The Roswell daily record. [volume] (Roswell, N.M.) 1903-current, 1909-12-27
SPECIAL INTERESTS TRYING
TO GRAB OUR RESOURCES

speech here today before a number
of prominent publishers at the Univ
ersity Club, that the special interests
have made repeated attacks on the
forestry service and that these at
tacks have increased in violence just
in proportion as the service has or
cred effective opposition to predatory
wealth.
The American people," said Mr..
Pinchot, have evidently made up
their minds that our natural resourc-
es must be conserved. That Is good,
but it settles only half the question
For whose benefit Snail they be con-
served,-for the benefit of the many
or for the use and profit of the few?
The great conflict now being fought
will decide. There is no other ques-
tioa before us that begins to be SO
important.-or that will be SO difficult
to straddle, as the great question be-
tween special interest and equal op-
portunity: between the privileges of
the few and the rights of the many,
between government by men for hui
man welfare and government by non-
ey for profit. between the men who
stand for the Roosevelt policies and
the men who stand against them. This
is the essence of the conservation
problem today.
The conservation issue Is a moral
issue. When a few men get possession
OF one of the necessaries of life, eth
er through ownership of a natural re-
source or through unfair business
methods, and use that control to ex-
tort undue profits, as In the recent
cases of the Sugar Trust and the beef
packers, they injure the average man
without good reason, and they are
guilty of moral wrong.
II believe in one form of govern
ment and | believe in the Golden
Rule. But we must face the truth that
monopoly of the sources of produc-
tion makes ii impossible for vast Nun
be-s of men and women to earn fair
living. Right here the conservation
question touches the daily life of the
great body of our people. who pay
the cost of special privilege. And the
price is heavy. That price may be the
cnance to save the boys from the sal
oons and the corner gang, and the
girls from worse, and to make good
citizens of them instead of bad; for
an appalling proportioo of the TRACE
dies of life spring directly from the
| lack of a little money. I rousands OF
daughters of the poor fell into the
hands of the white slave traders be-
cause their poverty leaves then with
out protection. Thousands of families.
as the Pittsburg survey has shown
me, lead lives of brutaliZilg over
! work in return for the barest living.
THE people of this country have
| lost vastly more than they can ever
regain by gifts of public property. for
ever and without charge. to men who
gave nothing in return. 1t Is true that
we have made superb material prog
| ress under this system, but II is not
well for us to rejoice too freely In
the slices the special interests, nave
given us from the great loaf of the
| property of all the people.
THE people OF the United States
| have been the complacent victims OF
a system of plunder often peri etrat-
| ed by men who would have beer sur
| of wrongdoing, and many of whom in
/ their private lives were model citi-
| zens. But they have suffered from a
curious moral perversion ~ which 1t
becomes praiseworthy to do for a cor
poration things which they would re-
| fuse with the loftiest scorn to do for
themselves. Fortunately for us all that
delusion is passing rapidly away.
1T is the honorable distinction OF
the Forest Service that it has been
more constantly. more violently. and
more bitterly attacked by the repre-
sentatives of the special interests in
recent years than any other Govern
ment Bureau. These attacks have in
creased In violence and bitterness
| Just in proportion as the service has
offered effective opposition to preda
| tory wealth. The more successful we
have been in preventing land grabbing
and the absorption of water power
| by the special interests, the more in
| genious, the more devious and the
more dangerous these attacks nave
\ become. A favorite one is to assert
that the forest service. in it's zeal fol
the public welfare. has played ducks
and brakes with the acts of Congress
The fast is, oa the contrary, that
the service has had warrant of Law
for everything II has done. Not once
since it was created mas any charge
of illegality, despite the most search
ing investigation and the bitterest at
tack, ever led to reversal or reproo
by either House of Congress or by an,
II Congressional Committee
Another, and unusually plausible
form of attack, fs to demand that 3i
land not now bearing trees shall b
thrown out of the National forests.
''SuIl another attack nearly sue
cessful two years ago, was an attemp
to prevent the Forest Service from
telling the people, through the press
that It is accomplishing for them, ant
how much this nation needs the for
ests.
"Since the Forest Service calles
public attention to the rapid absorp
tion Of the water power sites and tn,
threatening growth Of = great waite
power monopoly. the attacks upon =
have increases Nth marked rapid
~. anticipate that they win continu.
a - a.