Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/323

Rh feasible and worthy of completion. The board has been appointed and soon will make its report.

Suggestions have been made that the United States ought to aid in the drainage of swamp lands belonging to the states or private owners, because, if drained, they would be exceedingly valuable for agriculture and contribute to the general welfare by extending the area of cultivation. I deprecate the agitation in favor of such legislation. It is inviting the general government into contribution from its treasury toward enterprises that should be conducted either by private capital or at the instance of the state. In these days there is a disposition to look too much to the federal government for everything. I am liberal in the construction of the constitution with reference to federal power; but I am firmly convinced that the only safe course for us to pursue is to hold fast to the limitations of the constitution and to regard as sacred the powers of the states. We have made wonderful progress and at the same time have preserved with judicial exactness the restrictions of the constitution. There is an easy way in which the constitution can be violated by congress without judicial inhibition, to wit, by appropriations from the national treasury for unconstitutional purposes. It will be a sorry day for this country if the time ever comes when our fundamental compact shall be habitually disregarded in this manner.

By mineral lands I mean those lands bearing metals, or what are called metalliferous minerals. The rules of ownership and disposition of these lands were first fixed by custom in the west, and then were embodied in the law, and they have worked, on the whole, so fairly and well that I do not think it is wise now to attempt to change or better them. The apex theory of tracing title to a lode has led to much litigation and dispute and ought not to have become the law, but it is so fixed and understood now that the benefit to be gained by a change is altogether outweighed by the inconvenience that would attend the introduction of a new system. So, too, the proposal for the government to lease such mineral lands and deposits and to impose royalties might have been in the beginning a good thing, but now that most of the mineral land has been otherwise disposed of it would be hardly worth while to assume the embarrassment of a radical change.

Nothing can be more important in the matter of conservation than the treatment of our forest lands. It was probably the ruthless destruction of forests in the older states that first called attention to a halt in the waste of our resources. This was recognized by congress by an act authorizing the executive to reserve from entry and set aside public