ARBOR DAY 



the livelihood of all of us. The conservation of our 

 natural resources is a question of fundamental impor- 

 tance to the United States now. 



BY WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 



. . . It should be our purpose, not only to 

 preserve the nation's resources for future generations 

 by reducing waste to a minimum . . . we should 

 see to it that a few of the people do not monopolize 

 that which in equity is the property of all the people. 

 The earth belongs to each generation, and it is as 

 criminal to fetter future generations with perpetual 

 franchises, making the multitude servants to a 

 favored faction of the population, as it would be to 

 impair, unnecessarily, the common store. 



Money spent in care for the life and health of the 

 people, in protecting the soil from erosion and from 

 exhaustion, in preventing waste in the use of minerals 

 of limited supply, in the reclamation of deserts and 

 swamps, and in the preservation of forests still 

 remaining and the planting of denuded tracts 

 money invested in these and in the development of 

 waterways and in the deepening of harbors is an 

 investment yielding an annual return. If any of 

 these expenditures fail to bring a return at once the 

 money expended is like a bequest to those who come 

 after us. And as the parent lives for his child as well 

 as for himself, so the good citizen provides for the 



