East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1910-03-16

~. Iaul, MINI, MdTcn lb.-ln an
address today before the Minnesota
conservation convention. Secretary of
the Interior Ballinger gave his inter-
pretation of the national obligations
regarding the public domain and its
dosposi"nn. The speech according to
reports from Washington had the
personal o. X. of President Taft.
The greater portion of the burden
of conserving the natural resources
of the country were laid by Secretary
Ballnger at the doors of the states.
There has been, and is he said.
"a grossly exaggerated notion among
some people as to what the general
government can do in conserving the
natural resources that lie in the de-
posits of minerals and are contained
in the soils and streams. For the most
part they have passed into private
ownership and are under the muni-
cipal jurisdiction of the states.
ANY national conservation policy
must be predicated on the policy az
fecting the public domain, since for
the most part the states are sovereign
within their own spheres of jurisdic-
tion. Therefore, / believe a greater
.oblga ton rests upon the state than
upon the national government to in
augurate laws to prevent waste in the
utilization of natural resources"
The Governments Duty.
Referring to the duty of the nation
al government in this connection, he
regarded it as essential that the pub
lie domain be studied and surveyed
and an adequate scientific classfi-
cation of the remainder of the public
lands" be made.
He scored the "idealistic conserva-
tionists' heavily for tackling the prop
osition without sound knowledge
of conditions"
81 grant you some people are fol
the most part sincere, but their very
sincerity gives them such a vigor OF
imagination and prediction that it i:
oftentimes hard to combat their va
carries except through practical dem
| onstration.
Then, to give them their due,
he added, they have this virtue, tina
! they do not let US forget that ex
tremes often prove fruitful of sount
reason to those who may be over op
| timistic.'
Believes i'm Wise Conservation.
OF his own stand in the latter, Sec
retary Ballinger said:
81 am as ardent an advocate of wise
conservation as the most radical, bu
it must be wise conservation to appea
to me. 1t must simply be as full anC
free development of our natural re-
sources as is consistent with our civ
ilization and needs. 1t may mean the
reservation from use for limited pc
riods of certain of our deposits OF
! coal, of mineral oils and gas, of phos
| phate or of timber to protest agains
, the inordinate greed of men who wisf
to exploit the present with no re
gard for the future or the genera
welfare, and when 1t becomes neces
sary it is national duty to max,
such reservations out of public do
main
But we must not forget that W,
are not through with the policy o
development, of building up new com
munities and settlements. even in ia,
off Alaska.
We have not realized that perioC
where We can say the remainder o
our public lands shall be auctioneC
off to the highest bidder to increast
the revenues of the national treas
ury.
| Congress is now struggling will
the problems relating to water powe
and other measures designed to re
tain in the government the power o
control and supervision"