The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1914-06-20
Urges Rightful Conservation

DR.. Joseph A. Holmes, director of the United States bureau of
mines, believes that the continued prosperity of this country depends
gas and the other minerals, and that unchecked waste means poverty
and ruin to any country. This was the warning he handed out to the
members of the Natural Gas Association of America at the annual cMf
vention recently held at St. Louis.
The director of the bureau of mines, who believes that conserva-
ton OF these resources is one of the most important problems confront
ing the people OF the country today, said to the convention: i am not
interested in any way in that sort of conservation which looks toward
the locking up of the natural resources of the country for the future
when w need those resources ourselves during the present generation
1 think W e will all agree a a practical doctrine of conservation, that
while we have a right to use everything we need at the present time, we
have no right to waste unnecessarily what is the heritage OF generations
yet to come. 1t is hard, find, to get people to realize the importance OF
conserving our natural resources under this principle, especially in view
of the fact that we have a new, and to some extent, undeveloped coun-
try, but in talking with people from the older countries like Great
Britain where they have operated industries for a thousand years as
compared with III n hundred years, find that they realize what a
thousand years means and they realize how the resources which they are
now using at SO rapid a rate will, in a few hundred years, be practically
exhausted and that when those resources are exhausted it means almost
humiliation for any country situated as Great Britain is, and which is
Sc entirely dependent for its commercial success upon the development
of its various mineral resources with which it has been Sc generously
blessed. And when we realize the Importance of preventing waste OF
mineral resources, drawing Our information from the experience OF the
older countries, it makes us more serious in dealing with this important
problem in this country.
and industrial nation. In the earlier years of our history we were an
agricultural people, but when you look at Our production OF coal, which
is becoming more and more an index of the great industrial progress Of
the nation, it makes us realize pointedy the Importance of conserva-
ton in view of increased demand, for you will find that during the past
one hundred years-it was just about one hundred years ago that we
began to use coal in the United States-we have doubled our consump'
ton of coal every decade. In other words, from 1900 to 1910 we used
almost a much coal as we had used during the seventy-fve years pre-
ceding. When you say that o a man he is apt. to reply, of course that
cannot keep up indefinitely but why may not consumption of coal in
crease enormously? We used thirty years ago about one ton OF coal per
capita. During the past year we used nearly six tons of coal per capita
More and more we arc becoming a labor-savng country; more and
more we are becoming a manufacturing country; more and more we
are becoming a country OF transportation and Ill our industries depend
upon the utilization of our natural fuels.