240 OUR USE OF THE LAND 



Pinchot, then the head of the recently created Forest Service, 

 persuaded President Roosevelt to stop settlement on 64,000,000 

 acres of government forest land. Out of this Pinchot created our 

 great system of National Forests, one of the greatest conserva 

 tion feats in our history. In 1907 he convinced the president of 

 the need for establishing the Inland Waterways Commission 

 supposedly to investigate inland waterways. But the Inland 

 Waterways Commission did not stop with investigating water. 

 It advised the President to call a conference of governors of the 

 states to consider the problem of conserving all natural re' 



sources. 15 



The result of this was the famous White House Conference 

 of 1908, during which the National Conservation Commis 

 sion was founded under Pinchot. And so quickly did the idea 

 of conservation catch on that at the same time forty-one state 

 conservation committees and about fifty independent conser 

 vation committees were formed. 16 



One of the most valuable results of the White House Con 

 ference was the Report of the National Conservation Com 

 mission. This report was the first careful estimate of just what 

 the resources were in the United States, and how rapidly they 

 were being consumed. 



Along with this account of the extent of our natural re 

 sources came a new idea of how to save them. The Committee 

 which produced the report ended its introduction with this 

 paragraph: "Finally, the conservation of our resources is an 

 immediate and vital concern. Our welfare depends on conser 

 vation. The pressing need is for a general plan under which 

 citizens, states, and nation may unite in an effort to achieve 

 this great end. The lack of cooperation between the states 

 themselves, between the states and the nation, and between 

 the agencies of the national government, is a potent cause of 



15 Hacker and Kendrick, op. cit., p. 410. 



16 Loc. cit. 



