Editorial 



Most good causes, as they come into popular favor, suffer from 

 diversions, if not perversions, in the interest of other causes. Just 

 now the good cause of the conservation of natural resources has 

 reason to file a protest against being made the victim of the old device 

 of promoting a weaker issue by a perverted use of the popularity of 

 a stronger one. After a normal growth of two decades under the 

 scientific guidance of the national Geological Survey, the doctrine 

 of conservation has recently blossomed out into wide popular favor. 

 This special blossoming has not been without artificial fertilizers 

 from other than strictly scientific sources, but that need count little 

 here or there if the blossoming be left to lead on to natural fruitage 

 without hybridization. Now, however, come diversions and per- 

 versions. The protection of natural values against wastage is one 

 thing, the possession of these values is quite another thing. The 

 best conservation may not be correlated with the best ownership, 

 all things considered. Ownership, desirable on other accounts, may 

 be an obstacle to conservation, and ownership, otherwise undesirable, 

 may be tributary to conservation. This is so because, in their funda- 

 mental nature, the problems of conservation and the problems of 

 possession are distinct questions, each to be solved in its own way and 

 on its own basis. They center in separate fields. The conservation 

 of natural resources centers in the scientific and the technical; the 

 right of owmership and the most desirable distribution of ownership 

 center in the political and the sociological. The best conservation of 

 the soil is not necessarily dependent on the most desirable partition 

 of the land. The small farmer often impoverishes his farm, while 

 the estate of the millionaire fattens under scientific management. To 

 divide Alaska into 90,000,000 moieties and give each of us one, would 

 not settle the problem of the highest utilization of the Alaskan resources. 

 To form an absolute monopoly with 90,000,000 stockholders — call 

 it "government" or otherwise, as you please — would still leave the 

 problem of conservation untouched. To permit fewer individuals 

 and more corporations to pay the price and divide the ownership, 



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