The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1908-05-15
CONSERVATION
OF RESOURCES
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT URGES
NECESSITY OF LEGISLATION.
10 STATES GOVERNORS

tion Depends on Saving Of the For
ests and Mines and Utilization o.
Inland Waterways.
Washington, May 1~3.-Presiden'
Roosevelt made the following speech
before the conference Of governors
assembled in Washington today:
Welcomed, by President.
= welcome you to this conference
at the white house. You have come
hither at my request so that we may
join together to consider the question
OF the conservation and use Of the
great fundamental sources Of wealth
of this nation. So vital is this ques.
ton, that for the first time in our his
tory the chief executive officers OF
the states separately, and Of the states
together forming the nation, have met
to consider it.
with the governors come men from
each state chosen for their special &C.
q%uaintance with the terms Of the prob
lem that is before us. Among them
are experts in natural resources and
representatives Of national organiza.
tons concerned in the development
and use Of these resources; the SEN
ators and representatives in congress,
the supreme court, the cabinet and the
inland waterways commission have
likewise been invited to the confer
ence, which is therefore national in a
peculiar sense.
Weightiest Problem Before Nation.
This conference on the conservation
OF natural resources is in effect a
meeting of the representatives of all
the people of the United States called
to consider the weightiest problem
now before the nation; and the occa-
sion for the meeting lies in the fact
that the natural resources of our
country are in danger Of exhaustion
il we permit the old wasteful methods
Of exploiting them longer to continue.
With the rise of peoples from saw
agery to civilization, and with the
consequent growth in the extent and
variety of the needs Of the average
man, there comes a steadily increas-
ing growth Of the amount demanded
by this average man from the actual
resources Of the country. Yet, rather
%curiously, at the same time the aver
age man is apt to lose his realization
Of this dependence upon nature.
Idea Of the Savage.
Savages, and very primitive people
generally, concern themselves only
with superficial natural resources;
with those which they obtain from
the actual surface of the ground. AS
peoples become a little less primitive,
their industries, although in a rude
manner, are extended to resources be.
low the surface; then. with what we
can civilization and the extension Of
knowledge, nor resources come into
use, industries are multiplied, and
foresight begins to become a neces-
sary and prominent factor in life.
Crops are cultivated, animals are do
INVESTIGATED and metals are mastered.
Every step of the progress of man
kind is marked by the discovery and
a Of natural resources previously
unused. Without such progressive
knowledge and utilization of natural
resources population could not grow,
NOR industries multiply, nor the hid
den wealth Of the earth be developed
for the benefit Of mankind.
industrial Progress Continuous.
From the first beginnings of civ.
ilization on the banks of the Nile and
the E%uphrates, the industrial progress
of the world has gone on slowly, with
occasional setbacks, but on the whole
steadily, through tens of centuries to
the present day. But of late the IA.
pidity of the process has increased at
such a rate that more space has been
actually covered during the century
ard a quarter occupied by our ma.
tional life than during the preceding
5000 years that take us back to the
earliest monuments Of Egypt, to the
earliest cities Of the Babylonian plain.
Condition at Foundation Of Republic.
When the founders of this nation
met at Independence hall in Philadel.
phia the conditions of commerce had
not fundamentally changed from what
they yer when the Phoenician keels
first furrowed the lonely waters OF
the Mediterranean. The differences
wer those of degree, not of kind, and
they were not In all cases even those
Of degree. Mining was carried on
fundamentally as it had been carried
on by the Pharaohs in the countries
adjacent to the Red sea-.
The wares of the merchant Of Bos
ton. Of Charleston, like the wares o,
the merchants OF Nineyeh and Sidon