In his first message, also, President Roosevelt urged the transfer of all control over national forests to trained men in the Bureau of Forestry—­a recommendation carried out in 1907 when the Forestry Service was created.  In every direction noteworthy advances were made in the administration of the national domain.  The science of forestry was improved and knowledge of the subject spread among the people.  Lands in the national forest available for agriculture were opened to settlers.  Water power sites on the public domain were leased for a term of years to private companies instead of being sold outright.  The area of the national forests was enlarged from 43 million acres to 194 million acres by presidential proclamation—­more than 43 million acres being added in one year, 1907.  The men who turned sheep and cattle to graze on the public lands were compelled to pay a fair rental, much to their dissatisfaction.  Fire prevention work was undertaken in the forests on a large scale, reducing the appalling, annual destruction of timber.  Millions of acres of coal land, such as the government had been carelessly selling to mining companies at low figures, were withdrawn from sale and held until Congress was prepared to enact laws for the disposition of them in the public interest.  Prosecutions were instituted against men who had obtained public lands by fraud and vast tracts were recovered for the national domain.  An agitation was begun which bore fruit under the administrations of Taft and Wilson in laws reserving to the federal government the ownership of coal, water power, phosphates, and other natural resources while authorizing corporations to develop them under leases for a period of years.

=The Prosecution of the Trusts.=—­As an executive, President Roosevelt was also a distinct “personality.”  His discrimination between “good” and “bad” trusts led him to prosecute some of them with vigor.  On his initiative, the Northern Securities Company, formed to obtain control of certain great western railways, was dissolved by order of the Supreme Court.  Proceedings were instituted against the American Tobacco Company and the Standard Oil Company as monopolies in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust law.  The Sugar Trust was found guilty of cheating the New York customs house and some of the minor officers were sent to prison.  Frauds in the Post-office Department were uncovered and the offenders brought to book.  In fact hardly a week passed without stirring news of “wrong doers” and “malefactors” haled into federal courts.

=The Great Coal Strike.=—­The Roosevelt theory that the President could do anything for public welfare not forbidden by the Constitution and the laws was put to a severe test in 1902.  A strike of the anthracite coal miners, which started in the summer, ran late into the autumn.  Industries were paralyzed for the want of coal; cities were threatened with the appalling menace of a winter without heat.