New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1908-05-14

sonable foresight in dealing with our great nat
ural resources that would be shown by any pru-
dent man In conserving and wisely using the
property which contains the assurance or we'll
being for himself and his children
TWO CLASSES OF RESOURCES.
The natural resources 1 have enumerated can
be divided into sharply distinguished classes
accordingly as they are or are not capab or
renewal. Mines If used must necessarily be eX-
hausted The minerals do not and can not re-
new themselves. Therefore. in dealing with the
COAL the OIL the gas, the iron, the metals gen.
orally. all that can do Is to try to see that
they are wisely used The exhaustion Is GER
tain to come In time.
The second class of resources consists of those
which can not only be used in such manner as
to leave them undiminished for our children, but
can actually be improved by wise USE The soil,
the forests the waterways come in this cate
CORY. In dealing with mineral resources. man Is
able to improve on nature only by putting the
resources to beneficial use, which in the end
exhausts them; but in dealing with the SOIL ana
its products man can improve on nature by COM
polling the resources to renew and even recon-
struct themselves in such manner as to serve In
creasingly beneficial uses-while the living
waters can be SO controlled as to multiply their
benefits.
Neither the primitive man nor the pioneer was
aware of any duty to posterity in dealing with
the renewable resources. When the American
settler felled the forests he felt that there was
plenty of forest left for the sons who came after
him When he exhausted the soil of his farm
he felt that his could go West and take up
another So it with his immediate success
fields choked the neighboring river he thought
only of using the railway rather than boats for
moving his produce and supplies.
Now all this is changed. On the average the
son of the farmer of to-day must make his liv-
ing his fathers farm. There is no difficulty in
doing this IL the father will exercise wisdom.
No wise of farm exhausts its fertility. So
with the forests We are over the verge of
timber famine in this country. and it is unpar
donable for the nation or the states to permit
any further cutting of our timber save In accord
which provide
next generation shall the timber increased
instead Of diminished. Moreover, we can add
enormous tracts of the most valuable possible
agricultural land to the national domain by irri-
cation in the arid and semi-arid regions. and by
drainage of great tracts of swamp land in the
humid regions. We can enormously increase our
transportation facilities by the canaliZation Of
rivers to complete a great system of
waterways on the Pacific Atlantic and Gulf
coasts and in the Mississippi Valley, from the
Great Plains to the Alleghenies and from the
northern lakes to the mouth Of the mighty
Father Of Waters. But all these various uses of
our natural resources are so closely connected
that they should be Co-ordinated and should be
treated part of one coherent plan and not in
haphazard and piecemeal fashion.
It is largely because of this that I appointed
the Waterways Commission last year. and that
have sought to perpetuate its work. l wish to
take this opportunity to express in heartiest
fashion my acknowledgment to all the mem
bers Of the commission. At great personal sac
rifice of time and effort they have rendered a
service to the public for which we cannot be too
grateful. Especial credit is due to the initia-
tive the energy the devotion to duty and the
farsightedness of Clifford Pinchot. to whom We
much of the progress We have already
made IN handling this matter of the co-Ordina-
ton and conservation Of natural resources. If
II had not been for him this convention neither
would could have been called.
NATIONAL CONTROL. ESSENTIAL.
We coming to recognize never before
the right of the nation to guard its own future
in the essential matter of natural resources. In
the past have admitted the right of the in
dividual to injure the future of the Republic for
his own present profit. The time has come for
a change. AS people we have the right and
the duty, second to none other but the right
and duty OF obeying the moral law of requiring
and doing justice. to protect ourselves and our
children against the wasteful development OF
our natural resources, whether that waste Is
caused by the actual destruction OF such re-
sources by making them impossible Of develr
opment hereafter
ANY right thinking father earnestly desires
and strives to leave his both untarnished
name and reasonable equipment for the
struggle of life SO this nation as a whole
should earnestly desire and strive to leave to
the next generation the national honor un-
stained and the national resources unexhausted
There are signs that both the nation and the
states waking to a realization OF this great
truth. On March TO- 1908 the Supreme Court
of Maine rendered exceedingly important |
judicial decision. This opinion was rendered IN |