FIRST DAY'S SESSIONS 



Called to order at n o'clock on 

 Wednesday, May 13, by the President, 

 the session was opened with a reading 

 from the Scriptures by the Rev. Ed- 

 ward Everett Hale, followed by a 

 prayer by the venerable chaplain. Fol- 

 lowing the invocation, President 

 Roosevelt addressed the Conference in 

 a speech that sounded the keynote of 

 the meeting. The President's address 

 follows : 



Governors of the Several States and Gen- 

 tlemen : 



I welcome you to this Conference at the 

 "White House. You come hither at my re- 

 quest so that we may join together to con- 

 sider the question of the conservation and 

 use of the great fundamental sources of 

 wealth of this Nation. So vital is this ques- 

 tion that for the first time in our history 

 the chief executive officers of the states 

 separately, and of the states together form- 

 ing the Nation, have met to consider it. 



With the governors come men from each 

 state, chosen for their special acquaintance 

 with the terms of the problem that is before 

 us. Among them are experts in natural re- 

 sources and representatives of national or- 

 ganizations concerned in the development 

 and use of these resources ; the Senators 

 and Representatives in Congress : the Su- 

 preme Court, the Cabinet, and the Inland 

 Waterways Commission have likewise been 

 invited to the Conference, which is there- 

 fore national in a peculiar sense. 



This Conference on the conservation of 

 natural resources is in effect a meeting of 

 the representatives of all the people of the 

 United States, called to consider the might- 

 iest problem now before the Nation ; and 

 the occasion for the meeting lies in the fact 

 that the natural resources of our country 

 are in danger of exhaustion if we permit 

 the old, wasteful methods of exploiting 

 them longer to continue. 



With the rise of peoples from savagery to 

 civilization, and with the consequent growth 

 in the extent and variety of the needs of the 

 average man, there comes a steadily in- 

 creasing growth of the amount demanded 

 by this average man from the actual re- 

 sources of the country. Yet, rather cu- 

 riously, at the same time, the average man 

 is apt to lose his realization of this depend- 

 ence upon nature. 



Savages, and very primitive peoples gen- 

 erally, concern themselves only with super- 

 ficial natural resources ; with those which 

 they obtain from the actual surface of the 

 ground. As people become a little less 

 primitive, their industries, although in a 

 rude manner, are extended to resources be- 

 low the surface; then, with what we call 



civilization and the extension of knowledge, 

 more resources come into use, industries 

 are multiplied, and foresight begins to be- 

 come a necessary and prominent factor in 

 life. Crops are cultivated; animals are do- 

 mesticated ; and metals are mastered. 



Every step of the progress of mankind 

 is marked by the discovery and use of nat- 

 ural resources previously unused. With- 

 out such progressive knowledge and utili- 

 zation of natural resources population could 

 not grow, nor industries multiply, nor the 

 hidden wealth of the earth be developed 

 for the benefit of mankind. 



From the beginnings of civilization, on 

 the banks of the Nile and the Euphrates, 

 the industrial progress of the world has 

 gone on slowly, with occasional setbacks, 

 but on the whole steadily, through tens of 

 centuries to the present day. But of late 

 the rapidity of the process has increased at 

 such a rate that more space has been actual- 

 ly covered during the century and a quarter 

 occupied by our national life than during 

 the preceding six thousand years that take 

 us back to the earliest monuments of Egypt, 

 to the earliest cities of the Babylonian 

 plain. 



When the founders of this Nation met 

 in Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, the 

 conditions of commerce had not funda- 

 mentally changed from what they were 

 when the Phoenician keels first furrowed 

 the lonely waters of the Mediterranean. 

 The differences were those of degree, not 

 of kind, and they were not in all cases 

 even those of degree. Mining was carried 

 on fundamentally as it had been carried on 

 by the Pharaohs in the countries adjacent 

 to the Red Sea. 



In 1776 the wares of the merchants of 

 Boston, of Charleston, like the wares of the 

 merchants of Nineveh and Sidon, if they 

 went by water, were carried by boats pro- 

 pelled by sails or oars ; if they went by land, 

 were carried in wagons drawn by beasts of 

 draft or in packs on the backs of beasts of 

 burden. The ships that crossed the high 

 seas were better than the ships that 3,000 

 years before crossed the Aegean ; but they 

 were of the same type, after all they were 

 wooden ships propelled by sails ; and on 

 land the roads were not as good as the 

 roads of the Roman Empire, while the serv- 

 ice of the posts was probably inferior. 



In Washington's time anthracite coal was 

 known only as a useless black stone; and 

 the great fields of bituminous coal were un- 

 discovered. As steam was unknown, the 

 use of coal for power production was un- 

 dreamed of. Water was practically the 

 only source of power, save the labor of men 

 and animals; and this power was used only 

 in the most primitive fashion. But a few 

 small iron deposits had been found in this 

 country, and the use of iron by our coun- 

 trymen was very small. Wood was prac- 



