THE ROLL CALL
the roll call ON MEN AND MEASURES Conservation Hit by Cannon Machine THE DAY before Congress adjourned for the holiday re-" cess, Hon. Frank W. Mondell, of Wyoming, delivered in the House of...
...second, because if it were constitutional it would be unwise, harmful and unnecessary by reason of the fact that title people of these States have clearly and definitely assumed and do now exercise full and complete control over the use and distribution of water, and can manage their domestic affairs better than they can be managed for them...
...The Mondell speech begins with misrepresentation in the caption, which reads, "shall the people or the bureaus rule...
...All federal legislation, in the course of its enactment, must pass through both houses of Congress...
...Mondell's attitude toward the recommendations of the "conservative," narrow-con structionist Secretary of the Interior on this subject of power site conservation may fairly be taken as an indication of the possibility of any conservaton legislation that will conserve being permitted to "get by" the Cannon machine...
...Mondell has served in the House more than ten years...
...Mondell when it is remembered that he is the Cannon-System management's chairman of the House Committee on Public Lands...
...In this position he speaks not as a mere Member of Congress but as the mouth-piece of the Cannon machine...
...These recommendations Mr, Mondell characterized as "the most revolutionary and startling proposition relating to federal control of local affairs, through the ownership of public lands, ever presented to Congress...
...Mondell declared, "Of course there is no authority of law for all these withdrawals of public land from appropriate entry, but as powerful government bureaus have willed it, and have built up a certain noisy and vociferous sentiment in favor of it, I suppose we should be thankful the case is no worse than it is...
...I would therefore advise that Congress be asked to enact a measure that will authorize the classification of all lands capable of being used for water power development, and to direct their disposal, through this department, under substantially the following conditions:—" Space does not here permit the presentation at length of the conditions proposed by the Secretary of the Interior...
...Frank W. Mondell, of Wyoming, delivered in the House of Representatives a speech on federal conservation of the water power resources of non-navigable streams in the public domain...
...Ballinger says it's up to Congress...
...Relating to public lands, it must pass through Mondell's committee...
...This is a plain hint, at least, that, unless Congress at an early date enacts the anticipated "new legislation," in the judgment of the Secretary the government will be bound to restore the reserved power sites to entry and appropriation...
...He criticized the withdrawal from private entry of public lands available for power sites, although the lands now withdrawn equal in area only about one-sixth of the lands so withdrawn by the preceeding administration...
...The fate of conservation and the fate of all progressive legislation in derogation of special interests was settled by those votes...
...So we look to Congress...
...The whole proposition he denounced as an invasion of the rights of states to control their own local affairs and a denial to the public land states of "that 'equal footing' with the other states of the Union guaranteed them by their organic laws...
...Mondell's speech was against such conservation—most emphatically against it...
...And when, in addition to those possibilities of water power development, we look to the inexhaustible store of coal and oil in these Western States and Territories the phantom of a water power monopoly becomes indescribably grotesque and ridiculous...
...He continued faithful to the machine through the tariff session and, in the reorganization of the House committees last August, he was again rewarded by cannon with a re-appointment to the chairmanship of that committee...
...In the House of Representatives, as at present organized, legislation to be passed must receive the approval of the Cannon-System management...
...With respect to the withdrawals the Secretary said: "In anticipation of new legislation by Congress to prevent the acquisition of power sites on the public domain by private persons or corporations with the view of monopolizing or adversely controlling them against the public interest, there have been temporarilly withdrawn from all forms of entry approximately 603,355 acres, covering all locations known to possess power possibilities on unappropriated lands outside of national forests...
...There, under the Cannon domination, the rule of the System is as absolute as it is arrogant...
...Failure to conserve the public resources is justified by the declaration that no laws exist authorizing and requiring their conservation...
...Without such withdrawals these sites would be enterable under existing laws, and their patenting would leave the general government powerless to impose any limitations as to their use...
...Some special importance attaches to this speech of Mr...
...Conservation legislation in the public interests and opposed by private interests, if we may judge by Mondell's speech, seeking passage through a committee controlled by Mondell supported by Cannon, would be like a camel seeking passage through the eye of a needle...
...If your Congressman, by voting for Cannon and the Rules aided and abetted in placing in the power of the Cannon machine the defeat of legislation in your interest,—in the public interest,—it is your patriotic duty as far as in your power lies, to make sure that your Congressman is made to feel at the coming primaries and elections the gravity of the responsibility which he then assumed...
...For that rule and for its power to veto legislation demanded in the public interest every Member of Congress who voted at the" opening of the last session of Congress for the election of Speaker Cannon and for the adoption of the Cannon rules shares the responsibility...
...Whereupon the clacquers of the Cannon machine applauded...
...At this time, when the need for the conservation of natural resources is being universally recognized and when the fight for conservation is receiving the overwhelming support of the people everywhere, Mondell as chairman of the House committee on Public Lands becomes interesting as an example of the instruments of the Cannon-System organization for the control of the lower branch of the national legislature...
...In conclusion, Mr, Mondell declares that, even if the water power resources of the West were fully developed, "even then there would not be the thread of an argument for the proposed federal control: First, because under our system of government it is impossible because unconstitutional...
...The Secretary is quoted further in part as follows: "If the Federal Government desires to exercise control or supervision over water power development on the public domain, it can only do so by limitations imposed upon the disposal of power and reservoir sites upon the public lands, the waters of the streams being subject to state jurisdiction in their appropriation and beneficial use...
...His service there has been acceptable to the Interests...
...He called attention to the extent of the undeveloped water power, coal and oil resources of the country and of the Pacific Northwest, "the tremendous possibiliT ties of this region in which lurid magazine writers and alarmed 'conservationists' conjure up the phantom of a water power monopoly...
...Mondell proceeded to denounce the recommendations of the Secretary of the Interior...
...The attitude of Congress and of those who control Congress towards this needed legislation becomes all-important...
...The speech refers to the "agitation for the so-called 'conservation of power sites'" as "an enlightening example of the growing influence of certain government bureaus in the creation of a superficial public sentiment," * * Passing from his unsupported aspersions upon the Forest Service, Mr...
...The fate of conservation now is in the hands of the Cannon-System machine of which Mondell is spokesman...
...It must pass through a committee appointed by Cannon and dominated by a Cannon-appointed, System committee chairman...
...Legislation for the conservation of natural resources must, in the main, be predicated upon the right of the federal government to control its public domain...
...This is the cry and the defense of the present administration, of the Interior Department...
...Mondell ascribes the origin of this movement to the efforts of the federal Forest Service to conserve water powers in national forest reserves...
...The case now is up to Congress...
...The recommendations of the Secretary of the Interior on power sites are quoted at length...
...Last congress he became chairman of the important House Committee on Public Lands...
...He has received recognition and prombtion accordingly...
...As though the contest for the conservation of water power for the public good were merely a movement to aggrandize bureaucratic power...
...This bold announcement of the Cannon-System chairman of the House Committee on Public Lands transfers to the House of Representatives the fight on the Roosevelt policies of conservation of natural resources...
...Conservation requires legislation...
...The proposal that the government retain title to its power -sites, granting only an easement for their use, Mondell decries as "permanent federal landlordism"—"a startling suggestion...
...They are the recommendations of a Secretary of the Interior whose conduct of his office with reference to conservation has caused him to be regarded by conservative leaders and the public generally as an extreme conservative, if not a reactionary, and a strict constructionist of the most narrow persuasion...
...It matters little now whether his recommendations are progressive or reactionary, whether they sound good or ill...
...It is plain that he does not like the Forest Service...
Vol. 2 • January 1910 • No. 1
