EDITORIAL 



389 



section of the country should, or can, 

 regard its interests as paramount ; that 

 the interests of one section are the in- 

 terests of all, and that a recognition of 

 this principle is coming and must come 

 if the Nation is to work out the fullest 

 measure of material and spiritual pros- 

 perity. Another distinctive note was 

 struck when it was declared that, 

 among the Nation's resources must be 

 counted its scenic beauties. No part of 

 the country, it was declared, has a right 

 to advance its own interests, be they 

 financial or otherwise, at the cost of de- 

 stroying the beauty of any other section. 

 No section, indeed, has a right to ad- 

 vance its own interests at the cost of 

 destroying its own attractiveness. Penn- 

 sylvania has no right to make itself 

 wealthy by turning its hills into honey- 

 combed rabbit-warrens, and its valleys 

 into slag-heaps. Buffalo has no right 

 to make itself wealthy by turning Niag- 

 ara into a bare, dry precipice, hardly 

 moistened by a few trickling rivulets 

 that have escaped the tunnels of the 

 power plants ; and Chicago has no right 

 to build up for herself an inland water 

 commerce by turning back the tide of 

 the Lakes and leaving the harbors of 

 Detroit, Toledo, and other Lake cities 

 without water. The people of the West 

 have no right to ravish their forests as 

 those of the East have already been 

 ravished. The country has learned a 

 lesson from the experience of the East, 

 and it will not permit a repetition of 

 that experience in the only section of 

 the land where forests of any extent 

 remain. 



In this connection, the following edi- 

 torial expression from the Providence, 

 R. I., Journal, is expressive of the sane 

 sentiment of the country as regards 

 conservation, and is a just estimate of 

 the importance of the newly-appointed 

 Commission on the Conservation of 

 Natural Resources. 



"The estimates of the International Water- 

 ways Commission, composed of an American 

 and a Canadian section, as reported to the 

 Parliament at Ottawa, do not threaten ob- 

 stacles to the development of the Chicago 

 drainage Canal into a navigable stream. This 

 will relieve the fear which has been ex- 



pressed on behalf of ports, other than Chi- 

 cago, on the Great Lakes. It is believed that 

 with a diversion of water to the quantity of 

 ten thousand feet a second Chicago's sani- 

 tary necessities will be met for all time, and 

 the largest practicable waterway created ; 

 while the lowering of the surface of the 

 Lakes will be only from four to six inches, 

 which will create no embarrassment to traf- 

 fic thereon. The Government of the United 

 States will be urged to prohibit a greater di- 

 version for the canal. For power purposes, 

 with the preservation of the scenic beauties 

 of Niagara Falls the chief consideration, the 

 joint commission also proposes maximum 

 figures, declaring that 'it would be a sacri- 

 lege' to grant privileges beyond the esti- 

 mates. 



'The omission to provide in the Agricul- 

 tural bill, or elsewhere, for a continuation of 

 the Joint Congressional Commission on In- 

 land Waterways will not be permitted to 

 embarrass the development of the series of 

 enterprises combined in the policy of con- 

 servation of natural resources to which the 

 President and the coimtry have set their 

 faces. This neglect on the part of Congress, 

 together with the failure of the Appalachian 

 Bill, reflected in a picayune fashion an oppo- 

 sition, not necessarily to the policy in the ab- 

 stract, but to details of it which threaten 

 special interests, or are disagreed to by cer- 

 tain local constituencies. Especially have the 

 Mississippi River boomers of the Centre been 

 restless against the broad and conservative 

 program outlined by the Waterways Commis- 

 sion. They are disinclined to have their half- 

 billion dollar scheme delayed for incorpora- 

 tion with like enterprises to constitute and 

 give a genuinely national scope to a single 

 magnificent policy. After careful assimila- 

 tion of all considerations the President took 

 his stand with the Commission and an- 

 nounced his views in his first message to the 

 Sixtieth Congress. From that hour the Com- 

 mission has been made uncomfortable. 

 Though not too rashly antagonistic on the 

 floor. Congress was able, with an affectation 

 of contempt that itself was contemptible, to 

 display its feelings by cutting out the sus- 

 taining appropriation and all mention of the 

 Commission from its enactments. 



"The summons to the Governors for the 

 May conference was undoubtedly a strateg- 

 ical move in respect to this move in Congress, 

 as well as broadly reflecting a purpose to en- 

 list state cooperation for the furtherance of 

 the general policy. That the meeting of the 

 'House of Governors' aroused a measure of 

 jealousy in the Congressional bosom was 

 made manifest. That the President regarded 

 the situation as precarious and anticipated 

 the action in repudiation of the Inland 

 Waterways Commission was shown by his 

 declaration tnat he would personally see to 

 it that the Commission was not wiped out of 

 existence. He has made good tnat pledge 

 by requesting the members of the Commis- 



