Another misconception is that the friends of conservation are trying to prevent the development of water power by private capital.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The friends of conservation were the first to call public attention to the enormous saving to the Nation which follows the substitution of the power of falling water, which is constantly renewed, for our coal, which can never be renewed.

They favor development by private capital and not by the Government, but they also favor attaching such reasonable conditions to the right to develop as will protect the public and control water-power monopoly in the public interest, while at the same time giving to enterprising capital its just and full reward.

They believe that to grant rights to water power in perpetuity is a wrongful mortgage of the welfare of our descendants, and to grant them without insisting on some return for value received is to rob ourselves.
I believe in dividends for the people as well as taxes.