The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1908-05-20
OBLIGATIONS 10 POSTERITY.
President Rooseyelfs Views on treat
ment of Nations Resources.

ANY rlgnI-LnlnKlngIa Iner earnestly
desires and strives to leave his son
both an untarnished name and a
reasonable equipment for the strug-
gle of life. So this nation as a
whole should earnestly desire and
strive to leave to the next genera
ton the national honor unstained
and the national resources unex-
hausted.
When the American settler felled
the forests, he felt that his son could |
go west and take up another. So it
was with his immediate successors
When the soil-wash from the far
mer's fields choked the neighboring
river he thought only of using the
railway rather than boats for NOV
ing his produce and supplies.
Now all this is changed. On the
average the son Of the farmer of to-
day must make his living on his
fathers farm. There is no difficulty
in doing this if the father will exer-
else wisdom. No wise use of farm
exhausts its fertility. So with the
forests. We are over the verge of
a timber famine in this country, and
it is objectionable for the nation or
the states to permit any further cut
of our timber save in accordance
with a system which will provide
that the next generation shall see
the increased instead of diminished.
Moreover, we can add enormous
tracts of the most valuable possible
agricultural land to the national
domain by irrigation in the arid and
semi-arid regions and by drainage
of great tracts of swamp land in the
humid regions. We can enormous
ly increase our transportation facll-
tiles by the canalization of our rivers
so as to complete a great system OF
waterways on the Pacific, Atlantic
and Gulf coasts and in the Mississip-
pi valley, from the great plains to
the Alleghanies and from the north
ern 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 as part OF one
! coherent plan and not in haphazard
: piecemeal fashion.
, It is largely because of this that
appointed the waterways commission
: last year and that I have sought te
: perpetuate its work. | wish to take
) this opportunity to express in heart
t lest fashion my acknowledgement t
: all the members of the commission
: At great personal sacrifice of TIM
and effort they have rendered ser
y vice to the public for which we can
q not be too grateful. Especial credl
is due to the initiative, the energy
W the devotion to duty and the far
sightedness of Clifford Pinchot, t
whom we owe so much of the pre-
4 gress we have already made in hand
IS ling this matter of the coordinate
ID and conservation of natural resoul
a. ces. If it had not been for him TIL
- convention neither would or coul
have been called.
= We are coming to recognize
never before the right OF the natlo
to guard its own future in the esser
ed tial matter of natural resources. |
IN the past we have admitted the rlgf
If of the individual to injure the futul
). of the republic for his own preser
: profit. The time has come Tor
d. change. AS people we have tt
en- right and the duty, second to nor
&C. other but the right and duty
Of obeying the moral law, Of requirln
.. and doing justice, to protect on
selves and our children against tt
re wasteful development of our ns
pie ural resources, whether that was
i'd, is caused by the actual destructl
Ter of such resources or by makll
oh them impossible of developme
hereafter.