EXPLOITATION AND CONSERVATION 



319 



their lines of trade met near the mouth of 

 the Ohio. Following came the flatboatmen, 

 then the steamboats, and the Mississippi be- 

 came a great highway of traffic. What 

 would have been the result but for the rail- 

 roads no one can tell ; but the railroads came 

 and the men who had been making use of the 

 river in the past in the development of an 



empire, tied up their boats and yielded tke 

 contest without a struggle. 



The folly of this is now seen. Had the 

 work of using the Mississippi been continued, 

 had the labor of controlling the stream been 

 systematically commenced back in the old 

 days there would be a different history to 

 write for the Middle West." 



EXPLOITATION AND CONSERVATION 



An Editorial in "The Survey" 



Exploitation and conservation are master 

 words of current public opinion. They are 

 not new words, but it is a new thing to put 

 them together, back to back. We seem to 

 have arrived in the history of civilization at 

 the point where two mighty currents of social 

 and political policy are about to unite. Ex- 

 ploitation the world has always known. An- 

 rient empires, as a matter of course, ex- 

 ploited their own resources and the resources 

 of conquered nations and provinces, and they 

 fell when there were no fresh resources to 

 exploit. They wept, and had reason to weep, 

 when there were no more worlds to con- 

 quer. Colonization in former generations 

 meant exploitation, first of natives and then 

 of colonists. Our own forefathers talked 

 bravely about political representation, but 

 their half-conscious, ultimate determination, 

 being free-born Englishmen, was that they 

 would not be exploited by their brethren 

 across the seas. Colonial trade and taxation 

 were exploitation scarcely veiled, while 

 slavery and the slave trade represented that 

 policy naked and unashamed. Throughout 

 recorded history we find, now in one form 

 and now in another, the using up of physical 

 resources and of human energy in reckless 

 disregard of individual and collective rights 

 and interests. We find, also, that men re- 

 \ ulted against the hardship and injustice of 

 these exploiting policies, and we see evi- 

 dences of more or less blind and bitter 

 struggle between the exploiters and their vic- 

 tims. Exploitation and the ineffective strug- 

 gfte against it interpret more of human 

 history than any other key which the his- 

 torians have offered us. 



The policy of conservation is of modern 

 growth. It does not represent primarily the 

 struggle of the exploited in their own de- 

 fense. Conservation is not born of a des- 

 perate attempt to save a few remnants from 

 the despoiler. It is doubtful if any ex- 

 ploited people could ever have worked it out. 

 Rather it is a new economic policy, a new 

 way of looking at all physical and human 

 resources, a new basis for social relations, 

 even for international relations. Its nat- 

 ural starting point is with a strong, free 



and equal people, conscious of great unex- 



ploited resources and aroused to the greal 



outlook of the future if those resources arc 



husbanded and conserved, if they are utilizec 



for the common good, and whenever possible 



increased as they are used. Conservation i< 



a social, as exploitation is an anti-socia 



policy. The striking thing, the inspiring 



thing, about our situation is that here ii 



America, and especially in the free and re 



sourceful atmosphere of the frontier com 



munities, the fight against exploitation am 



the conscious adoption of a policy of con 



servation come at the same moment, com 



as two aspects of a single issue. These ar 



the two great streams of history which her 



and now unite. This is the stirring momen 



in the history of civilization, when we se 



no longer a few weak slaves, or a conquerei 



people struggling in vain against exploita 



tion, but rather the intelligent and dominan 



citizenship arising as a giant in his wrath, le 



us say rather as a strong man in good 



humored consciousness of his strength, t 



put an end to exploitation. And this democ 



racy of ours is to put down exploitation nc 



by fighting or punishing anybody if thj 



has to be done it is only an incident but b 



changing the laws and the administration c 



the laws, by preventing the prosecution c 



exploiting policies, by instantly detecting e> 



ploiting acts and dealing with them apprc 



priately. 



Thus for us exploitation and conservatic 

 come to stand respectively for very definii 

 things. They become sharply contrastin 

 words, each meaning precisely what the oth< 

 does not; and each requiring the other as 

 background to make its own meaning pe 

 fectly clear. Each embodies a whole serii 

 of conceptions, interests, public policies, legi 

 lative acts, and court decisions. We hai 

 naturally first applied the test of these wort 

 to physical resources. We have determine 

 not only in the interests of posterity, but 

 our own and our children's interests, to p 

 an end to exploitation of forests, soils, mi 

 eral ores, and natural power, and to wo; 

 out policies of conservation. This social co 

 trol of natural physical resources we right 

 deem to be essential to our dignity as 



