28 Conservation of Natural Resources in California, 



The Problem Before Us. 



This nation has, on the continent of North America, three and a half 

 million square miles. What shall we do with it? How can we make 

 ourselves and our children happiest, most vigorous and efficient, and our 

 civilization the highest and most influential, as we use that splendid 

 heritage? Ought not the nation to undertake to answer that question 

 in the spirit of wisdom, prudence, and foresight? There is reason to 

 think we are on the verge of doing this very thing. We are on the 

 verge of saying to ourselves : ' ' Let us do the best we can with our 

 natural resources; let us find out what we have, how they can best be 

 used, how they can best be conserved. Above all, let us have clearly in 

 mind the great and fundamental fact that this nation will not end in 

 the year 1950, or a hundred years after that, or five hundred years 

 after that; that we are just beginning a national history the end of 

 which we can not see, since we' are still young. ' ' In truth we are at a 

 critical point in that history. We may pass on along the line we have 

 been following, exhaust our natural resources, continue to let the future 

 take care of itself; or we may do the simple, obvious, common-sense 

 thing in the interest of the nation, just as each of us does in his own 

 personal affairs. 



On the way in which we decide to handle this great possession which 

 has been given us, on the turning which we take now, hangs the welfare 

 of those who are to come after us. Whatever success we may have in 

 any other line of national endeavor, whether we regulate trusts prop- 

 erly, whether we control our great public service corporations as we 

 should, whether capital and labor adjust their relations in the best 

 manner or not whatever we may do with all these and other such 

 questions, behind and below them all is this fundamental problem. Are 

 we going to protect our springs of prosperity, our sources of well-being, 

 our raw material of industry and commerce, and employer of capital 

 and labor combined; or are we going to dissipate them? According as 

 we accept or ignore our responsibility as trustees of the nation 's welfare, 

 our, children and our children's children for uncounted generations will 

 call us blessed, or will lay their suffering at our doors. We shall decide 

 whether their lives, on the average, are to be lived in a flourishing 

 country, full of all that helps to make men comfortable, happy, strong, 

 and effective, or whether their lives are to be lived in a country like the 

 miserable outworn regions of the earth which other nations before us 

 have possessed without foresight and turned into hopeless deserts. We 

 are no more exempt from the operation of natural laws than are the 

 people of any other part of the world. When the facts are squarely 

 before us, w r hen the magnitude of the interests at stake is clearly before 

 our people, it will surely be decided aright. 



