Part 21 (1/2)

The first work I took up when I became President was the work of reclaton, after the assassination of President McKinley, while staying at the house ofinto the White House, Newell and Pinchot called upon ation of the arid lands of the West, and for the consolidation of the forest work of the Government in the Bureau of Forestry

At that tialistic point of vieard natural resources obtained in the Departments, and controlled the Governh the General Land Office and other Govern handled and disposed of in accordance with the sal fore purposes of constructive develop, whenever possible, in favor of private interests against the public welfare was firmly fixed It was as little custoainst the strict construction of the law, as it was to use the law in thwarting the operations of the land grabbers A technical compliance with the letter of the laas all that was required

The idea that our natural resources were inexhaustible still obtained, and there was as yet no real knowledge of their extent and condition

The relation of the conservation of natural resources to the problems of National welfare and National efficiency had not yet dawned on the public mind The reclamation of arid public lands in the West was still a nificent river system, with its superb possibilities for public usefulness, was dealt with by the National Government not as a unit, but as a disconnected series of pork-barrel problems, whose only real interest was in their effect on the reelection or defeat of a Congressret to say, still obtains

The place of the fararded solely as that of a grower of food to be eaten by others, while the human needs and interests of himself and his wife and children still renition of the Governed to the United States were held and administered in one Department, and all the foresters in Government employ were in another Depart whatever to do with each other The National Forests in the West (then called forest reserves) holly inadequate in area to meet the purposes for which they were created, while the need for forest protection in the East had not yet begun to enter the public s when Newell and Pinchot called on me I was a warm believer in reclauests, I asked them to prepare e to Congress, of Decee laid the foundation for the develop the next seven and one-half years It set forth the new attitude toward the natural resources in the words: ”The Forest and water problems are perhaps the most vital internal problee was read, a coanized to prepare a Reclamation Bill in accordance with the recommendations By far thethe bill, which became known by his name, was Newlands The draft of the bill orked over by me and others at several conferences and revised in important particulars;hts, in accordance with the efforts of Mr Mondell and other Congressht for local and private interests as against the interests of the people as a whole

On June 17, 1902, the Reclamation Act was passed It set aside the proceeds of the disposal of public lands for the purpose of reclai lands otherorthless, and thus creating new homes upon the land The money so appropriated was to be repaid to the Govern fund continuously available for the work

The impatience of the Western people to see ireat that red tape was disregarded, and the as pushed forward at a rate previously unknown in Government affairs

Later, as in aled illegality and haste which are so easy to make after results have been acco could have been done has gone by These criticisms were in character precisely the same as that made about the acquisition of Panaainst the big trusts, the stopping of the panic of 1907 by the action of the Executive concerning the Tennessee Coal and Iron Co my administration

With the Reclamation work, as with iven to understand that they et into the water if they would learn to swim; and, furthermore, they learned to know that if they acted honestly, and boldly and fearlessly accepted responsibility, I would stand by them to the limit In this, as in every other case, in the end the boldness of the action fully justified itself

Every itereat plan of Reclamation now in effect was undertaken between 1902 and 1906 By the spring of 1909 the as an assured success, and the Government had become fully committed to its continuance The work of Reclaical Survey, of which Charles D Walcott was at that ti of 1908 the United States Reclamation Service was established to carry it on, under the direction of Frederick Hayes Newell, to whole-ination which enabled hih character through which he and his assistant, Arthur P Davis, built up a model service--all these have made him a model servant The final proof of his merit is supplied by the character and records of the ross expenditure under the Reclae as that for the Pana obstacles to be overcoreat, and the political ireater The Reclamation work had to be carried on at widely separated points, remote from railroads, under the ht projects begun in the years 1902 to 1906 conteation ofof more than thirty thousand farher than any previously built anywhere in the world They feed th, and involve es, tens of thousands in number

What the Reclamation Act has done for the country is by no means limited to itsfrom it have helped powerfully to prove to the Nation that it can handle its own resources and exercise direct and business-like control over theht into the arid West, while comparatively small when compared with that in the more closely inhabited East, has been a one far to transfor for the stability of the institutions upon which the welfare of the whole country rests: it has substituted actual homemakers, who have settled on the land with their faratory bands of sheep herded by the hired shepherds of absentee owners

The recent attacks on the Reclae part, if not altogether, froation of the settlers to repay the Government for what it has expended to reclaim the land The repudiation of any debt can always find supporters, and in this case it has attracted the support not only of certainwhat they owe, but also of a variety of unscrupulous politicians, sohly placed It is unlikely that their efforts to deprive the West of the revolving Irrigation fund will succeed in doing anything but discrediting these politicians in the sight of all honestof 1911 I visited the Roosevelt Dam in Arizona, and opened the reservoir, Iother things, I said to the engineers present that in the naood citizens I thanked them for their admirable work, as efficient as it was honest, and conducted according to the highest standards of public service As I looked at the fine, strong, eager faces of those of the force ere present, and thought of the siher positions, ere absent, and ere no less responsible for the work done, I felt a foreboding that they would never receive any real recognition for their achievement; and, only half humorously, I warned them not to expect any credit, or any satisfaction, except their own knowledge that they had done well a first-class job, for that probably the only attention Congress would ever pay theressional Coation was instigated by some unscrupulous local politicians and by so their just obligations; and the members of the Committee joined in the attack on as fine and honorable a set of public servants as the Government has ever had; an attack made on them solely because they were honorable and efficient and loyal to the interests both of the Government and the settlers

When I became President, the Bureau of Forestry (since 1905 the United States Forest Service) was a sanization, under Gifford Pinchot, occupiedthe foundation of American forestry by scientific study of the forests, and with the promotion of forestry on private lands It contained all the trained foresters in the Governe of no public timberland whatsoever

The Government forest reserves of that day were in the care of a Division in the General Land Office, under the e of forestry, few if any of whom had ever seen a foot of the timberlands for which they were responsible Thus the reserves were neither well protected nor well used There were no foresters ae of the National Forests, and no Governe of the Governly recommended the consolidation of the forest work in the hands of the trained men of the Bureau of Forestry This recoress did not give effect to it until three years later In the h study of the Western public tiroundas laid for the responsibilities which were to fall upon the Bureau of Forestry when the care of the National Forests came to be transferred to it It was evident that trained American Foresters would be needed in considerable numbers, and a forest school was established at Yale to supply theestion as President, the Secretary of the Interior, Mr Hitchcock, made a formal request for technical advice fro the National Forests, and an extensive exaly taken up The saun of the proposed Appalachian National Forest, the plan of which, already formulated at that time, has since been carried out A year later experiun, and studies preparatory to the application of practical forestry to the Indian Reservations were undertaken In 1903, so rapidly did the public work of the Bureau of Forestry increase, that the examination of land for new forest reserves was added to the study of those already created, the forest lands of the various States were studied, and cooperation with several of the of their forest lands was undertaken While these practical tasks were pushed forward, a technical knowledge of American Forests was rapidly accuained was made public in printed bulletins; and at the sah the newspaper and periodical press, to make all the people of the United States acquainted with the needs and the purposes of practical forestry It is doubtful whether there has ever been elsewhere under the Government such effective publicity--publicity purely in the interest of the people--at so low a cost Before the educational work of the Forest Service was stopped by the Taft Ad the publication of facts about forestry in fifty million copies of newspapers a month at a total expense of 6000 a year Not one cent has ever been paid by the Forest Service to any publication of any kind for the printing of this iven out freely, and published without cost because it was news Without this publicity the Forest Service could not have survived the attacks reat special interests in Congress; nor could forestry in Aress it has

The result of all the work outlined above was to bring together in the Bureau of Forestry, by the end of 1904, the only body of forest experts under the Government, and practically all of the first-hand information about the public forests which was then in existence In 1905, the obvious foolishness of continuing to separate the foresters and the forests, reenforced by the action of the First National Forest Congress, held in Washi+ngton, brought about the Act of February 1, 1905, which transferred the National Forests froriculture, and resulted in the creation of the present United States Forest Service

Thesome sixty million acres of National Forest lands was thus throere ready for the work, both in the office and in the field, because they had been preparing for it for more than five years Without delay they proceeded, under the leadershi+p of Pinchot, to apply to the neork the principles they had already formulated One of these was to open all the resources of the National Forests to regulated use Another was that of putting every part of the land to that use in which it would best serve the public

Following this principle, the Act of June 11, 1906, was drawn, and its passage was secured froress This law throws open to settlement all land in the National Forests that is found, on exariculture Hitherto all such land had been closed to the settler

The principles thus formulated and applied hts of the public to the natural resources outweigh private rights, and iven its first consideration

Until that ti with the National Forests, and the public lands generally, private rights had alhts The change we ht, and was vitally necessary; but, of course, it created bitter opposition from private interests

One of the principles whose application was the source of much hostility was this: It is better for the Govern for his family than to help a rich man make more profit for his coht openly It is the kind of principle to which politicians delight to pay unctuous hoe in words But we translated the words into deeds; and when they found that this was the case, many rich men, especially sheep owners, were stirred to hostility, and they used the Congress lad improperly to denounce rich men in public and improperly to serve theulations which favored the settler as against the large stock owner; required that necessary reductions in the stock grazed on any National Forest should bear first on the big man, before the few head of the s of his fa in the National Forests a help, instead of a hindrance, to permanent settlement As a result, the small settlers and their families became, on the whole, the best friends the Forest Service has; although in places their ignorance was played on by deainst the policy that was primarily for their own interest

Another principle which led to the bitterest antagonism of all was this--whoever (except a bona-fide settler) takes public property for private profit should pay for what he gets In the effort to apply this principle, the Forest Service obtained a decision frorazed sheep and cattle on the National Forests pay for what they got Accordingly, in the sue was made; and, in the face of the bitterest opposition, it was collected