CHAPTER III 
SAVING UNCLE SAM’S BIGGEST BANK ACCOUNT 
It is no exaggeration to say that the American nation 
is the mest extravagant in the world. Endowed by 
Nature with wonderful resources, forests apparently 
boundless, rivers and lakes without number, possess- 
ing agricultural land of marvelous richness and extent 
and with mineral deposits of great variety, it is no 
wonder that as a people we believed our riches to be 
inexhaustible. This feeling, so often expressed, has 
given rise to a policy of wastefulness in managing our 
resources that is without parallel in the history of the 
world; and none too soon have we learned that all things 
have an end. The conservation movement of which 
so much has been heard during the past ten years is 
a nation-wide effort to secure efficient and economical 
use of our natural wealth so that we will not pass an 
impoverished country to our descendants. Conservation 
does not mean locking up the resources. Conservation 
means proper use. 
One of the most frequent arguments which has 
been used against the conservation policy in general 
and the Forest Service plan in particular is that it 
meant locking up resources for the present in order 
that they may be used some time in the distant future. 
Nothing could be further from the truth. The present 
generation has rights which cannot be taken away and 
to deprive the citizens of today of the use of mineral 
deposits, forests, etc., would be a foolish thing to at- 
tempt. Conservation means using our substance with- 
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