30 Pioneers and Principles 



needs would constitute an important contribution to the same end, 

 with desirable moral as well as physical results. 



The final aspect of conservation on which I wish to touch is the 

 relationship between the federal government, state governments, cor- 

 porations, and individuals. The facts that the federal government was 

 first to take positive action to protect and manage the lands which it 

 owned, and that conflicts involving a clash between public and private 

 interests have commonly been fought at the federal level, have tended 

 to create the impression that Uncle Sam must play the leading role 

 in conservation matters. Both states and private owners take vigorous 

 exception to this point of view. These groups feel that, while they may 

 have been slow in getting under way, they have now come of age and 

 can manage their own affairs with a minimum of federal interference 

 and a modicum of federal help. 



A subject of continuing, and mounting, friction between the federal 

 government and the western states is that of water rights. The states 

 claim that acts passed in 1866, 1870, and 1872 relinquished to them 

 whatever rights the federal government may have had to control the 

 use of the water of non-navigable streams in the West. The Depart- 

 ment of Justice claims that these acts made no grant to the states, 

 but merely granted to appropriators water rights acquired under state 

 laws. There is general agreement that Congress has control over the 

 navigable portions of interstate streams, and the contention of the 

 states-rights advocates that this control does not extend to non-navi- 

 gable waters, or to any purpose other than navigation, has not been 

 upheld in several Supreme Court decisions. The states are conse- 

 quently seeking legislation to affirm the rights that they believe they 

 possess. 



Three cases are of special interest. In 1940, in United States v. 

 Appalachian Electric Power Company, the Supreme Court held that 

 the New River, in Virginia, is a "navigable water" in spite of the fact 

 that obstructions currently prevent navigation, and also that federal 

 control over navigable streams is not limited to navigation. A year 

 later, in Oklahoma v. Atkinson Company, the Court went consider- 

 ably further: "The fact that ends other than flood control will also 

 be served, or that flood control may be of relatively minor importance, 

 does not invalidate the exercise of the authority conferred on Con- 



