water in running streams is the inalienable property of the whole people, and the system providing for its use by private parties is based on this principle.
So much for the power of the public to exercise its supreme control, when public exigency requires, over Nature's gifts in land and water. As an example of the supreme control of the public over the franchises which it grants, take the case of the railway again. It is well established that the public has the right through its legal representatives to regulate the management and operation of the railway in every detail; and not only that, but the rates which the railway may charge for its services as well. Many other examples might be given, for the necessities of the present decade have awakened men as never before to the facts which we have just discussed. The final conclusion must inevitably be that the public as the sole possible holder of the natural title to the gifts of Nature, while it may find it expedient to transfer this ownership to private owners, retains always supreme control, which may be exercised as the public exigency demands.