Connecticut western news., 1908-05-14
LOOK ID OUR FUTURE
Conference Gathers to Discuss
 National Resources.
ADDRESSED BY PRESIDENT.
,He Points Out Waste of Past Years and Advocates Measures of Preserva- ton - Governors Join With Noted Men In Meeting.

and Advocates Measures of Preserva-
 tion - Governors Join With Noted
 Men In Meeting.
 Washington, May 13.-The confer ence called together by President Roosevelt to consider the conservation met in the White House and was ad- dressed by the president.
 The conferees include Chief Jus tice Fuller and Associate Justices liar Ian, Brewer, White McKenna, Holmes, Day and Moody of the supreme court, Secretary of the Interior Garfield, Secre- tary of Agriculture Wilson, Vice Presi- dent Fairbanks, Speaker Cannon, Sen ators Newlands and Bankhead, Repre- sentative Theodore E, Burton, Briga- dier General Mackenzie, F. H. Newell, Herbert Knox Smith, Clifford Pinchot and w. J. McGee of the inland water ways commission, William ]. Bryan, Andrew Carnegie, James J. Hill, for mer Governor George c. Pardee, John F. Hill, John Mitchell and governors of thirty-seven states and territories.
 President Roosevelt's Address.
 President Roosevelts address to the conference was in part as follows:
 Governors of the Several States and Gen
 tlemen: s.#
 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 occasion for the meeting lies in the fact that the natural resources of our country are In danger of exhaustion if we permit the old wasteful methods of ex- plotting them longer to continue.
 Since the days when the constitution was adopted steam and electricity have revolutionized the industrial world. Mo- where has the revolution been so great as in our own country. The discovery and utilization of mineral fuels and alloys have given us the lead over all other na- tons in the production of steel. The dis covery and utilization of coal and iron have given us our railways and have led to such industrial development as has never before been seen. The vast wealth of lumber in our forests, the riches of our soils and mines, the discovery of gold and mineral oils, combined with the efficiency of our transportation, have made the con- ditions of our life unparalleled in comfort and convenience. .... -.
 Timber Half Exhausted.
 This nation began with the belief that its landed possessions were illimitable and capable of supporting all the people who might care to make our country their home, but already the limit of unsettled land is in sight, and indeed but little land fitted for agriculture now remains unoc- cupied save what can be reclaimed by ir- rigation and drainage. We began with an unapproached heritage of forests: more than half of the timber is gone. We be- gan with coal fields more extensive than those of any other nation and with iron ores regarded as inexhaustible, and many experts now declare that the end of both iron and coal is In sight
 The mere increase in our consumption of coal during 1907 over 1906 exceeded the total consumption in 1876, the centennial year. The enormous stores of mineral oil and gas are largely gone. Our natural waterways are not gone, but they have been so injured by neglect and by the df- vision of responsibility and utter lack of system in dealing with them that there is less navigation on them now than there was fifty years ago. Finally, we began with soils of unexampled fertility, and we have so impoverished them by injudi- cious use and by failing to check erosion that their crop producing power Is dimin- ishing instead of increasing. In word, we have thoughtlessly and to large de- gree unnecessarily diminished the re- sources upon which not only our pros
 
 must always depend.
 The natural resources I have enumer- ated can be divided into two sharply dis tinguished classes accordingly as they are or are not capable of renewal Mines if used must necessarily be exhausted. The minerals do not and cannot renew them selves. Therefore in dealing with the coal, the oil, the gas. the iron, the metals gen. orally, all that we can do is to try to see that they afe wisely used. The exhaus- tion is certain to come in time.
 Resources That May Be Increased.
 The second class of resources consists of those which cannot only be used in such manner as to leave them undimin- ished for our children, but can actually be improved by wise use. The soil the forests, the waterways, come in this cate gory.
 Neither the primitive man nor the pio- neer was aware of any duty to posterity in dealing with the renewable resources. When the American settler felled the for ests he felt that there was plenty of for est left for the sons who came after him.
 Now all this is changed. On the aver age the son of the farmer of today must make his living on his fathers farm. There is no difficulty in doing this if the father will exercise 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 1t is unpardonable for the nation or the states to permit any further cutting of our tim Der save in accordance with a system which will provide that the next genera ton shall see the timber increased instead of diminished. Moreover, we can add enor- nous tracts of the most valuable possible agricultural land to the national domain by irrigation in the arid and semiarid re- gions and by drainage of great tracts of swamp land in the humid regions. We can enormously increase our transporta- ton facilities by the canalzation of our rivers so as to complete a great system of waterways on the Pacific, Atlantic and gulf coats and in the Mississippi valley, from the great plains to the Alleghanies and from the northern lakes to the mouth of the mighty Father of Waters. But all