January 10, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



29 



managers are diligently studying these prob- 

 lems. They are men of great experience and 

 ability — and the chairman of their association 

 has voic€id their progress by publicly saying: 



The whole question of the ultimate return of 

 the railroads to private operation has been con- 

 sidered together with the development of a system 

 of public regulation and control for the future 

 which shaU not only protect against abuses, but 

 be affirmatively helpful to the development of ade- 

 quate transportation facilities for the great after- 

 war tasks of the country. 



While, as a war measure, the temporary pos- 

 session and operation of our railroads by the 

 government was necessary, the continuance of 

 such a system in peace, or of any measure of 

 government ownership with its political evils, 

 would be a calamity depriving the traveling 

 public of the efficient operation naturally com- 

 ing from the initiative and enterprise and 

 sense of responsibility attending individual 

 management, and always absent where govern- 

 mental red tape and autocratic authority rule, 

 regardless of the comfort or needs of the pub- 

 lic. Some reasonable, responsible governmental 

 oversight or control of these great interests is 

 without doubt necessary. The war urgency, 

 the more intimate relations that war needs 

 have established between governmental agen- 

 cies and railroad and industrial managers, 

 must and will lead to the establishment of sys- 

 tems of regulation not destructive but con- 

 structive in character, that will operate to the 

 lasting benefit of our country. 



The need of conservation and development 

 of our latent water-power resources has been 

 emphasized by the war. For years, since the 

 public study of the conservation of our nat- 

 ural resources was initiated in 1908 by Presi- 

 dent Roosevelt's call for a conference of gov- 

 ernors of our states to consider the matter — 

 the National Conservation Congress, and Con- 

 servation and Forestry Associations through- 

 out the country, have studied the problem of 

 how best to conserve, and yet to use the coun- 

 try's natural resources, in water-power, and in 

 our mines and forests. When we were brought 

 by this war to realize our dependence on Chili 

 for our supply of nitrates in the manufacture 

 of ammunition, while Germany had evolved 



and developed economical methods of utilizing 

 her water powers and of extracting nitrogen 

 from the air, we were taught another lesson 

 in conservation and of the folly of our dilatory 

 laissez-faire system of dealing with the water 

 problem. Under war pressure greater progress 

 has perhaps been made than would have been 

 possible in many years of deliberate peace 

 methods. Serious differences of opinion have 

 existed in the past as to the proper measure of 

 governmental control that should be exercised 

 in the development and use of the great latent 

 water powers of the west, and enabling legis- 

 lation has been impeded and halted by vision- 

 ary and wholly unpractical objections to such 

 reasonable and liberal legislation as would en- 

 courage capital to enter into and support such 

 development. As a wise westerner has said of 

 the development of the west in the past : " The 

 western country was never settled, and never 

 could have been settled, with thirty cents and 

 an infant class," and conservation of our nat- 

 ural resources was well defined by Dr. C. W. 

 Hayes, when chief geologist of the TJ. S. Geo- 

 logical Survey, as " utilization with a maxi- 

 mum efficiency and a minimum waste." 



It is the use, and the avoidance of the abuse, 

 of our natural resources, that conservation 

 properly teaches, not the locking up of these 

 resources. Now in this urgent, intensive war 

 experience a broader national vision has de- 

 veloped. We have learned and have become ac- 

 customed to figure in billions, where we used 

 to fear that millions would be wasteful. The 

 government has taken hold of great questions 

 with a giant hand, and has, by its conversion 

 to the truth that in its conduct of great enter- 

 prises great men, experienced in the work con- 

 templated, should be used rather than avoided 

 with suspicion, accomplished great results — 

 and the lesson has been enforced that when 

 needed to attain results, large expenditures 

 may lead to the greatest economy in methods 

 and certainly to greater success in the attain- 

 ment of ends. Our great corporations may, in 

 view of the governinent's housing programs, be 

 encouraged to feel that proper measures to that 

 end are a necessary concomitant to the main- 

 tenance of satisfactory labor conditions, and 



