THE CONFERENCE PROPER 



19 



direction from the town, even to the moun- 

 tain slopes, had to be sacrificed to house 

 and shelter them. When comfortable homes 

 were established, the sickness and death rate 

 dropped to normal. Here, as with the rail- 

 roads, the end justified the means. Lead- 

 ville has made perrrtanent homes for thou- 

 sands of our citizens and has enriched the 

 country by hundreds of inillions of dollars. 

 It is one of the great productive mining 

 camps of the world to-day. It may be said 

 in passing that if we had had a law in force 

 at that time, similar to the laws of France, 

 requiring the planting of a tree for every 

 one cut down, the restoration of those beau- 

 tiful forests would be almost complete by 

 this time. 



The same wise and liberal policy was ex- 

 tended by our Government in the building 

 of homesteads,^ villages, and towns on agri- 

 cultural lands, and in the development of 

 coal and iron mines. The rapid growth and 

 development of our country was in a great 

 measure due to the encouragement and as- 

 sistance extended to infant industries by our 

 National Government. 



We are apt to bewail the great consump- 

 tion of natural resources, forgetting the mag- 

 nificent permanent assets which we have to 

 show for it. Trees have been put to better 

 use in sheltering human life; coal and iron 

 has been used in "changing our land from 

 desert conditions to teeming industrial and 

 educational activities. Nor should we forget 

 the sturdy pioneers of our civilization and 

 the dangers and difficulties that they had to 

 meet and surmount. 



Now, however, the time has come to call 

 a halt on lavish prodigality in giving away 

 the people's inheritance. The time has come 

 to stop giving away the public domain, and 

 to devise ways and means to husband our 

 resources. To this end there are two courses 

 to be pursued : one is arrestation, the other 

 development. These should go hand in 

 hand, for one helps the other. By arrestation 

 I mean the stopping of the terrible wastes 

 that are going on in the mining and using 

 of mineral fuels, and to some extent in other 

 materials. 



To preserve public lands for agricultural 

 purposes, for actual settlers, we must stop 

 the awful destruction of forests by fires, and 

 prevent the acquisition of vast tracts by 

 greedy corporations and individuals. 



The other course, which I believe we 

 should pursue, is that of development. De- 

 velopment is the greatest of all conservers. 

 It creates and brings new wealth into 

 activity. 



The reclamation of the desert wastes, the 

 drainage of miasmatic swamps, and the 

 utilizing of their stored fertility for the 

 support of human life in comfortable inde- 

 pendence, are among the highest and best 

 forms of conservation. 



Development creates wealth, and wealth 

 distributed to the widest possible extent and 



wisely used by its possessor, is of the great- 

 est of blessings to a nation. 



This development should be carried on by 

 the Government whenever this can judi- 

 ciously be done. Individuals and corpora- 

 tions should receive encouragement and fair 

 treatment from both the Government and 

 people. Although much has been accom- 

 plished in the past, there is much, very much, 

 to be done in the years to come to keep up 

 our established rate of progress, and to meet 

 the pressing needs of our rapidly growing 

 population. 



Well directed development will put all of 

 our idle powers to work. It will utilize wa- 

 ters that are now going to was<e, and dis- 

 cover and bring new means to light for 

 saving in the consumption of and the hus- 

 banding of our resources. If electricity and 

 heat could be drawn from nature's store- 

 house; if the air we breathe, one of the 

 greatest forces, and one of the most pliant, 

 ductile, and efficient for all the uses of man, 

 could be compressed by and through itself 

 with compensating results — in a word, if 

 nature's materials could be used without 

 waste, these natural blessing would be useful 

 to man in many ways undreamed of until 

 the end of time. 



In the sphere of mining there is much that 

 development can accomplished which will 

 lead to conservation. It is only recently that 

 the world has awakened to the facts about 

 the rarer minerals. What little we know of 

 radium leads us to believe that it possesses 

 perpetuality of power, light, and heat. To 

 what extent the production of this miracu- 

 lous mineral may aid in this conservation is 

 a fascinating field of speculation. The ore, 

 by the way, from which this mineral was 

 first extracted by Madam Curee came from 

 a mine in Colorado, yet no atom of it has 

 ever been produced in this country. The 

 uranium ore that has been, and is now, pro- 

 duced from this same mine is all shipped to 

 Germany. 



Vanadium is another of the rare minerals, 

 the development of which will accomplish a 

 wonderful conservation. It is the greatest 

 alloy ever found for the making of steel. Its 

 use will prolong the life of steel to many 

 times what it is now. Here again, because 

 of apathy, ignorance, and the lack of a Gov- 

 ernmental institution of guidance, we do not 

 produce one pound of this valuable mineral 

 that would do so much to ^husband our iron 

 resources. 



Gentlemen of the Conservation Commis- 

 sion, a majority of your labors will lie in 

 the field of mining. You will not proceed 

 far before you will find that whilst our good 

 Government has been generous toward all 

 the other great activities of our national life, 

 it has been strangely neglectful toward giv- 

 ing a helping hand to what is in many re- 

 spects the greatest of all industries. 



For instance, in the field of agriculture that 

 grand man who presides over its industries 



