This is the significance of the Conference of Governors on the Con- 

 servation of Natural Resources held at the White House, May 13-15, 

 1908, which took up for the first time the problem of conservation in 

 all its details. 



TREADWELL CLEVELAND,, JR. 



A NEW PATRIOTIC IMPULSE 



The World's Work Magazine summed up the Governors' Conference in 

 its editorial correspondence as follows: 



It was the most notable company of men that has come together in 

 our country in recent times. The official head of the nation, the 

 Cabinet, the Supreme Court, certain members of Congress, the heads 

 of the states, and, besides these, many of the most distinguished 

 scientific men that we have and men of a sound grasp of public sub- 

 jects who came as "advisers" to the Governors two or three of the 

 most noteworthy citizens of every state among them the presidents 

 of many of our foremost universities and schools of science; and, 

 besides these, representatives of all the most important national or- 

 ganizations of scientific and commercial bodies. 



About the general proposition that this extraordinary meeting was 

 called to emphasize there was no difference of opinion. And the 

 wealth of facts that were presented put the subject in every mind in 

 a new way, and aroused every man to an ardent purpose. When one 

 subject was put into every mind as the foremost subject of public 

 action that this generation can have, and was so presented and empha- 

 sized as to win universal assent and to arouse a patriotic purpose, 

 then all the machinery of publicity, of exhortation, and of public 

 action that a democracy can have was put in action at one stroke. 



The scientific papers presented to the Conference, giving exact data 

 about agriculture, streams, forests, coal, and all similar subjects, were 

 the most practical and helpful literature of waste and of methods of 

 conservation ever put together. They will become a classic description 

 of our great resources as they now are. 



The brief speeches by many of the Governors were in the nature of 

 an ." experience meeting. ' ' They told of the work that the state gov- 

 ernments are doing to save and to reclaim. And the resolutions 

 adopted called on the government, local and national, and on the 

 people to preserve our national wealth. 



Every man came away from the most noteworthy gathering that he 

 ever attended, with a new love of his country, a new attitude toward 

 it, a new conscience about the land, the trees, and the streams; and 

 we entered then on a new era in our national thought and in our 

 attitude toward our land. 



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