4/o 



CONSERVATION 



and Jefferson was all but sent to Coven- 

 try when he bought an empire for a 

 >"iig just as within our own memory 

 "Seward's Folly" was a synonym for 

 re-ourceful Alaska, and even within a 

 decade McKinley ami Wilson and ' >av 

 were derided for opening over-sea line- 

 fur our teeming growth Lulled by 

 woodland zephyr and prairie bree/e. 

 the pioneer forgot Eden and its penalty 

 in the sweat of his face for the posterity 

 of men: revelling in boundless acre-, 

 he even forgot the line of his loins, and 

 cravenly and impotently sware "Poster- 

 ity be condemned! Let posterity take 

 care of itself!" Thus he blasphemed 

 the blood of those \\h,, fought for Land 

 and Libertv. and foolhardily jeopard- 

 ized the Nation woven of their lives! 

 S< patrii itism waned. 



Yet prosperity spread apace over fair 

 America; for the fruit of the age- was 

 ripe unto harvest. The half of what 

 he did ii: 4 eat the settler wasted, and 

 most of tlie rest hi 1 turned over to bud- 

 ding trusts to be used in shaping 

 shacklo for his own ankles ami wrists; 

 so that after thirteen decade- of the 

 freedom for which the Fathers fought. 

 certain -ex-en men none chosen of the 

 people hold in their hands the indus- 

 trial and commercial destiny of eighty 

 millions of citi/en- ! So substance wa< 

 -rattered away and tyranny trained up. 



\ new revolution began for every 

 revolution i- at bottom mental when 

 citizens saw a decade past that ravage 

 of woodlands -acrifice- streams. Al- 

 ready the story is old. There is still 

 wood enough to last half a lifetime at 

 the current increasing rate, and it is 

 growing a quarter as fast as cut : but 

 the homestead spring has dried up. the 

 mill-stream is shrunken to a slimy 

 thread, the old-time dell is torn by 

 -torm torrents, the river i- bc-et by bars, 

 the river-side field cave- into the flood 

 a rood at a slump, while the richest 

 of the soil washes into the sea at the 

 rate of half a ton each acre-year. Such 

 is the lesson of the disappearing forest ; 

 naturally it led first to uneasiness, later 

 to full awakening: and at last to an 

 inventory of resources, and an analy^i- 

 of their relations. 



During the thirteen decades of Amer- 

 ican independence, domestic iron pro- 

 duction has increased from nearly noth- 

 ing to over 50,000,000 tons per year; 

 the consumption from less than ten 

 pounds to 1,300 pounds per capita. 

 The original stock was s . mie IO.OOO,- 

 000,000 tons; and while only about 

 750,000,000 tons have been consume'! 

 and wasted to date, if the current rate 

 of increase continues the annual pro- 

 duction will within thirty years reach 

 more than half that amount and be- 

 fore the end of the present century our 

 iron will be gone. 



When the Declaration of Independ- 

 ence \\;is signed there were in what 

 is now mainland I'nited State's about 

 2,000,000,000.000 tons of coal then 

 but a nsele-- black stone, of which lit- 

 tle was u>ed until within a century. 

 Already some i.ooo.ono.OOO tons have 

 been wasted and destroyed, and 7,500,- 

 OOO.OOO tons have been consumed in 

 wavs so \\asteful that le-- than five per 

 cent of its heat value ha- been turned 

 to useful account. The consumption 

 is increa-iiig- beyond belief in any ear 

 her decade; the mere increase in 11)07 

 over the u-e in n ;o< , \\a- greater than 

 the total consumption in that Centen- 

 nial Year ( 1*701 in which America be- 

 came known a- a leader among the 

 world's manufacturing nations. In 

 i '107 some 450.000,000 tons, or over 5 

 tons per capita for our X4,ooo,OOO, 

 were taken out of the ground; and if 

 the current rate- of production and in- 

 crease continue, all will be gone by the 

 end of the next century. And still 

 more woeful is the tale of oil and gas. 

 already largely squandered ! 



The birthright Land of the thirteen 

 Colonies for which the Fathers fought 

 comprised some 200,000,000 acre-, of 

 which a full half was tVlt forever worth- 

 less save fir rocks and swamps and 

 trees; but the remaining hundred mil- 

 lions was thought enough for the \ at ion 

 for all time. With the ("lark-Franklin 

 claim allowed at Geneva. Jefferson'- 

 Louisiana Purchase, the Florida acqui- 

 sition, the Oregon discovery and de- 

 mand Hess the spiritless surrender of 

 "Fifty-four forty < >r fiffht"). the Call- 



