The commercial consequences of river development are incalculable.  Its results cannot be measured by the yard-stick of present commercial needs.  River improvement means better conditions of transportation than we have now, but it means development too.  We cannot see this problem clearly and see it whole in the light of the past alone.

The actual problems of river development are not less worthy of our best attention than their commercial results.  Every river is a unit from its source to its mouth.  If it is to be given its highest usefulness to all the people, and serve them for all the uses they 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.