Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1908-05-21
PRESIDENT ROOSHHTS CONSERVATION SPEECH


Just as "any right-thinking father" en-
deayors TO lay foundation for the pro-
motion of the fortunes of his son, so
should this nation strive to build and save
for the next generation-this was the
keynote of President Roosevelt's address
at the opening of the conference on the
conservation of natural resources.
If the future is not wisely anticipated,
President Roosevelt believes. the country
as a whole will suffer greatly. Inasmuch
as it is now within the power of the gov
eminent and of the people to begin a sane
and sensible program of conservation, why
not do it? The President emphasized
these points strongly. He opened his
speech with word of welcome, and then
said in part:
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 weight
lest 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 exploiting them
longer to continue
1t ls almost impossible for US in this
day to realize how little our revolutionary
ancestors knew of the great store of natural
resources whose discovery and use have been
such vital factors in the growth and great
ness of this nation and how little they re-
quired to take from this store in order to
satisfy their needs.
Since then our knowledge and use Of the
resources of the present territory of the
United States have increased a hundredfold.
Indeed, the growth of this nation by
leaps and bounds makes one of the most
striking and important chapters in the his
tory Of the world.
Its growth has been due to the rapid
development, and alas! that it should be
said TO the rapid destruction, of our nat
ural resources.
Nature has supplied to US in the United
States, and still supplies to US, more kinds
OF resources in more lavish degree than
has ever been the case at any other time or
with any other people.
Our position in the world has been at
tanned by the extent and thoroughness of
the control we have achieved over nature
Dut we are more, and not less, dependent
upon what she furnishes than at any pre-
Vious time of history since the days OF
primitive man.
sources, which are our national resources
as well, is the great material question OF
to-day.
l have asked you to come together now
because the enormous consumption OF these
resources and the threat of imminent eX-
haustion of some of them. due to reckless
and Wasteful use, once more calls for COM
mon effort, common action.
Disregarding for the moment the ques-
ton of moral purpose, it is safe to say that
the prosperity of our people depends directly
on the energy and intelligence with which
our natural resources are used.
1t is equally clear that these resources are
the final basis of national power and per-
petuity. Finally, it is ominOusly evident
that these resources are in the course OF
rapid exhaustion.
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 unoccupied
save what can be reclaimed by irrigation
and drainage.
Timber Half Gone.
We began with an unapproached heritage
OF forests more than half of the timber
is gone.
We began with coal fields more extern
sive than those of any other nation and
with iron ores regarded 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 division 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 unex-
ampled fertility and we have so impover-
ished them by injudicious use and by failing
to check erosion that their crop reproducing
power Is diminishing instead of increasing.
We have become great because of the
loy iSb Of vyn hax
just reason to be proud of our growth.
But the time has come to inquire seri-
ously what. will happen when our forests
gone, when the coal. the iron, the oil,
and the gas are exhausted, when the soils
shall have been still further impoverished
and washed into the streams, pOlluting the
rivers, denuding the fields, and obstructing
navigation.
1t is time for now a nation to
exercise the same reasonable foresight in
dealing with our great natural resources
that would be shown by any prudent man
in conserving and widely using the prop
erty which contains the assurance of we'll
being for himself and his children.
Cannot Renew Minerals.
The natural resources I have enumerated
can be divided into two sharply distinguish
ed classes accordingly as they are or are
not capable of renewal.
Mines if used must necessarily be ey-
hausted. The minerals do not and cannot
renew themselves. Therefore in dealing with
the coal, the oil, the gas, the iron, the
metals generally, all that can do is 10
try to see that they are wisely used. The
exhaustion is certain 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 category.
In dealing with mineral resources, man
ting the resources TO a beneficial use which
in the end eXhaustS them; but in dealing
with the soil and its products man can
improve on nature by compelling the re-
sources to renew and even reconstruct them
selves in such manner as to serve increas-
ingly 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 deal
ing 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 son could go west and take
up another. So it was with his immediate
successors.
fields choked the neighboring river he
thought only of using the railway rather
than boats for moving his produce and sup
plies.
NOW all IuiS Is Ou the aver
age the son of the farmer of to-day must
make his living on his fathers farm.
There is no difficulty in doing this ii
the father will exercise wisdom. No wise
use of a farm exhausts its fertility. Sc
with the forests. We are over the verge
of timber famine in this country, and il
is objectionable for the nation or the States
to permit any further cutting of our tim
Der save in accor lance with a system which
will provide that the next generation shall
see the timber increased instead of dimin-
ished.
Value of Irrigation.
Moreover, we can add enormous tracts
of the most valuable possible agricultural
land to the national domain by irrigation in
the arid and semiarid regions and by drain
age of great tracts of swamp land in the
humid regions.
We can enormously increase our trans
portation facilities by the canalization OF
our rivers so as to complete a great sys
TEN of waterways on the Pacific, Atlantic
and gulf coasts and in the Mississippi Val
ley, from the great plains to the ALE
ghenieS, and from the northern lakes tO the