law affecting navigable streams. It is significant that they are opposing the control of water power on the Desplaines River by the State of Illinois with equal vigor and like arguments to those with which they oppose the national government pursuing the policy I advocate. Their attitude is the same with reference to their projects upon the mountain streams of the West, where the jurisdiction of the federal government as the owner of the public lands and national forests is not open to question.

"The people of the country are threatened by a monopoly far more powerful, because in far closer touch with their domestic and industrial life, than anything known to our experience. A single generation will see the exhaustion of our natural resources of oil and gas, and such a rise in the price of coal, as will make the price of electrically transmitted water power a controlling factor in transportation, in manufacturing and in household lighting and heating.

"No grant of this kind should be made except as it provides for a fee to secure title to the people and for termination of the grant or

privilege at a definite time. I will sign no bill granting a privilege of this character which does not contain the substance of these conditions. I consider myself bound, as far as exercise of my executive power will allow, to do for the people, in prevention of monopoly of their resources, what I believe they would do for themselves, if they were in a position to act."*

The right time to control a monopoly is before it is created. When it is once realized that the public ownership or control of the great water power sites is not only essential to the possession by the people of means for cheap power, light, and heat, but also for protection from disastrous floods, with their consequent soil erosion, and the keeping of the rivers navigable, then it will be seen that now is the time to determine that there shall be no further private ownership of public water power.

In the old day of unrestricted individualism,

*To date the areas involved in the power sites withdrawn are as follows: Arizona, 107,550 acres; California, 47,819; Colorado, 201,549; Idaho, 230,971; Montana, 122,515; Nevada, 14,501; New Mexico, 14,536; Oregon, 176,721; Washington, 55,439; Wyoming, 103,396; Utah, 379,912.

this sentiment would not have been accepted by any except those thinkers who were far ahead of their time, but now we are thinking continentally, speaking in terms of the nation, taking a national view; and are regarding the nation as a social and economic entity, every part of which must be developed in the interest of every other part. Conservation and development have come to be familiar words, and the general public is demanding with no uncertain voice that this work shall go on with increasing momentum.

But why not give to this principle a wider application? If the nation must initiate, carry through, and pay for these great public improvements, why should it transfer the sale, or chief benefits of such improvements to private individuals and corporations? If the public must do the work and pay the bills, should it not share in the fruits? Other nations have followed this method with great success-why should this nation fall behind? In the future, governments must at least earn their keep to justify their existence. The opponents of the plan of developing for the public good that which belongs rightly to the

public, designate it as "paternalism”; yet it should rather be called "fraternalism," for the essential ideal in a democracy is that of a group of brothers who have gone into partnership, working together that even the weakest may have his full share of the common inheritance. To fulfill its destiny, this government must become in fact what it is in name"A government of the people, for the people and by the people."

CHAPTER VI

Agriculture's Opportunity

That this may become a nation without extremes of poverty or riches is the dream of many social reformers. A widespread distribution of wealth is without doubt desirable both as a means of abolishing poverty with its consequent misery and crime, and as giving opportunity for more general education, culture, and refinement of home life. History has shown that a competency for every homebuilder is to be desired, while swollen fortunes are a menace to the individual and the nation.

No department of our government service is more closely related to the production and distribution of wealth than the Agricultural Department; and to Secretary Wilson, as to no other man in the nation, can the great results achieved be attributed. Through his zealous labors, and well developed plans, the farmer has been a larger recipient of the government's aid than any other of the nation's toilers. The gigantic strides which have been