really only a tribute to the efficiency of our action."

The development of a sound and enlightened forest policy
naturally led to the consideration of a similar policy for
dealing with the water power of the country which had hitherto
gone to waste or was in the hands of private interests. It had
been the immemorial custom that the water powers on the navigable
streams, on the public domain, and in the National Forests should
be given away for nothing, and practically without question, to
the first comer. This ancient custom ran right athwart the newly
enunciated principle that public property should not pass into
private possession without being paid for, and that permanent
grants, except for home-making, should not be made. The Forest
Service now began to apply this principle to the water powers in
the National Forests, granting permission for the development and
use of such power for limited periods only and requiring payment
for the privilege. This was the beginning of a general water
power policy which, in the course of time, commended itself to
public approval; but it was long before it ceased to be opposed
by the private interests that wanted these rich resources for
their own undisputed use.

Out of the forest movement grew the conservation movement in its
broader sense. In the fall of 1907 Roosevelt made a trip down the
Mississippi River with the definite purpose of drawing general
attention to the subject of the development of the national
inland waterways. Seven months before, he had established the
Inland Waterways Commission and had directed it to "consider the
relations of the streams to the use of all the great permanent
natural resources and their conservation for the making and