420 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



This was annoying. He had hitherto gone direct to Con- 

 gress or to the President and the Secretary of Agriculture 

 had been ignored. 



He chafed under the new order of things and finally 

 placed himself in such position before the President that 

 either he had to give up his office or the President had to 

 retire. Since Mr. Taft was elected by a very good major- 

 ity of the voters of the country and had some responsibil- 

 ities resting upon him, he did not deem it wise to give up 

 his important office, even to save Mr. Pinchot. Mr. Pin- 

 chot therefore detached himself from public service. 



Mr. Newell was requested by the Secretary of the In- 

 terior to work under his department. The law under 

 which Mr. Newell is supposed to operate requires this. 

 The provisions of law never appealed with any great force 

 to Mr. Newell, however. In this instance he seemed to 

 think that Mr. Ballinger was in earnest and Mr. Newell 

 has been very mild and obedient. For the first time in 

 ten years he has not spent his winter in the lobby of the 

 capitol building. For the first time in that period he did 

 not marshal! his engineers from the west and parade them 

 up and down Pennsylvania avenue. It was an unusual 

 season in Washington. 



Mr. George Otis Smith of the U. S. Geological Survey 

 was wiser. He is at the head of the oldest political de- 

 partment and one of the most effective and persistent of 

 advertisers. It is from Mr. Smith that the reform ele- 

 ment get statistics to show the public that the coal supply 

 is about exhausted. Through Mr. Smith's activity also 

 the undeveloped coal regions of the West are reserved and 

 preserved for posterity. This gives him something to do, 

 and at the same time it is a great benefit to those already 

 in the coal business. It means that no competition can 

 spring up. 



Mr. Smith does many other things for posterity. We 

 have no knowledge as to whether he has better reasons for 

 being interested in posterity than has Mr. Pinchot. Mr. 

 Smith evidently saw the handwriting on the wall. He has 

 been very diplomatic. He has hovered about the office of 

 the Secretary like a turkey buzzard, watching for an op- 

 portunity to show the Secretary that he is a good boy 

 and at the same time ready to land on any person who has 

 the temerity to ask the department for permission to make 

 use of some of the public natural resources. 



Mr. Smith has dealt cards with both hands. He is 

 well fitted for the position he holds, and because of his 

 apparent success to date he reflects credit on a department 

 that was created and conducted by and for politicians. 



Mr. Taft has done much. Those who know what the 

 inside of the bureau machinery is like, feel that he has 

 worked a miracle. He has much to do before the reading 

 public recovers from the effects of the insane advertising 

 that has been indulged in for the past ten years. This is 

 up to the public rather than a duty that confronts him. 



We know what the result is to be. We know what 

 the truth is regarding the work of the Forest Service, the 

 Reclamation Service and the Geological Survey. We know 

 that truth must, sooner or later, come to the surface. Mr. 

 Taft is not a spectacular actor. He does not play to the 

 galleries. The sensational does not affect him or blind his 

 judgment. He is the man for the time and for the place. 



May he live long and prosper. May he continue to 

 disappoint both extremes and proceed to carry out his 

 policies that are sound and safe. He is to get the sincere 

 support of the great majority of thinking men. This is 

 all that the best and wisest of rulers can well anticipate. 



We prophesy that the "conservation" 

 Thoughts campaign will be brief. Those who have 



Along followed Mr. Pinchot's career know that 



Conservation ne nas become notorious by advertising 

 ^j n and not because of good works. "Con- 



servation" is the most recent name for 

 his policies when grouped together. No person who un- 

 derstands the work that Mr. Pinchot has been doing in 

 the west has any use for his theories which when carried 

 into practice can only result in business stagnation. The 

 only good that could possibly come from following his 

 policies would revert to the bureaus which have so 

 adroitly striven for power during the' past ten years. We 

 do not wish to enter into a detailed argument as to the 

 facts. We ask those who doubt our position to make a 

 brief investigation on the ground. Then if they have any 

 questions that they wish to present we shall be glad to 

 enter into such details as may be necessary in each case. 



The greatest fault of the bureaus during the past ten 

 years lies in their disregard for acts of Congress. Rules 

 and regulations made by the departments are superior to 

 laws in the minds of several bureau chiefs. Mr. Taft found 

 a condition confronting him that required prompt and de- 

 cisive action. A little coterie of men, consisting of Mr. 

 Gifford Pinchot, Mr. James R. Garfield, Mr. F. H. Newell 

 and a few minor lights had set themselves up 'as 'judges 

 and interpreters of law and as despotic leaders in economic 

 and political questions. 



Mr. Taft has done wonders in the past year. He dis- 

 covered the root of the trouble without much effort. He 

 found that the bureaus were conducting press agencies 

 with government funds and that a large part of the read- 

 ing public had already been deceived as to the merits of 

 the pet policies of government employees, who are pre- 

 sumed to be hired under acts of congress to perform cer- 

 tain duties as executive officers and not to invade the legis- 

 lative and judicial branches of government. 



Unfortunately the Pinchot-Ballinger investigation did 

 not enter into the press bureau work of these departments. 

 Unfortunately this investigation did not embrace the work 

 of the bureaus as fully as was anticipated. Had the truth 

 been published as to the advertising work of the bureaus, 

 much of the present misunderstandings would have been 

 avoided. 



We should like to call attention to one manifest injus- 

 tice to the West. The Director of the Geological Survey 

 is from Maine. He knows nothing about practical work. 

 He might do in the class room or in an assembly of scien- 

 tific men. He is dangerous when placed in charge of such 

 work as he is presumed to conduct. As an example, we 

 simply need refer to one instance. The "conservation" 

 movement naturally appealed to the Director. It presents 

 some problems that can be juggled with and offers an op- 

 portunity for advertising. He is heart and soul in sym- 

 pathy wkh the radical element that would stop the growth 

 of the West to bolster up the bureaus at Washington. 



As a matter of policy the Director has played in with 

 Mr. Ballinger with one hand while he has tried to throt- 

 tle western industries with the other. He has thus main- 

 tained himself with the "conservationists" and held his 

 job with the -government at the same time. The one thing 

 that appealed with particular force to the Director is the 

 water power phantom. He is at the head of the depart- 

 ment that discovers(P) and reports upon all of the coal 

 fields. He is afraid to make an estimate as to the extent 

 of our coal supply because this is so enormous that it does 



