he arid West by irrigating lands otherwise
worthless, and thus creating new homes upon the land. The money so
appropriated was to be repaid to the Government by the settlers, and to
be used again as a revolving fund continuously available for the work.

The impatience of the Western people to see immediate results from the
Reclamation Act was so great that red tape was disregarded, and the work
was pushed forward at a rate previously unknown in Government affairs.
Later, as in almost all such cases, there followed the criticisms of
alleged illegality and haste which are so easy to make after results
have been accomplished and the need for the measures without which
nothing could have been done has gone by. These criticisms were in
character precisely the same as that made about the acquisition of
Panama, the settlement of the anthracite coal strike, the suits against
the big trusts, the stopping of the panic of 1907 by the action of the
Executive concerning the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company; and, in short,
about most of the best work done during my administration.

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. The final
proof of his merit is supplied by the character and records of the men
who later assailed him.

Although the gross expenditure und