EDITORIAL 437 



cover less readily than those which had enforced until they have produced the 



less to lose. The procession of Amer- conviction that influences conduct, 



ican farmers that have moved recently ))) 

 into the country just north of our west- 

 ern states should point the moral. They 



were wasters, or the children of wasters, TN LINE with the warning given by 



who had exhausted nature's bounty and 1 President Hill to the people of the 



were moving on. Take care of your great Northwest regarding the destruc- 



soil before it is too late, and it will take tion of their salmon, comes a warning 



care of you and sustain and increase from the East regarding a similar de- 



your prosperity forever. Neglect and struction of fish. Says the Neiv York 



waste it, and no earthly power can save Herald in its issue of June 7 : 



you from the consequences." "Here is the great Delaware River, 



Mr. Hi 1 ! also called attention to the once prolific in fish and making fertile 

 great salmon industry, capable of such its banks ; to-day pollution of its waters 

 splendid development on the coast, yet, by the waste of factories makes the sur- 

 like other industries directly dependent viving fish unfit to eat and menaces the 

 upon natural resources, already men- health and comfort of those who live 

 aced by wasteful consumption. He near. And the Government, ever pa- 

 called attention to the possible wealth ternal, proposes to restock the river 

 of the West in water-power. Speak- with fish from abroad, while it does 

 ing of Alaska, he said : "Among its nothing to stop the pollution. The very 

 mountains and scattered through yours repairing of loss is likely to prove a 

 all the way down to Mexico there is waste. 



water-power enough undeveloped to "Cases of much the same character 



perform all the work done west of the could be found nearer home. In tidal 



Mississippi. Are these resources be- waters, such as encompass this city, the 



ing guarded for posterity, or are they results of pollution are much less se- 



being so disposed of that their future rious, but the problem will be pressing 



employment will be conditioned upon before many decades." 



the payment of a perpetual tax to their The one discordant note in this edito- 



appropriators?" rial is that regarding the "paternalism" 



It is a notable fact that the im- of the Government. With the evidence 

 pressiveness of a sermon depends pri- already piled mountain-high all about 

 marily not upon the text, nor even the us, and daily climbing higher, that gov- 

 matter, but upon the preacher. Others ernmental "do-nothingism" is, through- 

 have said such things as Mr. Hill said out the civilized world, now out of date. 

 on this occasion. From them, how- and that governments in future must, 

 ever, the warnings have too often been at the least, earn their keep to justify 

 regarded as the mouthings of an alarm- their existence, the talk of "paternal- 

 ist, or the vain imaginings of a theorist, ism" has a strangely Rip Van Winkle- 

 Not always, especially in America, have like ring. 



the words of the expert, the specialist, Further, as has been already stated 

 the man of science been accorded due in these columns, the term "paternal- 

 weight. Here, rather, it is to the busi- ism" has no place in speaking of the 

 ness man, the captain of industry, the government of a republic. In an abso- 

 successful man of affairs, that we have lute monarchy, in which a Louis XI\ 

 turned for advice and guidance. That can say, "I am the State ;" can refer 

 Mr. Hill is such a man, no one can to the people of the nation as "his chil- 

 question. His utterances, therefore, dren," and treat them as such, the gov- 

 upon such a question as that of the bus- eminent may properly be spoken of as 

 banding of our resources carry peculiar "paternal." Where, however, as in the 

 weight. It is to be hoped that they may France of to-day, and in the L T nited 

 be widely quoted, repeated, and re- States, the people have attained their 



