To build a great dam on a tempestuous river like the Snake was terrifically exhilarating work; enforcing a hodgepodge of social ideals was hardly that. Stopping a wild river was a straightforward job, subjugable to logic, and the result was concrete, heroic, real: a dam. Enforcing repayment obligations and worrying about speculators and excess landowners was a cumbersome, troublesome, time-consuming nuisance—a nuisance without reward.