re appear
to be enlarging the field of their ownership. This policy has its
roots far in the past. Some industries grow out of the political needs
of government. Established as a means of communication with military
outposts, the post became a convenient means of communication
for merchants and other citizens and grew into a great economic
institution. In most countries the telegraph is publicly owned and
has been annexed to the post, to which it is very closely related in
purpose. National ownership of railroads is the rule, and our policy
of private ownership the great exception in the world to-day.
Many persons, even some in railroad circles, believe that national
ownership of railroads is sure to develop out of our present policy of
regulation.

The national improvements connected with rivers and harbors were first
political--that is, they were for the use of the government's navy;
they became, secondly, commercial--for the free use of all citizens
engaged in trade; and they continue to unite these two characters.
Forestry is most largely undertaken in this country by the national
government, partly because some forest areas in the West extend over
state boundaries, and largely because large tracts of public forest
lands were still unsold at the time public attention was attracted
to the subject. Since 1890, the policy of reserving great areas for
forests, and picturesque districts for national parks, has developed
greatly in the United States. The national forest area contained
in the various forests in 20 states (not including Alaska and Porto
Rico), now covers about 225,000 square miles, equal in area to five
states of the size of Pennsylvania. There are, besides, fourteen large
national parks, ranging in size from a few hundred acres up to over
2,140,000 acres (the area of the Yellowstone National Park), and
aggregating 4,600,000 acres, nearly the size of Massachusetts or of
New Jersey, besides numerous other national reservations for monuments
and antiquities.

In some countries mines are thought to be peculiarly fitted for
national ownership and control. In the German Empire the several
states own coal, salt, and other mines. Coinage and banking are
everywhere looked upon as functions of sovereignty, and yet it is no
more necessary for a nation to own its own mint in order to control
the monetary system than for it to print the banknotes in order to
regulate their issue. The American government has its own