FORESTS, RESERVOIRS, AND STREAM FLOW 317 
to discern, The Government is now expending millions in storing 
water and conducting it upon land whereby the products of the soil 
may be obtained. It is applying this water to both public and pri- 
vate land, or to lands that were in private ownership when the 
projects began. Is there any real difference between providing the 
power to raise sugar beets, for instance, and that for manufactur- 
ing them into form for human consumption and transporting them 
to the consumer? Are not the last-mentioned purposes quite as neces- 
sary as the first?* And again, is there any distinction in principle 
between improving a river so that boats can navigate it and improving 
it so that it may provide power that will transport produce by land 
as well as by water? 
Again, the Government has accepted gifts of land like the Yose- 
mite Valley and the Muir Redwood Grove, to be given over to the 
enjoyment of the people and involving perpetual expenditures for 
maintenance in the future. It has traded lands of its own for lands 
with which it has parted ownership. It reserves vast areas to-day 
which might be private lands to-morrow. What is the distinction 
of principle between doing all these things and buying outright lands 
that are needed for the same or similar purposes? They are distinc- 
tions without real differences. They concern the letter and not the 
spirit, and they cannot stand whenever the interests of the public 
really demand their abrogation. 
Still, it is probably a fact that Federal authority to buy lands 
for forest culture alone and to create reservoirs for industrial use 
exclusively, would be considered by the Courts as transcending the 
power of Congress under the Constitution, and it is this fact that 
forces those who believe in having the Government do these things 
to strain the truth by attempting to prove that they are necessary 
for navigation and for the prevention of floods. It enforces a policy 
-of indirection instead of permitting these things to be done squarely 
for their real purpose and as a matter of right. In his address before 
the Judiciary Committee, in its hearing on the Appalachian Bill, Mr. 
Pinchot stated that that proposition must stand or fall upon the 
‘theory that the forests regulate stream flow, and are therefore useful 
to navigation. Did he not refer to the particular point here under 
*It has even been hinted by high judicial authority that the Reclamation Act 
itself would not stand the test of constitutionality, if brought into Court. 
