of that developed property. This proposition which we are considering here today and which this unanimous report presents, is the acceptance of this great fundamental proposition for which conservationists have been working these many years, namely, that the Federal Government is the proper power to regulate the development of these resources. It is the proper power to prevent improper monopoly of these water powers. As Mr. Pinchot has said, we recognize that the individual site is a monopolistic site to the power company that owns it. What we object to is that one great corporation or set of interests shall take many of these sites in many places throughout the country, not in one state but in many states, and then by monopolistic control of many sites, control the water power interests of the country.

That is what they are striving to do when they ask us to go back to the old idea of the inefficient, impossible regulation of this subject by individual states.

But one word in conclusion! They tell us that the people of the western states should have the right to use their land exactly as the people of the eastern states, in years gone by, have used their lands. I say to them, gentlemen, you are asking for the opportunity to misuse those lands as we in the east misused our lands in the generations gone by! (Applause.) In those days we were not awake to the dangers that were ahead of the consumers, the people of this country. The great state of Pennsylvania had no idea of what it was doing when it allowed the anthracite coal interests to be monopolized as they have been. We in Ohio knew not what we were doing when we gave away for a pittance the thousands of acres of Public Domain that came into our control. We recognize the mistake we have made, and we are striving now to prevent similar mistakes being made that will bring injury upon the people of future generations. Therefore, my friends, when we vote for this unanimous report, when we take that as the principle of action, and when we recognize that back of that principle of action we are likewise striking at the unjust conditions which this widespread monopoly may impose upon us, we will recognize that we are doing that which is for the benefit, not of this generation alone, but that we are looking long into the future and we are recognizing the obligation as never before that rests upon us of this generation to see to it that these great national resources shall be handed down to the next generation and to those to come, in better condition, safer in public hands, and better adapted to the uses of all the people of our nation. (Applause.)

STATEMENT OF MR. LEWIS B. STILLWELL, OF NEW YORK

MR. STILLWELL-Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: As a member of the Committee on Water Power, I have worked a large part of the time for the last two days and nights and for a considerable part of the time during the preceding two weeks in the hope that we could place before you a report which would be really constructive.

The engineers of the country-and there are over twenty thousand of them who are members of the four leading societies have done their full share in the work of conservation. Men like Professor Swain and other engineer members of your present committee, were conservationists and were conserving the resources of this country before these gentlemen who are now at the front had thought of the subject. We now come before you with a report which is a report of the majority of the committee, a minority report which represents the views of three members of the committee, and a document which is not the report of the committee, but which is a group of recommendations in which we could concur. I did not intend to speak, but I think Professor Swain has been placed in a very unfair position this afternoon, and for that reason I will address you very briefly.

Professor Swain and the four other members of the committee, who constituted the majority, were in a position yesterday to insist that their report be regarded as the majority report, the sole report; but in order to enable this convention to accomplish something, they agreed to sign a statement or creed in which we all concurred. I can find no essential difference in the recommendations of the majority report and in the recommendations contained in this document upon which we have agreed. I am not a lawyer, but just yesterday, before agreeing to sign the general statement, I asked Mr. Stimson whether he had found any essential difference between the two, and he said he had not.

If we are going to do something, now is the chance. We have had a great deal of talk about this subject, but for a good many years the wheels of progress of water power development have slowed up. Personally they have slowed up. I have taken my practice out of that field and gone in another direction. I have not had a water power job in the west for thirteen years, and very few people will have them unless something is done.

Senator Burton, Mr. Pinchot, Mr. Fisher and Mr. Stimson have all done splendid work in trying to develop some constructive legislation; but we are all blocked by the fact that it

is up to Congress to enact a statute which will repeal the existing statute under which only revocable permits can be granted.

If you decide to vote in favor of the adoption of the recommendation before you, the influence of this great body will be cast for once in the direction of really constructive work. In saying "for once," I do not mean to say that the intent has not been good, but I do say that the net effect has been conversation and not conservation.

I was sorry that there was an apparent difference of view between Mr. Pinchot and Professor Swain. There has been no real difference in our committee so far as recommendations were concerned. The differences were solely, I think, in respect, as we have finally agreed, to the preamble and discussion of the subject. Five of us were unwilling to sign Mr. Pinchot's draft and three were unwilling to sign the other draft.

In one report the anti-monopolistic idea has developed to a point which some of us think is beyond the facts. I think myself, as I told Mr. Pinchot, that that is a ghost. When you provide for the regulation of rates by the local authorities and you reserve the right to the Federal Government if the local authorities do not protect the public, to intervene and protect them, you have done everything that is necessary. The next thing to do is to invite capital upon the best possible terms and from whatever source. If some gentleman spends ten million dollars in South Carolina and wants to spend another ten million dollars in Washington, let him do it. That is not monopoly in restraint of trade. Monopoly in restraint of trade raises the price to the consumer. The kilowatt hour development in South Carolina can never get to Washington, nor can the kilowatt development in Washington ever be sold in South Carolina.

You need four things to develop your water power. You need the water, you need brains, you need labor and you need money. Some of the gentlemen, advocates of conservation and with the best of motives, but without that kind of analytical study which refuses to recognize visions and insists upon facts, have proposed to put checks in the path of capital that is standing ready to come in here. That is not conservation. That is a mistake. You may not think so, but it is. What you want is all the money you can get by these developments upon the best possible terms.

I propose, if I have a vote, to vote for the adoption of these unanimous recommendations. I shall do so, I am sorry to say, not because of Mr. Pinchot's speech, but notwithstanding it. (Applause.)

REMARKS OF HON. EDWARD KEATING, MEMBER OF CONGRESS FROM COLORADO

CONGRESSMAN KEATING-Mr. Chairman and ladies and gentlemen: I had not intended to take up any of the time of this Convention, especially in view of the speeches delivered by Colorado's Senators this morning. But some of the statements made by our good friend from Ohio, who for a number of years was at the head of the Department of the Interior, seem to my mind to call for a reply. I think that those statements illustrate in a very striking fashion the intelligent administration which we have had of the public domain. I want to call your attention to the fact that this gentleman was at the head of the Department of the Interior for a number of years; that he had learned and well-paid assistants; so when he stands before this Convention and makes statements of facts, he should have the facts to support them. He calls your attention to the fact that the people of Colorado during his administration sought to divert the waters of the Rio Grande River so that they might be used on the eastern slopes of Colorado and thereby deprive the people of New Mexico and of old Mexico of water for irrigation. If the gentleman had any knowledge whatsoever of the geography of Colorado, if he had any knowledge whatsoever of the public domain in the State of Colorado, he would know that there was absolutely no foundation for that report. He would know it was a physical impossibility to construct a channel which would divert the waters of the San Luis Valley on to the eastern slopes of Colorado.

What are the facts? The facts are that the people of the State of Colorado, the farmers of the San Luis Valley, the men who live in my district-not monopolists, but men who are endeavoring to make their homes on the public domainsought according to law, according to the law of their State, to divert water for the purposes of irrigating their land. Then Mr. Garfield came forward with his reclamation service and said we must stop development in the San Luis Valley, that everything must come to a standstill until his Reclamation Service could make up its mind as to how much of that water would be required to fill the Engle dam. That was the proposition. He said we should stop the development of this great valley, a valley, my friends, in which you could drop the State of Connecticut and still have plenty of area for ranches on the outside. We were told we could not have our legal rights to that water. We were told that we must sit down there and wait for this Reclamation Service to complete the Engle dam project before we could take out any more water to irrigate the

farms of Colorado on the principal stretches of the Rio Grande River.

As a matter of fact, what the gentleman had in mind was an effort to divert the water of the Grande River to the eastern slope of Colorado.

I want to confess here to this great assembly that the people of Colorado were guilty of the enormous offense of contemplating the construction of a tunnel which would turn the waters of the Grande on to the hundreds of thousands of acres of public domain on the eastern slope of the mountains. Every loyal Coloradoan, without regard to political affiliation, prays for the day when that can be done. Why were we blocked in that great project of development? This gentleman, Mr. Garfield, and his predecessors, had made a filing on the waters of the Grande. Ten years ago they made a filingten years ago, and yet the first shovelful of dirt was thrown only last fall. For ten years they demanded that we should tie up our resources and that this water should be permitted to flow unimpeded to the ocean while they were contemplating plans for our benefit. We preferred to do what we have done to develop our own State, to put these waters to beneficial uses as we have, to the extent of three million acres of land.

(Mingled cries of "Time's up! Time's up! Go on! Go on!") CONGRESSMAN KEATING-I want to say, on behalf of the people of Colorado, that the charge that our people, in opposing this so-called conservation policy, are acting in the interests of special privilege, is an infamous libel on the people of my State. We will go as far as the people of any State in this Union to really conserve the resources of our State and to regulate monopoly. What is more, we have done so, and I would call to the attention of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Pinchot, that if he does not know how to break up a coal monopoly, if he does not know how to break up a steel monopoly, let him come to Colorado and we will put him through the kindergarten of political economy and teach him that the States, by exercising their sovereign right of taxation, may break up any of these monopolies. (Applause.)

Thank you for the attention which you have given me. (Applause.)

MR. JAMES R. GARFIELD-Mr. Chairman, it is curious to me that these differences of statement occur between men who are evidently trying to tell the truth. As to the gentleman from Colorado, I did not have the pleasure of knowing him when I was Secretary of the Interior. However, for his information and for the information of this body, let me tell you this: