636 Presidential Addresses 



Few subjects of more importance have been taken 

 up by the Congress in recent years than the inaugu- 

 ration of the system of nationally- aided irrigation 

 for the arid regions of the far West. A good be- 

 ginning therein has been made. Now that this pol- 

 icy of national irrigation has been adopted, the need 

 of thorough and scientific forest protection will grow 

 more rapidly than ever throughout the public-land 

 States. 



Legislation should be provided for the protection 

 of the game, and the wild creatures generally, on 

 the forest reserves. The senseless slaughter of 

 game, which can by judicious protection be perma- 

 nently preserved on our national reserves for the 

 people as a whole, should be stopped at once. It is, 

 for instance, a serious count against our national 

 good sense to permit the present practice of butcher- 

 ing off such a stately and beautiful creature as the 

 elk for its antlers or tusks. 



So far as they are available for agriculture, and 

 to whatever extent they may be reclaimed under the 

 national irrigation law, the remaining public lands 

 should be held rigidly for the home builder, the set- 

 tler who lives on his land, and for no one else. In 

 their actual use the desert-land law, the timber and 

 stone law, and the commutation clause of the home- 

 stead law have been so perverted from the intention 

 with which they were enacted as to permit the ac- 

 quisition of large areas of the public domain for 

 other than actual settlers and the consequent preven- 

 tion of settlement. Moreover, the approaching ex- 



