This practice, which has since become general, was first applied in the National Forests.

Enormous areas of valuable public timberland were thereby saved from fraudulent acquisition; more than 250,000 acres were thus saved in a single case.
This theory of stewardship in the interest of the public was well illustrated by the establishment of a water-power policy.

Until the Forest Service changed the plan, water-powers on the navigable streams, on the public domain, and in the National Forests were given away for nothing, and substantially without question, to whoever asked for them.
At last, under the principle that public property should be paid for and should not be permanently granted away when such permanent grant is avoidable, the Forest Service established the policy of regulating the use of power in the National Forests in the public interest and making a charge for value received.

This was the beginning of the water-power policy now substantially accepted by the public, and doubtless soon to be enacted into law.

But there was at the outset violent opposition to it on the part of the water-power companies, and such representatives of their views in Congress as Messrs.