The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-05-16
}. HILL AND The GOVERNORS.

By far the greatest figure in the
Washington conference Of governors
and prominent men called to discuss
the conservation of national resources
is James J. Hill, whose address was the
feature of the whole occasion. Prac-
railroad operations. he is yet a vision
airy of the type that sees visions and
makes them come true. Contradictory
as il may seem. Mr.. Hill is perhaps the
most notable idealist in a nation sup
posedly devoted To commercialism and
the accumulation of money: but his
idealism is of the sort that achieves as
we'll as dreams. that combines in per-
feet proportions a knowledge of what
should be done with a perception of
what is attainable.
These characteristics are illustrated
in the address he made before the gov
ernors. He pointed out the enormous
waste of national assets. the desuuc-
ton of the forests, the rapid disappear
anee of the coal and iron reserves, AMI
the still more dangerous exhaustion of
the soil from single cropping and lack
of renewal by fertilization. Having de-
scTibed the waste in terms that must
have carried conviction everywhere, he
proceeded TO show the breadth of the
statesman in him by pointing out the
danger that with the approaching ex-
haustiOn of their wealth and the pros
peet of national po"erty the people
would tear down the national edihce in
wrath.
Not since written history began its
chronicles has there been such an ex-
ample OF waste run riot as this nation
has shown. In the haste to make
money. ignoring all the laws Of econ
omy, the land has been depleted, for
ests have been denuded OF vegetation
and empires laid waste with reckless
disregard OF the future race. In the
south whole states have been impov-
erished by continuous cropping On cot
ton and tobacco until parts of them are
practically abandoned because the land
is worthless. New England lost most
of its agricultural population because
the soil was worn out and the lands of
the west promised greater returns. The
middle west is going through the same
experience. though it has begun 10
learn the necessity for diversified crops
and fertilization. The north and south
have both exhausted almost all of their
tremendous wealth in timber by ex-
travagant methods Of numbering with
out any reforestation. The mountain
states and the immense timber area of
the Pacific coast is rapidly suffering the
same fate.
From its inception the nation has
been acting as foolishly as an individ-
usl who squanders his capital without
attempting 10 replace il or provide for
the day when it would be gone. II has
not been many years since such a dis
cussion as Mr.. Hill led in Washington
would have been derided by practical
people as a piece of rainbow chasing:
today ii is the most important problem
that cOnfronts the people, because il
involves the very life Of the nation,
material and political II the conven-
ton Of governors. served no other pur-
pose. it would have accomplished great
good by the attention it has aroused and
by the sentiment it must create in be-
half of a rational organized movement
10 protect the forests, replace those
that have been wiped out. am by the
impetus it must give to the scientific
salvation of agriculture by the proper
conservation of the soil