164 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



March 



ter us. I hold here in my hand pic- 

 tures of what it has cost France. She 

 is now spending fifty dollars an acre 

 to try and stop the wash on the sides 

 of the mountains, that she may plant 

 trees ; and we come to ask you to 

 spend a dollar an acre and buy the 

 mountain sides before they are wash- 

 ed away, that the trees may continue 

 to grow. 



The lumber problem, gentlemen, is 

 sufficient by itself to appeal to you as 

 a National problem, but I pass at 

 once to one of greater importance, 

 perhaps, the problem of power. We 

 consume our lumber, we consume our 

 coal ; then what are we to depend upon 

 for power, what are we to depend 

 upon for heat? The flow of our 

 streams ! The power to create elec- 

 tricity from our streams, if we will 

 conserve them and preserve the 

 source, must largely protect us from 

 the waste of our coal and the waste of 

 our lumber. The great manufacturing 

 possibilities of the future of the coun- 

 try depend upon your action. I do 

 not, gentlemen, urge at this time the 

 reservoir system presented by your 

 Government expert who spoke a few 

 moments ago. That may be a ques- 

 tion in the future. It may be one for 

 consideration fifty years hence ; but if 

 you allow these forests to go, then, as 

 your expert told us at this hearing, 

 you have taken away from the future 

 the possibility of creating the enor- 

 mous amount of additional power and 

 creative force that could come from 

 reservoirs, as the result of the streams, 

 which the forest must preserve. 



Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I 

 come to the proposition of navigation. 

 It has been absolutely demonstrated 

 before you that if we are to have in- 

 land waterways, we must preserve the 

 trees on the inountain sides, on both 

 these ranges. Testimony comes to you 

 from your employed experts. It comes 

 to you from practical business men, 

 who have seen and who know. If 

 this were a trial before a court, the 

 testimony presented would require a 

 verdict and the entry of a judgment 



that the navigable streams of this 

 whole section rest for their future up- 

 on the preservation of the trees upon 

 these mountain sides. It is hardly 

 necessary for me to add a word, to the 

 clear, simple, powerful presentation of 

 the constitutional 'right. If you have 

 the power to take the sand and the 

 debris out of the stream, how can it be 

 possible that you have not the consti- 

 tutional power to keep it from getting 

 into the streams? Is it possible that 

 our Constitution is one that gives you 

 the right to dredge harbors and 

 dredge navigable streams, and spend 

 your millions on this, and yet does not 

 give you the power to buy a piece of 

 land with a single expenditure that 

 will save you the yearly expenditure? 

 Is it possible that under the Constitu- 

 tion you cannot buy the land to stop 

 the wash, although you can spend the 

 money to clean out the dirt that the 

 wash produces. The proposition 

 shocks me. 



I have read the Kansas vs. Colorado 

 decision. Not only does it fail to 

 touch this case, for the reason given 

 by the gentleman who just spoke, but 

 it fails to touch it for another reason. 

 In that case the proposition was to 

 consume the water belonging to the 

 riparian holders in Kansas for the use 

 of irrigation in Colorado. Here, in- 

 stead of taking something that be- 

 longs to somebody else, instead of the 

 Government undertaking in one 

 State to take something in the shape 

 of water away from another State, 

 you are proposing to help the people, 

 on every bank, in every State, through 

 which the stream flows. 



Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I 

 would not consume your time upon 

 that subject or upon this case. I be- 

 lieve, and I dare state it, although I 

 am a strict constructionist, that where 

 there is a great National purpose to 

 be subserved, a great National bene- 

 fit to be done, without interfering with 

 the rights of a State or the rights of 

 an individual, the general welfare 

 clause of our Constitution means some- 

 thing. I would not stretch it to in- 



