160 UNITED STATES FOREST POLICY 



and Roosevelt, the "conservation movement" meant a constructive 

 movement, involving not only the conservation of irreplaceable re- 

 sources, but the development of other resources, as, for instance, irri- 

 gation lands, waterways and water power, not as local and private 

 enterprises, but for the benefit of the people as a whole. 



The broadening scope of the conservation movement is well indi- 

 cated by the fact that the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy^" in 1910 

 was mainly concerned, not with the conservation of timber, but coal. 

 About the same time, the question of water power suddenly emerged 

 into a position of the greatest prominence, solely due to the agitation 

 and efforts of Pinchot. While timber conservation thus took a position 

 of relatively less importance, it was not absolutely less important 

 than it had been before. Probably the growing interest in coal, water 

 power, and other resources helped, rather than retarded, the cause of 

 forest conservation, by lending an added interest and power to the 

 whole conservation movement. As Pinchot expressed it: "We have 

 forestry associations, waterway associations, irrigation associations, 

 associations of many kinds touching this problem of conservation at 

 different points, each endeavoring to benefit the common weal along 

 its own line, but each interested only in its own particular piece of 

 work and unaware that it is attacking the outside, not the heart of 

 the problem. Now the greater thing is opening out in the sight of the 

 people. This problem of the conservation of natural resources is a 

 single question. Each of these various bodies that have been working 

 at different phases of it must come together on conservation as a 

 common platform." 



THE PUBLIC LANDS COMMISSION 



Perhaps the real genesis of the conservation movement, in this 

 sense, is to be found in the appointment, by President Roosevelt, of 

 the Public Lands Commission in 1903 "to report upon the condition, 

 operation, and effect of the present land laws, and to recommend such 

 changes as are needed to effect the largest practicable disposition of 

 the public lands to actual settlers, and to secure in permanence the 

 fullest and most effective use of the resources of the public lands." 

 The commission, composed of W. A. Richards, F. H. Newell, and 



20 Cross Reference, pp. 201-204. 



