untilled, a mine unopened, a forest that bars the 

 way to homes and human happiness. 



The determination in each case as to what extent 

 a given resource should be utilized and how far 

 reserved for the future is an intensely practical, in- 

 dividual, and above all it is a local question. It 

 should be carefully considered in all its aspects 

 by both nation and state, and should finally rest 

 wathin lines determined by proper legislation, as 

 far as may be under the control of local authority. 

 Experience proves that resources are not only best 

 administered but best protected from marauders 

 by the home people Vho are most deeply interested 

 and who are just as honest, just as patriotic and 

 infinitely better informed on local conditions than 

 the national government can possibly be. It is 

 clear that every one of the many problems all over 

 the country can be better understood where they 

 are questions of the lives and happiness of those 

 directly interested. 



Behind this, as behind every great economic issue, 

 stand moral issues. Shall we, on the one side, deny 

 to ourselves and our children access to the same 

 store of natural wealth by which we have won our 

 own prosperity, or, on the other, leave it unpro- 

 tected as in the past against the spoiler and the thief ? 

 Shall we abandon everything to centralized au- 

 thority, going the way of every lost and ruined 

 government in the history of the world, or meet 

 our personal duty by personal labor through the 

 organs of local self-government, not yet wholly 

 atrophied by disuse? Shall we permit our single 

 dependence for the future, the land, to be defer- 

 tilized below the point of profitable cultivation and 

 gradually abandoned, or devote our whole energy 

 to the creation of an agriculture which will furnish 



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