186 



Canadian Forestry Journal, December, 191^. 



jority and minority reports referred to it 

 submitted that the matter had been taken 

 from its hands by the action of the Con- 

 vention in adopting general principles on 

 which the whole committee were agreed. 



When the report had been read, Dr. Gif- 

 ford Pinchot, former forester of the United 

 States, and father of the minority water- 

 ways report in the congress, moved as an 

 amendment to the resolutions committee's 

 report a declaration of principles on water- 

 way control simlar to the ideas in the min- 

 ority report signed by himself. Henry L. 

 Stimson, former Secretary of War, and 

 Joseph N. Teal of Oregon. 



This amendment was adopted by a vote 

 of .317 to 96 after one offered by Repre- 

 sentative Burnett of Alabama, which pro- 

 posed to insert the words 'state control' 

 wherever 'public control' appeared had 

 been defeated, 378 to 132. 



It was upon these motions that the con- 

 vention was brought to a stormy climax, 

 and at one time some of Mr. Pinchot 's 

 friends, including the president of the con- 

 gress, urged him to consent to an adjourn- 

 ment. Motions to adjourn were made be- 

 fore the final roll calls, but were hooted 

 down by the convention. 



Among those who led in the fight for 

 federal as opposed to state control were 

 Messrs. Gifford Pinchot, Hon. W. L. Fish- 

 er, ex-Secretary of the Interior, Hon. H. 

 L. Stimson, ex-Secretary for War, and Hon. 

 James R. Garfield, also an ex- Secretary of 

 the Interior. 



Delgeates from the District of Columbia 

 supported the motion while the state dele- 

 gates were not all for states' rights. The 

 delegates who spoke and voted against 

 federal control came chiefly from Alabama, 

 Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, 

 Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, South 

 Carolina, Tennessee and Washington 

 State. 



The Points at Issue. 



As \\iQ matter, so to speak came into the 

 Congress on a slide wind, the situation 

 may perhaps best be explained by quoting 

 the words of the leaders on both sides after 

 the contest was over. 



Mr. Pinchot said: 



' The vote this afternoon was on two per- 

 fectly clear issues. Although the so-called 

 Pinchot amendment had nothing to do with 

 states' rights, the states' rights men in- 

 jected that question and were defeated by 

 three to one. The other issue was whether 

 or not the National Conservation Congress 

 should take strong ground as to the charge 

 of monopoly in waterpower, or whether the 

 waterpower interests at the congress 

 should prevent it from doing so. The wat- 

 erpower interests failed to bottle up the 

 congress, and again were overwhelmingly 

 defeated. 



'Now that the fight is over, all of the 

 friends of conservation should be glad of 

 the victory for the public control of this 

 great public necessity and should get 

 squarely behind the movement to open the 

 waterpowers to full development without 

 delay and on terms fair to the power in- 

 terests as well as to the public. We took 

 a real step forward in conservation this 

 afternoon. ' 



Mr. Walter Powell, chairman of the Ar- 

 kansas delegation said 'I have been dele- 

 gated by the representatives of twenty- 

 three states of the middle west, and south, 

 to call a separate convention, which will 

 take up only the subject of waterpower 

 and irrigation. It will be composed of 

 practical men, not of government officials 

 and former cabinet officers, and will try 

 to come to some definite conclusion o^ the 

 subject of conservation from the practical 

 and not the theoretical standpoint. This 

 convention will be held in about a month, 

 and states from Maine to California will 

 be represented. It will probably be held 

 in Washington, though it might possibly 

 be held in St. Louis.' 



The Pinchot Amendment. 



The Pinchot amendment declared that 

 monopolistic control of waterpower in pri- 

 vate hands was swiftly increasing in the 

 United States 'far more rapidly than pub- 

 lic control thereof; that increasing 'con- 

 centration of waterpower in some hands 

 was accompanied by growing control over 

 the power consuming agencies, the public 

 service companies of the country.' It con- 

 tinued: 



'Whereas this concentration, if fostered, 

 as in the past, by outright grants of public 

 powers in perpetuity, will inevitably re- 

 sult in a highly monopolistic control of 

 mechanical power, one of the bases of 

 modern civilization and a prime factor in 

 the cost of living. 



'Therefore, be it resolved, That we re- 

 cognize the firm and effective control of 

 waterpower corporations as a pressing and 

 immediate necessity urgently required in 

 the public interest; that we recognize 

 there is no restraint so complete, effective 

 and permanent as that which comes from 

 firmly intrenched public ownership of the 

 power site, and that it is the solemn judg- 

 ment of the fifth National Conservation 

 Congress that hereafter no waterpower 

 now owned or controlled by the public 

 should be sold, granted or given away in 

 perpetuity, or in any manner removed from 

 the public ownership, which alone can give 

 sound basis of assured and permanent con- 

 trol in the interest of the people. ' 



Officers Elected. 



The congress elected Charles Lathrop 



Pack of Lakewood, N.J., as president to 



succeed himself; Mrs. Emmons Crocker, 



Fitchburg, Mass., vice president; N. C. 



