Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

In conclusion: I have given you this brief summary and outline of our public land laws, past and present, obsolete and subsisting, in order that from a consideration of the same we may avoid the mistakes of the past, and gather inspiration and instruction for our future guidance. In view of the diminishing supply and rapidly increasing demand it behooves us to husband, with discrimination and care, all our natural resources, beginning as promptly as possible, and this work must be done by legislation, by administration, and by individual effort. (Applause)

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Chairman STUBBS--If there are any pessimistic citizens in the United States they should hear the Senior Senator's story of the lavish management of public affairs in the past, and the splendid change made under that great leader--the greatest man on earth today--Theodore Roosevelt (applause and cheers) and Gifford Pinchot (renewed applause).

I now take great pleasure in presenting to you a typical southern gentleman, Governor Noel, of Mississippi (applause).

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Governor NOEL--Mr Chairman, Brother Governors, Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen: Some months ago I received an invitation to attend this Congress, which I promptly accepted; also an invitation to deliver an address, which I immediately declined. Since entering the hall this afternoon I have been informed of my selection for the first address on my State--each Governor speaking for his State in succession--and my State's views on questions pertaining to our natural resources.

Of course the greatest natural resource of every city and county, as of State and Nation, is the productive energies of its people. Their development, through proper training of mind and heart, should be the chief aim of all people and of the Government. In those resources, however, our interests are the same as those of all other parts of the country, and they open too broad a field for me to enter.

When we take up the question of the natural resources pertaining to our domain, Mississippi occupies a widely different attitude from that of some States in the Northwest whose Governors are here to speak for them. We are an agricultural people. Not a city in Mississippi will much, if at all, exceed 30,000 inhabitants; more of its population and its wealth, proportionately, than of any other State in the Union are engaged in agriculture. We have no mines, no minerals except some clays and stone, no oil, no gas, no coal. We acquired agricultural lands, and our natural resources are from those lands as agricultural soil and standing timber.

Before the question of Conservation was understood, or at least before it had become of any force in State or Nation, both Mississippi and the Federal Government had parted with their lands and with their forests. Much to our regret now, it is a question of the past, and has to be handled by individuals and by corporations, to whom our lands and timber chiefly, almost entirely, belong. We are interested; we try to regulate our resources in some measure, within the powers of the State Government; but our interest is largely confined to our public lands. We have no coal or metals, our streams are sluggish, and there are few water-power sites. We have little beyond the surface values of the timber and the soil. We are interested in coal because it is necessary for our industries; we are interested in oil because we need it; we are interested in all the elements of the soil spoken of this morning, phosphorus and all the rest. We are greatly interested in all these things notwithstanding the land which contains them happens to be in other States. We have not lost interest in them on that account; and, speaking for our State--which has stood for State rights as it understood them, and stands for State rights still--our only way of securing these rights we believe to be through the Federal Government (applause); our only voice must be through Congress and the President, and we do not care to surrender that to which the Government is now properly entitled. If the choice goes to the State we know how it will go, for past experience has taught that lesson well--local interests will control, and the general good will be subordinated to personal pride and local considerations. We have learned much and suffered much in that line. The Government gave to us, as to others, the sixteenth section of land in every township, one-thirty-sixth of the whole State. We put it in the power of a majority of the householders and patrons of schools in each township to vest the school lands by lease, thinking that local interests, being circumscribed and vitally concerned in education, would at least prevent spoliation of this magnificent donation to the school children; but we were mistaken. In a great many instances a few who were shrewd and sharp and designing used a law by which a lease could be made from one year to ninety-nine years, and until that law was repealed leased the lands for the largest possible term.

We know that the smaller the area the greater the influence of personages, and of local and private considerations. Therefore, as we look on this question of the Conservation of our natural resources, it is a question of rights, and how those rights can best be maintained and perpetuated; the means, whether through State or Federal Government, is but a minor consideration; and believing that our rights can best be preserved and utilized, now and for all time to come, without waste and without destruction, both for the present and in the future, we think it can best be done under Federal supervision (applause). The only rights we have in coal and oil and metals must be exercised through the Federal Government.

We may not fully understand the water-power problem. It has been said to be only a local issue anyway. We do not understand it that way. The river which rolls by this city smiling, smooth, and clear, after it is joined to the Missouri is muddy, deep, and uncertain; not only all of your waters but all of the waters east of the Rocky Mountains roll past our western boundary. While at some seasons the water is low, at others it is over fifty feet higher, and more than one-sixth in value of the land in our State is subject to overflow. Your waters, which through proper forestation and proper handling by dams and other means would give us a more equable flow throughout the year, come down upon us at a time when we do not need them, and in a degree greatly in excess of any possible need at any time, and we have to bear the sins of deforestation and all of the other evils that come from the wholesale spoliation and destruction of your forest lands (applause). We are vitally interested in that question. We believe in forest reservations; we are sorry we cannot furnish the basis for it in our own State, but so far as the Government lands we have can be availed of for that purpose, we would be more than glad to see the Government take hold of the matter and set our people an example of how forests should be handled and preserved for the present and for the future.

When it comes to water-power, to me, at least, and to many of us, the question of conflict between State and Federal Governments, about which so much has been said--especially with a view of eliminating the Federal Government--we hardly understand that view of it. We trace our title through the Federal Government (applause). As a lawyer of more than thirty years' practice, whenever I have been given a question for investigation pertaining to the title of land, the first thing I have done was to examine the tract-books to see whether the Federal Government had ever parted legally with its title. If it had not, the question was ended; if it had, then we could proceed to deraign to those properly entitled to it. So when the Federal Government owned the lands and was the source of title, we do not understand how, even though the lands may be within the State, its right as a land-owner is less on a river bank than it is in the interior, or when the Federal Government, as the owner of the lands, should not exercise riparian rights which any other owner tracing title through it might exercise.

Now, we would like cooperation of the States, but we would like the Federal Government to retain where it still possesses them those rights of which the people could not be robbed through control of State legislatures or local authorities (applause). You may say, What interest have we, who are not a manufacturing people, in the mines and the water-powers of other States? Why, we are all in a common country. State lines may be changed; they are accidental; they are artificial; but the national boundary is fixed. When we look for coal or iron, or commercial or industrial products which we do not manufacture, we must look, primarily, within the bounds of the United States. It is within the power of the Government and beyond ours practically, through tariff legislation, to exclude the minerals from outside. We have but one open field, we have but one certain route to any natural or manufactured product, and that is within the boundaries of the Union itself; and we do not want, through monopolization of either coal or oil or water-powers, to be hampered in the protection of the country as a whole so that as consumers we shall have to bear the brunt of evils from which the National Government, through the little influence we might have with it, might protect us, and of which our State government, in the past at least, has been very neglectful. Hence we stand for State rights and Federal control in cooperation (applause). But if it is within the power of the Federal Government, through leasing or otherwise, to retain control of its mineral and coal lands and its water-power sites, to put them beyond the possibility of handling by a State and its legislature, to regulate corporations' rights so as to prevent monopolization, and at the same time to prevent the Nation as a whole from being deprived of any productive agency in our midst, we want the benefit of it. (Applause)

Our patriotism on this score may be of that questionable type described by Artemus Ward, who said that during the Civil War, when the stress was great, he listened to a magnificent speech from an orator on the subject of enlistment, and became so enthused that when the call for volunteers came he, with others, went up to sign the roll; but when he observed that the orator had not signed nor was likely to sign, because his province was simply that of speaking while other's would be fighting, his own ardor was somewhat cooled, and when he reflected that the orator's eloquence had carried his hearers where he would not go himself, it became cooler and cooler. Still, his patriotism did not entirely vanish, for when his time came to sign the roll for enlistment, he signed it with the name of his mother-in-law and offered her as a sacrifice to his country (laughter). Yet we are not exactly in that category, though we may seem to view the situation from a local standpoint. But knowing of our own condition, knowing of the rights which the Federal Government conferred upon the school children of our State--the sixteenth section and other lands of which you heard in Senator Nelson's address today,--and remembering how in a great many instances, through local influences, legislative or otherwise, the intended beneficiaries were largely deprived of the benefactions intended for them we really think, What has gone is gone, except as a lesson to us; and so far as we are concerned, we shall stand for the right of the people as a whole for the enjoyment of its great resources of coal, of oil, of water-power and other natural wealth, and we want to be protected in such a way that no State or local influence shall be able to take it from us forever (applause). That is our position on this question.

In regard to the water-power question. A while ago I spoke of the Mississippi rolling by; we have never been jealous of the Federal Government's dealings with that river, not a bit (laughter). We are not now. So far as we are concerned, we would be delighted if the Federal Government would acquire the riparian rights, with all the _liabilities_, from one end of the State to the other (laughter). The county in which I live, that part of it in the Delta, as well as six or seven other counties, have had to keep up, without Federal aid until this year--and then only incidentally for the protection of navigation against some caving banks--for five years more than 200 miles of levee, and it has required an acreage tax of from three to five cents, an _ad valorem_ tariff of about ten mills, and a cotton tax besides; and while some of this is among the finest agricultural land in the world, it is almost wrecked by the taxes on it. Missouri has fared better. Her levees are not as extensive as ours; her people put them in good condition, and the general government afterward took charge of them in the interest of navigation; and if the Government will relieve us of the whole burden from the waters which you send down upon us from the North and from east of the Rocky Mountains, and will take the riparian rights from end to end and preserve and use them for the benefit of the whole Nation, all the people of our State will greatly rejoice (applause), and not a voice will be raised on the question of State rights as to any use for the people as a whole to which the Government may put those lands.

So, as we come to voice our wishes, our interests, our desires, they are for cooperation of State and Federal Government, but of absolutely no relinquishment on the part of the Federal Government either of its water-power sites, its coal lands, its phosphate lands, or of any of those other natural resources to which the people of the whole country are looking for future development and prosperity (applause). We are _in_ the country, we are a part of it; not merely a part of the Government of the States but a part of the Government of the whole Union (applause), and all that concerns the Union, or any part of it or any of its people, affects us to a greater or less degree. And speaking for our share and our part in the national destiny which invitingly presents itself before us, we say that we stand for Conservation of natural resources by all governmental agencies, State and Federal, which will not only develop now but protect in the future for the proper use and progressive benefit of the people of the whole country to whom they now belong and from whom they should never depart. (Applause)

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Chairman STUBBS--Ladies and Gentlemen: I am very glad indeed to introduce to you as the speaker to follow our distinguished friend from Mississippi, the only other democratic Governor in the Congress, Governor Norris, of Montana. (Applause)

You will see whether the views of the southern democrat and the northern democrat are the same after the two get through speaking. (Laughter)

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Governor NORRIS--Mr Chairman, and Ladies and Gentlemen: A feeling has prevailed in the West, or did a few days ago, to the effect that no enlarged opportunities were going to be given to express ideas here which were contrary to those held by the program committee of this Congress (laughter). However, I am pleased to note that such is not to be the case, and whether the conference of the Northwestern Governors at Salt Lake City, recently held, has had anything to do with it or not I don't know. Anyhow, we are thankful for small favors. If it had been the intention and had been carried out, it would have been a mistake, for the reason that the Conservation movement is national in scope, and is a part of no section and no State alone. The Conservation movement--in other words, the public conscience--received its awakening some two years ago, and Theodore Roosevelt did the awakening (applause); and I am pleased to note that the sentiment created by President Roosevelt has ripened into practical action by President Taft (renewed applause). I resent the insinuation that Montana and the Northwest, and in fact the entire West, is opposed to Conservation; in fact, I insist that the Northwest is the leader of the Conservation movement (applause), and that the first practical act in Conservation was taken by a western State, Montana (applause). I am proud of the fact that the first Conservation commission, either State or National, was appointed by me, in the State of Montana (applause). I am further proud of the fact that the first Conservation law, comprehensive in extent, was, under my recommendation, passed by the Legislature of Montana; and in that respect we have led the National Government in the Conservation movement (applause). Therefore, just for a moment, and not desiring to be personal, permit me to state what we have done. And in every respect we have kept step with the National Government and in the majority of cases we have led the National Government, and you can come to us for a lesson as to how to properly conserve the natural resources of the country (applause).

The Legislature which assembled in Montana in 1900 enacted a law conserving the resources possessed by us in our public lands, so generously given us by the Government on our admission. That measure provided for the disposition of the land to actual cultivators of the soil, in 160-acre tracts where irrigated, in 320-acre tracts where it is suitable for dry farming, and in 640-acre tracts where it was only suitable for the raising of hay or for grazing purposes--that is, in the high altitudes, in the mountains. So in that respect we have gone hand in hand with the Government in the passage of the 320-acre homestead act, applicable to entries where irrigation could not be had. In that same law, passed in 1909, some eighteen months ago, Montana forever reserved from sale, and in every patent on every acre of its lands that might thereafter be issued retained the coal rights, and provided for the leasing of those rights from time to time and for periods not exceeding five years (applause). So today, when President Taft says he hopes Congress will do the same with the Government coal lands, we say, Mr President, we are with you and hope Congress will do this (applause), and if you wish an illustration proving that the title to coal lands can be retained and the coal rights leased from time to time, providing for the right to mine the coal at not less than 12-1/2 cents per ton, come to Montana and we will show you half a dozen coal leases with such provision which have been in force for the last sixteen months (applause). Have we lagged behind the National Government? Oh, no! In fact, we have led the National Government in the matter of Conservation. (Applause)

And as to the metalliferous ores of the mines--the same laws are applicable to State lands that are applicable to Government lands. As to the forests: in the making of those laws, I corresponded, and our commission corresponded, and we made those laws with the consent of, and they were afterward approved by, Mr Gifford Pinchot (applause). There is but one provision which we made then differing from those of the Government. We provided in that law, passed eighteen months ago, that lands more suitable for agriculture than for reforestation should be used for agricultural purposes and not for reforestation purposes. President Taft described this morning how the Government had in the last few months been doing the same thing, so it seems that, after awhile, the Government will catch up to Montana in that respect (laughter and applause).

Now, then, on the water-power question: That same commission is now operating, and it is going to prepare suggestions for submission to the next Montana Legislature with reference to adequate provisions for conserving the waters of the State of Montana, and I have no doubt that the recommendations of the commission will, at the next session, be adopted. We would have done that two years ago except we cannot do all these things at once; our session only lasted sixty days, while Congress is in session all the time (laughter and applause). If we had even six months instead of two years for it, we would have had those water resources conserved long ago (laughter). Is Montana entitled to take a place in the kindergarten class in the school of Conservation? And are we who have conserved our resources to be distrusted as Governor Noel says you must distrust the Legislature and the people of the State of Mississippi? (Applause) I thank my God that I can trust the people of Montana to protect their own! (Applause) And let me tell you one thing: the whole can never be greater than the sum total of its parts, and the Federal Government can never adequately preserve its resources until you get at least a majority of the people in a majority of the States to so agree, because it takes a majority for the Federal Congress or the Federal Government to act (applause). You start at the wrong end. You have got to start with the people of the State and build up.

Now, are we capable of passing legislation to preserve our water resources? I think we are; and let me tell you some of our plans. In the first place, the water and the land, during the territorial days of each State, belonged to the Federal Government. When the State was admitted, the lands were reserved by the federal Government, but the waters flowing in the streams of the State passed into the control of the State. You heard Senator Nelson, an able lawyer, refer this afternoon to the fact that that was the law. Now, they tell us that you cannot trust the States, you must trust the Federal Government; and yet I listened for nearly an hour to one of the ablest presentations I ever heard of how the Federal Government for a hundred years wasted its resources with all the prodigality of a drunken sailor (applause). Trust the Federal Government! Why, the Federal Government has been the greatest sinner in that respect. I am glad the Federal Government has awakened and is going to preserve its resources, but Montana, at least, woke up a little before (applause). In this matter of the water-power: The most valuable use that water can be put to, or, in other words, the most valuable function that water can perform, is not the development of electrical power; in the semi-arid States it is the applying of that water to irrigation and the reclamation of the arid lands of the West (applause). So bear that in mind.

In the State of Montana--and what is true in that State is true largely in every other State in the West--not one-third of the arable lands that can be irrigated have as yet been reclaimed; less than 2,000,000 acres have been reclaimed in Montana, while there are 6,000,000, in fact there are 10,000,000 acres that can be reclaimed. In other words, there are from six to ten million acres yet to be reclaimed by use of the water that flows in the streams of the State, and that is largely Government land. So that when you talk about conserving the water for water-power purposes, we say conserve it for reclamation purposes (applause); for the reclamation of Government land, too (applause), that may make homes for settlers who will come in and take it under the Homestead Act. There is the reason why we say that the Federal Government must not by its superior power step in and insist upon using the waters of the streams of the West for power purposes, unless when it so does it makes provision that the rights for irrigation purposes shall forever remain inviolate; otherwise, what does it amount to, the building of a dam across the stream? When the Government conveys the right to build a dam across a stream, it means that the amount of water flowing over that dam will determine the amount of power that may be developed; hence, when that dam is built the Government, if it conveys anything of value, must convey the right to the use of that water, and the right to the use of that water flowing over that dam must accrue as of that date, and forever thereafter the franchise-holder will have the right to demand as a concession from the Federal Government that the same amount of water, all the natural flow of that stream, must go over that dam forever. You thereby absolutely prevent the diversion of any water on that stream above that point for irrigation purposes. The use of water for irrigation purposes does decrease the amount flowing in the stream. That is the reason we object to the Federal Government coming in and taking charge of our water-power and giving it out--we do not care so much about the little income that may be received: that is the reason we are insisting upon the rights of the State.

Now, remember this: In the first instance, there is no contention but what the regulation of water for irrigating purposes is absolutely vested in the State, and that the Federal Government cannot acquire that right; hence a number of irrigators have already appropriated a part of the flow of the stream. The Federal Government grants the right of franchise for the building of a dam. Suppose we assume, for the sake of argument, that it can grant the right to the remaining flow of a stream; it not only thereby forever thereafter prohibits the use of that stream above that point for further reclamation purposes, but the rights of every irrigator, either before or after appropriation is made, comes in conflict, or may come in conflict, with the Federal franchise-holder? In other words, you transfer from the State courts and from the State forum the right of every irrigator to use the waters of a stream to the seat of power of the Federal Government at Washington. In other words, you practically stop irrigation in the arid West when you insist upon having that power (applause). Is that Conservation? True Conservation demands that every acre of land shall be used for its highest purpose and be made to serve its highest productive function (applause), whether in a forest reserve or out of it. Therefore, in order to serve its highest productive function in the West, water must be applied to the land.

Now, take the 6,000,000 acres of land that may be reclaimed in Montana. If you do not insist upon the Federal Government taking charge of the water-power and preventing its further reclamation, it means 6,000,000 acres of land reclaimed. It is fair to say that each year those reclaimed lands will produce a total of $25--yea, and if I did not want to be ultra-conservative, I would say $50--per acre; and at $25 per acre, you have an annual income from those 6,000,000 acres of land of $150,000,000. Isn't that worth thinking about? Isn't that a resource worth conserving? Why, the 6,000,000 horse-power that might be developed in Montana is not worth one tithe of that. You say, Give to the Federal Government the right to the water-powers of the State and forever prevent the further reclamation of our land? Why, you are asking of us the most priceless gift that we have to convey--far more priceless than our mines yielding $50,000,000 yearly, possibly the richest in the world--because you ask us to surrender not $50,000,000 a year but the opportunity to make $150,000,000 a year. Has the Federal Government this right? We insist, as a matter of law, that the Federal Government has no authority to grant any right to the use of water on any power site that it may have. If the power site is situated along a stream, the title to the power site rests in the Federal Government and it can grant the right to erect a dam on that site, but the water that flows down the stream by that power site belongs to the State, and unless the State gives you the right to appropriate and take water you will develop no power by a dam-site! (Applause)

Now, is the State ready to surrender any rights that it may have in the waters of the stream to the Federal Government? The State of Montana is not ready to so do, for the reasons I have given. The State of Montana will insist upon every right it has. Let the Federal Government have that which of right or in law belongs to it, but let the State keep that which of right or in law belongs to it (applause). So sure am I that the State has the right to use of its water that I think the next Legislature of Montana will pass a law to regulate the use of water, making its use for power forever subordinate to its use for irrigation purposes, and then say to the Federal Government, You own your power site, but you do not own the water; we own the water, but we do not own the power site. Your site is worth nothing to you because it is valuable only for power in connection with the use of water. We cannot develop power on that site, but we can go a little farther down the stream and divert that water for the irrigation of land, and it is valuable to us. Now, that is what we mean by the rights of the State in and to the waters of the State. You cannot trust the State? Why not? If you cannot trust the people of Montana to conserve its resources, if you cannot trust the State of Wyoming to conserve its resources, can we trust the State of Maine, or the State of Florida to conserve them for us? What reasons have we to assume that the people of the State of Massachusetts or the State of Louisiana are more patriotic in that respect than are our own people?

The creation of the forest reserves was the greatest act ever performed in recent years. We would not have that act repealed. We have a double purpose in supporting the forest conservation policies. You think of it as valuable for the timber that it will grow. That timber is worth just as much, and will shelter just as many people, in Montana as it will in the Mississippi valley, but we desire it for a further purpose. The forests of these mountains are Nature's reservoirs, builded there by an Omnipotent Creator, and can better conserve the waters that fall in the form of rain and snow than these artificial reservoirs that men may build (applause). We want those waters. The water that comes from our mountains and is conserved under those forests is the very life-blood of the State of Montana. Would you take the water away and stop the reclamation of the arid West? I know you would not; yet you would do so did you not at the same time that you were saving the timber make a provision that the rights to water for power purposes should forever be subject to the rights for irrigation purposes.

Bear this in mind, also. The doctrine of riparian rights does not prevail in the arid West; therefore the owning of the soil on each side of the stream does not convey the right to have the water flow down that stream undiminished in quantity or quality. In other words, the first appropriator is the first in right. I think there has been a misunderstanding as to the position of the West in this respect, as to why we are insisting upon the rights of the State. We insist upon the right of the State to control the waters of the State, not the water-power particularly. There is a decided difference between the waters and the water-power. The waters will irrigate land, the water-power will develop electricity. Such is the position the West takes. Will you not help us in that, and so help develop the land and make it productive? Do you know it is your own salvation to do so? Ye people of the populous East, where is the produce to come from to feed the ever-increasing millions, unless it be from the reclamation of the arid lands of the West? The time will soon be here, and it is not over four years removed, when we will cease to be a wheat-exporting nation, and in only a few years it must come that the children will cry for bread, and the land must be made to produce it. Therefore we must husband our resources and conserve our water for use for the purpose which will permit the growing of something that will feed human beings; and pine trees do not do it (applause). You of the Mississippi valley who for years have wept great crocodile tears that your lands have been cleared, suppose those lands had not been cleared, whence would come the produce to feed the millions of today? So bear these things in mind that when you come to conclusions you will take all these questions into consideration. And I want to say to you that in the future, as in the past, Montana will not lag in the Conservation movement, but will continue to lead the Federal Government (applause).

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A DELEGATE--Mr Chairman, are the propositions advanced by the Governors to be discussed? I see no reference in the program to such discussion, and ask for information.

Chairman STUBBS--The understanding of the Chair is that this afternoon was turned over to the Governors. The intention is to give them an opportunity to relieve their minds this afternoon (applause) and get the way clear for the greatest man you will hear talk in thirty years--Theodore Roosevelt (applause). We are clearing out the brush and getting ready for the real thing that you will have tomorrow. (Laughter and applause)

You can readily see that they have too much water in the South and not quite enough water in the Northwest, judging by the views of the last two speakers.

I now have the pleasure of introducing one of the greatest Governors in the United States, and of one of the greatest States in the Union, Governor Deneen, of Illinois (applause).

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Governor DENEEN--Fellow Delegates, and Ladies and Gentlemen: The Governors here have been somewhat confused regarding this program. I was invited by my good friend Governor Eberhart, of this State, to prepare a speech. I have it concealed about my person like a deadly weapon, and I have been wondering whether I dare read it; for if I do, those who follow me will, I fear, have no audience to address, while if I do not follow the text already given to the printer there will be the traditional print-shop "devil" to pay; but I have concluded to talk rather than read, and I hope that my good friends the reporters will publish what I should have said rather than what I shall say. I will follow the example of a very distinguished statesman in our State, who on a great occasion handed his speech to the reporters and said, "Now, having given my speech to the reporters, I shall proceed to ramble;" and so he did. (Laughter)

It is a pleasure to follow the two distinguished gentlemen who have preceded me, the Governor of Mississippi and the Governor of Montana. It is a pleasure to note how the conditions have reversed the attitude of their States regarding State rights (laughter and applause). I am interested in both States. A year or more ago I purchased a farm in Montana where the three rivers join to form the Missouri river, and I discovered after the spring freshets that I now have a farm scattered all the way from Montana to Mississippi (laughter). I am interested in all the States because of that, because I now own property in all. But I cannot quite agree with my distinguished predecessor about the Legislature--we, too, have a legislature (laughter), and whatever value it may have had at one time it is not considered at par at present. (Laughter and applause)

We have a water-power proposition, too, strange to say, even in the flat, level, horizontal State of Illinois. Some time ago when the Government was considering the matter of the Lakes-to-Gulf Waterway, our State supplemented the investigation of the Government in considering the by-products of that great channel which was to be built (and I hope will be built), and we proceeded on the theory announced by the President this morning; instead of going from agitation to legislation, we considered it better to go on this theory: investigation, then agitation, and later legislation. So our State appointed a very distinguished commission to investigate some of the by-products that would accrue to Illinois by reason of the Lakes-to-Gulf deep waterway.

We soon found we had several questions. First, the matter of reclamation. We have the problem they have in Mississippi, of too much water for too much time out of the year; an even 5,000 square miles of our State is under water too much of the time--an area larger than the State of Connecticut or the island of Porto Rico. We worked out a plan by which, as an incident to the great waterway, we expect to reclaim land which has been estimated to be of the value of $150,000,000 to the State.

Then we found that in part of that waterway (in 62-1/2 miles of it from Lockport to Utica) there is a fall of 106 feet, and that water-power can be created to the amount of about 130,000 horsepower, worth about $2,500,000 or $2,750,000 a year to begin with, and our engineers estimated that by availing ourselves of that power we would be able to contribute to the Government the entire expense of the waterway between Lockport and Utica, and could afford to expend $20,000,000 in doing so by reason of the by-product that would come to us; and that we would be able, if the Legislature did as it should do, and the Governor did as he should do, and the commission to be appointed would do as it should do--to repay that vast expense in fourteen years as a minimum period, and that in fact we could loan our credit and have the water-power pay for the bonds as they matured. The question was submitted to the people, and after an exhaustive discussion they approved the plan by the largest majority ever registered on any issue in Illinois or in any State in the Union, a majority of nearly 500,000 (I believe it was 497,345 to be exact). Then we presented it to our Legislature. Now, this is the point. When we presented it to our Legislature, what do you think has happened? Why, nothing happened. (Sensation) We have talked, and talked, and talked, but we haven't acted. We have had several sessions, regular and irregular (laughter), on this subject, general and special, but we have failed to act. After the failure of the regular session to act, on December 14 last I called an extra session to determine the State's part in this water-power and waterway subject. It adjourned on March 2 following (I want you to keep these dates in mind because they are significant); the Legislature was in a deadlock--I am not blaming the republicans for this, although Illinois is a republican State, and I am not blaming the democrats; the fact is that a band of republicans and a band of democrats joined to repudiate the pledges of both parties, and they did it, effectually did it. They adjourned on March 2; on April 29 following (this year) a little corporation with a huge name was formed in our State--the Illinois Valley Gas, Light & Electric Power Company, I believe is the name--you are nearly compelled to take a vacation to pronounce the name all at once--with a capital stock of only $1000; a huge name for small capital. Then, on May 12 following--thirteen days later--the organizers of the corporation met, and decided they had made a mistake in capitalizing at $1000; so they made the capital accord with the dignity and length of the name and increased it from $1000 to $6,250,000. Since that time they have acquired fifty-year franchises in the following cities: Joliet, Morris, Seneca, Ottawa, Wilmington, Streator, Dwight, Odell, Gardner, Pontiac, Plainview, Yorkville, Coal City, and Bridgewood. Now that has been doing a good deal of work in a warm, humid atmosphere, such as we have in the summer time in Illinois (laughter). They have not only done that, but they have also acquired the other corporations that have had to do with the developing of water-power in Illinois; and not only that, but they have reached out and acquired certain riparian rights necessary to develop fully the power at Marseilles. Now, what will happen? Our sanitary district of Chicago has already expended $53,000,000 on this channel, and will expend $20,000,000 more in its full development, and our State will spend $20,000,000 on its part. In other words, Illinois will contribute $100,000,000 to this Lakes-to-Gulf Deep Waterway, and a corporation which has not expended one dollar to create this power comes along and puts a toll-gate across it and collects the toll. Bear in mind that none of this power is created by the surface or drainage water of the State; all of it is created by diverting the waters of Lake Michigan to the Illinois and the Mississippi. What would be thought, for instance, if our State should expend $100,000,000 in building a road from Chicago to Saint Louis and then some one who had not expended a dollar would throw a toll-gate across it and collect a toll of every person and vehicle that passed, and then when he tried to buy our own road back, charge us $100,000,000 for it? That would be going some, even in these days of "frenzied finance," wouldn't it? Yet that is exactly what they are doing with the water-power situation in our State. For several reasons (fancied or otherwise; it doesn't take much of a reason to occasion debate) there is a strong effort being made to prevent the State from acting, and our State is in the situation (and Chicago will be in the same situation soon) where we will be compelled, in order to acquire the riparian rights, to condemn them at their market value, and you can see, from the array of towns I read you, that the market value is steadily increasing (I collected their names about two weeks ago, and had not time this morning to wire inquiring whether it was up to date, but give you the list as an indication).

The point I want to make is that our State is a good deal like other States: we are neither abnormally good nor abnormally bad--just an average. Sometimes we are attending to things in such a way that we would prefer to have no metropolitan newspapers to circulate and mislead us; at other times we do things in a grand style in that great State, and we are then very glad that we have such means of disseminating knowledge about what is being done.

In regard to the Conservation movement: I sympathize very strongly with my good friends here from the West. It has been a delightful pleasure to meet them on a number of occasions, on the waterway trip down the Mississippi from Saint Louis to Memphis, then at New Orleans, and again at Washington, where we were all together at the Conservation Conference in Washington called by Theodore Roosevelt. I believe that the Government should not interfere to prevent the full development of the States. A long time ago it was said that he was a benefactor who made two blades of grass grow where only one had grown before, and the man who can put two acres in cultivation where only one was cultivated before is certainly a friend of mankind. So I think we want all the acres put in cultivation by irrigation or dry farming. But the general Government owns certain things: it owns coal lands, oil lands, gas lands, phosphate lands, and forest lands. We heard the President say this morning that the Government owns about a third of the forests that we must have in the north in order to allow the Mississippi to have enough water. The Government owns about a third of the coal, and if I recall correctly, about a third of the phosphate lands, which will become more and more necessary as we develop our agricultural resources. Now the Federal Government should not permit itself to be put in a position where these great natural resources could be wasted (great applause); it ought to be in a position to develop the States by irrigation, and in all possible ways, but it should not permit itself to be put in the position where a Legislature of a State would take from it power to control some of the very necessities of advanced civilization (applause). They can have a crop of corn every year, they can turn on and off water-power every year, and the rains will come again; if by lack of attention the forests are burned or removed, they can be grown again; but the great Creator provided there should be just one crop of coal for all time, and provided, so far as we know now, that there would be just a certain amount of phosphate lands, and they are for all time and all men. These crops are not growing in Montana just now, they are not growing in other States; and because they were meant for us all, this great continental Republic ought to be able to conserve them so they shall not be abused. We all have the right to use them now, and the Government, in my judgment, should see that there is no possibility of abuse.

It seems very likely that, so far as water is concerned, the State and the Nation will have to cooperate and work together (applause). The State may own the water in Montana because the streams are not navigable, and I assume this is so in Wyoming and Idaho and the other mountain States. The Government at present owns much of the land. The Federal Government may not say to the State, "You cannot use the water because you cannot get in my backyard," and the State may not say, "Water is valueless without the use of the land that is situated adjoining;" so they will have to work together, and they should work together. That is the way it ought to be, and that is the way it will be; and I believe that we here in the West, and in the East and in the South, who have had our States developed by a vast expenditure of these natural resources and vast waste, will have patience and consideration for the views of these men who are somewhat fearful lest we do not permit them to develop their own resources. I believe the Nation will permit them not only to develop the resources, but will encourage them in that development (applause).

Now, just a word about Illinois: I have told you so many bad things about our State that it is not proper to cease speaking without saying some good things. I was delighted with the statements made by Governor Norris about Montana. It is a proud record. It has set a good example to the Government. Our State has done something, too (laughter). Our State, a long time ago, before we heard of this Conservation movement, had at least six or eight commissions out doing this very work. We have an agricultural experiment station that has explored every foot of our land, I may say, in a phenomenal way; the fact is we are laying off our State in ten-acre plats, and the University of Illinois is surveying each ten acres and making a record indicating the kind of soil, later to give advice as to the development of each ten acres; and the gentleman under whose supervision that is done is a Delegate to this Congress and likely to address you. He is a specialist on soil. And we have had a geological commission that has taken stock of all of our minerals, and although we are a prairie State we are the third in the Union in our mineral output. We are not only locating and taking stock of our coal but showing how to mine it, how to send it by freight, how to store it, and how to burn it--for nine-tenths of its energy is wasted before you get it to the place where you should apply it. We have made a survey of our rivers, studying the fishery question; Illinois river is the second in its output of food products in the United States, being only exceeded by Columbia river in the remote West; it has more than doubled in the last eight years. We have a commission on floriculture and horticulture; and we have an internal improvement commission that is studying every stream in our State and giving the information to our counties and districts for the purpose of forming drainage districts so that the land may be drained and more of it cultivated. In every department--water, soil, minerals--our State has made a most careful investigation, so that we feel we have a complete stock of our resources; we believe, too, in their development, and we are developing them. All the departments of our State work are going along as they should, and our resources are being well conserved.

I have dwelt on a disagreeable feature only because I believe that the example of Illinois should be beneficial elsewhere. We are having trouble in attending to our public utilities, as other States will. Illinois will have expended a hundred million dollars in the making of a water-course that creates water-power, and you are all familiar with the disgraceful story as to how the State has tried to cope with that water-power monopoly through its Legislature and conserve to us what we created ourselves. It is likely that we shall be compelled to see certain corporations or private individuals sowing where they didn't reap, and levying a toll upon a vast expenditure of money made by our commonwealth; and other States may profit by our experience. (Applause)

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Chairman STUBBS--I am very glad indeed to have the opportunity of introducing Governor Hay, of the great State of Washington (applause).

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Governor HAY--Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I desire to take this opportunity to thank the good citizens of Saint Paul for seeing to it that the Western States were given representation at this Congress (applause). It was not, and never was, the intention of the managers of this Conservation Congress to allow those who differed with them in opinion to be heard at this meeting, as I know by long correspondence myself with the management. In reading the numerous papers published here in the East relative to the "wild and woolly western men" and their ideas on Conservation, I said to my wife, before leaving home, "It looks to me that I am going down to Saint Paul to get the most glorious spanking a white man ever got." My wife said, "Go down and take it" (laughter). But since arriving here, I am pleased to say that I have found innumerable people who look upon this Conservation question exactly the same way as do the majority of the people of the Pacific Coast.