Illustrations Page Frontispiece, Brightly the Star of Freedom Shines. Harnessed Floods Aid Fertile Farmlands. VI 21 The Secretary of the Interior HAROLD L. ICKES, Secretary Washington, D. C. MY DEAR MR. PRESIDENT: You will find in this annual report a graphic story of how the resources owned by 133 million people have been mobilized to deal with the crisis that our Nation faces. With the defense program making unprecedented calls for raw material, the work of the Department of the Interior for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1941, became infinitely more than conservation of natural resources for conservation's sake alone. To this great task was added the responsibility for the wise, but rapid development of our resources for preparedness and defense. The struggle abroad has opened our eyes, as never before, to the extent and the possibilities of America's resources. We have been enabled to turn to our natural heritage and in the wealth of minerals, water power, grazing lands, and timber find the vital necessities for constructing our physical defenses. In order that the Nation may fulfill its function as an arsenal of democracy, we have hastened the development of hydroelectric power in the West. We have never lost sight of more and greater power production as an inevitable objective for a progressive age, but with the quickened tempo of defense needs we have stepped up, by years, the schedules originally set for these great projects. To this, we can attribute the speed in construction work on 36 projects in 14 States. The initial production of power at Grand Coulee Dam was months ahead of schedule. The Bonneville Power Administration power sales alone made possible the manufacture of enough aluminum pig metal to build one out of every four planes. Other plants produced additional power as the mobilization of democracy made it possible for us to compress into mere months the construction and power-installation schedules of years. This same stimulus quickened the activities of bureaus throughout the Department. In another field, the Bureau of Mines, in cooperation with the Geological Survey, hastened its work of locating and evaluating deposits of strategic and critical minerals. The Bureau's studies indicate that we may, in an emergency, produce our own sup |