CONCLUSION 377 



knowledge and understanding necessary for an intelligent solution 

 of her public land problems ; and even if there were any doubt that 

 the reservation policy will prove to be the ultimate solution, it has 

 the supreme merit of postponing an irrevocable decision until a future 

 time, when the nation is older and wiser. Lands which are reserved 

 can be turned over to private ownership at any time. Lands which 

 are once alienated are irrevocably beyond control, and beyond the 

 reach of any wise and beneficent laws or policies that bur developing 

 intelligence may bring forth. Pinchot has put the problem clearly: 

 "This nation has, on the continent of North America, three and a 

 half million square miles. What shall we do with it.'' How can we make 

 ourselves and our children happiest, most vigorous and efficient, and 

 our civilization the highest and most influential, as we use that splen- 

 did heritage.'* . . . Above all, let us have clearly in mind the great 

 and fundamental fact that this nation will not end in the year 1950, 

 or a hundred years after that, or five hundred years after that ; that 

 we are just beginning a national history the end of which we cannot 

 see, since we are still young. . . . 



"On the way in which we decide to handle this great possession 

 which has been given us, on the turning which we take now, hangs the 

 welfare of those who are to come after us. Whatever success we may 

 have in any other line of national endeavor, whether we regulate trusts 

 properly, whether we control our great public service corporations as 

 we should, whether capital and labor adjust their relations in the best 

 manner or not — whatever we may do with all these and other such 

 questions, behind and below them all is this fundamental problem, 

 Are we going to protect our springs of prosperity, our sources of 

 well-being, our raw material of industry and commerce, and employer 

 of capital and labor combined; or are we going to dissipate them.'' 

 According as we accept or ignore our responsibility as trustees of 

 the nation's welfare, our children and our children's children for 

 uncounted generations will call us blessed, or will lay their suffering 

 at our doors."® 



6 Farmers' Bui. 327. 



