EDITORIAL 



51 



the Forest Service, on the ground of 

 "pernicious activity." In this it seems 

 to us the Secretary goes too fast. Log- 

 ically the latter can and should wait. If 

 the serious charges involving certain 

 officials of the Interior Department are 

 sustained the Forest Service men who 

 may have been instrumental in assisting 

 to unearth the facts cannot be accused of 

 pernicious activity. Under what princi- 

 ple of ethics or even of official etiquette 

 are officers of one branch of the Gov- 

 ernment estopped from exposing 

 wrongs committed against the people, 

 even by officers of another branch of 

 the Government? If Secretary Ballinger 

 shows that he has been wronged there 

 will be time enough to determine what 

 ineans were used to discredit him and 

 the country will support such an inquiry 

 in the interest of fair play. 



On the general question there can be 

 no doubt that the limit of the public 

 patience is about reached and that a 

 thorough, searching and judicial inves- 

 tigation of the facts is demanded in 

 justice to the individuals concerned, to 

 the administration as a whole, of which 

 they are a part, and to that larger body 

 which is most vitally concerned but re- 

 ceives scant consideration — the Amer- 

 ican people. 



This investigation must not be po- 

 litical if it is to have public confidence. 

 It is a regrettable fact that the exonera- 

 tion by President Taft of Secretary Bal- 

 linger from the criticism of his course 

 implied in the statement of Mr. Glavis, 

 failed to convince the people, notwith- 

 standing their high regard for the 

 Presidency and for the judgment and 

 integrity of its present incumbent. It 

 was quite generally felt that the Presi- 

 dent felt compelled at that juncture to 

 sustain the Cabinet officer he had so 

 recently appointed. Similarly any con- 

 gressional investigation that bears any 

 suspicion of being "framed up" to meet 

 party exigency, to "whitewash" any one. 

 or to do anything except to find and re- 

 port the real facts that afifect the peo- 

 ple's property and the honest adminis- 

 tration of the laws, will fail to win the 

 acceptance of the Nation and will make 

 far worse what is already a bad matter. 



There is a rising tide of suspicion, 

 confined to no one section of the country 

 and to no one party, of the way these 

 things are managed. We do not under- 

 take to say whether this suspicion is 

 well grounded or not. This we do say, 

 however, if we are now to have an in- 

 vestigation of what is growing into a 

 national scandal, let it be, as Mr. Bal- 

 linger and Mr. Pinchot are said to have 

 requested, public. Let it be also free 

 from suspicion of partisanship ; free 

 from suspicion of being tampered with 

 in the interest of any man or group of 

 men. Otherwise the last state of this 

 unpleasant affair will be worse than the 

 first. We want a clean bill of health 

 that we can have no reason to doubt, or 

 a competent diagnosis of the disease 

 and means for its cure. 



•^ )^ i^ 

 Secretary Ballinger on the Powcr^site Question 



SECRETARY BALLINGER'S rec- 

 ommendations on the power-site 

 question were published in Conserva- 

 tion for December (page 780). Their 

 liberal character has occasioned much 

 comment. 



His recommendations may be sum- 

 marized as follows : 



The titles to the water-power sites 

 should be reserved by the the United 

 States Government ; grants of sites 

 should be limited to a maximum of 

 thirty years ; grantees of water priv- 

 ileges must develop at least twenty-five 

 per cent of the power capable of de- 

 velopment within four years ; a moder- 

 ate charge must be made upon the 

 capital invested or upon the gross earn- 

 ings of the project in its first ten years 

 of operation, adjusted at each subse- 

 quent ten-year period, and equitably 

 determined by appraisement ; rights to 

 be forfeitable upon failure to develop 

 power or upon combination by grantees 

 to fix exorbitant rates. 



Commenting on these proposals, the 

 Rocky Mountain Nczvs, a leading op- 

 ponent of "Pinchotism," editorially pro- 

 tests (November 30), declaring: 



"The Nezus is frankly hostile to at 

 least one portion of the Secretary's 

 water-power device. This is, in brief, the 



