River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1907-06-13
THE PRESIDENT To EDITORS
Roosevelt Delivers a Notable Address
at jamestown, Va.
Speaks Before the Delegates to the National
Editorial Associations Touches Upon
Important National Questions.

jamestown, va.-TTiile roriowing is the
address of President Roosevelt before
the National Editorial association at the
exposition here:
1t IS OF course mere truiSm to say that
no other body of our eountrymen WELD as
extensive an influence as those who write
for the daily press and for the perodi-
Gals. 1t is also a truism to say that
such power implies the gravest respon-
S1b1lity, and the man exercising it should
hold himself accountable. and should be
held by others accountable, precisely as
ii he occupied any other position of pub
lie trust. / do not intend to dwell upon
your duties to-day, save that l shall
permit myself to point out one matter
where it seems to me that the need of
our people is vital. 1t is essential that
the man in public life and the man who
writes in the public press shall both of
them, II they are really good servants
of the people, be prompt to aSSail wrong
doing and wickedness. But in thus assail-
ing wrongdoing and wickedness, there
are two conditions to be fulfilled, because
If unfulfilled, harm and not good will
result In the first place. be sure of
your facts and avoid everything like
hySterla or eXaggeration; for to aSSail
decent man for something of which he
is innocent is to give aid and comfort to
every scoundrel, while indulgence in hys-
terical eXaggeration serves to weaken,
not strengthen, the statement of truth
In the second place, be sure that you
base your judgment on conduct and not
on the social or economic position of the
individual with whom you are dealing.
So much for what l have to say to
you in your capacity of molders and
guides of public thought. In addition
l want to speak to you on two great
movements in our public life which
feel must necessarily occupy no incon-
siderable part of the time of our public
men in the near future. One of these is
the question Of in certain ways, re-
shaping our system of taxation so as to
make it bear most heavily on those most
capable of supporting the strain The
other is the question of utilizing the
natural resources of the nation in the
way that will be of most benefit to the
nation as a whole.
Need of Foresight.
In utilizing and conserving the natural
resources of the nation the one charac>
teriStic more essential than any other is
foresight. Unfortunately, foresight is
not usually characteristic of young and
vigorous people, and it is obviously not
a marked characteristic of us in the
United States. Yet assuredly it should be
the growing nation with future which
takes the long look ahead; and no other
nation is growing so rapidly as ours or
has future so full of promise. No other
nation enjoys so wonderful a measure of
present prosperity which can of right
be treated as an earnest of future sue
cess, and for no other are the rewards
of foresight so great, so certain, and so
easily foretold.
The conservation of our natural re-
sources and their proper use constitute
the fundamental problem which underlies
almost every other problem of our ma
TTr,1O 14@,.-, IL
quate material basis for our civilization,
we can not maintain the institutions in
which we take SO great and just pride;
and to waste and destroy our natural
resources means to undermine this ma
terial basis. During the last five years
efforts have been made in several new
directions in the government service to
get our people to look ahead, to exercise
foresight, and to substitute planned and
orderly development of our resources in
the place of a haphazard striving for
immediate profit. The effort has been
made through several agencies.
In 1902 the reclamation service began
to develop the larger opportunities of the
western half of our country for irriga-
ton. The work includes all the states
from the great plains through the Rocky
mountains to the Pacific slope. 1t has
been conducted with the clear and def
mite purpose of using the valuable water
resources of the public land for the
greatest good for the greatest number in
the long run; in other words, for the
purpose of putting upon the land perma-
nent home makers who will use and
develop it for themselves and for their
children and childrenS children. There
has been opposition, of course, to this
work of the reclamation service; for we
have been obliged to antagonize certain
men whose interest it was to exhaust for
their own temporary personal profit nat
ural resources which ought to be devel-
oped through use, so as to be conserved
for the permanent common advantage of
the people as a whole. But there will be
no halt in the work of preserving the
waters which head in the Rocky noun
tain region so as to make them of most
use to the people as whole; for the
policy is essential to our national well
fare
Operations of Land Laws.
The public lands of the United States
should be utilized in similar fashion. Our
present public land laws were passed
when there was a vast surplus of vacant
public land. The chief desire was to
secure settlers thereon, and comparative
Iy Slight attention was paid as to exactly
how the lands were disposed of in de-
tail. In consequence, lax execution of
the laws became the rule both in the land
office and in the public mind, and land
frauds were common and little noted
This was especially true when a system
originally designed for the fertile and
well-watered regions of the middle west
was applied to the dryer regions of the
great plains and to the mountains and
the Pacific coast. In these regions the
system lent itself to fraud, and much
land passed out of the hands of the gov
eminent without passing into the hands
of the home maker. The department of
the interior and the department of justice
joined in prosecuting the offenders
against the law; but both the law and
it's administration were defective and
needed to be changed. Three years ago
a public lands commission was appoint