With the Reclamation work, as with much other work under me, the men
in charge were given to understand that they must get into the water if
they would learn to swim; and, furthermore, they learned to know that if
they acted honestly, and boldly and fearlessly accepted responsibility,
I would stand by them to the limit. In this, as in every other case, in
the end the boldness of the action fully justified itself.
Every item of the whole great plan of Reclamation now in effect was
undertaken between 1902 and 1906. By the spring of 1909 the work was an
assured success, and the Government had become fully committed to its
continuance. The work of Reclamation was at first under the United
States Geological Survey, of which Charles D. Walcott was at that time
Director. In the spring of 1908 the United States Reclamation Service
was established to carry it on, under the direction of Frederick
Hayes Newell, to whom the inception of the plan was due. Newell's
single-minded devotion to this great task, the constructive imagination
which enabled him to conceive it, and the executive power and high
character through which he and his assistant, Arthur P. Davis, built
up a model service--all these have made him a model servant.
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