heir
inventory, conservation, and wise utilization." Accordingly, on February
19, 1909, Robert Bacon, Secretary of State, addressed to forty-five
nations a letter of invitation "to send delegates to a conference to be
held at The Hague at such date to be found convenient, there to meet
and consult the like delegates of the other countries, with a view of
considering a general plan for an inventory of the natural resources
of the world and to devising a uniform scheme for the expression of
the results of such inventory, to the end that there may be a general
understanding and appreciation of the world's supply of the material
elements which underlie the development of civilization and the welfare
of the peoples of the earth." After I left the White House the project
lapsed.

Throughout the early part of my Administration the public land policy
was chiefly directed to the defense of the public lands against fraud
and theft. Secretary Hitchcock's efforts along this line resulted in
the Oregon land fraud cases, which led to the conviction of Senator
Mitchell, and which made Francis J. Heney known to the American people
as one of their best and most effective servants. These land fraud
prosecutions under Mr. Heney, together with the study of the public
lands which preceded the passage of the Reclamation Act in 1902, and
the investigation of land titles in the National Forests by the Forest
Service, all combined to create a clearer understanding of the need of
land law reform, and thus led to the appointment of the Public Lands
Commission. This Commission, appointed by me on October 22, 1903, was
directed to report to the President: "Upon the condition, operation, and
effect of the present land laws, and to recommend such changes as are
needed to effect the largest practicable disposition of the public lands
to actual settlers who will build permanent homes upon them, and to
secure in permanence the fullest and most effective use of the resources
of the public lands." It proceeded without loss of time to make a
personal study on the ground of public land problems throughout the
West, to confer with the Governors and other public men most concerned,
and to assemble the information concerning the public lands, the laws
and decisions which governed them, and the methods of defeating or
evading those laws, which was already in existence, but which remained
unformulated in the records of the General Land Office and in the mind
of