The Wenatchee daily world. [volume] (Wenatchee, Wash.) 1905-1971, 1910-08-23
MUST MAKE country
LIFE MORE AGREEABLE
Roosevelt Made First of Spe eches in His Tour to West
Addresses Farmers of Herkmer and Oneida Coun-
ties and Spoke Conservation of the Soil and the
Improvement of Country Life

at Summit Park, this city.
Theodore Roosevelt started thi
morning for journey of 5,493 mile:
which will extend over nearly three
weeks and in the course of which
he will travel through IA states
During the tour he will deliver Sc
speeches and many extempOraneOu:
| addresses from the rear platform o.
| his car.
The start was made at 1890 a
M, and the first days journey was
over the New York Central railroa
to Ithica, where Col. Roosevelt was
due at 4:30 p. m. Directly he went
by trolley car to Oriskany, Zine
miles from there, where he deliv'
cred an address to the farmers OF
Herkimer and Oneida counties.
He spoke as follows:
There are no two public ques-
tions of more vital Importance to
the future of this country than the
problem of conservation and the
problem of the betterment of public
life. Moreover, these two problems
are really interdependent for Meth
er of them can be successfully solved
save on condition that there is at
least a measurable success in the eff
fort to solve the other. In any great
country the prime physical asset
the physical asset more valuable
than any other-is the fertility OF
the soil All our industrial and
commercial welfare, all our mater
ial development of every kind, de-
ponds in the last resort upon our
preserving and increasing the fertil-
ity of the soil. This, of course,
means the conservation of the soil
as the great natural resource; and,
equally, of course, it furthermore
implies the development of country
life, for there cannot be a perma-
nent improvement of the soil if the
life of those who live on it, and
make their living out of it are suffer
ed to starve and languish, to become
stunted, and weakened and inferior
to the type of life lived elsewhere
We are now trying to preserve, not
for exploitation by individuals, but
for the permanent benefit Of the
whole people, the waters and the
forests, and We are doing this pri-
marily as a means Of adding to the
fertility of the soil; although in
each case there is a great secondary
use both of the water and of the
forests for commercial and industri-
al purposes. In the same way it is
essential for the farmers themselves
TO try to broaden the life of the man
who lives in the open country; TO
make it more attractive, to give 1t
every adjunct and aid to develop
ment which has been given to the
life of the man of the cities. There
fore, friends, the conservation and
rural life policies are really two
sides of the same policy; and down
at the bottom this policy rests upon
the fundamental law that neither
man nor nation can prosper unless,
in dealing with the present, he
steadily take thought for the future
City Should Not Drain Country.
I'm one sense this promlem with
which we have to deal is very, very
old. Wherever civilizations have
hitherto sprung up they have always
tended to go through certain stages
and then to fall. No nation can de-
velop a real civilization without
cities. Up to a certain point the
city movement is thoroughly
healthy; yet it is a strange and Ia
mentable fact that always hitherto
after this point has been reached,
the city has tended to develop at the
expense of the country by draining
the country of what is best in it, and
making an insignificant return for
this best. In consequence, in the
past. every civilization in its later
stages has tended really to witness
those conditions under which the
cities prosper and the men decay.
There are ugly signs that these ten
denotes are at work in this nation
of ours. But very fortunately we
see now what never before was seen
in any civilization-an aroused and
alert public interest in the problem,
a recognition of its gravity and a de-
sire to attempt it's solution.
THE problem does not consist
merely in the growth of the city.
Such a growth in itself is a good
thing and not a bad thing for the
country. The problem consists in
the growth of the city at the expense
of the country; and, even where this
is not the case, in so great an equal
ity of growth in power and interest
as to make the city more attractive
than the country, and therefore apt
to drain the country of the people
who ought to live therein.