FOREWORD 



BY HUBERT WORK, SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR 



IN a hundred and fifty years a virile, resistless, 

 acquisitive people have swept our country from the 

 Atlantic to the Pacific Coast. From Jamestown and 

 Plymouth they have pushed the frontier before them 

 until it has disappeared. The wild turkey vanished 

 before the domestic hen. Sheep replaced deer. The buf- 

 falo gave way to better beef breeds; grains and fruits 

 have been substituted for nuts and wild berries. The 

 Conestoga wagon, the canal, the steam railway, the 

 automobile, and the airplane have followed each other 

 in rapid procession all within the memory of father 

 and son. Towns and cities have been built, many of 

 them among the world's largest, and more than half our 

 people live in them. We win wars for other nations and 

 lend them money with which to mend their wrecked 

 fortunes. 



We are admittedly the richest, most powerful Na- 

 tion in the world and we took this power of wealth out 

 of the ground. Now, we must invoice our resources 

 and determine how we should proceed from here. For 

 a nation begins but once. 



April, 1928. 



