§ 10. State ownership of various kinds. The movement toward public ownership by the American states has been much less marked than that by the municipalities. Many of the states have retired from some fields where once they were engaged in industry. Students of American history know that between the years 1830 and 1840 some states engaged largely, even wildly, in canal-building, railroad construction, banking, and in other enterprises. The undertaking of these industries was determined often by political and by selfish local interests, and their operation often was wasteful. A few enterprises succeeded for a time, the most notable of these being the Erie Canal in New York, though this too became almost worthless as a result of railroad competition. The unsuccessful ones remained in the hands of the state or were sold to private companies, as in the case of the Pennsylvania Railroad. These reckless state enterprises were bitter lessons in public ownership, and continued for three quarters of a century to have such an effect on public opinion that few proposals for public ownership could have a fair hearing in America. But railroads and canals are publicly owned, and more or less successfully operated, by many foreign states, as in Prussia and other German states, in Switzerland, and in the new states of Australia, and this policy is rapidly extending to other countries and to varied industries.

There has been recently a greatly increased interest in forestry shown by the American states. This is especially likely to be a state enterprise wherever the forest tracts are entirely within the limits of the state, as in the case in New York with 2,000,000 acres and Pennsylvania with 1,000,000 acres of state forests. At present at least thirty-three states have forestry departments. Most of the forests in Germany are either communal or state-owned. The schools, a great industry for turning out a product of public utility, are largely conducted by the American state and by local units rather than by the nation or by private enterprise. The state encourages researches in the arts and sciences, and gives technical training. A variety of minor enterprises have been undertaken by states to supply salt, phosphate, banking facilities, even some manufactures. One after another the states are adopting the "state use" system of labor in the prisons and public institutions, engaging in agriculture and manufacturing on a large scale, and using the products, amounting to millions of dollars annually, almost entirely for public purposes.

§ 11. National ownership. The national governments everywhere 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, some in railroad circles, have long believed that national ownership of railroads is sure to develop out of our present policy of regulation; and this opinion is gaining ground, since the passage of the Transportation Act of 1920, even with many that deplore the prospect.

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 twenty states (not including Alaska and Porto Rico) now covers about 282,000, square miles, equal in area to six states of the size of Pennsylvania, with all of New Jersey, Delaware, and Rhode Island thrown in for good measure; or to all New England and the middle Atlantic states, plus Ohio, Indiana, and West Virginia. 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.

Fig. 1, Chapter 33.—National Forests of the U. S.

In some countries mines are thought to be peculiarly fitted for national ownership and control. In Germany 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 bank-notes in order to regulate their issue. The American government has its own printing-office. The fish commission, and the various branches of the department, cooperate with private industry in many ways. This brief survey suggests that the industries undertaken by government are both varied in nature and large in extent, although small in proportion to the mass of private industry.