ADMINISTRATION FOR THE PEOPLE 



By Former Governor GEORGE C, PARDEE, of California 



1COME here to-day with the thought 

 of an appeal to Caesar, as it were — 

 an appeal to the members and dele- 

 gates of this Congress — as to whether 

 they are satisfied entirely with the way 

 that things have been carried on in the 

 government of the country. I do not 

 make this appeal as one who is opposed 

 to the Government of this country. 



I make this appeal to people wdio are 

 vitally interested in the present and the 

 future of this country — the people who 

 have children and whose children's chil- 

 dren will have an interest in the ad- 

 vancement and the prosperity and the 

 varied perpetuity of the country. I am 

 one of those rather, perhaps, old- 

 fashioned people who believe that there 

 is something outside of the cold fea- 

 tures and words of the law. 



I am one of those people who believe, 

 with Roosevelt, that the time to do 

 things is now, and let us talk about 

 them afterward. I believe, with him, 

 that to withdraw, for instance, from 

 entry those lands which take with them 

 power sites and to hold them for the 

 benefit of the people is the thing for 

 the government of this country to do'. 



And, therefore, I thoroughly agree 

 with the actions and the work of the 

 predecessor of the present Secretary of 

 the Interior. You will remember, per- 

 haps, that Mr. Secretary Garfield, per- 

 haps at the instigation of our very good 

 friend, Mr. Gifford Pinchot, certainly 

 with the advice and consent of the then 

 President of the United States, Col. 

 Theodore Roosevelt, did withdraw from 

 public entry certain parcels of the pub- 

 lic lands aggregating about 1,000,000 

 acres, in each of which parcels of pub- 

 lic land there was a power site. 



Much to the surprise of the people 



who were interested in those thing-s in 

 this country, almost immediately after 

 his induction into office as Secretary of 

 the Interior, Mr. Ballinger, the present 

 Secretary of the Interior, put back into 

 public entry these various parcels of 

 land which embraced a water-power 

 site ; and within eight days, or within 

 a very few days after the order had 

 been made, most, if not all, of these 

 power-site plants had been grabbed. By 

 whom ? By the people who will use 

 them for the future benefit of the people 

 of the United States? 



They talk to us and we have been 

 talked to from this platform of the 

 great advantages of "individualism." 

 Countless graves have been filled ; 

 countless children orphaned, and count- 

 less widows made by individualism 

 since the history of the world began. 

 Caesar was an individualist. Napoleon 

 was an individualist, and the people 

 who have done great things in this 

 country for the benefit of the people of 

 the country have been individualists ; 

 but is the time not ripe when indi- 

 vidual rapacity shall be checked and 

 kept in order and regulated so it will 

 not further oppress the people and take 

 away from future generations, the peo- 

 ple of this country, the things that 

 ought to be of right the property of 

 all the people of the country? 



Now, I am informed that the Secre- 

 tary put back into public entry these 

 various parcels of the public land, each 

 embracing a power site, and which had 

 been withdrawn from entry by his pred- 

 ecessor, Mr. Garfield. I am informed 

 that he did this because there was no 

 specific law by which the Secretary of 

 the Interior could do these things ; but 

 Garfield did them. The then President 



*Delivered c.v tempore before the National Irrigation Congress at Spokane, Wash., on 

 August II, 1909. 



548 



