EDITORIAL 



Defeat of Appalachian Legislation- A of strength and endurance. Resources 



National Loss f every kind, animate and inanimate, 



are called into requisition for defense 



I N CONSERVATION for March ap- and offense. At such' times it becomes 

 1 peared a news item announcing the evident to the veriest clown that the 

 defeat of Appalachian legislation by the vital question regarding a public re- 

 Sixtieth Congress. To readers of this source is not the geographical one of its 

 publication such announcements will, location in this, that, or the other sec- 

 by this time, have lost the charm of tion of the country, but the practical 

 novelty. Nevertheless, they must be O ne of its actual availability for a public 

 recorded. need. If, in the midst of a great strug- 



In this connection it should be said gl e in which the Nation's life and free- 

 that the misfortune accompanying the dom were trembling in the balance, an 

 defeat of this legislation falls not sim- individual or corporation were found 

 ply upon the region in which the moun- destroying stores or resources needful 

 tains in question are located. It falls for the public defense, a universal cry 

 as well upon the country at large. The would be raised for the prompt appli- 

 question of forests, water-powers, soil- cation of adequate protective measures, 

 preservation, stream-utilization, and People would talk of the need of pro- 

 resource-conservation in general is no tecting "our woods," "our water- 

 more a question for a New Hampshire powers," "our coal and iron," and 

 or a North Carolina alone than it is what-not ; and whoever dared then to 

 alone for this farmer, that mill-owner, oppose such a policy would be regarded 

 or the other steamboat company. In the as little better than a public enemy, 

 century-old discussion of protective Happily, we are not engaged in war ; 

 tariff the Nation has become famil- nevertheless, in what fundamental re- 

 iarized with the phrases, "our indus- spect does a nation's situation as re- 

 tries," "our labor," "our exports," "our gards its resources differ in time of 

 imports," "our National prosperity," peace from its situation in time of war? 

 and the like. We have ceased to look While nations compete in industry, as 

 upon the Nation as a mere aggregation when they compete in war, victory, in 

 of states, individuals, or interests. W T e the long run, will lie with the strongest, 

 have learned to take, at least a part of And strength lies in resources, mate- 

 the time, the National view. We have rial and human. What industrial stand- 

 come, in increasing measure, to recog- ing has a nation whose natural wealth 

 nize the Nation as a unit, an entity, is wasted and whose population is de- 

 economic and social, no one portion of pleted? We have recently been re- 

 which can suffer without detriment to minded of Asia Minor, once capable 

 all sections. The doctrine which Paul, of producing a Croesus, the typical 

 2,000 years ago, applied to the Church multi-millionaire of antiquity. Yet Asia 

 applies absolutely to the Nation : one Minor, with her resources long since 

 member cannot suffer without all other looted and dissipated, now lies pros- 

 members suffering with it. trate and helpless. Who, to-day, thinks 



One of the few blessings accompany- of her as a competitor for world mar- 

 ing the unspeakable calamity of war kets. Who thinks of industrial or 

 lies in the fact that war compels a peo- commercial competition coming from 

 pie to recognize this principle. A great Mesopotamia? Yet this valley was 

 conflict between nations becomes a test the seat of ancient empires. But here 



