408 



THE IRKIGATION AGE. 



must bring the explosion. An eleventh hour attempt to 

 prevent the airing of personal or political feuds on the 

 convention floor, was notably unsuccessful and pure 

 curiosity p:ompted the attendance of many who deplored 

 the prospective fray. 



In his discussion of the "Taxation of Forest Lands 

 as Affecting Conservation," F. W. Mulkey presented an 

 able paper in which he explained in detail present meth- 

 ods of taxing timber lands and the abuses resulting 

 therefrom. E. T. Allen, United States District Forester, 

 also presented an instructive paper on "Reforestation," 

 but to neither of these numbers could the assemblage 

 give rapt attention because of the unrest and disquiet 

 among conservative delegates, and the exuberance of 

 forestry supporters, over the prospective utterances of 

 the chief forester. 



When the president introduced Forester Pinchot as 

 the next speaker, there was prolonged and boisterous ap- 

 plause from certain sections of the hall. Throughout his 

 speech it was noted that these sections were ready at 

 all times with vigorous approbation. Mr. Pinchot spoke 

 as follows: 



The first thing we need in this country, as President 

 Roosevelt so well sot forth in that great message which told 

 what he had been trying to do for the American people, is 

 equality of opportunity for every citizen. No man should 

 have less, and no man ought to ask for any more. Equality 

 of opportunity is the real object of our laws and institutions. 

 Our institutions and our laws are not valuable in themselves. 

 They are valuable only because they secure equality of oppor- 

 tunity for hapniness and welfare for our citizens. An insti- 

 tution or a law is a means, not an end, a means to be used 

 for the public good, to be modified for the public good, and 

 to be interpreted for the public good. One of the great rea- 

 sons why President Roosevelt's administration was of such 

 enormous value to the plain American was that he understood 

 what St. Paul meant when he said: "The letter killeth, but 

 the spirit giveth life." To follow blindly the letter of the 

 law, or the form of an institution, without intelligent regard 

 both for its spirit and for the public welfare, is very nearly 

 as dangerous as to disregard the law altogether. What w 

 need is the use of the law for the public good, and the con- 

 struction of it for the public welfare. 



It goes without saying that the law is supreme and must 

 be obeyed. Our civilization rests on obedience to law. But 

 the law is not absolute. It requires to be construed. Rigid 

 construction of the law works, and must work, in the vast 

 majority of cases, for the benefit of the man who can hire 

 the best lawyers and who have the sources of influence in 

 lawmaking at their command. Strict construction necessarily 

 favors the great interests as against the people, and in the 

 long run can not do otherwise. Wise execution of the law 

 must consider what the law ought to accomplish for the 

 general good. The great oppressive trusts exist because of 

 subservient lawmakers and adroit legal constructions. Here 

 is the central stronghold of the money power in the everlast- 

 ing conflict of the few to grab, and the many to keep or win 

 the rights they were born with. Legal technicalities seldom 

 help the people. The people, not the law, should have the 

 benefit of every doubt. 



Equality of opportunity, a square deal for every man, 

 the protection of the citizen against the great concentrations 

 of capital, the intelligent use of laws and institutions for 

 the public good, and the conservation of our natural resources,' 

 not for the trusts, but for the people, these real issues and real 

 problems. Upon such things as these the perpetuity of 

 this country as a nation of homes really depends. We are 

 coming to see that the simple things are the things to work 

 for. More than that, we are coming to see that the plain 

 American citizen is the man to work for. The imagination 

 is staggered by the magnitude of the prize for which we work. 

 If we succeed, there will exist upon this continent a sane, 

 strong people, living through the centuries in a land sub- 

 dued and controlled for the service of the people, its right- 

 ful masters, owned by many and not by the few. If we fail, 

 the great interests, Increasing their control of our natural re- 

 sources, will thereby control the country more and more, 

 and the rights of the people will fade into the privileges of 

 concentrated wealth. 



There could be no better illustration of the eager, rapid 

 unwearied absorption by capital of the rights which belong 

 to all the people than the water power trust, not yet 

 formed, but in rapid process of formation. This statement is 

 true, but not unchallenged. We are met at every turn by the 

 indignant denial of the water power interests. They tell 

 us that there is no community of interest among them, and 

 yet they appear year after year at these congresses by 

 their paid attorneys, asking for your influence to help them 

 remove the few remaining obstacles to their perpetual and 

 complete absorption of the remaining water powers. They 

 tell us it has no significance that the General Electric inter- 

 ests are acquiring great groups of water powers in various 

 parts of the United States, and dominating the power market 

 in the region of each group. And whoever dominates power, 

 dominates all industry. Have you ever seen a few drops of 

 oil scattered on the water spreading until they formed a con- 

 tinuous film, which put an end at once to all agitation of the 

 surface? The time for us to agitate this question is now, 

 before the separate circles of centralized control spread into 

 the uniform, unbroken, nation-wide covering of a single gi- 

 gantic trust. There will be little chance for mere agitation 



after that. No man at all familiar with the situation can 

 doubt that the time for effective protest is very short. If 

 we do not use it to protect ourselves now, we may be very 

 sure that the trust will give hereafter small consideration 

 to the welfare of the average citizen when in conflict with 

 its own. 



The man who really counts is the plain American cit- 

 izen. This is the man for whom the Roosevelt policies were 

 created, and his welfare in the end to which the Roosevelt 

 policies lead. As a nation we are fortunate at this time 

 in this fact above all others, that the great man who gave 

 his name to these policies has for his successor another 

 great president whose administration is most solemnly pledged 

 to the support of them. 



I stand for the Roosevelt policies because they set the 

 common good of all of us above the private gain of some of 

 us; because they recognize the livelihood of the small man as 

 more important to the nation than the profit of the big 

 man; because they oppose all useless waste at present at 

 the cost of robbing the future; because they demand the 

 complete, sane and orderly development of all our natural re- 

 sources, not forgetting our rivers; because they insist upon 

 equality of opportunity and denounce monopoly and special 

 privilege; because discarding false issues, they deal directly 

 with the vital questions that really make a difference with the 

 welfare of us all; and most of all, because in them the 

 plain American always and everywhere holds the first place. 

 And I propose to stand for them while I have the strength to 

 stand for anything. 



Before the prolonged and tumultuous applause had 

 subsided, ex-Governor Pardee, of California, was upon 

 his feet declaring that there could be no criticism of the 

 admirable papers just read, and asserting that praise 

 "would be absolutely supererogation." He then hurried 

 the convention into consideration of the time for limit- 

 ing the presentation of resolutions, thus preventing dis- 

 cussion on the paper presented by the chief forester. 



Following the disposition of this question R. E. 

 Campbell, of the Forestry Branch of the Department 

 of the Interior, Canada, presented a paper on "The 

 Forests of Canada and Their Relation to the Water 

 Supply." Nikola Kaumanns, Imperial German Agricul- 

 tural Attache to the United States, gave an address on 

 "The Importance of Forestry in General," and Mr. George 

 S. Long followed with "The Attitude of Lumbermen 

 Toward Forestry." E. M. Griffith, State Forester of 

 Wisconsin, told of the effects of deforestation in that 

 state, and related the steps now being taken by Wiscon- 

 sin toward reforestation. 



TUESDAY AFTERNOON 1 . 



The Bay State Glee Club gave several selections, 

 after which J. E. Chilberg, president of the Alaska-Yukon- 

 Pacific Exposition spoke a few words, extending an in- 

 vitation for irrigators to visit the exposition. Dr. W. J. 

 McGee, Secretary of the Inland Waterways Commission, 

 gave an address on "Water as the Basis of National 

 Prosperity," and was followed by J. N. Teal, of the Joint 

 Conservation Committee, who spoke on the subject "Deep 

 Waterways for the Pacific Coast." Alex. McPherson, 

 Secretary of the Idaho State Board of Horticultural In- 

 spection, addressing the convention on the topic "The 

 Duty of Water," insisted that the proper use and dis- 

 tribution of the available supply would increase the Idaho 

 acreage under cultivation by fully 100 per cent. 



TUESDAY EVENING. 



This session was given to the discussion of good 

 roads by Samuel Hill, president of the Washington Good 

 Roads Association, and a stereopticon lecture by Samuel 

 C. Lancaster, Professor of Highway Engineering of the 

 University of Washington. 



WEDNESDAY MORNING. 



Varying from the program as previously outlined, the 

 congress received a number of addresses on widely di- 

 vergent subjects during the morning session. E. H. 

 Libby, president of the Washington Conservation Asso- 

 ciation, told of the wealth of his state and its growing 

 importance as a wheat raising district. President Howard 

 Elliott, of the Northern Pacific, held the attention of his 

 audience during a concise, yet comprehensive, review of 

 the development of the northwest, and the effects of 

 railroad construction and operation in furthering its great 

 industrial and agricultural growth. Ralph S. Hosmer, 

 territorial forester and chairman of the Territorial Con- 

 servation Commission of Hawaii, created great interest 

 by his description of the ancient methods employed for 



