1908 



THE GOVERNORS' CONFERENCE 



301 



choked the neighboring river he thought 

 only of using the railway rather than boats 

 for moving his produce and supplies. 



Now all this is changed. On the average 

 the son of the farmer of to-day must make 

 his living on his father's farm. There is no 

 difficulty in doing this if the father will ex- 

 ercise wisdom. No wise use of a farm ex- 

 hausts its fertility. So with the forests. 

 We are over the verge of a timber famine 

 in this country, and it is unpardonable for 

 the Nation or the states to permit any fur- 

 ther cutting of our timber save in accord- 

 ance with a system which will provide that 

 the next generation shall see the timber in- 

 creased instead of diminished. (Applause.) 

 Moreover, we can add enormous tracts of 

 the most valuable possible agricultural land 

 to the national domain by irrigation in the 

 arid and semi-arid regions and by drainage 

 of great tracts of swamp lands in the humid 

 regions. We can enormously increase our 

 transportation facilities by the canalization 

 of our rivers so as to complete a great sys- 

 tem of waterways on the Pacific, Atlantic, 

 and Gulf coasts and in the Mississippi Val- 

 ley, from the Great Plains to the Alleghe- 

 nies and from the northern lakes to the 

 mouth of the mighty Father of Waters. 

 But all these various cases of our natural 

 resources are so closely connected that they 

 should be co-ordinated, and should be treat- 

 ed as part of one coherent plan and not in 

 haphazard and piecemeal fashion. 



It is largely because of this that I ap- 

 pointed the Waterways Commission last 

 year and that I have sought to perpetuate 

 its work. I wish to take this opportunity 

 to express in heartiest fashion my acknowl- 

 edgment to all the members of the Commis- 

 sion. At great personal sacrifice of time 

 and effort they have rendered a service to 

 the public for which we cannot be too 

 grateful. Especial credit is due to the in- 

 itiative, the energy, the devotion to duty 

 and the farsightedness of Gifford Pinchot 

 (great applause), to whom we owe so much 

 of the progress we have already made in 

 handling this matter of the co-ordination 

 and conservation of natural resources. If 

 it had not been for him this convention 

 neither would or could have been called. 



We are coming to recognize as never be- 

 fore the right of the Nation to guard its 

 own future in the essential matter of nat- 

 ural resources. In the past we have ad- 

 mitted the right of the individual to injure 

 the future of the Republic for his own 

 present profit. The time has come for a 

 change. As a people we have the right and 

 the duty, second to none other but the right 

 and duty of obeying the moral law, of re- 

 quiring and doing justice, to protect our- 

 selves and our children against the waste- 

 ful development of our natural resources, 

 whether that waste is caused by the actual 

 destruction of such resources or by making 

 them impossible of development hereafter. 

 Any right thinking father earnestly de- 



sires and strives to leave his son both an 

 untarnished name and a reasonable equip- 

 rnent for the struggle of life. So this Na- 

 tion as a whole should earnestly desire and 

 strive to leave to the next generation the 

 national honor unstained and the national 

 resources unexhausted. There are signs 

 that both the Nation and the states are 

 waking to a realization of this great truth. 

 On March 10, 1908, the Supreme Court of 

 Maine rendered an exceedingly important 

 judicial decision. This opinion was ren- 

 dered in response to questions as to the 

 right of the legislature to restrict the cut- 

 ting of trees on private land for the pre- 

 vention of droughts and floods, the preserv- 

 ation of the natural water supply, and the 

 prevention of the erosion of such lands, 

 and the consequent filling up of rivers, 

 ponds, and lakes. The forests and water 

 powers of Maine constitute the larger part 

 of her wealth and form the basis of her in- 

 dustrial life, and the question submitted by 

 the Maine Senate to the Supreme Court 

 and the answer of the Supreme Court alike 

 bear testimony to the wisdom of the people 

 of Maine, and clearly define a policy of 

 conservation of natural resources, the adop- 

 tion of which is of vital importance, not 

 merely to Maine, but to the whole country. 

 (Applause.) 



Such a policy will preserve soil, forests, 

 water power as a heritage for the children 

 and the children's children of the men and 

 women of this generation; for any enact- 

 ment that provides for the wise utilization 

 of the forests, whether in public or private 

 ownership, and for the conservation of the 

 water resources of the country, must nec- 

 essarily be legislation that will promote 

 both private and public welfare ; for flood 

 prevention, water power development, pres- 

 ervation of the soil, and improvement of 

 navigable rivers are all promoted by such a 

 policy of forest conservation. 



The opinion of the Maine Supreme bench 

 sets forth unequivocally the principle that 

 the property rights of the individual are 

 subordinate to the rights of the commu- 

 nity, and especially that the waste of wild 

 timber land derived originally from the 

 State, involving as it would the impoverish- 

 ment of the state and its people and there- 

 by defeating one great purpose of govern- 

 ment, may properly be prevented by state 

 restrictions. 



The court says that there are two reasons 

 why the right of the public to control and 

 limit the use of private property is peculiar- 

 ly applicable to property in land : "First, 

 such property is not the result of productive 

 labor, but is derived solely from the state 

 itself, the original owner; second, the 

 amount of land being incapable of increase, 

 if the owners of large tracts can waste 

 them at will without state restriction, the 

 state and its people may be helplessly im- 

 poverished and one great purpose of gov- 

 ernment defeated. * * * We do not 



