Proceedings [of the] fourth National Conservation Congress [at] Indianapolis, October 1-4, 1912

by United States. National Conservation Congress

Address, Hon. Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War

ADDRESS BY THE SECRETARY OF WAR.

(Representing the President of the United States.)

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the National Conservation Congress: I unite very sincerely in the congratulations which the former speakers have tendered to you on your assembling here in such an important and such a noble cause.

I am very happy to be here as the representative of President Taft—happy, both because of the interest which I know he feels in the great movement for Conservation, and also because of my own personal association with and enthusiasm for that movement. Four days ago, when I was busily engaged in inspecting one of the army posts of northern Wyoming, in the far away Rocky Mountains, I received an urgent telegraphic request from the President, that I should come here today and attend your meeting on his behalf. And the 1,600 miles or more which separate Fort Yellowstone from Indianapolis, may serve at the same time as a measure of the President’s interest in your meeting, and a measure of the depth of my own unpreparedness to speak to you today. I know, therefore, that you will understand and pardon me if I talk to you rather informally, merely as one friend to others interested in a great common cause, and confine the brief remarks which I shall make to one of the phases of Conservation with which I have become familiar through the work of the War Department.

Parenthetically, I might say that inasmuch as the Department of War is not usually considered as a particularly appropriate agency for the conservation of life, I will have to hark back to the material side of Conservation in some of its aspects which have been presented at your former meetings.

Of course, the main work which the Federal Government performs in regard to Conservation is done through the Department of the Interior. Incidentally, the truest of all indications of the interest with which the President regards the conservation of the natural resources of this country lies in the character and attainments of the man whom he has placed at the head of that Department in order to conserve them—Walter L. Fisher. (Applause.) You will all of you remember how his thorough investigation and clear-cut decision of the famous Cunningham claims, has settled and disposed of, in the interest of the people, one of the most bitter controversies of our cause. You are also undoubtedly familiar with the careful investigation which he made last year into the very complicated and serious problems of conservation which confront our Nation in Alaska; and with the luminous address with which he reported his conclusions and pointed out a solution of these questions. Though the work of his Department in investigating and conserving in the public interest, the water power sites which remain on our public lands, and our remaining beds of coal and phosphate, has not attracted so much attention as his work in these former more controverted matters; yet there is, I think, a very general and well founded feeling throughout the country that in all these matters the interests of the people of the United States are being thoroughly protected by the Secretary of the Interior in accordance with the most intelligent and thorough views of Conservation. (Applause.)

I allude to his method of thorough investigation because I think it is characteristic of the attitude of the President himself toward this whole subject. In order that progress should be real, it must be based upon carefully ascertained facts. In dealing with the problems of Conservation, we are dealing with problems which are new to our Nation. As the honorable speaker who first addressed you pointed out, we have only recently passed from an era of exploitation into an era of Conservation. We are surrounded by thousands of our fellow countrymen who have been brought up to honestly believe that the only method of developing the country is to turn its resources as rapidly as possible over into private hands. In putting into effect, therefore, the new policy to which the Nation has now come, there must be care taken lest false steps, or the injustice which may come from hasty action, may not produce a reaction which will delay or imperil the reform. As a former District Attorney, representing the people in the enforcement of the law, I have long had it impressed upon me how essential it was that no hasty, or harsh, or intolerant action, taken in the heat and controversy of a jury trial, should thereafter imperil the entire work and by producing injustice, and a subsequent reversal in the higher courts, bring some great reform into disrepute or temporary delay. Patience, thoroughness, and courage, mark the only pathway towards permanent progress and reform. (Applause.)

Now, the subject which I am going to call to your attention briefly this morning is one of those few matters where my own Department, instead of the Department of the Interior, touches upon the problems of national Conservation. It is also a subject the history of which, I think, exemplifies clearly the importance of the methods to which I have just alluded. I wish to point out to you the attitude of the administration as to the Federal regulation of water power in our navigable rivers.

It is needless to remind such a body as yours of the importance of that sphere of Conservation. All our other present sources of power—such as coal, wood, oil, and the like—are limited, and will be eventually exhausted. Water power alone is permanent. And just as we are coming to learn more and more the value of that permanence, we are simultaneously, through the development of electricity, learning to transmit its energy to greater and greater distances. No other subject occupied more keenly the attention of the past session of Congress, or was more vigorously debated upon the floors of that body.

For many years our national policy, or rather lack of national policy, towards our waterways and our water power, has presented a singular inconsistency. On the other hand, we have been spending hundreds of millions of the taxpayers’ money on the improvement of the navigation of our great inland waterways. On the other, we have been granting away permits for the construction of dams on these same rivers and waterways, which will create water power of incalculable and increasing value; and we have been doing this without exacting for the taxpayers any return or compensation whatever.

I believe it was not until the administration of President Roosevelt that any effort was made to obtain for the public any compensation for the water power which was thus granted away. Mr. Roosevelt demanded in his veto of the James River bill, and in several other messages, that no permits for dams in navigable rivers should be granted without a reservation of proper compensation to the public for the grant thus made. His action was courageous and right. But there were not as yet in the hands of the public sufficient carefully ascertained facts upon which the constitutional power of the Federal Government to take such action could be confidently based. And there was therefore great ground for misapprehension in the public mind of any action attempting to take such a position. A bitter controversy at once arose with those advocates of States’ rights, who contended that the Federal Government had no rights whatever in connection with water power, that under the Constitution its powers were limited solely to navigation, and that water power was an entirely separate and distinct sphere, falling wholly within the jurisdiction of the several States. Such advocates contended that for the Federal Government to exact compensation for a water power right, simply because it was in a position to withhold the permit altogether if it wanted to, was little better than legalized blackmail; and the progress of the reform was stubbornly and for a long time successfully contested.

Even as late as 1906, the General Dam Act, passed by Congress and approved by the President, conveys to the Executive no clear right to exact compensation for these grants. It has remained for Mr. Taft’s administration, following the method of patient investigation and research which I have above mentioned, to collect the facts necessary to solve the problem, and to show from these facts that the jurisdiction of the Federal Government over navigation must necessarily include jurisdiction over water power as an incident of the navigation.

Most of the rivers of this country are long and comparatively shallow. In order to make them commercially navigable, there has become prevalent among engineers a method of improvement known as the “slack water” method or the method of “canalization.” The method consists in building throughout the length of these rivers, a series of dams and locks, by which the river is converted into a succession of deep pools, adequate for commerce of a far more important character than could use the river in its unimproved condition. In fact, many rivers which are not capable in their natural state of being used at all commercially, can by this method be made useful and available for important commerce.

Now, most of the dams thus constructed in a “slack water” improvement, particularly in the rapid portions of the streams, will create water power of commercial value. It is also manifest that if the commercial value of the water power thus created can be realized by the Government and turned into further river improvement, the improvement of navigation on our rivers can be greatly expedited, and the expense to the general taxpayer very much lessened. And, on the contrary, unless this is done, the complete improvement of the river will be just so much delayed and postponed. The water power developed is thus shown to be intimately connected with navigation. It is a by-product of the improvement which can be turned into further improvement. And from the standpoint of constitutional law, it makes no difference whether the dam in question is to be erected by the Federal Government or by a private corporation. If it is a dam which is to assist the navigation of the river as well as to create water power, the power of the Government will be complete. What the Federal Government can constitutionally do itself it can do through an agent.

The corps of army engineers to whom are referred all proposed bills in Congress granting permits for dams for water power have been accordingly, under Mr. Taft’s administration, directed to investigate and answer specifically four questions in every report. They are directed to ascertain in regard to every such bill:

First, is the river on which the dam is to be created a navigable stream subject to being improved, either now or in the future of the country, at the expense of the general taxpayer?

In the second place, they are asked whether the dam which is sought to be constructed will form an essential part of any such improvement.

Thirdly, whether the dam will create water power of commercial value.

Fourthly, whether the value of that water power will tend to increase with the growth and development of the Nation.

You can see for yourself the pertinence of such questions. Once answered in the affirmative, there is a case presented upon which the jurisdiction of the Government’s power can rest.

Trial has now shown that the answers to these questions are nearly always in the affirmative. And as a result of the information thus obtained we are in a position now, unlike our position six years ago, where we can take a step forward, and hold permanently the ground thus gained.

There is now laid before Congress a sure foundation upon which we can rest our national right to exact the fair value of these grants. Investigation has regularly brought out the fact that each one of these dams is essentially connected with navigation, and that a failure to preserve the right to regulate them and to exact compensation for the power created is throwing away a valuable national asset.

The issue has been sharply drawn by President Taft, and his position clearly stated in his message, submitted on the 24th of last August, vetoing the bill which proposed to grant authority to build a dam in the Coosa River. The Coosa River is in Alabama. The bill in question sought to authorize the Alabama Power Company to build a dam suitable for the development of navigation in that river, and at the same time to create water power for the exclusive benefit of the corporation. It contained no provision permitting the Federal Government to exact any compensation for the rights of water power thus granted. The bill was strongly urged by powerful leaders of both houses of Congress. It was also vigorously opposed by the leaders of the conservation movement of Congress. But it ultimately passed. The President vetoed it in a message which asserts in unqualified language the duty of the Federal Government to reserve to itself the right to exact proper compensation. (Applause.) The President says on this point:

“I think this is a fatal defect in the bill, and that it is just as improvident to grant this permit without such a reservation as it would be to throw away any other asset of the Government. To make such a reservation is not depriving the States of anything that belongs to them. On the contrary, in the report of the Secretary of War it is recommended that all compensation for similar privileges should be applied strictly to the improvement of navigation in the respective streams—a strictly Federal function. The Federal Government by availing itself of this right may in time greatly reduce the swollen expenditures for river improvements which now fall wholly upon the general taxpayer. I deem it highly important that the nation should adopt a consistent and harmonious policy of treatment of these water power projects which will preserve for this purpose their value to the Government whose right it is to grant the permit.”

There are few subjects of equal importance with the proper improvement of our great river systems. We are behind many of the nations of Europe in our appreciation of this importance. The development of our rivers is not only vitally important for the commerce that they will thus carry, but even more for the regulative effect which they should and can have upon the freight rates of the railroads with which they compete. If Mr. Taft’s position is sustained, it means that all the potential value of these streams can be turned toward the improvement of their navigation. As he says, it offers one of the possible solutions for our swollen river and harbor appropriations. On the other hand, it also means that the hand of the nation is to be kept on this great national asset of our water power; and that this great subject of water power regulation will be handled comprehensively, consistently, and with due regard for the wants of the Nation as a whole.

If, however, the view of the opponents of the President prevails, it means that this necessary improvement of our rivers will be greatly postponed, and that all the expense of such improvement will have to be borne by the general taxpayers of the Nation. And it further means that the closely related subject of our water powers on these navigable rivers, instead of being treated nationally and broadly, will be subject to the piecemeal policies of forty-eight different States. Seldom is there presented an opportunity to apply the principles of conservation simultaneously to two such important subjects as river transportation and water power regulation. (Applause.)

President White—I am sure we all appreciate the address that has just been delivered by our distinguished representative of the President. It has left upon our minds the significance of the importance of protecting those natural resources that are permanent and which should not be given away to private individuals, or corporations.