these protests were brought to the attention of the President at that time as well as to the attention of the Secretary of the Interior.

SENATOR CHAMBERLAIN.-The old Latin maxim, de mortuis nil nisi bonum,1 appeals to me in this case. I want to observe it as far as it is possible consistent with the truth. It was Mr. E. A. Hitchcock who in his lifetime seems to have assumed that every man who undertook to acquire title to public land was a thief, and yet he was a party to the scheme to give away over a million acres of land by contracts he could have refused to make. Commissioner Hermann had called attention to these very dangers and he was removed from office at the instance of Mr. Hitchcock, as many believe, because he did not stand for these things, but for the interest of the people of this country in reference to these indemnity selections.

Mr. President, there are numerous other indemnity selection acts that I am not going to take up the time of the Senate in discussing. I have discussed them thus far for the purpose of showing conditions as they existed at the time this conservation movement had its origin. Lands in nearly all the States of the Union had been and were being taken up and placed under monopolistic control.

Mr. Gifford Pinchot, former forester, has been denounced here as a despoiler by one of the distinguished Senators who has discussed this subject. Mr. President, I say to you that, instead of criticising him as a despoiler, the American people ought to erect a monument in his honor and engrave his name upon it as the man who originated the idea of placing these resources of the Government-timber, coal, iron, and oil-beyond the reach of monopolistic control, and saving them, not only for the generous use of our own generation, but for generations yet unborn, because to him more largely than to any other individual in this country it is due that the people of America were first aroused to the fact that our public lands and the things under them, including the water powers and everything else, were being taken up and monopolized by selfish interests. He aroused an interest and created a public sentiment that has made Congress do something to protect these natural resources. Therefore, even if I do agree with some of the criticisms which have been indulged in against the administration of the forest reserves, and with others that have been indulged in against other governmental bureaus, I must state that, in its larger view, Mr. Pinchot and those who have succeeded him have done 1"'Say nothing but good of the dead."

a work that entitles them to the everlasting gratitude of the people.

Mr. President, we can see, in view of the looting of the public domain by these big corporations, why the idea of the conservation of natural resources had such an impetus given to it from the start. Really, it sprung into importance only four years ago, in 1908, when the governors of the several States met here in Washington for the purpose of discussing the whole subject.

The growth of the conservation movement has been slow, but, involving, as it does, a great moral question, it will never be retired from political or economic discussion until it has been rightly solved, and the party or the individual who opposes it must eventually be crushed by an outraged public opinion. So well is this recognized that you can not find anyone in public life upon whom responsibility rests in this important matter who will not claim that he is in favor of the conservation of our natural resources, and some there are who, while professing to believe in the doctrine, are nevertheless willing, on one pretext or another, to oppose any measure looking to the advancement of the cause.

It may not be inappropriate to call attention briefly to the evolution of the movement. As early as 1903 President Roosevelt appointed the Public Lands Commission. The first partial report of this commission was presented to Congress in a message by the President March 7, 1904, and the last was presented in the same way February 13, 1905. These reports deal at length with the antiquated land laws, and the abuses which have grown up under them, the sale of timber on the public lands, grazing thereon, and other kindred subjects. They contained many valuable suggestions, such as the repeal of the timber and stone act and the commutation clause of the homestead act. Attention was called to the frauds which had been and were being perpetrated under these laws, and if the recommendations of the commission had been followed by Congress a long stride would have been taken toward saving the public domain for the homesteader instead of allowing it to pass into the hands of speculators.

In 1907, the President created the Inland Waterways Commission and charged it with the consideration of "the relations of the streams to the use of all the permanent natural resources, and their conservation for the making and maintenance of prosperous homes."

Acting upon the suggestion of the Inland Waterways Com

mission, the President called a conference of governors1 of all the States and Territories, which was held at the White House in May, 1908. For the first time in history the executives of the sovereign States met with the Executive of the United States, and the occasion for that gathering was the consideration of the important problem of conservation. Acting upon the recommendation of the governors, all of whom recognized the importance of the great question they were called upon to consider, the President, on the 8th of June, 1908, appointed the National Conservation Commission, which thereafter proceeded to take the first inventory of the natural resources made by any nation in the world. The results of that inventory are recorded in the report of the National Conservation Commission, which the President transmitted to Congress with a special message in January, 1909.

Not only did Congress not then see fit to enact any legislation therein recommended, but unfortunately declined to print the report in sufficient numbers for its adequate distribution among the people. More disastrous than this, however, was the congressional enactment forbidding this or other executive commissions from pursuing their important work in the service of the people. This action, plainly designed to wipe out the National Conservation Commission, accomplished its purpose. It put an end to the activities of that commission, removing the only national organization which was dealing with the conservation question as a whole. Thus was presented the strange spectacle of a nation-wide movement, inaugurated by the governors of the States, the presidents of great organizations of our national industries, and other distinguished citizens, and heartily indorsed by the people of the country, by legislative enactment denied not only an appropriation, but even permission to continue its work.

That the conservation work is going on to-day is due to the approval of the people, crystallized into an organization formed by patriotic men and supported by individual citizens, whose desire it is that the conservation movement, to which such uniformly popular approval has been given, shall not fail, but shall go on until the principles for which it stands have been carried into practical effect. I refer to the National Conservation Association, the patriotic service of which to the nation cannot be too strongly emphasized.

1 This assembly (which has been held every year since 1908) is popularly known as "The House of Governors," the name given it by the originator of the idea, William George Jordan, of New York City.

Mr. President, if we should abandon the present policy it would not be three months until every acre of timber in this country would be taken up by agents and hirelings of those whose interest it is to get them under monopolistic control. This is not guesswork. I call your attention to the very able argument of my friend, the Senator from Minnesota [Knute Nelson], published in the annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science a year or two ago.

The mode in which these lumbermen have carried on their operations has been in the main, and in outline, this: They have in person or through agents and employees secured, by divers means, a large number of men and women in various parts of the country-people who knew nothing about such lands and who had no thought of acquiring the same-to apply to purchase and enter such lands, supplying them with money to travel from remote interior towns to examine and select the land and make the necessary application to purchase at the district land office, and supplying them with money to pay for the land, and then, after the purchase and entry were completed, procure a conveyance of the land to themselves for a moderate bonus.

I remember how, a few years ago, a large number of lady school teachers in a Western city-the headquarters of some big lumbermen—were induced to "take up" timber and stone claims in Oregon, Washington, and California, more than 1,500 miles from where the teachers lived. Most of these lands afterwards passed into the hands of these lumbermen.

Instead of denouncing and criticising the Forestry Bureau officials and undertaking to defeat a proper appropriation, as has been attempted in the Senate, I think the American people ought to take their hats off to the men who have inaugurated this movement; they ought to take their hats off to Mr. Graves, the present Forester, who is here devoting the best energies of his life to the protection of the great interests of the public; they ought to take their hats off to the young men in all the States of the West who are risking their lives and doing all in their power to protect the public domain, not only for the interest of those living, but for the interest of those who are coming after us.

Mr. President, differing from the Administration in politics, as I do, I am yet willing to stand here and give them my support in every way possible, to defend them against unjust charges, to assist them to do their duty in the future as they have done it in the past; and I predict that the time is not far distant when the American people, with one accord, will extend to these men their appreciation of the efforts which they have made to protect the national resources of this country from the looting of monopolistic interests.

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS

[POST-ROADS AND CANALS]

Debate in the House on Federal Control over Post-roads: In Favor, Theodore Sedgwick [Mass.]; Opposed, John Vining [Del.], Thomas Fitzsimons [Pa.]; Opposition Wins Surveys of Post-roads at Government Expense: In Favor, Abraham Baldwin [Ga.]-President Jefferson on Federal Aid to Education and Public Improvements-Speech of Sen. James A. Bayard, Sr., in Favor of Federal Investment in the Chesapeake Canal-President Madison's Message to Congress (December, 1815) Referring to Internal Improvements-John C. Calhoun [S. C.] Introduces in the House a Bill to Apply Profits of the National Bank to This Purpose-Debate on the Bill: In Favor (in Whole or Part), Mr. Calhoun, Timothy Pickering [Mass.], Erastus Root [N. Y.], Henry Clay [Ky.]; Opposed, Thomas B. Robertson [La.]-Bill Is Vetoed by the President-His Constitutional Objections-Debate in the House on Federal Administration of the Cumberland Road: In Favor, Tomlinson Fort [Ga.], Oliver H. Smith [Ind.]; Opposed, James Buchanan [Pa.], Philip P. Barbour [Va.]; Opposition Wins-President Jackson Vetoes Maysville [Ky.] Turnpike Bill on the Ground That Federal Operation of Public Works Is Unconstitutional-Speech on This Principle by Senator John Tyler [Va.]: "The First Entanglement of Government by Capital."

D

URING the organization of the Government the question of the constitutional power of the Executive arose in connection with a bill to establish post-roads, in which discretion was given the Postmaster-General in choosing mail routes, in permitting mail stages to carry passengers, in granting the franking privilege, etc.

In the debate on the measure, which took place in the House at various times between December 6, 1791, and February 3, 1792, Theodore Sedgwick [Mass.] argued that Congress could delegate the constitutional requirement that it "establish post-offices and post