A NATION we not only enjoy a won- 

 derful measure of present prosperity but if this prosperity 

 is used aright it is an earnest of future success such as no 

 other nation will have. The reward of foresight for this 

 Nation is great and easily foretold. But there must be 

 the look ahead, there must be a realization of the fact 

 that to waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin 

 and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase 

 its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of 

 our children the very prosperity which we ought by right 

 to hand down to them amplified and developed. 

 THEODORE ROOSEVELT, Seventh Annual Message, December 

 1907. 



AND NATURE must work hand 

 in hand. The throwing out of balance of the resources of 

 nature throws out of balance also the lives of men. 

 ******** 



We think of our land and water and human resources 

 not as static and sterile possessions but as life-giving 

 assets to be directed by wise provision for future days. 

 We seek to use our natural resources not as a thing apart 

 but as something that is interwoven with industry, labor, 

 finance, taxation, agriculture, homes, recreation, good citi- 

 zenship. The results of this interweaving will have a 

 greater influence on the future American standard of 

 living than all the rest of our economics put together. 

 FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, Message to the Congress trans- 

 mitting the Report of the National Resources Board and the 

 Report of the Mississippi Valley Committee, January 24, 

 1935. 



