ERNEST S. GRIFFITH 7 



picture. Following the national impetus, forty states created conser- 

 vation commissions, albeit many of them abortive. From the experi- 

 ence of the West came the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909. Under 

 legislative safeguards and administrative oversight the traditional 1 60- 

 acre limitation was raised to 320 for nonirrigable lands, but with con- 

 tinuity of intent. The Withdrawal Act of 1910 looked in two directions. 

 The still dynamic stand of conservation broadened and firmed the 

 President's authority over water power and irrigation and mineral 

 lands, and this was natural. At the same time the pressure from and 

 experience of a West impatient with what seemed to some the arrested 

 development of its lumber and grazing interests accompanying the 

 poUcy of forest withdrawal, expressed itself in the working out of 

 policies which, while defensible, were more acceptable to local inter- 

 ests. 



These two strands — national planning and foresight on the one 

 hand, and local economic interests on the other — were never there- 

 after to leave the arena of conservation legislation. It would be a mis- 

 take to regard these as opposites — the one wholly good, the other 

 wholly bad. On the vitality and energy of local points of view and 

 interests is built much of the rich tapestry of our political and eco- 

 nomic pluralism; in the blind identification of each and every nation 

 wide move with the long-range public interest lie dangers of central- 

 ism and neglect of secondary and derivative effects. So it is with con- 

 servation. In the long run, the development of our resources by local 

 interests gives such development a much needed dynamic and adap- 

 tation; safeguards in long-time national interest are, fortunately, not 

 too often incompatible with this. 



Such coincidence found significant expression in the Weeks Act of 

 1911. Watersheds and forests of navigable streams were extended 

 protection. Private as well as public lands were included. The pattern 

 of federal-state co-operative action, under the stimulus of grants-in- 

 aid, was precedent to later activities under the same act and, perhaps 

 an even greater achievement, national forests were extended by pur- 

 chase, especially in the states along the eastern seaboard. Pinchot was 

 influential in this, as was Joseph Holmes, State Geologist of North 

 Carolina, who in 1910 became the first Director of the United States 

 Bureau of Mines. 



