of 1906
such charges were for the first time made and collected. The trained
foresters of the service were put in charge of the National Forests. As
a result, improvement began to manifest itself in other ways. Within two
years the fire prevention work alone had completely justified the new
policy of forest regulation. Eighty-six per cent of the fires that did
occur in the National Forests were held down to an area of five acres or
less. The new service not only made rapid progress in saving the timber,
but it began to make money for the nation by selling the timber. In 1905
the sales of timber brought in $60,000; three years later the return was
$850,000.

The National Forests were trebled in size during the two Roosevelt
Administrations with the result that there were 194,000,000 acres of
publicly owned and administered forest lands when Roosevelt went out of
office. The inclusion of these lands in the National Forests, where they
were safe from the selfish exploitation of greedy private interests,
was not accomplished without the bitterest opposition. The wisdom of the
serpent sometimes had to be called into play to circumvent the adroit
maneuvering of these interests and their servants in Congress. In 1907,
for example, Senator Charles W. Fulton of Oregon obtained an amendment
to the Agricultural Appropriation Bill forbidding the President to set
aside any additional National Forests in six Northwestern States.. But
the President and the Forest Service were ready for this bold attempt
to deprive the public of some 16,000,000 acres for the benefit of land
grabbers and special interests. They knew exactly what lands ought to
be set aside in those States. So the President first unostentatiously
signed the necessary proclamations to erect those lands into National
Forests, and then quietly approved the Agricultural Bill. "The opponents
of the Forest Service," said Roosevelt, "turned handsprings in their
wrath; and dire were their threats against the Executive; but the
threats could not be carried out, and were really only a tribute to the
efficiency of our action."

The development of a sound and enlightened forest policy naturally led
to the consideration of a similar policy for dealing with the water
power of the country which had hitherto gone to waste or was in the
hands of private interests. It had been the immemorial custom that the
water powers on the navigable streams, on the public domain, and in
the Nationa