Bismarck daily tribune., 1908-05-14
Sporting News
The steadily increasing drain on

The steadily increasing drain on
these natural resources has promoted |
to an extraordinary degree the COM
pleXity of our industrial and social
life Moreover, this unexampled de-
velopment has had determining eff
feet upon the character and opinions
of our people. The demand for eff.
cheney in the great task has given us
vigor, effectiveness, decision and pow
er, and a capacity for achievement
which in it's own lines has never yet
been matched.
Disregarding for the moment the
question of moral purpose, it is safe
to say that the prosperity of our peo-
pie depends directly on the energy
and intelligence with which our natu-
raj resources are used. 1t is equally
clear that these resources are in the
course of rapid exhaustion.
This nation began with the belief
that it's landed possessions were illim
liable and capable of supporting all
the people who might care to make
our country their home; but already
sight, and indeed but little land fitted
for agriculture now remains unoccu-
pied save what can be reclaimed by
irrigation and drainage. We began
with an unapproached heritage of for.
ests; more than half of this timber is
gone. We began with coal fields more
extensive than those of any other ma
tion 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 consump.
tion of coal during 1907 over 1906 ex-
ceeded the total consumption of 1876
the Centennial year. The enormous
stores of mineral oil and gas are
largely gone. Our natural waterways
injured by neglect and by the division
of responsibility and utter lack of sys.
tenn in dealing with them, that there
is less navigation on them now than
there was so years ago. Finally, we
began with soils of unexampled fer
tility and we have so impoverished
them by injudicious use and by failing
to check erosion that their crop pro-
ducing power is diminishing instead
OF increasing.
We have become great because of
the lavish use of our resources, and
we have just reason to be proud of our
growth. But the time has come to
inquire seriously what will happen
when our forests are 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 OBJ
structing navigation. These questions
do not relate only to the next century
or to the next generation. It is time
for us now as 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
property which contains the assurance
of well being for himself and his chill
4 dren.
The natural resources 1 have emu
merated can be divided into two
| sharply distinguished classes accord.
! 1ngly as they are or are not capable
| OF renewal. Mines if used must
necessarily be exhausted The min.
erals do not and can not renew them.
selves. Therefore, in dealing with the
coal, the Oil, the gas, the iron. the
metals generally, all that we can do is
to try to see that they are wisely
used. The exhaustion is certain to
come in time.
The second class of resources con-
slstS OF those which cannot only he
used in such manner as to leave them
undlmlnlshed for our children, but
can actually be improved by wise use
Inc soil, the forests, the WATERWAYS
come IN this category. In dealing
Win mineral resources man is able
TO improve on nature only by puttins
tne resources to beneficial use which
IN the end exhausts them; but in deal
ing with the soil and it's products mar
can improve on nature by compelling
; the resources to renew and even re
construct themselves in such MANN
as 10 serve increasingly beneficial use
while the living waters can be sc
controlled as to multiply their bene.
fits.
Neither the primitive man nor thu
pioneer was aware of any duty to pos
| tellty III ueallng with the renewable
resources. When the American set
tier felled the forests, he felt tha
there was plenty of forest left for the
sons who came after him. When he ex
hausted the soil of his farm he fell
that his son could go west and take
up another. So it was with his i'm
mediate successors. When the soil
wash from the farmers fields choket
the neighboring river he thought onl,
OF using the railway rather than boat.
for moving his produce and supplies
I Now all this is changed. On thu
average the son OF the farmer of toda,
must make his living on his fathers
farm. There is no difficulty in doine
: this If the father will exercise wis
dom. No wise use of a farm exhausts
, It's fertility. So with the forests. We
!. are over the verge of timber famin.
IN this country, and it is unpardon