hey can make of it, it
must be developed with that idea clearly in mind. To develop a river for
navigation alone, or power alone, or irrigation alone, is often like
using a sheep for mutton, or a steer for beef, and throwing away the
leather and the wool. A river is a unit, but its uses are many, and with
our present knowledge there can be no excuse for sacrificing one use to
another if both can be subserved.

A progressive plan for the development of our waterways is essential.
Pending the completion of that plan, which should neither be weakened by
excessive haste nor drowned in excessive deliberation, work should
proceed at once on some of the greater projects which we know already
will be essential under any plan that may be devised. First and
foremost of these by unanimous consent is the improvement of the
Mississippi River. A comprehensive and progressive plan of the kind we
need can be made in one way only, and that is by a commission of the
best men in the United States appointed directly by the President of the
United States.

Such a plan must consider every use to which our rivers can be put, and
every means available for their control. It must deal with such great
questions as the relation of the States and the Nation in the
construction and control of the work, and with terminals and the
coordination of rail and river transportation. The engineering
difficulties may be larger than any we have yet solved. The adjustment
of opposite demands between conflicting interests and localities, and
other questions of large reach and often of great legal complexity will
tax the powers of the best men we have. No part of the work will require
greater temperance, wisdom, and foresight than certain questions of
policy and law.

I have observed in the course of some experience that difficulties
originating with the law are peculiarly apt to foster misconceptions. It
happens that the Forest Service has recently supplied a typical example.

Certain men and certain papers have said that the Forest Service has
gone beyond the law in carrying out its work. This assertion has been
repeated so persistently that there is danger that it may be believed.
The friends of conservation must not be led to think that before the
Forest Service can proceed legally with its present work all the hazards
and compromises of new legislation must be faced.

Fortunately, the charge of illegal action is absolutely false. The
Forest Service has