ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 95 



fore me representatives from every state and territory 

 in the Union, because this question has become a national 

 one and has gone into the homes of the people. It is not 

 too late to save some of the great Appalachian forests of 

 North and South Carolina. It is not too late to save the 

 valleys of many of the eastern states from that destruc- 

 tion which followed the denudation of the forests of 

 France when the hilltops were carried down into the val- 

 leys and the rich alluvial plains absolutely buried with 

 sand and gravel. It is not yet too late, although many a 

 fertile field has been destroyed. 



I can look at this from an impartial standpoint, without 

 prejudice, living in a country that has no forests, that 

 never had them, that never will have any great forests ; 

 where we have a climate in which there is always rain 

 enough to grow a crop and drought enough to dry it for 

 harvest ; where all we need in the world is to be let alone. 



I did not come here to talk to you this morning. I sat 

 down in the audience simply because I wanted to touch 

 elbows with those who are carrying this crusade in favor 

 of the forests into every part of the United States ; but I 

 am glad to have this opportunity to look these earnest 

 people in the face and to bid them God-speed and good 

 cheer. There is no nation in the world that has been so 

 extravagant, that has been such a spendthrift of its nat- 

 ural resources as the American nation. We tap a gas 

 field, set it on fire and advertise for everybody to come 

 and see it burn up — a gas field that it took countless mil- 

 lions of ages to store under the cap of a rock that covers 

 it — and yet in a few years it is destroyed, and the fac- 

 tories that were built over it with the understanding that 

 an everlasting source of supply existed underneath, find 

 themselves once more shipping coal from hundreds of 

 miles away in order to supply their furnaces. The same 

 is true with oil ; the same with the beasts of the forests 



