1908 



THE GOVERNORvS' CONFERENCE 



341 



of the Nation ideas that were advo- 

 cated by men of science thirty years 

 ago. It was his optimistic opinion, 

 however, that no such waste as had 

 been alhided to by previous speakers 

 had existed in this country; or, if it 

 did exist, it was not reahy waste, but 

 the simple methods that, instinctively 

 adopted by the early settlers of the 

 country, had proven themselves in the 

 main correct. He said that the fact 

 that farms of the East have passed out 

 of cultivation is not necessarily an in- 

 dication that those farms have lost 

 their productive power, but, rather, 

 that they have been abandoned be- 

 cause of the opening up of broad- 

 er fields of usefulness in the regions 

 beyond the Mississippi and the Mis- 

 souri, and he said he believed that, 

 after all is said and done, the greatest 

 natural resources the country pos- 

 sesses is not its forests, its rivers, its 

 mines or its soil, but in the brains of 

 its people. 



Hon. James R. Garfield, Secretary 

 of the Interior, was called upon for a 

 talk, and responded in a manner that 

 drew from the conferees repeated ex- 

 pressions of approval. 



Secretary Garfield said that it is 

 only within recent years that the Na- 

 tion has felt the need of extending, by 

 means other than those nature gave 

 us. the areas where men could build 

 homes. Such necessity, he said, has 

 now arisen ; lands that can be farmed, 

 if water for irrigation can be supplied, 

 Kre being given this water, and the 

 cultivable area of the western states 

 is rapidly being enlarged, this enlarge- 

 ment necessarily tending to wipe out, 

 for some purposes, the boundaries be- 

 tween states. Such obliteration of 

 state lines does not, however, mean 

 that the states are going to lose any 

 of their inherent rights. 



Referring to the question of forest 

 reserves in the West, Secretary Gar- 

 field said : 



"It has been suggested that in the West- 

 ern forest reserves that which has been at- 

 tempted by the Federal Government may 

 not be along the right lines. We do not for 

 a moment maintain that the final vi'ord has 



been said, that the ideal law has been passed, 

 or that the regulations adopted cannot be 

 improved. In regard to the question put 

 by the Governor of Montana — I believe, 

 something to this effect : 'Why should the 

 Federal Government charge in the forest 

 reserves those people who are using the 

 forests ; why should not the work in the 

 reserves be paid for by the Government as 

 a whole, rather than by the imposition of 

 charges upon those who use the reserves?' 

 — I will answer that question with another : 

 Why should a great resource, which is 

 owned by the people at large, be used by 

 private interests, by somebody who is look- 

 ing only to his own benefit, and not the 

 benefit to the people of the whole country? 

 (Applause.) That applies not only in the 

 forest reserves, so far as grazing is con- 

 cerned, but it applies equally well to the use 

 of the water powers of this country, (Ap- 

 plause), first, in the conservaion, and then 

 in the use of such water powers. (Ap- 

 plause.) 



"The people as a whole own these natural 

 resources and it is for them to determine 

 whether the resources shall be used for the 

 benefit of all, or be turned over to be used 

 without regulation for the benefit of who- 

 ever may happen first to get a .foothold in 

 any special locality." (Applause.) 



Secretary Garfield said that as he 

 listened to the addresses, he had 

 reached the conclusion that the key- 

 note was practically the same through- 

 out — that it was simply a question as 

 to how we can best work out the prob- 

 lems that confront us. He stated that 

 his idea of conservation was the high- 

 est possible development, year by year, 

 to meet the needs of the country's 

 growing population; such develop- 

 ment to be for the people as a whole, 

 and not for the enrichment, by mon- 

 opolization, of individual or corpor- 

 ate private interests. 



Professor Burnett, director of the 

 Nebraska Agriculture Experiment 

 Station, was the next speaker, his ad- 

 dress dealing with the topics of soil 

 conservation, the extension of scien- 

 tific methods of cultivation, and the 

 determination of crops that may profit- 

 ably be grown under what would or- 

 dinarily be considered ' unfavorable 

 conditions. He made a plea for the 

 extension of agricultural education in 

 all of the states in order that the na- 

 tural resources of the farm may be 

 built up through intelligent handling 

 of the soil. 



