t we translated the words into deeds; and when they found that
this was the case, many rich men, especially sheep owners, were stirred
to hostility, and they used the Congressmen they controlled to assault
us--getting most aid from certain demagogues, who were equally glad
improperly to denounce rich men in public and improperly to serve them
in private. The Forest Service established and enforced regulations
which favored the settler as against the large stock owner; required
that necessary reductions in the stock grazed on any National Forest
should bear first on the big man, before the few head of the small man,
upon which the living of his family depended, were reduced; and made
grazing in the National Forests a help, instead of a hindrance, to
permanent settlement. As a result, the small settlers and their families
became, on the whole, the best friends the Forest Service has; although
in places their ignorance was played on by demagogues to influence them
against the policy that was primarily for their own interest.

Another principle which led to the bitterest antagonism of all was
this--whoever (except a bona-fide settler) takes public property for
private profit should pay for what he gets. In the effort to apply
this principle, the Forest Service obtained a decision from the
Attorney-General that it was legal to make the men who grazed sheep and
cattle on the National Forests pay for what they got. Accordingly, in
the summer of 1906, for the first time, such a charge was made; and, in
the face of the bitterest opposition, it was collected.

Up to the time the National Forests were put under the charge of the
Forest Service, the Interior Department had made no effort to establish
public regulation and control of water powers. Upon the transfer, the
Service immediately began its fight to handle the power resources of the
National Forests so as to prevent speculation and monopoly and to yield
a fair return to the Government. On May 1, 1906, an Act was passed
granting the use of certain power sites in Southern California to the
Edison Electric Power Company, which Act, at the suggestion of the
Service, limited the period of the permit to forty years, and required
the payment of an annual rental by the company, the same conditions
which were thereafter adopted by the Service as the basis for all
permits for power development. Then began a vigorous fight against
the position of the Service by the water-power interes