THOMAS B. NOLAN 53 



ticularly anticipated the current emphasis on wise use. Edmund James 

 emphasized the need for "so organizing and utilizing our natural re- 

 sources as to produce in the large and in the long run the greatest 

 return in the form of material wealth to the Nation." He also observed 

 that "we shall add far more to our natural resources by developing 

 our ability to increase them than we can ever do by mere processes of 

 saving." ^^ Andrew Carnegie also pleaded for more knowledge — "but 

 especially I urge research into and mastery over Nature . . . our great- 

 est need today [is] the need for better and more practical knowl- 

 edge." 11 



On the whole, though, the emphasis on exhaustion prevailed, and 

 the Declaration of the Conference, adopted shortly before the sessions 

 were adjourned reiterated that theme. ^^ 



These predictions that supplies of iron ore, fuel, timber, water 

 power, and even grain would become inadequate or be exhausted in a 

 relatively few years after 1908 appear surprising to us today, when 

 we consider the proposals that have been made in recent years to pro- 

 vide subsidies of various kinds to domestic producers of these com- 

 modities because of existing oversupplies. The threatened exhaustion 

 not only has not occurred, but for some commodities we are seri- 

 ously proposing research programs to develop new uses in order that 

 existing capacity for production can be utilized. 



I have called attention to these predictions of fifty years ago not 

 to ridicule the individuals who made them, but to make clear the 

 basic assumptions upon which the initial concept of the conservation 

 movement rested, and to bring out the extent of the change from it 

 to the present-day one. We now characterize conservation objectives, 

 insofar as natural resources are concerned, as those promoting wise 

 use of the resource. They imply practices that will provide a sustained 

 yield so far as the renewable resources are concerned, or those that 

 will achieve orderly development without waste, in the case of non- 

 renewable ones. 



Increasingly too, conservation has meant the utilization of resources 



1" Edmund J. James, "Address by the President of the University of Illinois," 

 idem, pp. 174, 178. 



^1 Andrew Carnegie, op. cit., p. 24. 



12 Newton C. Blanchard, and others, "Declaration of the Governors," idem, 

 pp. 192-94. 



