The Prescott daily news., 1909-01-22

SNNe Oll d III LII olt iootihS of material we'll being. In this re- spect our situation is far from satis- factory. After every possible allow ance has been made and when every hopeful indication has been given it's full weight the facts still give reason for grave concern. It would be un- worthy of our history and our tntelli- gence and disastrous to our future to shut our eyes to these facts or attempt to laugh them out of court The peo- ple should and will rightly demand that the great fundamental questions shall be given attention b: their repre- seutatives. I do not advise nasty or iii considered action on disputed points, but I 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 well known. We know that our popu- lation Is now adding about One-fifth to its numbers in ten years and that by the middle of the present century per haps 150,000,000 Americans and by its end very many millions more must be fed and clothed from the products of our soil. With the steady growth In population and the still more rapid h. crease in consumption our people will hereafter make greater and not less demands per capita upon all the natu- ral resources for their livelihood, com fort and convenience. It 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 to 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 bne-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 unit for water way development and for forest pro- tection.
 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 S300,0O0,O0O year. There fore let us undertake without delay the Investigations necessary before our people will be in 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.
 l 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- ral resources. They have made it pos sible for this nation 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. It is the bottom round of the ladder on our upward progress to- ward a condition in which the nation as a whole and it's citizens as individu- als 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 it's citizens now and here after their rights to life, liberty and
 the pursuit of happiness. If we of this generation destroy the resources from which our children would otherwise derive their livelihood we reduce the | n tx nf lo, tr