Water is so valuable that we want to guard it carefully as a natural resource. I have but a moment at my disposal, and I am glad to take the advice of the President of the United States who yesterday told us to come out of the clouds, get down to brass tacks, and talk business. He asked us to say what we mean by Conservation, to tell what are the evils that we want to remedy, and explain how we propose to remedy them (applause). In a word, the evil that we want to remedy in the arid States of America is the great evil of permitting men to make merchandise of the melting snow and the singing brook (applause). I stand here to say that no man can possibly be good enough to own the water which another man must use in order to live (applause). It may be that private enterprise can be employed in the form of a construction company to build the reservoir and the means of distribution; but in that case, after our people have paid for the work, and paid for it once and twice and three times, then the Nation should answer our prayer, "Let my people go."
We should have joint ownership of land and water. Today we have a magnificent construction company at work in the seventeen States and Territories of arid America; the name of it is "The United States of America, Unlimited." (Applause) That construction company turns the work over to the people at actual cost, with ten annual payments, and without one dollar of interest (Applause). If the National Government can do that with irrigation, it can do so just as wisely with power; and if it doesn't seem wise for the National Government to do it as a matter of public enterprise, then give us a form of construction company; but in the end, in the day of our children and our children's children and our remote descendants, in the name of God and in the name of humanity, let the people own the water which is essential to their existence. (Applause)
Just one word further. I stand here to endorse what has just been said by one of the few real men whom California ever had the good fortune to put into her Governor's chair (great applause). California is not for State rights; that doctrine was trampled to death fifty years ago under the feet of a million armed men. Yesterday it raised its head and stretched out its weird arms seeking to grasp the remnant of the natural resources and turn them over to exploitation by private monopoly. But that will not be permitted. I am here, my friends, to say to you, as Governor Pardee has said, that in this great controversy—the most momentous which has arisen in this country since the close of the Civil War—California and the Pacific slope, and I believe all the splendid States of the Rocky mountain region, stand with that fine young American statesman who during the past few months has thrilled this nation in his fight to save the resources of the people to all the people for the benefit of all the people; that young man who said at Denver the other day that it is more important to help the small man make a living than to help the big man make a profit; that man, who has sounded the highest notes since Lincoln, who has declared that he is in favor of Government by men for human welfare and against Government by money for profit—we stand first, last, and all the time with Gifford Pinchot. (Great applause)
Colonel T. H. Davidson (Delegate-at-large from Minnesota)—Mr Chairman: I noticed scattered through the program of this great Congress the words "General Discussion." We have not limited the time to be occupied by speakers. I now move you, sir, that under the head of "General Discussion" a delegate shall be entitled to occupy only five minutes, and shall not speak a second time on the same question.
Chairman Condra—The rule adopted today fully covers the point, though it has not been put in effect this afternoon. We have two days, perhaps three, for full discussion, and the time will be limited under the rules which will govern tomorrow.
The last speaker on the formal program is one who has been greatly interested in this movement and closely associated with Mr Pinchot. I have pleasure in introducing Mr Walter L. Fisher, a Vice-President of this Congress and of the National Conservation Association and President of the Conservation League of America.
Mr Fisher—Mr Chairman, and Ladies and Gentlemen: I would not take any of your time this afternoon were it not that I, too, have felt the appeal of President Taft for concrete and practical suggestions as to how to solve some of the more difficult of the problems of constructive statesmanship presented in the Conservation movement. The particular point on which I wish to make a suggestion is the relation of the States and the Federal Government to the question of water-power grants.
This question, it seems to me, has been allowed to assume a phase entirely unjustified by the facts. There is, in my judgment, not only no necessary conflict between the interests of the State and the Nation, but there is every incentive for practical cooperation between State and Nation on this matter (applause); and in my opinion the question can never be rightly settled until there is just that cooperation. (Renewed applause)
The Federal Government is the natural agency to which we must look for many of the things which are essential to a solution. There are two phases of the problem, one involving a question of law and the other a question of public policy. As to the strict legal right, it must be apparent that on any stream where the Federal Government owns the riparian property, or on any stream which is navigable in fact or in law, the consent of the Federal Government is absolutely necessary as a pre-requisite to the construction of any water-power works. For myself, I believe that the power conferred by the Constitution upon the Federal Government with relation to interstate commerce absolutely carries the power to make such conditions in any permit to erect a structure in a navigable stream as the Federal Government may believe it wise policy to insert. The power to make or to withhold the permit, under all the decisions of the courts which have in any way touched that question, implies the power to impose conditions to the permit. There are, I know, those who disagree as to this proposition; but even they will agree on the broader question of public policy which underlies the whole subject. When the Federal Government undertakes the improvement of a navigable stream, it rarely if ever happens that it does not thereby either create water-power or increase potential water-power already existing. It is evident, therefore, that those riparian owners who own existing water-power grants are directly benefitted by the improvement in the navigable water. Whenever the Federal Government protects the headwaters and the water-shed on which the stream depends, it is conferring a direct benefit upon the owners of water-power property along the line; and so with all the other improvements.