40 



The Dawn of a New Constructive Era 



the settlers to make homes ; knowing that the more developed 

 farms, the more resources there are in the country, the better 

 we can always secure the necessary revenues to support the 



Money Get- 

 ting vs. Devel- 

 opment 



The Age of 

 Co-operation 



Therefore, we have our public land history divided into 

 two periods I have sketched — first, the money getting period ; 

 next, the development period. A few years ago there came 

 in still another period. We might call! it the conservation or 

 reservation period. Nobody can tell exactly when it started, but 

 it nevertheless did start. Nobody can state, in a sentence, what 

 the controlling principle of this period is, but, in a general way, 

 this last period revolves around this thought : that we have been 

 lax in the enforcement of many of our land laws ; that we have 

 not always looked carefully to the best use of all these resources ; 

 that we have permitted our land laws in many respects to be 

 abused ; that we have permitted certain people and interests to 

 gain a monopoly of this thing or that thing; and so we had vari- 

 ous changes in the matter of public policy. We have, through 

 the West, probably 150 million acres that have been put into for- 

 est reserves. We have the Government taking up and spending 

 money for reclamation. We have a price put on our coal lands 

 above the minimum; we have the old system which operated 

 to lock up the coal of Alaska, replaced by a complete leasing 

 system ; we have a price put on the timber lands above the 

 minimum, the idea being to make the land free and easy to get 

 always for the man who will develop and use it to the best 

 advantage; but if it is a straight out-and-out business proposi- 

 tion, and does not involve a home building principle, then he 

 should pay what it is worth. 



I think we are gradually growing into a fourth period. I 

 can see it coming in many ways. Some aspects of it were de- 

 scribed by Secretary Vrooman this afternoon. It is a period of 

 co-operative development among all the interests involved. It is 

 the period we are starting in on now, where private owners, the 

 states and the Federal government will pull together more than 

 they have ever done before in the development of these resources. 

 And never before in our country's history was each man's private 

 business so much everybody's business as it is now. For in- 

 stance, we give a charter to a street railroad company to use 

 the streets, and we impose upon the grantee of that right various 

 duties and obligations. We say it is a common carrier. Now 



