Evening star., 1935-01-24
Text of Message
President Urges Harmonizing Of Human Efforts
With Nature in Utilizing National Resources
for Benefit of Every Family.

The text of the Presidents messag
o Congress on national resource
ollows:
To the Congress of the United
States:
During the three or four centuries
Of white men on the American
continent, we find a continuous
striving of civilization against
nature. II is only in recent years
that we have learned how greatly
by these processes We have harmed
nature and nature, in turn, has
harmed us.
We should not too largely blame
our ancestors, for they found such
teeming riches in woods and soil
and water-such abundance above
the earth and beneath it-such
freedom in the taking, that they
gave small heed to the results that
would follow the filing of their own
immediate needs. Most of them,
it is true. had come from many
peopled lands where necessity had
invoked the preserving OF the
bounhes of nature. But they had
come here for the obtaining Of a
greater freedom, and it was natural
that freedom Of conscience and
freedom of government should ex-
tend itself in their minds to the
unrestricted enjoyment of the free
use of land and water.
Furthermore, it is only within our
own generation that the develop
ment OF science, leaping forward,
has taught US where and how we
violated natures immutable laws
and where and how We can COM
mence to repair such havoc as man
has wrought.
In recent years little groups of
earnest men and women have told
us of this havoc, Of the cutting Of
our last stands Of virgin timber,
of the increasing floods, of the
washing away of millions of acres
of our top soils, of the lowering of
our water tables, of the dangers
of one-crop farming, of the deple-
ton of our minerals-in short, the
evils that we have brought upon
ourselves today and the even
greater evils that will attend our
children unless we act.
Such is the condition that at
tends the exploitation of our
natural resources if we continue
our planleSs course.
Human Consideration.
But another element enters in.
Men and nature must work hand
in hand. The throwing out of
balance of the resources of nature
throws out of balance also the lives
of men. We find millions of our
citizens stranded in village and on
farm-stranded there because ma
ture cannot support them in the
livelihood they had sought to gain
through her. We find other millions
gravitated to centers Of population
so vast that the laws of natural
economics have broken down.
If the misuse of natural resources
alone were concerned, we should
consider our problem only in terms
of land and water. It Is because
misuse extends to what men and
women are doing with their occu-
pations and to their many mistakes
in herding themselves together that
I have chosen, in addressing the
Congress, to use the broader term
national resources"
For the first time In our national
history we have made an inventory
of our national assets and the
problems relating to them. For
the first time we have drawn to-
gether the foresight of the various
planning agencies of the Federal
Government and suggested a
method and a policy for the future.
am sending you herewith the
report of the National Resources
Board, appointed by me on June 80,
1884, to prepare the comprehensive
survey which so many of us have
sought so long. I transmit also the
report made by the Mississippi
Valley Committee of the Public
Works Administration, which COM
mittee has also acted as the Water
Planning Committee In the larger
report.
These documents constitute a
remarkable foundation for what we
hope will be a permanent policy
of orderly development In every
part of the United States. 1t is
a large subject, but 1t is q great
and inspiring subject. May COM
mend to each and every one OF
you who constitute the Congress Of
the United States q careful read
ing of these reports.
In this inventory of our national
xasAn MA &QlloR AhG aaakoan a