8 Main Lines of Thought and Action 



From 1911 till 1 920 not too much is recorded in the way of legis- 

 lation. A notable exception was the estabUshment of the National 

 Park Service in 1916, a consolidation of a number of earlier, separate 

 establishments. These were years in which details of use were worked 

 out, especially in the administration of the forests. Questions of rentals 

 and charges were serious matters to those locally involved, but raised 

 little national interest. In 1912, at the behest of Stimson, Taft vetoed 

 a bill that did not provide for such charges. He let others go through. 

 One of a series of alleviations of reclamation repayments took place 

 in 1914. From the West, with support from Secretary of the Interior 

 Richard A. Ballinger, had come a move to give back to the states the 

 right to develop water power and control the utilization of mineral 

 resources; but a decision of the Supreme Court (Utah Power and 

 Light Co. V. U.S., 243 U.S. 389) in 1917 upheld the paramountcy of 

 the federal government in its control of water resources on public 

 lands. The states actually had been or were largely placated by grants 

 of a percentage of the receipts from forest charges and (in the case of 

 mineral leases) assignment of a percentage to the reclamation fund. 

 In general, during these years, conflicting interests had to be compro- 

 mised, varying methods of utihzation tried, policies and standards 

 defined. 



Again national and regional agitation played an important role. 

 The Hoover Dam project appeared on the horizon. The dam itself was 

 not actually authorized till 1928. Both in its inception and in its exe- 

 cution it marks the high point of Hoover's resource accomplishment. 

 Certain other solid accomplishments in navigation and flood control 

 of the Hoover presidency date from his planning during his years as 

 Secretary of Commerce. Incidentally, he continued such water re- 

 source planning during his presidency, and much of the later develop- 

 ment of the Grand Coulee and Central Valley may be traced to this. 

 In 1913 the National Conservation Congress, in spite of efforts by 

 private power interests, found itself in the hands of the conservation- 

 ists by overwhelming majorities. Yet by 1916 the private power inter- 

 ests were again in the ascendancy. The years from then until 1920 

 were so dominated by the war that water power legislation, such as 

 it was, remained pretty much of a bewildering maze, with no clear 

 lead. Not until 1920 was any comprehensive and clear adjustment of 



