THE IERIGATION AGE. 



419 



for the success of any project. It is unnecessary and un- 

 just to have their work reviewed and progress suspended 

 by men who are not experienced and whose only strength 

 lies in their ability to report to those who have power 

 under the law to retard development. 



It should be the policy of the national government to 

 encourage the development of capable and honest State 

 administration. The government should accept State re- 

 ports as final and conclusive. It should hold the States 

 responsible throughout and if failure occurs the State ad- 

 ministration should be held accountable. The national 

 government can never have an intimate knowledge of local 

 conditions. It can never do justice to the West when 

 decisions must be based on the reports of special agents. 

 The result of such a practice is delay and business stag- 

 nation. 



President 

 Taft's 

 Great 

 Work. 



No president in recent years was ever so 

 beset by opposition to his administration 

 as that which President Taft has encoun- 

 tered during the session of recent Con- 

 gress. At the very beginning the con- 

 servative element in both House and 

 Senate were secretly determined that his progressive poli- 

 cies should not be carried out, and it was a matter of open 

 knowledge that his tariff policies, although frequently 

 pledged to the country, were to be opposed by the dominat- 

 ing powers. 



For a time the President's real friends, both in Con- 

 gress and out, felt some alarm lest his administration 

 would result in nothing of importance to the country or 

 credit to himself. 



He was called weak, vascillating, and without influ- 

 ence, by the majority of the Republican press of the coun- 

 try, and by many influential men who declared he failed 

 to keep his party pledges made in platform and on the 

 stump. 



As time went on, however, President Taft developed 

 a tenacity of purpose and skill of political management 

 and an influence upon all elements in Congress which not 

 only surprised his friends but disconcerted his enemies. 

 Not until thirty days before Congress adjourned did it 

 appear as though any of his important measures would be 

 passed; but in the last strenuous days of that eventful 

 session President Taft accomplished more big things for 

 the permanent benefit of the country in the way of wise 

 legislation, than any other President who has preceded 

 him since Lincoln. 



The most important, following the passage of the 

 Tariff Bill earlier in the session, is the Railroad Bill, 

 greatly strengthening the powers of the Inter-State Com- 

 merce Commission, and placing telegraph, telephone and 

 sleeping car companies under its control; the Postal Sav- 

 ings Bank Bill, a measure which was bitterly fought for 

 many months previous to the assembling of Congress and 

 all through the session, and in fact, every important meas- 

 ure advocated by the President in his inaugural message 

 was put through Congress without being twisted out of 

 its original shape by the various interests who vigorously 

 opposed them all in the beginning. 



To irrigation interests and to all land interests in the 

 west the Mondell bill, appropriating $20,000,000 for the 

 completition of irrigation works now under way, and the 

 inauguration and development of new enterprises, is of 

 the greatest importance. This bill gives the President 



specific authority to make temporary withdrawals from 

 entry of public lands, a power which has heretofore been 

 exercised without authority. It is a noteworthy fact that 

 both of these measures were vigorously opposed by the 

 adherents of Pinchot and Ex-secretary Garfield, who 

 claimed that they implied a reflection upon the course of 

 the Roosevelt administration. In a measure, this is true, 

 but the withdrawal measure simply means that President 

 Taft will now have the power to do exactly the things 

 that heretofore have been done without authority of law. 

 He will have the power to withdraw lands temporarily, 

 but Congress must, in the end, hereafter determine the 

 interests of the people. It has the power to set aside the 

 President's acts if they do not meet with the approval of 

 the people. 



The west, therefore, will not lose anything by these 

 conservation laws, but on the contrary, they will be greatly 

 benefited and their interests will be more carefully safe- 

 guarded than ever before, and particularly under the reck- 

 less, and unlawful methods used by the Garfield and Pin- 

 chot administrations. 



This bill will open up millions of acres of new lands, 

 as it authorizes agricultural entries on coal lands and will 

 also open many million acres now included in coal with- 

 drawals and classifications. 



President Taft has shown a wise understanding of 

 the needs of the people in every measure he has introduced, 

 and in every policy he has advocated, and it is not too 

 much to say that no administration in recent years ever 

 stood higher or held a warmer place in the hearts of the 

 people. 



Problems 



No person, not acquainted with condi- 

 tions in Washington a year ago, has any 

 Confronted appreciation of the problems that con- 



By the fronted President Taft. For years politi- 



President. ca ^ bureaus have been permitted to run 



riot, to overturn acts of Congress and to 

 spend public money for personal publicity purposes. 

 President Taft evidently saw what was ahead of him. He 

 well understood how much deception had been created and 

 he doubtless knew that he would be an object of criti- 

 cism as soon as he sought to curb the publicity practices 

 that had secured such a hold in three or four of the de- 

 partments. 



All honor to him for the stand he has taken and for 

 he fight he has made. He is not understood even today, 

 s he will be within the next year. It was known that 

 when Mr. Ballinge 1 - *"as Commissioner of the General Land 

 Office that he was unpopular among the politicians of sev- 

 eral of the departments. Mr. Pinchot could not work 

 Mr. Ballinger. Neither could Mr. Newell. Neither could 

 Mr. Smith, the Director of the Geological Survey. Even 

 Mr. Garfield could get nothing through the General Land 

 Office that the law did not permit and recognize. To 

 keep peace in the family and at the -request of the heads 

 of several of the most notorious bureaus, Mr. Ballinger 

 was asked to retire. 



When President Taft appointed him as Secretary of 

 the Interior it was recognized that a new era had begun. 

 The politics and personal campaign methods which the 

 bureaus had so successfuly inaugurated had to come to 

 in end or there would be some vacancies in office. Mr. 

 Pinchot could not stand this. He was compelled to do 

 business through the head of the Agricultural Department. 



