EDITORIAL 



Defeat of Appalachian Legislation - A 

 National Loss 



T N CONSERVATION for March ap- 

 1 peared a news item announcing the 

 defeat of Appalachian legislation by the 

 Sixtieth Congress. To readers of this 

 publication such announcements will, 

 by this time, have lost the charm of 

 novelty. Nevertheless, they must be 

 recorded. 



In this connection it should be said 

 that the misfortune accompanying the 

 defeat of this legislation falls not sim- 

 ply upon the region in which the moun- 

 tains in question are located. It falls 

 as well upon the country at large. The 

 question of forests, water-powers, soil- 

 preservation, stream-utilization, and 

 resource-conservation in general is no 

 more a question for a New Hampshire 

 or a North Carolina alone than it is 

 alone for this farmer, that mill-owner, 

 or the other steamboat company. In the 

 century-old discussion of protective 

 tariff the Nation has become famil- 

 • iarized with the phrases, "our indus- 

 tries," "our labor," "our exports," "our 

 imports," "our National prosperity," 

 and the like. We have ceased to look 

 upon the Nation as a mere aggregation 

 of states, individuals, or interests. We 

 have learned to take, at least a part of 

 the time, the National view. We have 

 come, in increasing measure, to recog- 

 nize the Nation as a unit, an entity, 

 economic and social, no one portion of 

 which can suffer without detriment to 

 all sections. The doctrine which Paul, 

 2,000 years ago, applied to the Church 

 applies absolutely to the Nation : one 

 member cannot suffer without all other 

 members suffering with it. 



One of the few blessings accompany- 

 ing the unspeakable calamity of war 

 lies in the fact that war compels a peo- 

 ple to recognize this principle. A great 

 conflict between nations becomes a test 

 2;o 



of strength and endurance. Resources 

 of every kind, animate and inanimate, 

 are called into requisition for defense 

 and offense. At such times it becomes 

 evident to the veriest clown that the 

 vital question regarding a public re- 

 source is not the geographical one of its 

 location in this, that, or the other sec- 

 tion of the country, but the practical 

 one of its actual availability for a public 

 need. If, in the midst of a great strug- 

 gle in which the Nation's life and free- 

 dom were trembling in the balance, an 

 individual or corporation were found 

 destroying stores or resources needful 

 for the public defense, a universal cry 

 would be raised for the prompt appli- 

 cation of adequate protective measures. 

 People would talk of the need of pro- 

 tecting "our woods," "our water- 

 powers," "our coal and iron," and 

 what-not ; and whoever dared then to 

 oppose such a policy would be regarded 

 as little better than a public enemy. 



Happily, we are not engaged in war ; 

 nevertheless, in what fundamental re- 

 spect does a nation's situation as re- 

 gards its resources differ in time of 

 peace from its situation in time of war ? 

 While nations compete in industry, as 

 when they compete in war, victory, in 

 the long run, will lie with the strongest. 

 And strength lies in resources, mate- 

 rial and human. What industrial stand- 

 ing has a nation whose natural wealth 

 is wasted and whose population is de- 

 pleted? We have recently been re- 

 minded of Asia Minor, once capable 

 of producing a Croesus, the typical 

 multi-millionaire of antiquity. Yet Asia 

 Minor, with her resources long since 

 looted and dissipated, now lies pros- 

 trate and helpless. Who, to-day, thinks 

 of her as a competitor for world mar- 

 kets. Who thinks of industrial or 

 commercial competition coming from 

 Mesopotamia? Yet this valley was 

 the seat of ancient empires. But here 



