Conservation of Natural Resources in California. 



Another Ex-President of the United States. 



" In utilizing and conserving the natural resources of the nation the 

 one characteristic more essential than any other is foresight. Unfor- 

 tunately, foresight is not usually characteristic of a young and vigorous- 

 people, and it is obviously not a marked characteristic of us in the 

 United States. Yet assuredly it should be the growing nation with a 

 future which takes the long look ahead ; and no other nation is growing 

 so rapidly as ours or has a future so full of promise. No other nation 

 enjoys so wonderful a measure of present prosperity which can of 

 right be treated as an earnest of future success, and in no other are 

 the rewards of foresight so great, so certain, and so easily foretold. 

 Yet hitherto as a nation we have tended to live with an eye single to 

 the present, and have permitted the reckless waste and destruction of 

 much of our natural wealth. 



The conservation of our natural resources and their proper use con- 

 stitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every other 

 problem of our national life. Unless we maintain an adequate material 

 basis for our civilization, we can not maintain the institutions in which 

 we take so great and just a pride ; and to waste and destroy our natural 

 resources means to undermine this material basis." 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 



Still Another Famous Ex- President. 



"Those most proudly happy in their sanguine Americanism, and 

 most confident of our ability to accomplish all things, must confess that 

 our national life has been habitually beset with careless wastefulness, 

 and that a palpable manifestation of this wastefulness is seen in the 

 destruction of tree growth and the denudation of watersheds on our 

 Western lands. Laws passed with the professed intent of protecting 

 our forests have been so amiably construed as to admit of easy invasion ; 

 and their execution has too often been lax and perfunctory. In the 

 mean time, public opinion on this subject, which might be as effective 

 as legal enactment, has comfortably slumbered. 



Even if we now abjectly repent of our sins of omission and commis- 

 sion in our treatment of the forests and streams which nature has given 

 us, and reproach ourselves for the neglect of a trust imposed on us for 

 the benefit of future generations, we must at the same time humbly 

 confess that the punishment we have suffered by flood, by drought, by 

 tornado, by fire, by barrenness of soil, and by loss of timber value, 

 is well deserved. 



In these circumstances it is exceedingly gratifying to have an oppro- 

 priate opportunity to congratulate those who have constantly labored 



