Photo Copyright by Harris & Ewing, Washington 



PROMINENT FIGURES AT THE CONFERENCE 



Standing — Secy. Shipp, Gov. Swanson, Chief Forester Pinchot, Gov. Folk 



Sitting — Gov. Willson, Gov. Sheldon. Willson, Sheldon and 



Folk, committee on permanent organization. Swanson, 



and Willson, committee en ways and means 



of over 200,000,000 in the United States 

 in the year 1950. The annual increase 

 from natural growth is about one and 

 one-half per cent each year. Adding for 

 immigration only 750,000 a year, which 

 is less than three-quarters of the figures 

 reached in recent years, we shall have 

 about 130,000,000 people in 1925 and at 

 least 200,000,000 by the middle of the 

 century. Where are they to go, how 

 are they to be employed, hov.- fed, how 

 enabled to earn a living wage? The 

 pressure of all the nations upon the 

 waste places of the earth grows more 

 intense as the last of them are occupied. 

 We are approaching the point where all 

 our wheat product will be needed for 

 our own uses, and we shall cease to be 

 an exporter of grain. There is still 

 some room in Canada, but it will soon 

 be filled. The relief will be but tempor- 

 ary. Our own people, whose mineral re- 

 sources will by that time have greatly 



diminished, must find themselves thrown 

 back upon the soil for a living. If con- 

 tinued abuse of the land should mark the 

 next fifty years as it has the last, what 

 must be our outlook? * * * 



Not only the economic but the politi- 

 cal future is involved. No people ever 

 felt the want of work or the pinch of 

 poverty for a long time without reach- 

 ing out violent hands against their po- 

 litical institutions, believing that they 

 might find in a change some relief from 

 their distress. Although there have been 

 moments of such restlessness in our 

 country, the trial has never been so se- 

 vere or so prolonged as to put us to 

 the test. It is interesting that one of 

 the ablest men in England during the 

 last century, a historian of high merit, 

 a stateman who saw act've service and 

 a profound student of men and things, 

 put on record his prophecy of such a 

 future ordeal. Writing to an American 



