Every stream is a unit from its source to its mouth, and the people have the same stake in the control of water power in one part of it as in another.

Under the Constitution, the United States exercises direct control over navigable streams.

It exercises control over non-navigable and source streams only through its ownership of the lands through which they pass, as the public domain and National Forests.

It is just as essential for the public welfare that the people should retain and exercise control of water-power monopoly on navigable as on non-navigable streams.

If the difficulties are greater, then the danger that the water powers may pass out of the people's hands on the lower navigable parts of the streams is greater than on the upper non-navigable parts, and it may be harder, but in no way less necessary, to prevent it.
It must be clear to any man who has followed the development of the Conservation idea that no other policy now before the American people is so thoroughly democratic in its essence and in its tendencies as the Conservation policy.