

Vol. XIV. 



JUNE 1908. 



No. 6. 



THE GOVERNORS' CONFERENCE 



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Historic Gathering at the White House — Executives of Nearly 



All the States and Territories Present — Steps Taken 



Toward Permanent Organization — The 



Story of the Conference 



LIBRARY 

 NEW YORK 

 BOTANICAL 



(JARDEN. 



BY 



Frank Glover Heaton, Editor of Forestry and Irrigation. 



There is neither East or (Vest- 

 Border, nor breed, nor birth — 

 When two strong men stand face to face, 

 Though they come from the ends of the earth. 



IT was a gathering of strong men, 

 that White House Conference — a 

 meeting of the strongest men in the 

 public life of America, called by one 

 of the strongest Chief Executives the 

 Nation has had ; and the questions con- 

 sidered were those upon the finding of 

 correct answers to which the abiding 

 prosperity of this, the greatest Nation 

 that has arisen in the world's history, 

 absolutely depends. 



"Conservation." That was the key- 

 note of the Conference from the open- 

 ing address to the close of the final 

 session. Not the miserly hoarding of 



—Kipling. 



the country's resources, but the wise 

 husbanding of timber and coal, of ores 

 and soil, of waters and all the natural 

 wealth which which the Western 

 hemisphere is so richly endowed, and 

 the fullest proper utilization of these 

 resources, that their benefits may be 

 shared equally among the whole peo- 

 ple, and that they may be passed on, a 

 practically undiminished capital, to 

 the generations to come. 



Crystallized into as brief a para- 

 graph as possible, the sentiment of the 

 Conference was that the work of con- 

 servation of all natural resources — 



