The method of public service involved in the appointment and the work of the two commissions just described was applied also in the establishment of four other commissions, each of which performed its task without salary or expense for its members, and wholly without cost to the Government.  The other four commissions were: 

Commission on Public Lands;

Commission on Inland Waterways;

Commission on Country Life; and

Commission on National Conservation.

All of these commissions were suggested to me by Gifford Pinchot, who served upon them all.  The work of the last four will be touched upon in connection with the chapter on Conservation.  These commissions by their reports and findings directly interfered with many place-holders who were doing inefficient work, and their reports and the action taken thereon by the Administration strengthened the hands of those administrative officers who in the various departments, and especially in the Secret Service, were proceeding against land thieves and other corrupt wrong-doers.  Moreover, the mere fact that they did efficient work for the public along lines new to veteran and cynical politicians of the old type created vehement hostility to them.  Senators like Mr. Hale and Congressmen like Mr. Tawney were especially bitter against these commissions; and towards the end of my term they were followed by the majority of their fellows in both houses, who had gradually been sundered from me by the open or covert hostility of the financial or Wall Street leaders, and of the newspaper editors and politicians who did their bidding in the interest of privilege.  These Senators and Congressmen asserted that they had a right to forbid the President profiting by the unpaid advice of disinterested experts.  Of course I declined to admit the existence of any such right, and continued the Commissions.  My successor acknowledged the right, upheld the view of the politicians in question, and abandoned the commissions, to the lasting detriment of the people as a whole.

One thing is worth pointing out:  During the seven and a half years of my Administration we greatly and usefully extended the sphere of Governmental action, and yet we reduced the burden of the taxpayers; for we reduced the interest-bearing debt by more than $90,000,000.  To achieve a marked increase in efficiency and at the same time an increase in economy is not an easy feat; but we performed it.

There was one ugly and very necessary task.  This was to discover and root out corruption wherever it was found in any of the departments.  The first essential was to make it clearly understood that no political or business or social influence of any kind would for one moment be even considered when the honesty of a public official was at issue.  It took a little time to get this fact thoroughly drilled into the heads both of the men within the service and of the political leaders without.  The feat was accomplished so thoroughly that every effort to interfere in any shape or way with the course of justice was abandoned definitely and for good.  Most, although not all, of the frauds occurred in connection with the Post-Office Department and the Land Office.