Forests and foresters had nothing
whatever to do with each other. The National Forests in the West (then
called forest reserves) were wholly inadequate in area to meet the
purposes for which they were created, while the need for forest
protection in the East had not yet begun to enter the public mind.
Such was the condition of things when Newell and Pinchot called on me. I
was a warm believer in reclamation and in forestry, and, after listening
to my two guests, I asked them to prepare material on the subject for
me to use in my first message to Congress, of December 3, 1901. This
message laid the foundation for the development of irrigation and
forestry during the next seven and one-half years. It set forth the
new attitude toward the natural resources in the words: "The Forest
and water problems are perhaps the most vital internal problems of the
United States."
On the day the message was read, a committee of Western Senators and
Congressmen was organized to prepare a Reclamation Bill in accordance
with the recommendations. By far the most effective of the Senators
in drafting and pushing the bill, which became known by his name, was
Newlands. The draft of the bill was worked over by me and others at
several conferences and revised in important particulars; my active
interference was necessary to prevent it from being made unworkable by
an undue insistence upon States Rights, in accordance with the efforts
of Mr.
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