THE ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT 



SOME PROBLEMS IN CONSERVATION 



SAMUEL WALKER BEYER 



The credit for directing the attention of the public to the almost 

 universal waste of the Nation's resources must be accorded to the 

 late President Theodore Roosevelt. The great President was not 

 only the originator of the movement but continued to be its most 

 aggressive and enthusiastic apostle and promoter. The idea first 

 found definite expression in his address before the Society of 

 American Foresters, March 26, 1903, in which he emphasized the 

 necessity of forest preservation and pointed out the close relation- 

 ship between the forests and stream flow. 



Later at the Jamestown Exhibition, June 10, 1907, he restated 

 his views covering all the natural resources of the nation. To 

 quote : "The conservation of our natural resources and their pro- 

 per use constitute the fundamental problem which underlies al- 

 most every other problem of our national life. Unless we main- 

 tain an adequate material basis for our civilization we cannot 

 maintain the institutions in which we take so great and so just a 

 pride ; and to waste and destroy our natural resources means to 

 undermine these material bases." 



Continuing he gives Giflford Pinchot due credit, in which he 

 says: "So much for what we are trying to do in utilizing our 

 public lands, for the public ; in securing the use of the water, the 

 forage, the coal, and the timber for the public. In all four depart- 

 ments my chief adviser, and the man first to suggest to me the 

 courses which have actually proved so beneficial, was Mr. Gifford 

 Pinchot, the chief of the National Forest Service. Mr. Pinchot 

 also suggested to me a movement supplementary to all of these 

 movements, one which will itself lead the way in the general 

 movement which he represents and with which he is actively 

 identified, for the conservation of all our natural resources." 



The epoch making event along conservation lines was the 

 White House Conference which took place in the White House, 

 May 13 to 15, 1908. All of the Governors or their representatives, 

 with their advisers and the leading scientific men of the nation 

 met with the Judges of the Supreme Court, the Congress, and the 



