Prior to 1892, large appropriations were made by Congress for the Mississippi river, all of them with a proviso that none of the money should be expended for the purpose of preventing the floods of the river; and not a dollar was available for the repair and construction of levees. That was the situation in 1882 and on down to 1892, when the argument that the river belonged to the Federal Government and it must so regulate and use it that it should not be a damage and a hurt to us in the lower valley prevailed; and in the river and harbor bill of 1892, at a time when I was chairman of the committee, the Secretary of War was authorized to expend $10,000,000 on the lower Mississippi from Cairo to the Gulf, and the restrictions and provisos that had hampered the Mississippi River Commission theretofore in the expenditure of money for the two-fold purpose of improving navigation and preventing floods were removed (applause). We wrote these limitations all out; Congress had been educated up to the point where it recognized the second duty it owed to the great river in preventing its floods. The bill passed, and the Mississippi River Commission allotted $6,000,000 of the $10,000,000 for levee construction and repairs (applause). We followed this two years later by another bill using the same phraseology and appropriating $9,000,000 more, and these two great bills, carrying $19,000,000, with no restrictions on the expenditures for the prevention of floods in the river, have given us along the lower river the greatest and finest levee system ever known in any age or on any river in any country—1350 miles of levees that stay the floods of the Mississippi so that a general flood in the river is a thing of the past; and on every mile of our 1350 miles of levees on the two banks of the river is the stamp of the Federal Government. (Applause)
And yet they tell you that these waters do not belong to the Federal Government? They admit that they belong to the Federal Government for purposes of navigation. Congress is committed already to the principle that the waters of the river belong to the Federal Government, because Congress has undertaken to help us to keep those waters off of our lands. But I go further than that; I agree with my distinguished friend Mr Garfield that the jurisdiction of the Federal Government extends, where the navigable waterways of the United States are concerned, far beyond the point to which they are navigable; it extends to the headwaters of those rivers, and for the very good reason that if the jurisdiction of the Federal Government did not so extend, then where these rivers take their rise some of these western States might undertake to divert from the great Mississippi channel the water needed to supply that river with enough water for navigation purposes. Every river, therefore, must be treated as a unit (applause). That is the view we take of it in the South; and in taking that view we hold to the National idea that water, being one of those natural resources which needs conservation in respect to its greater and wiser use, ought to be controlled by the Federal Government. Water is one of those natural resources that man can do nothing to add to or diminish in quantity; the snows and the rains are the result of great cosmic action—and fortunate it is that such is the case, for past experience in this country shows that if man could diminish the supply he would long since have done so by his neglect and his wastefulness. (Applause)
I have spoken long enough. I wanted to supplement, from the standpoint of the South, the admirable remarks made by the distinguished Governor of Mississippi on last afternoon. We of the South are hand in hand with the Federal Government in this great question of the Conservation of the natural resources; and we look to the Federal Government to lead in that movement (applause). At the same time I repeat that this great movement, so auspiciously inaugurated by Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot (applause), needs for its full consummation and for the realizing of the greatest benefits possible the cooperation—with the Federal Government leading—of the Federal Government, the States, and all the people (applause). When we shall have brought these three great agencies into harmonious action looking to proper Conservation, then will our country grow greater even than it is now in all that goes to make up the might and glory of a great nationality of the earth; our country will then continue to present the example of a great continental republic possessed of every variety of climate and production, whose people are as one again, loyally devoted to the perpetuity of the Union, fearing no foreign foe, following the pursuits of peace, serving God according to the dictates of conscience and solving practically the great problems of self-government. (Great and prolonged applause)
[In the course of the foregoing address, President Baker surrendered the Chair to Professor Condra.]
Chairman Condra—Ladies and Gentlemen: Before continuing the program, a few announcements will be made.
Ex-Governor Pardee: I again announce that the Committee on Resolutions will meet at the Saint Paul Hotel this evening at 8 oclock in Room 534. Those having resolutions will please write them out, sign them, and hand them in.
Several announcements were made on behalf of State delegations.
Chairman Condra: In place of Honorable B. A. Fowler, of Phoenix, Arizona, who was to speak on "Water as a Natural Resource," I call upon a man who has done much for the advance of irrigation, and who organized the first National Irrigation Congress, Mr William E. Smythe, of San Diego, California.
Mr Smythe—Mr Chairman, and Ladies and Gentlemen of the Congress: I am called upon at very short notice to speak for our distinguished president of the National Irrigation Congress on water as a natural resource. I need not remind you how valuable this resource is. Some years ago I went to the White House in company with a cabinet officer to confer with the then President of the United States concerning a mooted irrigation question. Secretary Moody presented me to President Roosevelt, saying that I was a democrat interested in the subject of water; whereupon the President turned to me with a smile and said, "What! a democrat interested in water?" (Laughter) "Yes, Mr President," I said, "for democrats have sense enough to know that in a country where it seldom rains water is too valuable to drink." (Laughter)