22 Main Lines of Thought and Action 



was dramatized in the field of soils by the dust bowl and overgrazed 

 and overused lands; and the soil conservation movement is doing its 

 work of adjustment. It moved then into the field of minerals under 

 the spur of defense considerations. Research, invention, chemistry, 

 stockpiling, atomic energy, and imports have provided at least a par- 

 tial answer. The dilemma between future and present today centers 

 also around a new set of resources — wilderness, parks, wildlife — but 

 it is the same dilemma. 



Subsidiary to this has been the dilemma of the nature of present 

 use. Shall it be exploitive or developmental; wasteful or scientific? 

 The theoretical battle is won on this front; the pohtical battle is still 

 with us in isolated sectors. It was the chief dilemma in the early days, 

 but we have come far. 



The strand or dilemma of public vs. private ownership and develop- 

 ment has likewise been persistent. Two values, initiative and national 

 interest — both of them good — have provided a philosophic basis for 

 the struggle. Yet as public instrumentalities have developed ways of 

 greater initiative and private corporations have acquired more of a 

 social sense, this struggle has assumed somewhat less importance. If 

 there is to be private monopoly, it is accepted doctrine that it must be 

 regulated. Theodore Roosevelt was not doctrinaire on the subject. He 

 attacked monopoly and predatory private interests when they did 

 violence to conservation ideals; he used and even welcomed private 

 interests when they co-operated. 



Always the scientific strand has persisted, and some really perma- 

 nent victories seem to belong here. Commissions, research, experi- 

 ment, accounting — these have laid the groundwork. To these is ap- 

 peal made in Congress; by these the results are more and more judged. 

 From these have sprung other strands — multiple use, intensive devel- 

 opment, sustained yield, and a hundred other more detailed adminis- 

 trative decisions. 



Present always has been a persistent political pluraUsm — geographic 

 and economic. It is this pluralism that has blocked so many efforts at 

 a national and integrated approach. On the other hand, it is geo- 

 graphic pluralism that has been the life blood of multiple-purpose 

 river basin development — though often tying such development into 

 knots of internal contradiction. Both types of pluralism have found 



