294 



CONSERVATION 



fact, almost at hand — when such deeds 

 as the Hibbing "clean-up," or any other 

 form of ruthless exploitation for the 

 benefit of the profitmonger at the ex- 

 pense of the community, present or to 

 come, will be impossible? May the day 

 hasten ! 



i« i^ 'M 



" Developing " Our Resources 



MUCH potency is there in words. 

 They are things to conjure with. 

 In the mouth of the expert in linguistic 

 ledgerdemain, the verbal prestidigitator, 

 they become magic wands, or the 

 philosopher's stone, forsooth, whereby 

 with a torch. Presto, change ! Black be- 

 comes white, evil is transformed into 

 good and vice into virtue. 



These reflections are suggested by 

 the glibness with which certain states- 

 men speak of "developing" our re- 

 sources. Conservation they are wary of. 

 The earth exists for human use. In its 

 raw, crude state, it is unavailable for 

 such use. To render it available it 

 must be "developed." Conservation, 

 however, in the view of these solons, 

 impedes development — therefore, away 

 with it ! 



Now development, of course, has its 

 place. A virgin prairie sod may be de- 

 veloped into a fertile field by ploughing, 

 harrowing, etc. A swamp may be de- 

 veloped by the withdrawal of its surplus 

 waters, a desert by the application of 

 adequate water to its surface, and a 

 jungle by clearing. Wild beasts may 

 be developed into useful domestic ani- 

 mals, and wild plants, even the thorny 

 cactus, into agencies for supplying the 

 wants of man. Streams, by dredging, 

 canalization, etc., may be developed into 

 agencies of human service ; and so on 

 through the category. 



But over against "development" are 

 certain other processes with which the 

 race should now be fairly familiar. 

 When war made slaves in Rome plenty 

 and cheap, it was thought good business 

 to put a slave through at a brisk pace, 

 exhaust his energies, discard him and 

 buy another at the nearest slave-market. 

 The policy of Legree, at a later day, of 



"wearing out and buying more" will be 

 recalled. In his Constitutional History 

 of the United States Von Hoist tells us 

 that southern overseers were interested 

 chiefly in a single crop ; they, in the pur- 

 suit of their personal gain, therefore, 

 rapidly exhausted the soil, thus necessi- 

 tating the "land hunger" which forced 

 the South into Mexican wars, at- 

 tempted annexations of Cuba. Kansas- 

 Nebraska struggles, and the like, until 

 an issue once local became national. In 

 Rome, for example under Justinian, in 

 Old France and elsewhere, the function 

 of tax collecting was left to "farmers," 

 so-called, whose business was to furnish 

 the state a specified lump sum of cash, 

 and whose privilege it w^as to appro- 

 priate whatever else might "stick to 

 their fingers" in the process — with re- 

 sults well remembered. 



The similarity between these forms 

 of activity and those whereby, in our 

 own country in recent years, money- 

 grabbers have heaped to themselves 

 millions can be discerned. Like the 

 modern "land-skinner," the old-time 

 slave-slayer or tax-farmer may have 

 laid to himself the sweet unction that 

 he was a "developer of the country." 

 The impartial observer need no more 

 be deceived by the one case than by 

 the other. Development calls out pow- 

 ers hitherto latent in the thing devel- 

 oped, it increases the capacity of that 

 thing for usefulness, it enlarges its life 

 and multiplies its possibilities for good. 

 The other thing, which word- jugglers 

 would make respectable, operates in 

 exactly the opposite way. For power it 

 substitutes impotence and for beauty 

 ugliness ; it turns Edens into deserts, 

 and diminishes the sum total of the 

 world's wealth. 



To call such work "development" is 

 to do violence to the language ; it is to 

 wrest words from their true significance 

 and use, and prostitute them to con- 

 fusion of thought and the dis-service of 

 man. The evil thing which, by a wordy 

 sleight-of-hand, the statesmen in ques- 

 tion would justify, is no more develop- 

 ment than the burning of Rome or 

 Chicago, the shooting down of 10,000 



