EDITORIAL 



The Conservation Conference 



P ROMISE of great and lasting good 

 A is contained in the report of the 

 Joint Conservation Conference, and in 

 the reports of the four sections into 

 which the National Conservation Com- 

 mission is divided. Up to the present 

 time the program of conservation of 

 natnral resources has been chiefly edu- 

 cational. Most persons who take an 

 interest in the work have begun asking 

 what the Commission is likely to ac- 

 complish in practical results. Every- 

 one is agreed upon the proposition that 

 the conservation of the Nation's nat- 

 ural resources is of the greatest and 

 most vital importance to the welfare 

 of the country and to its continued pros- 

 perity ; but it is equally true that people 

 believe it is time to do something more 

 than hold conventions and furnish news- 

 paper and magazine material. The gen- 

 eral public believes that those who are 

 behind the conservation movement 

 should presently give to the lawmakers 

 some definite plan, at least, for begin- 

 ning the great work about which so 

 much has been written and spoken. 

 The educational work of the conserva- 

 tion movement has gone forward with 

 more enthusiasm and less interruption 

 since the organization last June of 

 the National Conservation Commission 

 than ever before. The establishment of 

 this commission was really a welding to- 

 gether of activities along several closely 

 inter-related lines — a new organization 

 of the broad and rather incoherent 

 movement for inland waterways im- 

 provement aufl conservation of natural 

 resources. 



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Organization of the Commission 



FOLLOWING the conference of the 

 Governors at the White House 

 last May, President Roosevelt merged 

 the Inland Waterways Commission, 

 created bv him in March, 1907, into the 

 56 



National Conservation Commission, it 

 forming the Section of Waters of tHe 

 new body. The remaining three di- 

 visions are those of Forests, Minerals 

 and Lands. Chief Forester Pinchot is 

 chairman of the Commission, and 

 Thomas R. Shipp is secretary. The 

 first work of the Commission was the 

 inventorying of the resources of the 

 country— a task which occupied the 

 time of hundreds of able men during 

 the whole of last summer and fall. 

 The result of these herculean labors- 

 labors performed, as the President 

 says, without thought of personal in- 

 convenience or personal advancement 

 or profit — is contained in the report to 

 be submitted to President Roosevelt, 

 and wdiich will be transmitted by him 

 to Congress within a short time. It 

 is not wide of the mark to say that 

 never in the history of this or any other 

 nation, has a statement so valuable been 

 compiled and prepared ; never in the 

 world's history, perhaps, has any na- 

 tion known with such definiteness just 

 where it stands with regard to natural 

 resources. No generalization ; no flights 

 of fancy ; no stupendous statement with 

 nothing tangible to back it up. Instead, 

 the facts are there, in dollars and 

 cents — the board feet of lumber, the 

 tons of coal, the acres of land, the 

 horsepower of waters, the cubic feet 

 of natural gas, the barrels of oil — all 

 these are set forth, in figures and state- 

 ment, in the plainest of English, in the 

 report of the Commission. It might 

 be said that, even if the Commission 

 does no single other act, its existence 

 would be fully justified by the work it 

 has done during the months just past. 

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 Definite Work Ahead 



npHLS report and the reports of the 

 ■'■ four sections, were presented to 

 the Joint Conservation Conference, com- 

 posed of the members of the National 



