ese facts before it, the Congress has refused to pass a law
to continue and provide for the commission; and it now passes a law with
the purpose of preventing the Executive from continuing the commission
at all. The Executive, therefore, must now either abandon the work and
reject the cooperation of the States, or else must continue the work
personally and through executive officers whom he may select for that
purpose."

The Chamber of Commerce of Spokane, Washington, a singularly energetic
and far-seeing organization, itself published the report which Congress
had thus discreditably refused to publish.

The work of the Bureau of Corporations, under Herbert Knox Smith,
formed an important part of the Conservation movement almost from the
beginning. Mr. Smith was a member of the Inland Waterways Commission and
of the National Conservation Commission and his Bureau prepared material
of importance for the reports of both. The investigation of standing
timber in the United States by the Bureau of Corporations furnished
for the first time a positive knowledge of the facts. Over nine hundred
counties in timbered regions were covered by the Bureau, and the work
took five years. The most important facts ascertained were that forty
years ago three-fourths of the standing timber in the United States
was publicly owned, while at the date of the report four-fifths of the
timber in the country was in private hands. The concentration of private
ownership had developed to such an amazing extent that about two hundred
holders owned nearly one-half of all privately owned timber in the
United States; and of this the three greatest holders, the Southern
Pacific Railway, the Northern Pacific Railway, and the Weyerhaeuser
Timber Company, held over ten per cent. Of this work, Mr. Smith says:

"It was important, indeed, to know the facts so that we could take
proper action toward saving the timber still left to the public. But of
far more importance was the light that this history (and the history
of our other resources) throws on the basic attitude, tradition and
governmental beliefs of the American people. The whole standpoint of
the people toward the proper aim of government, toward the relation of
property to the citizen, and the relation of property to the government,
were brought out first by this Conservation work."

The work of the Bureau of Corporations as to water power was equally
striking. In addition to bringing the concentrat