NEWS AND NOTES 



651 



Mr. Pinchot at San Francisco 



"Corporations should no more be granted 

 rights in perpetuity to water and power sites 

 than a street railroad should be granted its 

 franchise in perpetuity. 



"There should be a time limit fixed bylaw 

 on the rights granted corporations under 

 governmental control. 



"The next Congress will have to settle this 

 question. The matter has been so framed 

 that it will have to be decided for all time." 



Excerpts from interview with Gifford 

 Pinchot at San Francisco, September i, 1909. 

 San Francisco (Cal.) Examiner. 



President Taft to Forester Pinchot 



President Taft, on September 25, gave out, 

 at Salt Lake City, the following statement : 



"In view of the published statements that 

 the letter of the President to_ Secretary Bal- 

 linger was to be considered in some way a 

 reflection on Mr. Pinchot, the President to- 

 day authorized the publication of the follow- 

 ing: That at the time he wrote the letter to 

 Secretary Ballinger he also wrote a letter to 

 Mr. Pinchot, assuring him that the con- 

 clusions stated therein were not intended in 

 any way to reflect on him ; that the President 

 deemed Mr. Pinchot's continuance in the 

 public service as of the utmost value; that 

 he expected to continue the Roosevelt policies 

 as to the conservation of resources, including 

 the reclamation of arid lands and preserva- 

 tion of our forests and the proper restrictions 

 in respect to the use of coal lands and water 

 sites, as well as the improvement of our 

 waterways, and to ask Congress for such 

 confirmatory and enabling legislation as 

 would put the execution of these policies on 

 the firmest basis ; and that he would deem 

 it a great loss if, in respect to the matters 

 with which Mr. Pinchot had been concerned, 

 the administration should be denied the ben- 

 efit of his further service." 



Forester Pinchot's Statement 



On the same date Mr. Pinchot gave out the 

 following statement : 



"At the suggestion of the President, I make 

 public the following extracts from his letter 

 to me mentioned in the statement he has 

 just authorized : 



' T wish you to know that I have the ut- 

 most confidence in your conscientious desire 

 to serve the Government and the public, in 

 the intensity of your purpose to achieve suc- 

 cess in the matter of conservation of natural 

 resources and in the immense value of what 

 you have done and propose to do with ref- 

 erence to forestry and kindred methods of 

 conservation ; and that I am thoroughly in 



sympathy with all of these policies and pro- 

 pose to do everything I can to maintain 

 them, insisting only that the action for which 

 I become responsible, and for which my 

 administration becomes responsible, shall be 

 within the law. 



" T should consider it one of the greatest 

 losses that my administration could sustain 

 if you were to leave it, and I sincerely hope 

 you will not think my action in writing the 

 inclosed letter to Secretary Ballinger is rea- 

 son for your taking a step of this character.' 



"These expressions by the President, which 

 are most kind toward me and most favorable 

 toward my work, as well as the statement au- 

 thorized by him, define his attitude toward 

 the conservation policies with convincing 

 clearness. 



"I shall not resign, but shall remain in 

 the Government service. I shall give my 

 best efforts in the future, as in the past, to 

 promote the conservation and development 

 of our forests, waters, lands, and minerals, 

 and to defend the conservation policies when- 

 ever the need arises. I especially shall con- 

 tinue to advocate the control of water-power 

 monopoly in the public interest and the use 

 of our institutions, laws, and natural re- 

 sources for the benefit of the plain people. 



"I believe in equality of opportunity and 

 the Roosevelt policies, and I propose to stand 

 for them as long as I have the strength to 

 stand for anything." 



National Forester Pinchot's Pluck 



Perhaps you noticed during the tariff de- 

 bate that there was a tendency among the 

 standpat Congressmen to denounce Gifford 

 Pinchot, the head of the national forestry 

 service. Of course, these attacks came from 

 the tools of the lumber trust, and were made 

 because Pinchot had been informing the 

 country how the operations of the trust, 

 with its accumulations of dried debris, laid 

 the foundation for forest fires. Moreover, 

 Pinchot had the nerve to tell the truth about 

 the destruction by forest fires last year, which 

 also displeased the trust. 



Now Forester Pinchot has invited new 

 wrath by issuing a warning against the 

 plans of an entirely new trust, the Water 

 power Trust. * * * This is a bold and public- 

 spirited utterance, and what Mr. Pinchot has 

 to say about "legal technicalities," can be 

 readily appreciated in Saratoga County. Here 

 selfish corporations have been enabled to 

 steal the prosperity of the many, and legal 

 technicalities have been successfully oppos- 

 ed to the enforcement of laws in the public 

 interest. 



More power to Pinchot ! The country has 

 too few men of scientific training to speak 

 out in behalf of the interests of the public 

 as opposed to grasping private interests. 

 Saratogian, Saratoga Springs, N. Y. 



