The Democratic administration won its fight for conservation and for western development against the bitter opposition of Wall Street and the special interests. You of the West see the results of our victory every day. But we still have a long way to go. We are still using our timber faster than we grow it. Thousands of acres of land are still being washed away every year.
Disastrous floods are still frequent.
The Republicans in Congress consistently tried to cut the ground from under our conservation program. The Democrats in the Senate led, and finally won, a fight to save the life of that program. They saved it, but they could not completely restore it. Here is a significant fact. Nineteen forty-seven was the first year in a decade and a half that the Republicans had control of Congress.