782 



CONSERVATION 



just begun to take this fight in earnest. They 

 have not realized until recently the vital im- 

 portance and far-reaching consequences of 

 their own passive position. 



"Now that the fight is passing into an 

 acute stage it is easily seen that the spe- 

 cial interests have used the period of public 

 indifference to maneuver themselves into a 

 position of exceeding strength. In the first 

 place, the constitutional position of property 

 in the United States is stronger than in any 

 other nation. In the second place, it is well 

 understood that the influence of the corpora- 

 tions in our lawmaking bodies is usually ex- 

 cessive, not seldom to the point of defeating 

 the will of the people steadily and with ease. 

 In the third place, cases are not unknown 

 in which the special interests, not satisfitd 

 with making the laws, have assumed also 

 to interpret them through that worst of evils 

 in the body politic, an unjust judge. 



"When an interest or an enemy is en- 

 trenched in a position rendered impregnable 

 against an expected mode of attack, there is 

 but one remedy, to shift the ground and 

 follow lines against which no preparation has 

 been made. 



"Fortunately for us, the special interests, 

 with a blindness which naturally follows 

 from their wholly commercialized point of 

 view, have failed to see the essential fact 

 in this great conflict. They do not under- 

 stand that this is far more than an economic 

 question ; that in its essence and in every 

 essential characteristic it is a moral question. 



"The present economic order, with its face 

 turned away from equality of opportunity, 

 involfes a bitter moral wrong, which must 

 be corrected for moral reasons and along 

 moral lines. It must be corrected with just- 

 ness and firmness, but not bitterly, for that 

 would be to lower the Nation to the moral 

 level of the evil which we have set ourselves 

 to fight. 



"This_ is the doctrine of the square deal. 

 It contains the germ of industrial liberty. Its 

 partisans are the many, its opponents are the 

 few. I am firm in the faith that the great 

 majority of our people are square-dealers." 



•« 



Southern Forestry and Conservation 



An important conservation meeting was 

 held in New Orleans on the ist of Novem- 

 ber. The governors of the southern states 

 were invited by Gov. J. Y. Sanders of Louis- 

 iana to meet in New Orleans with the con- 

 servation commissions of the several states 

 for the purpose of discussing steps necessary 

 for the further conservation of the natural 

 resources of the South. The Louisiana For- 

 estry Association met with this Congress. 

 Governor Sanders presided and delivered an 

 address of welcome at the morning session. 

 This was followed by an address of wel- 

 come by Judge I. D. Moore, representing 

 the mayor of New Orleans, and the reply to 



these addresses was delivered by the Hon. 

 W. H. Milton, of Florida. At this session 

 an address was delivered by the Hon. Henry 

 E. Hardtner, president of the Louisiana Con- 

 servation Commission and the Louisiana 

 Forestry Association, his subject being espe- 

 cially the forestry conditions of Louisiana 

 and the South. He illustrated his arguments 

 with a review of the forest experiences of 

 foreign countries. Part of Mr. Hardtner's 

 address will be published in the next number 

 of this magazine. This was followed by an 

 address on the conservation of our water- 

 ways by the Hon. J. E. Ransdell, president 

 of the National Rivers and Harbors Con- 

 gress. 



In the afternoon Capt. J. B. White of 

 Missouri, chairman of the Executive Council 

 of the National Conservation Congress, 

 spoke on the prevention of timber waste, his 

 address being a broad, practical treatment of 

 an extremely practical subject. At the con- 

 clusion of Captain White's address. Presi- 

 dent Hardtner introduced the Hon. Giflford 

 Pinchot, National Forester, saying that the 

 South owes him a debt of gratitude that 

 cannot be measured either in words or in 

 any material compensation. Mr. Pinchot's 

 address was on the general subject of con- 

 servation. He was received with enthusi- 

 astic applause. Among other things, he said 

 that this great work of conservation will be 

 carried out by the joint earnest cooperation 

 of men and women throughout the country. 

 Men experienced in politics say that there 

 are two things which must be conveyed to 

 the people. One is to get clearly into the 

 conscience of the American people that this 

 is a great moral question, and the moral 

 side will win. If a moral question any- 

 where exists it is certainly the conserva- 

 tion question. Another thing is that to en- 

 sure success you must keep the thing con- 

 stantly before the people. With all the felici- 

 tations to ourselves for what we have done 

 in this matter of conservation and what we 

 propose to do, we should realize that public 

 sentiment stands behind conservation, and 

 that we must use every means in our power 

 for the development of our ideas and that 

 we must save always and see that the peo- 

 ple get the benefit of our resources, not 

 for the few, but for the many. 



The next speaker was Dr. Herman Von 

 Schrcnck, chairman of the Missouri Conser- 

 vation Commission, on some practical phase? 

 of the forestry question. Dr. Von Schrenck 

 gave special attention to the topics of taxa- 

 tion, fire protection, education, and state 

 reservations. 



Hon. F. J. Grace, commissioner of fores- 

 try of Louisiana, delivered an address on 

 forestry in Louisiana which will be published 

 in this magazine next month, and this was 

 followed by an address on constitutional law 

 by the Hon. F. C. Zacharie. 



In the evening there was a symposium pre- 

 sided over l)y Giflford Pinchot, with ten- 

 minute addresses on the subject, "What Is 



