safety in the
use of couplers and brakes upon freight trains engaged in interstate
commerce. The chief difficulty in the way is to secure agreement
as to the best appliances, simplicity, effectiveness, and cost being
considered. This difficulty will only yield to legislation, which should
be based upon full inquiry and impartial tests. The purpose should be to
secure the cooperation of all well-disposed managers and owners; but the
fearful fact that every year's delay involves the sacrifice of 2,000
lives and the maiming of 20,000 young men should plead both with
Congress and the managers against any needless delay.

The subject of the conservation and equal distribution of the water
supply of the arid regions has had much attention from Congress, but has
not as yet been put upon a permanent and satisfactory basis. The urgency
of the subject does not grow out of any large present demand for the use
of these lands for agriculture, but out of the danger that the water
supply and the sites for the necessary catch basins may fall into the
hands of individuals or private corporations and be used to render
subservient the large areas dependent upon such supply. The owner of
the water is the owner of the lands, however the titles may run. All
unappropriated natural water sources and all necessary reservoir sites
should be held by the Government for the equal use at fair rates of the
homestead settlers who will eventually take up these lands. The United
States should not, in my opinion, undertake the construction of dams or
canals, but should limit its work to such surveys and observations as
will determine the water supply, both surface and subterranean, the
areas capable of irrigation, and the location and storage capacity
of reservoirs. This done, the use of the water and of the reservoir
sites might be granted to the respective States or Territories or to
individuals or associations upon the condition that the necessary
works should be constructed and the water furnished at fair rates
without discrimination, the rates to be subject to supervision by the
legislatures or by boards of water commissioners duly constituted. The
essential thing to be secured is the common and equal use at fair rates
of the accumulated water supply. It were almost better that these lands
should remain arid than that those who occupy them should become the
slaves of unrestrained monopolies controlling the one essential element
of land values and cr