State rights, I am entirely within the bounds of conservative statement if I say that 80 percent of the people of California have not forgotten the Civil War and remember that the ghost of State rights was laid so many fathoms deep at that time that no ingenious argument of any Governor from the Northwest, the Southeast, or any other portion of this country can revive it and make it walk. (Great applause) If necessary, I could read from this little packet that I have in my hand a portion of a letter from the Grand Master of the Patrons of Husbandry (that is the Grange) of the State of Was.h.i.+ngton (applause), whose Governor addressed this Congress yesterday afternoon and declared himself and his State as both being entirely in favor of State rights. In that letter the Grand Master of the Patrons of Husbandry of the State of Was.h.i.+ngton, whose Governor addressed this Congress yesterday afternoon, says that he represents 19,000 of the people of Was.h.i.+ngton, and that no man has the right to represent them upon the floor of this Congress and say that they are in favor of State rights (great applause). And in this little packet I also have a telegram from the Conservation a.s.sociation of the State of Was.h.i.+ngton, signed by its president, which says that its members.h.i.+p in the State of Was.h.i.+ngton is not in favor of State rights (applause). So, our good southern brethren having forgotten the b.l.o.o.d.y past (as my Yankee blood has forgotten it), having come again into the Union and declaring themselves loyal sons marching under the American flag and having forgotten the obsolete doctrine of State rights, I think I am safe in saying that the people of the North and Northwest have not changed places with them, but that they believe that the Federal Government should keep and administer the things that belong _to all the people_ of the country. (Applause)

We have in California, my fellow-citizens of other States, a great deal of _your_ property. We have several millions of acres of National forests that belong to you. They cannot belong exclusively to the people of the State of California until the people of the United States, to whom they belong, give them to us. And I thank G.o.d that the National Government, representing the people of other States, has not given those millions of acres of National forests in the State of California to the State of California. For if it had, just as sure as you are sitting here, those acres would have been given over into private owners.h.i.+p, just as thousands and hundreds of thousands of acres of the public lands which were given to the State of California have been squandered with a prodigal hand and given to men who have not obeyed either the letter or the spirit of the law conveying and granting to them those hundreds and hundreds of thousands and millions of acres of the public lands.

(Applause)

Let me instance one case. The Oregon and California Railroad begins at Portland and runs south toward California. The California and Oregon Railroad begins at Sacramento and runs north toward Oregon. They meet somewhere north of the Oregon line. They are both adjuncts of the Southern Pacific. When those roads were contemplated, the Government, by an act of Congress, donated to them 6,000,000 acres of land, much of it covered with as fine timber as grows out of doors--I bar none. In the act of Congress donating that land it was specified that the land should be sold in 160-acre tracts for $2.50 per acre to all actual settlers who might apply therefor. Was any of it sold to actual settlers? A very few acres of it. Half of the 6,000,000 acres was sold, however, in large tracts to land speculators, to timber corporations, and to people of that kind and cla.s.s, for $5.00, $10.00, $15.00, $20.00, $30.00, $50.00 an acre. And when the Southern Pacific was brought to bar and asked why it hadn't lived up to the letter and spirit of the law, it said it had.

And then we asked, "How do you make that out?" And it said, "Why, only a few actual settlers have applied for the land." And we asked, "Haven't people gone there and attempted to buy that land of you in order that they might settle upon it?" "Oh, yes, but they are not actual settlers."

"Why not?" "Because we construe the words 'actual settlers' to mean those persons who had actually settled in that country before the act of Congress was pa.s.sed." (Laughter and applause.) And when, at the Sacramento session of the National Irrigation Congress, Mr E. H.

Harriman was asked why his company was holding 3,000,000 acres of that land grant, he said, "For future generations." And everybody laughed.

Now, let that sink into you. The absolute arrogance, the indecent indecency of that kind of a proposition ought to make the blood boil in the veins of every American citizen who is face to face, or who was seven or eight years ago face to face with the proposition whether or not the American people were to rule themselves or whether they were to continue to be ruled by the "big interests," as Jimmie Garfield puts it.

(Applause)

The sun rises every morning, three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, in California; it reddens the cheeks of our girls; it makes our boys strong and healthy; it brings the gold to the oranges that hang upon our trees. And for all these years we have been thanking G.o.d for the rising of the sun in California. "The gentle rain from heaven" has fallen alike upon the just and the unjust out there in California--upon those who deserve to be rained on and those who do not deserve to be rained on (laughter). And all these years we have been thanking G.o.d for the gentle rain that falls from heaven. But yesterday as I sat here in this great Auditorium and listened to the Governor of Montana tell what Montana had been doing for this Nation, I began to think (I do not wish to be irreverent in saying it) that we were under no obligations in California to G.o.d for the rising of the sun or the falling of the rain; but that we were under great obligations to Montana (laughter and applause) for all the good things that belong to California and Californians. And as my good friend, Governor Norris (to put a name to him) was telling his lurid history of Montana's great doings, I couldn't help but think that as an American citizen some of the things that lie in the State of Montana belong to me, belong to you, belong even to those who live on the hook of Cape Cod or away up in the northeastern corner of Maine or down on the tip of Florida; that those things which belong to the people of the United States even in Montana belong to us all, and that Montana has no exclusive right to them until our representatives in Congress give them to that State, and I am one of those who pray G.o.d that it will be a long time before the State of Montana gets from us the exclusive right to, and owners.h.i.+p of, those things that are ours. (Great applause)

Some time ago a good friend of mine, who has never denied when I have charged him with receiving $20,000 per annum (and by the way, he is a delegate from California to this Congress) as the chief counsel of one of the power trusts of California, said to me, "Oh, how the President is usurping the powers of the Government! Isn't it awful?" But I never could see anything very awful about it when Roosevelt and Garfield and Pinchot and the rest of them were hustling around trying to keep my friend's corporation from stealing from us of California the few things we have left (laughter and applause); nor have I forgotten that, before the time of Roosevelt, Garfield and Pinchot, the corporations represented by my friend did not believe in State rights. But since the time of Roosevelt, Pinchot and Garfield they have begun to sing a different song. That song is State rights. Nor have I forgotten that my friend used to be and still claims to be one of the most hide-bound republicans that mortal man ever looked upon (laughter and applause).

_Now_ he says that the rights of the people of the States are being pillaged and plundered and robbed away from them. I speak again for my State of California when I say that if there is anything in the State of California that the National Government has not nailed down that has not been stolen, I would like to know what it is. (Great laughter and applause)

There are, as you heard Mr Herbert Knox Smith say here on this platform an hour ago, four great power corporations in the State of California.

That is so; but there are practically only two power trusts in the State of California. When the Government declared its intention to hold on to the few power sites that are left in the State of California in the National forests, all of a sudden these power trusts wanted all the water-power of California developed in the interests of the people; and they can't say it fast enough or often enough (laughter and applause).

But, as you heard Mr Smith say, they have developed and are using only half of the power that they already have in their possession. So when they get gay around where I am, I generally say, "Well, that's all right, but go on and develop all the power you have got _now_; and after you have got that developed, then we'll talk about giving you some more; because I know just as sure as you fellows get an opportunity to lay your hands on any of those power sites in the National forests you'll steal _them_ and put them in cold storage, and you'll make my children and their children, so long as there are any children in the State of California, dig up the last dollar that they have to pay you for the necessary electric current to do their business during the next century and the century after that until the end of time in California"

(applause). And I, for one, as I say to them, while I am somewhat hardened and calloused by being robbed myself, don't want my children or their children to be robbed into the poor-house and the penitentiary by anybody's power corporation (applause). Therefore I hope and pray that those gentlemen who are so apprehensive that the people of the country will not get, unless they get it through the States, the right to use the things that belong to all the people of the country, will pause until the State of Montana, the State of California, the State of Was.h.i.+ngton, and all the Pacific-coast States, at least, if not the rest of the Nation, are governed by the _people_ of those States and not by the public-service corporations. (Great and prolonged applause)

CHRISTOPHER G. HORR--Mr Chairman: The State of Was.h.i.+ngton having been mentioned, I wish one minute to speak in behalf of that State.

President BAKER--Is the Gentleman a Delegate from the State of Was.h.i.+ngton?

Mr HORR--Yes. It has been stated from the platform that the State of Was.h.i.+ngton believed in State rights. I want to contradict that. As one of the Delegates of the State of Was.h.i.+ngton, I want to declare my belief that not only the Granges of the State of Was.h.i.+ngton, as Brother Pardee has stated, but the majority of the citizens of that State, will repudiate any such sentiment coming from anyone in this Congress (great applause and cheers). I want to say that the State of Was.h.i.+ngton is peopled in part by 25,000 former residents of the State of Minnesota, and that they have full confidence in the National Government--they have full confidence in President Taft, they have full confidence in your Senators Nelson and Clapp, and in Congressman Stevens and the other congressmen of the United States; and I consider it an insult to the Congress and the President of the United States to say that they will not treat the people of the State of Was.h.i.+ngton as they should be treated. I want to say to you, Ladies and Gentlemen, that the State of Was.h.i.+ngton will keep step to the music of the Union. (Great applause)

President BAKER--After the next address on the program, any further discussion of the subjects presented will be welcome.

It was gratifying to hear from California through the voice of Ex-Governor Pardee. One of the fortunate features of this Congress is the presence of men of prominence and influence from all sections of the country. Not merely the North and the East and the West are represented, but the sunny South; and we will be pleased to hear from a representative of the great State of Louisiana, who has always been deeply interested in Conservation, and is no less competent to speak on the subject now than when he wielded the power of Governor of that commonwealth. I have great pleasure in introducing Ex-Governor Newton C.

Blanchard. (Applause)

Ex-Governor BLANCHARD--Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Congress: I am not on the program for a formal address, but I am here to supplement and endorse and support the admirable address delivered you a little while ago by Ex-Secretary Garfield. (Applause)

The times change, and men's opinions seem to change with them. On yesterday, in this Auditorium, I listened to a number of western Governors preaching the doctrine of State rights. For many years prior to the fateful year of 1861, and for four memorable years following it, the question of State rights was forcefully discussed in the forum of the Republic, and afterward practically settled on the battlefield (applause); and we of the South, who went down in that struggle to determine whether these rights of the States were paramount to the authority of the Federal Government, accepted the situation in good faith (great applause)--and we are now marching side by side with the North and the East and the West in that grand procession of progress that makes for the might and power of our great Republic. (Renewed applause)

It seems strange to a southern democrat like myself (applause) that "a voice should come out of the West" (laughter) telling us that this movement for Conservation must be abandoned by the Federal Government and relegated to the tender mercies of the western States (laughter and applause). Gentlemen of the Congress, was the question of State rights, the _real_, genuine doctrine of State rights, behind that demand? No; everyone of you know that it was not. It was a mere pretext; and the history of all nations is full of examples where strong men, having risen to ascendancy and ruling power and wanting to do something not exactly right (some usurpation of power or act of tyranny), first sought a pretext to justify it (applause). Why, then, does this voice come out of the West--a country that in the time preceding and following 1861 was known as "the wild and woolly West," and out of which at that time came not a whisper in advocacy of State rights? Why, now that the "wild and woolly West" has gone and magnificent commonwealths are there, now for the first time comes from the West, in former renegade garb or present robe of splendor, the cry that State rights must dominate the Conservation of the natural resources of the country? Gentlemen, some years ago a great citizen and soldier of our Republic was the candidate of a political party for the high office of President of the United States at a time when the tariff was the dominant issue, and becoming involved in the intricacies and embarra.s.sing problems of the tariff, he declared, "the tariff is a local issue." Listening to the western Governors last afternoon, I perceived the same idea arising again, only in a different form; for the western Governors would make State rights a local issue.

The natural resources of the United States belong to all the people (applause), not alone to those who happen to live in the States where what is left of the public domain is princ.i.p.ally situated today; you and I have just as much concern and interest and proprietors.h.i.+p in the natural resources on and in and springing from the public domain in Wyoming, in Montana, in Idaho, and in other western States, as have the people of those States themselves (applause). Gentlemen, as has been well said already during this Congress, the smaller the community the easier it is for special interests to control it; and that is the reason for this demand that the Conservation of the natural resources in the western States should be turned over to the States themselves. If you want Conservation to amount to anything--if you wish it to go forward in the fullness of development so that what is left of the public domain, of the coal lands, the phosphate lands, the oil and gas lands and the forests belonging to the United States may be preserved and conserved and utilized without present waste and handed down to our children and children's children without exhaustion, then I say the power that should lead in this movement is the mighty power of the Federal Government.

(Applause)

When the distinguished and able gentleman who occupies the executive chair in the State of Montana was speaking yesterday, he claimed for his State "the earth and the fullness thereof" in respect to the Conservation of natural resources. He claimed that the movement there had antedated anything done by any other State or by the Federal Government, and to hear his eulogy of what Montana had done in this respect and his absence of expression as to what the Federal Government had done there, one might think, to use the vernacular of the day, that Montana was "the whole cheese" (laughter) in matters of conservation.

And yet, when I met the gentleman today and asked him if the Federal Government had not been doing considerable work in Montana and expending large sums of money to irrigate the arid regions of that State, he admitted that it had. I asked him if the Federal Government had not expended many times more money in doing just that kind of Conservation work in his State than Montana had, and he admitted that it had. I asked him if what the Federal Government had already done in the way of irrigating the arid regions of his State and the projects now under way would not when completed yield to the farmer and the husbandman many hundreds of thousands of acres of valuable land, and he admitted it would and that the aggregate would be more than 600,000 acres (applause). That is what the Federal Government has done and is doing in one western State; and yet that same Governor, and others from the West, advocate that in the matter of Conservation the Federal Government should take a back seat, and permit the States to take the lead in Conservation.

Gentlemen, you heard today from the lips of Theodore Roosevelt a truth that struck me most forcibly, and that was this: It is not so much the question as to who shall take the lead in the matter of Conservation, whether it be the power of the States or the authority of the Federal Government, but which of these powers is best equipped and most able to keep what remains of the public domain and the natural resources from falling into the hands of the special interests and the monopolists (applause). Some of those western Governors, when the imputation was made that if the natural resources were turned over to the States in the manner proposed by them the special interests might handle their legislators, grew virtuously indignant; and yet all of us remember that it has been charged time and time again--and I think no one will have the temerity to deny it--that powerful interests with unlimited money have put forward their own selections for the high office of Senator of the United States and elected them (applause). That has been done repeatedly in the past; and is anyone here bold enough to say that even now there does not sit in the Senate of the United States men from the western States who owe their election to that position through the instrumentality of money? (Applause) No; that is true; and everyone of you knows it is true. If the Legislatures--and I do not mean to imply or to charge that the Legislatures of those particular western States are any more corrupt or more subject to the blandishments of corporations and men of means than the Legislatures of other States, whether they be North or South or East or West--can be induced through those instrumentalities to elevate men to high position, then I say those Legislatures can be controlled by the same means in other respects; and all of us know that special interests have always out a grabbing hand for what there is in the way of coal lands, in the way of water-power sites, in the way of phosphate lands and oil and gas lands. So I say, gentlemen of the Congress, we had better leave this matter of Conservation in the hands of the Federal Government to lead in this great work wherever the Conservation relates to the natural resources springing from the public domain. I am here to advocate that first; and I am here to say that in other respects, where the State authority finds jurisdiction, there should be cooperation between the States and the Federal Government. (Applause)

We have heard much from these western Governors in their speeches last afternoon relative to the waters in the rivers of their States, and the position was taken that the waters belong to the States. Flowing through the public domain, the land and the water-power sites would belong to the Federal Government, and where that is the case there is good ground for cooperation; but I am far from admitting that those waters belong to the States. There are some decisions of the Supreme Court that so declare, but such decisions were made by the courts under peculiar circ.u.mstances and facts differing from the circ.u.mstances and facts set before us in the matter of Conservation. Take the great Mississippi; to whom does the Mississippi river belong? Do its waters belong to the States through which those waters flow? Why, don't you know that every drop of water precipitated from the clouds, except that which is taken up by evaporation, every drop of rainfall from the top of the Alleghenies to the summit of the Rocky mountains finds its way through the innumerable channels and smaller streams to the great main trunk that we call the Mississippi river? Don't you know that it is the receptacle for the drainage of half of this great Republic of ours, that much of even the waters that fall in the western part of the great State of New York find their way into the channel of the Mississippi? All of the water thus gathered into the main channel flows by the cities of all the States from Minnesota down to Louisiana, my own State; and all of that water flows through the State of Louisiana to find lodgment at last in the Mexican Gulf. Now, does all the water thus garnered from this immense watershed to flow through the State of Louisiana belong to the State of Louisiana? If so, _we don't want it_! (Laughter and applause) It fell on these great western States, and too much of it comes down upon us, and we have had a great struggle, extending through many years, to keep that water off our land (laughter). I have known one great flood in Louisiana to cause destruction to the extent of ten millions of dollars. The State of Louisiana alone has expended, by State taxation and levee district taxation, more than thirty millions of dollars since the War in keeping the waters that fell upon your territory off our fertile lands (applause); and not being able to perform the herculean task ourselves, we have appealed, in season and out, to the Federal Government for aid, and a liberal hand has been extended to us.

(Applause)

I was for years in Congress from Louisiana and for years a member and chairman of the committee on rivers and harbors of the House of Representatives, and I had to deal with this question. When I went first to Congress the idea prevailed there that the Federal Government had no const.i.tutional authority to appropriate and expend money on Mississippi river except in aid of navigation; it was admitted that could be done under the commerce clause of the Const.i.tution, but Congress denied that it owed any other duty to the river. Myself and others from the lower Mississippi valley, the lands of whose const.i.tuents were flooded every now and then by the great river, contended that Congress owed a two-fold duty to the river: to improve its navigation, and to prevent the waters from remaining a terror to those who lived in its lower valley (applause). Congress admitted it owed the first duty, but asked where there was any const.i.tutional authority for the appropriation of public money to redeem private property from the flood and ravages of the river; and it took the representatives and senators from the lower valley States many years--I know I worked at it myself for ten years, in season and out, as a member of Congress--to demonstrate that the Federal Government owed it to the great river to prevent its floods as well as to improve its navigation. In answer to the demand for const.i.tutional authority we cited a principle of law, recognized alike by the civil law system and by the common-law, which long antedated the Const.i.tution of the United States, a principle embodied in a Latin maxim, "_Sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas_"--so use your own that it shall not become an injury to others (applause). And we asked in that connection, "Who owns the Mississippi river? Does the Federal Government own it? If so, it is its property as a great feature of our country; and if the proprietors.h.i.+p of the river is in the Federal Government, then should not the Government so regulate and control its own that it will not injure or prove a detriment or damage to those who live in the lower valley?" (Applause) And that argument won.

Prior to 1892, large appropriations were made by Congress for the Mississippi river, all of them with a proviso that none of the money should be expended for the purpose of preventing the floods of the river; and not a dollar was available for the repair and construction of levees. That was the situation in 1882 and on down to 1892, when the argument that the river belonged to the Federal Government and it must so regulate and use it that it should not be a damage and a hurt to us in the lower valley prevailed; and in the river and harbor bill of 1892, at a time when I was chairman of the committee, the Secretary of War was authorized to expend $10,000,000 on the lower Mississippi from Cairo to the Gulf, and the restrictions and provisos that had hampered the Mississippi River Commission theretofore in the expenditure of money for the two-fold purpose of improving navigation and preventing floods were removed (applause). We wrote these limitations all out; Congress had been educated up to the point where it recognized the second duty it owed to the great river in preventing its floods. The bill pa.s.sed, and the Mississippi River Commission allotted $6,000,000 of the $10,000,000 for levee construction and repairs (applause). We followed this two years later by another bill using the same phraseology and appropriating $9,000,000 more, and these two great bills, carrying $19,000,000, with no restrictions on the expenditures for the prevention of floods in the river, have given us along the lower river the greatest and finest levee system ever known in any age or on any river in any country--1350 miles of levees that stay the floods of the Mississippi so that a general flood in the river is a thing of the past; and on every mile of our 1350 miles of levees on the two banks of the river _is the stamp of the Federal Government_. (Applause)

And yet they tell you that these waters do not belong to the Federal Government? They admit that they belong to the Federal Government for purposes of navigation. Congress is committed already to the principle that the waters of the river belong to the Federal Government, because Congress has undertaken to help us to keep those waters off of our lands. But I go further than that; I agree with my distinguished friend Mr Garfield that the jurisdiction of the Federal Government extends, where the navigable waterways of the United States are concerned, far beyond the point to which they are navigable; it extends to the headwaters of those rivers, and for the very good reason that if the jurisdiction of the Federal Government did not so extend, then where these rivers take their rise some of these western States might undertake to divert from the great Mississippi channel the water needed to supply that river with enough water for navigation purposes. Every river, therefore, must be treated as a unit (applause). That is the view we take of it in the South; and in taking that view we hold to the National idea that water, being one of those natural resources which needs conservation in respect to its greater and wiser use, ought to be controlled by the Federal Government. Water is one of those natural resources that man can do nothing to add to or diminish in quant.i.ty; the snows and the rains are the result of great cosmic action--and fortunate it is that such is the case, for past experience in this country shows that if man could diminish the supply he would long since have done so by his neglect and his wastefulness. (Applause)

I have spoken long enough. I wanted to supplement, from the standpoint of the South, the admirable remarks made by the distinguished Governor of Mississippi on last afternoon. We of the South are hand in hand with the Federal Government in this great question of the Conservation of the natural resources; and we look to the Federal Government to lead in that movement (applause). At the same time I repeat that this great movement, so auspiciously inaugurated by Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot (applause), needs for its full consummation and for the realizing of the greatest benefits possible the cooperation--with the Federal Government leading--of the Federal Government, the States, and all the people (applause). When we shall have brought these three great agencies into harmonious action looking to proper Conservation, then will our country grow greater even than it is now in all that goes to make up the might and glory of a great nationality of the earth; our country will then continue to present the example of a great continental republic possessed of every variety of climate and production, whose people are as one again, loyally devoted to the perpetuity of the Union, fearing no foreign foe, following the pursuits of peace, serving G.o.d according to the dictates of conscience and solving practically the great problems of self-government. (Great and prolonged applause)

[In the course of the foregoing address, President Baker surrendered the Chair to Professor Condra.]

Chairman CONDRA--Ladies and Gentlemen: Before continuing the program, a few announcements will be made.

Ex-Governor PARDEE: I again announce that the Committee on Resolutions will meet at the Saint Paul Hotel this evening at 8 oclock in Room 534.

Those having resolutions will please write them out, sign them, and hand them in.

Several announcements were made on behalf of State delegations.

Chairman CONDRA: In place of Honorable B. A. Fowler, of Phoenix, Arizona, who was to speak on "Water as a Natural Resource," I call upon a man who has done much for the advance of irrigation, and who organized the first National Irrigation Congress, Mr William E. Smythe, of San Diego, California.

Mr SMYTHE--Mr Chairman, and Ladies and Gentlemen of the Congress: I am called upon at very short notice to speak for our distinguished president of the National Irrigation Congress on water as a natural resource. I need not remind you how valuable this resource is. Some years ago I went to the White House in company with a cabinet officer to confer with the then President of the United States concerning a mooted irrigation question. Secretary Moody presented me to President Roosevelt, saying that I was a democrat interested in the subject of water; whereupon the President turned to me with a smile and said, "What! a democrat interested in _water_?" (Laughter) "Yes, Mr President," I said, "for democrats have sense enough to know that in a country where it seldom rains water is too valuable to drink."

(Laughter)

Water is so valuable that we want to guard it carefully as a natural resource. I have but a moment at my disposal, and I am glad to take the advice of the President of the United States who yesterday told us to come out of the clouds, get down to bra.s.s tacks, and talk business. He asked us to say what we mean by Conservation, to tell what are the evils that we want to remedy, and explain how we propose to remedy them (applause). In a word, the evil that we want to remedy in the arid States of America is the great evil of permitting men to make merchandise of the melting snow and the singing brook (applause). I stand here to say that no man can possibly be good enough to own the water which another man must use in order to live (applause). It may be that private enterprise can be employed in the form of a construction company to build the reservoir and the means of distribution; but in that case, after our people have paid for the work, and paid for it once and twice and three times, then the Nation should answer our prayer, "Let my people go."

We should have joint owners.h.i.+p of land and water. Today we have a magnificent construction company at work in the seventeen States and Territories of arid America; the name of it is "The United States of America, Unlimited." (Applause) That construction company turns the work over to the people at actual cost, with ten annual payments, _and without one dollar of interest_ (Applause). If the National Government can do that with irrigation, it can do so just as wisely with power; and if it doesn't seem wise for the National Government to do it as a matter of public enterprise, then give us a form of construction company; but in the end, in the day of our children and our children's children and our remote descendants, in the name of G.o.d and in the name of humanity, let the people own the water which is essential to their existence.

(Applause)

Just one word further. I stand here to endorse what has just been said by one of the few real men whom California ever had the good fortune to put into her Governor's chair (great applause). California is not for State rights; _that_ doctrine was trampled to death fifty years ago under the feet of a million armed men. Yesterday it raised its head and stretched out its weird arms seeking to grasp the remnant of the natural resources and turn them over to exploitation by private monopoly. But that will not be permitted. I am here, my friends, to say to you, as Governor Pardee has said, that in this great controversy--the most momentous which has arisen in this country since the close of the Civil War--California and the Pacific slope, and I believe all the splendid States of the Rocky mountain region, stand with that fine young American statesman who during the past few months has thrilled this nation in his fight to save the resources of the people to all the people for the benefit of all the people; that young man who said at Denver the other day that it is more important to help the small man make a living than to help the big man make a profit; that man, who has sounded the highest notes since Lincoln, who has declared that he is in favor of Government by men for human welfare and against Government by money for profit--we stand first, last, and all the time with Gifford Pinchot. (Great applause)

Colonel T. H. DAVIDSON (Delegate-at-large from Minnesota)--Mr Chairman: I noticed scattered through the program of this great Congress the words "General Discussion." We have not limited the time to be occupied by speakers. I now move you, sir, that under the head of "General Discussion" a delegate shall be ent.i.tled to occupy only five minutes, and shall not speak a second time on the same question.

Chairman CONDRA--The rule adopted today fully covers the point, though it has not been put in effect this afternoon. We have two days, perhaps three, for full discussion, and the time will be limited under the rules which will govern tomorrow.

The last speaker on the formal program is one who has been greatly interested in this movement and closely a.s.sociated with Mr Pinchot. I have pleasure in introducing Mr Walter L. Fisher, a Vice-President of this Congress and of the National Conservation a.s.sociation and President of the Conservation League of America.

Mr FISHER--Mr Chairman, and Ladies and Gentlemen: I would not take any of your time this afternoon were it not that I, too, have felt the appeal of President Taft for concrete and practical suggestions as to how to solve some of the more difficult of the problems of constructive statesmans.h.i.+p presented in the Conservation movement. The particular point on which I wish to make a suggestion is the relation of the States and the Federal Government to the question of water-power grants.

This question, it seems to me, has been allowed to a.s.sume a phase entirely unjustified by the facts. There is, in my judgment, not only no necessary conflict between the interests of the State and the Nation, but there is every incentive for practical cooperation between State and Nation on this matter (applause); and in my opinion the question can never be rightly settled until there is just that cooperation. (Renewed applause)

The Federal Government is the natural agency to which we must look for many of the things which are essential to a solution. There are two phases of the problem, one involving a question of law and the other a question of public policy. As to the strict legal right, it must be apparent that on any stream where the Federal Government owns the riparian property, or on any stream which is navigable in fact or in law, the consent of the Federal Government is absolutely necessary as a pre-requisite to the construction of any water-power works. For myself, I believe that the power conferred by the Const.i.tution upon the Federal Government with relation to interstate commerce absolutely carries the power to make such conditions in any permit to erect a structure in a navigable stream as the Federal Government may believe it wise policy to insert. The power to make or to withhold the permit, under all the decisions of the courts which have in any way touched that question, implies the power to impose conditions to the permit. There are, I know, those who disagree as to this proposition; but even they will agree on the broader question of public policy which underlies the whole subject.