The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1909-01-22

servatIon Of our resources Is the fun
damental question before this nation
and that our first and greatest task Is
to set our house in order and begin to
live within our means.
The first Of all considerations is the
permanent welfare of our people, and
true moral welfare, the highest form
of welfare, cannot permanently exist
save on firm and lasting foundation
Of material well being. In this re-
spect our situation Is far from salts
factory. After every possible allow
ance has been made and when every
hopeful indication has been given its
full weight the facts still give reason
for grave concern. It would be I'M
worthy Of our history and our intelli-
gence and disastrous to our future to
shut our eyes to these facts or attempt
to laugh them out Of court. The peo-
pie should and will rightly demand
that the great fundamental questions
shall be given attention by their repre-
sentatives. I do not advise hasty or
Ill considered action on disputed
points, but l do urge, where the facts
are known, where the public interest
is clear, that neither Indifference and
inertia nor adverse private interests
shall be allowed to stand In the way
of the public good.
Our Responsibility For the Future.
The great basic facts are already
we'll known. We know that our popu-
lation is now adding about one-f1fth to
its numbers in ten years and that by
the middle Of the present century per.
haps 100, OOO, 900 Americans and by its
end very many millions more must be
ted and clothed from the products Of
tur soil. With the steady growth In
population and the still more rapid IN
crease in consumption our people will
hereafter make greater and not less
demands per capita upon all the natu-
raj resources for their livelihood, COM
fort and convenience. 1t is high time
to realize that our responsibility to the
coming millions Is like that of parents
to their children and that in wasting
our resources we are wronging our de-
scendants.
We know now that our rivers can
and should be made 70 serve our peo-
pie effectively in transportation, but
that the vast expenditures for our wa
terways have not resulted in maintain
ing, much less in promoting, inland
navigation. Therefore let us take i'm
mediate steps to ascertain the reasons
and to prepare and adopt a compre-
hensive plan for inland waterway nav
igation that will result in giving the
people the benefits for which they have
paid, but which they have not yet re-
ceived. We know now that our forests
are fast disappearing, that less than
one-fifth Of them are being conserved
and that no good purpose can be met
by failing to provide the relatively
small sums needed for the protection,
use and improvement of all forests still
owned by the government and to enact
laws to check the wasteful destruction
Of the forests in private hands. There
are differences Of opinion as to many
public questions, but the American peo-
pie stand nearly as a unit for water
way development and for forest pro-
lection.
We know now that our mineral re-
sources, once exhausted, are gone for
ever and that the needless waste Of
them costs us hundreds of human lives
and nearly $500. 600, 900 a year. There
fore let us undertake without delay
the Investigations necessary before our
people will be I'm position through state
action or otherwise to put an end to
this huge loss and waste and conserve
both our mineral resources and the
lives Of the men who take them from
the earth.
I desire to make grateful acknowl-
edgment to the men both in and out Of
the government service who have pre-
pared the first inventory of our natu-
raj resources. They have made it pos
sible for this natisn to take great
step forward. Their work Is helping
US to see that the greatest questions
before US are not partisan questions,
but questions upon which men of all
parties and all shades Of opinion may
be united for the common good Among
such questions, on the material side,
the conservation Of natural resources
stands first. 1t Is the bottom round of
the ladder on our upward progress to-
ward a condition in which the nation
as a whole and its citizens as individu-
ais will set national efficiency and the
public welfare before personal profit.
+ Industrial Democracy In Danger.
The policy of conservation is per-
haps the most typical example Of the
general policies which this government
has made peculiarly its own during the
opening years Of the present century.
The function of our government is to
insure to all its citizens now and here
after their rights to life, liberty and
the pursuit Of happiness. II we Of this
generation destroy the resources from
which our children would otherwise
derive their livelihood we reduce the
capacity Of our land to support a popu-
iation and SO either degrade the stand
ard of living or deprive the coming
generations Of their right to life on
this continent. If we allow great in
dustrtal organizations to exercise I'M
regulated control Of the means Of pro-
duction and the necessaries of life we
deprive the Americans Of today and Of
the future Of industrial liberty, a right