The Hays free press., 1922-09-28
THE ROMANCE OF AMERICAN
INDUSTRY

High says to the prophet: ''I have
created the waster to destroy" The
phrase has surprised many, yet
nothing is more certain than that de-
struction or seeming destruction is
part of constructiveness. A child may
be frightened at the sight of the
branches Topped from a tree, or at the
fire that sweeps over a field, yet the
tree gains in strength and beauty and
the meadow bears more grass after
the flames have consumed the dead
stalks. On coast after coast the bat
tering waves have strengthened the
shore. The burning sun, if it has kill
ed certain forms of vegetation, and
driven some creatures from the torrid
zone, has built up fora and fauna
that seemingly thrive under the glare.
So has the Arctic cold nourished what
it did not destroy-one is hardly sat
isfed with saying that the enduring
types survive, they flourish, as the
gulls enjoy their plunges in icy water.
In the rush of rivers and in the wan
derings of winds is evidence that
wasting means new life-perhaps
seed is blown thousand miles from
its native home to rest in new soil.
Each autumn the myriad millions of
leaves would appear to be wasted did
not the spring prove that they were
part of the endless preparation.
A Fear Justified
Probably every Indian war we have
had since the white race landed on
this continent was largely due to the
fear of the red man that the pale
face would drive away the game, and
the fear was justified. When farms
arose and villages arose near them
the bear fell back into the woods and
the deer sought a hiding place. But
it took a square mile of woodland to
support one Indian family and small
part of that will suffice for pioneer
and his household. A grain-raising
nation may have far more meat than
a rowing tribe. The ground will sup
port cattle, swine, poultry and the
vanished creatures did not take away
all hope when they fed.
Among the civilized races there
have been numerous disputes. The
iron manufacturers even so late as
the seventeenth century, were often
opposed by those who dreaded that
this growing industry would destroy
all the forests, and there is no doubt
that a great deal of wood was needed
to feed the fires. Every new industry
for a long time had to contend with
superstition and sometimes with what
we may call common sense within mar
row limits. If an old tree fell, there
was a fear that all the trees would be
sacrificed. If workmen sank shaft
there was a confused notion that all
the country would be undermined.
Factories might send up so much
smoke as to kill vegetation, and the
dread that the locomotives would
blacken the fleece of all the sheep in
England Nor should we laugh at
these critics without rejecting that
man has been frightfully wasteful of
resources and that Conservation" is
a familiar word in every newspaper
office and in every schoolhouse.
However in some way wasting has
always been in process. No one could
make his way through a snow heap or
break ice to catch fish or split wood
for the evening fire without apparent
waste. The first saw and plane were
used long ago, and before the marches
of Julius Caesar troops in need of an
Alpine path heated rock with stones
and then battered away at it with
iron that horses and even elephants
could descend. Sometimes blazing
wood softened or cracked the heated
rock and then would come a dash of
water with, if not an explosive, at
least a shattering effect. After the
Crusades, and after Columbus this
strange old-fashioned ''hre-setting'
continued and sometimes it enabled
workmen to score five feet per month
in headings.
What Job Says
Were there ancient explosives
that passed out of use and were for
gotten? Job says of the labors of the
miner: GAS for the earth, out of il
cometh bread, and under it is turned
up as it were fire" In those far of
days the description of the miners
work was: ''He putteth forth his
hand upon the rock; he overturneth
the mountain by its roots. He cutteth
out rivers among the rocks; and his
eye seeth every precious thing" II
any of US were to find a detailed &C
count of an engineer of fifteen or six
taar, cant11rias hafnra Christ shattar.