The amount of the annual appropriation for the purposes of the Commission is $3,000.00. There was expended during the year 1909 the sum of $211.55, and during the year 1910 the sum of $2,767.62.
It is the intention and purpose of the Commission to continue along the lines upon which it has started, to ascertain the extent and character and point out the location of the agricultural, mineral, power, and other natural resources of the State, and to place before the public such information concerning these resources as will enable the home-seeker, the investor, the manufacturer and all those seeking industrial pursuits adapted to our State, to secure for themselves some of the advantages which the development of such resources offers.
SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT FROM UTAH
E. T. Merritt
Delegate from Utah
The State of Utah has not yet undertaken any great work in the matter of Conservation of public resources, although a Commission has been created with the Governor as chairman. An office is maintained and the gentlemen of the Commission are giving earnest thought and study to the issues involved, feeling that they want to be sure they are right before they go ahead. However, the General Government has been very liberal in the attention it has given us, and we find our phosphate lands, the public coal lands, lands adjoining streams suitable for power sites, and practically every acre of our forest lands have been withdrawn from entry. And yet we feel that we have no quarrel with the Government in these matters. We believe that just as soon as equitable and reasonable methods have been devised for the sale or lease of the first three named they will be placed in such a position to be of practical use and benefit to the people, as they should be; in other words, we do not believe they will be bottled up or pickled or preserved for future generations, but under wise and equitable laws and administration will be converted to the use of the people.
The forest reserves are properly cared for in Utah, and their use and administration is equitable and fair. Mr Pinchot told us when he began his administration that while no doubt mistakes would be made and some inconvenience suffered by the people, yet he wanted it understood that the forests belonged to the people, and that the purpose of the Government was not to exploit them for revenue or for glory or for the fun there was in it, but rather to take care of them for the use and benefit of the people, especially for the people who had conquered and developed the adjoining country; to conserve the water supply, and to perpetuate and care for all the resources and homes of the people. He further told us that whenever we could suggest betterment of the Service in the interest of the people, such suggestions would be gladly welcomed. Such promises have been faithfully carried out, and we believe the Government has been a kind parent to the State of Utah. We see no reason for a quarrel as to the rights of the State and those of the Government. We think there is plenty for both to do, and at least to us there is profit and benefit for us to go hand in hand in cooperation with the Federal Government in the development of our State.
We believe that only by the General Government can the problem of water-power sites, particularly on large or interstate streams, be handled. The history of Utah shows that some years ago the adjudication of water-rights was in the courts of the several Judicial Districts of the State, and that in the course of their procedure it was a common thing for all the water of the stream to be decreed to the several owners residing within that Judicial District, absolutely without regard to the rights of other citizens using water from the same stream, although residing in some other Judicial District. We changed our laws, placing the acquirement and adjudication of water-rights in the State Engineer. We found this a big improvement, but we still find ourselves in the matter of interstate streams entirely at the mercy of the fellow above us. Of course the fellow below can take care of himself. The lesson is obvious. We maintain that only the General Government can properly and rightly hand out justice and equity in the matter of power sites and water-rights as affecting interstate streams.
We have found cooperation with the General Government immensely valuable to us in the matter of experiments in the drainage of water-logged or alkali lands, measurement and recording of the flow of our streams, the eradication of disease among our livestock, and in fact in every department where cooperation has been tried.
We are suffering today in Utah, as in many other parts of the country, from mistakes and carelessness of the general Government in the handling of the public resources, but this is also true of ourselves in our own administration; and we are very glad to see an awakening on this subject. The people of Utah, in common with all of the people of the whole country, are deeply interested in the subject of Conservation in all its phases, and believe that the great mistakes of the past, both National and in our own State, will not be repeated.