National Conservation and Water Powers 



By Herman H. Chapman 



Professor of Forestry at Yale University. Chairman of Committee on Policy and Legislation, American For- 

 estry Association. 



IN the July number of American Forestry (page 818) 

 appeared a review of a recent publication on the Con- 

 servation of Water by Storage. In this review empha- 

 sis is placed upon the question of national regulation of 

 water powers in such a way that a casual reader might 

 conclude that the entire theory of government retention of 

 ownership of national resources is wrong, and results in 

 waste rather than in promoting conservation. The quota- 

 tion, among others, which is of greatest significance reads : 



"The Conservation movement, originating in a wise de- 

 mand for the economical use of our natural {not national) 

 resources, has too much deteriorated into a demand that 

 those resources be retained by the National Government 

 and not permitted to be developed by private capital except 

 under restrictive burdens." 



The average American of the old school has been 

 brought up to believe, first, that public lands and their 

 resources exist solely for the purpose of acquisition by 

 private parties for their personal benefit ; second, that 



public jobs are sinecures to be striven for and obtained 

 by those who have sufficient political influence to secure 

 them. Opposed to this doctrine of laissez faire is the 

 theory that the nation should retain and manage the rem- 

 nant of its once enormous timber resources together with 

 publicly owned grazing lands and water powers, and that 

 the trained civil service employes of the government are 

 capable of administering these resources to the mutual 

 benefit of the public and of the capitalists who develop 

 them. 



There is no question of the sincerity of those who 

 champion the doctrine of private acquisition and uncon- 

 trolled exploitation of public resources in the interests of 

 prosperity and progress. The writer at one time be- 

 lieved that he had as much right to a timber claim in 

 northern Minnesota as anyone else, although the only 

 possible use to which he could have put it was to have 

 sold it to some lumber company. 



INTAKE RESERVOIR FOR PLANT NO. 2, NEVADA-CALIFORNIA POWER COMPANY 



This plant, on Bishop Creek, Inyo National Forest, California, is one of a series of five developments on Bishop Creek, four of which are under 

 Forest Service permits. The power is employed in mining, irrigation pumping, and general use in southern California. A permit for the con- 

 struction of an additional plant has been applied for. The present aggregate installed capacity is 30,000 horsepower. 



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