the doctrine of human rights, while all around us and "beneath our feet the 

 essence of human and all other life as well has flowed away unchecked, the 

 wasting of a vital natural resource nearly \mnoticcd. 



In its disregard of the fact that the natural resources of any land 

 are not inexhaustible, the American civilization has shown no greater de- 

 gree of unv/isdom than has been exhibited since the dawn of history by every 

 race or nation whose destiny it has been to discover new lands and to occu^ 

 py t:.ei.ic Tho histories of the continents that mankind has discovered dur- 

 ing the ages since the first nomadic tribes emerged from central Asia may 

 all alike be written under the same three chapter titles — Exploration, Ex- 

 ploitation, and Exhaustion, It would seem that as man's intclligoncc devel- 

 , ojjcd and o-s greater knowledge came to him, his treatment of the soil and its 

 products — organic and inorganic — would grow less and less wasteful and de- 

 structive as the vital' nattirc of his depondcnco upon those things became 

 more and more apparent. 



Actually the opposite thing has occurred. Man has used his intelli- 

 gence and growing ingenuity in ways to hasten the destruction of natural re- 

 sources and to reduce the interval of time elapsing between the exploration 

 of now fertile territory and the exhaustion of the greater part of its natur- 

 al wealth. I'he ravage of Asia '/as a slow process, one that required thousands 

 of years to accomplish v/ith the crude implements that early man had been able 

 to invent. In less than four and a half centuries since Columbus made the 

 discovery that introduced the most profligate era the world will over know, 

 the most fertile part of the continent of North America has been reduced to 

 a condition so nearly comparable with the Asiatic scene as to be appalling. 



An astute European who visited our country at a time when the carni- 

 val of destruction was v/ell under way remarked that Americans regarded trees 

 as enemies and felt that they did well to cut them down. They had the same 

 hostile attitude tov/ard streams and natural reservoirs of water; toward the 

 tough-rooted grasses that clogged the plow; and tov;ard every v;ild creature 

 inhabiting the prolific region. It was as if the race, impatient of the 

 slov/ processes of evolutionary'' doom, seized upon every device and contri- 

 vance that could be used to hasten the end. In some phases of modern war- 

 faro "scorched earth" is now a recognized weapon for the destructl-OMi of an' 

 enemy. Its strategy requires the destruction of every living thing upon, 

 the land and oven the organic resources of the soil its'dlf. For three cen- 

 turies Americans have been employing the scorched-earth strategy, not a^ 

 gainst a hostile power, but most effectively a.gainst themselves and their 

 institutions. 



Awakening to the Menace to the Reso u rce 



A study of the history of the conservation of organic resources, 

 including wildlife in Franco, Germany, and the British Isles, furnishes 

 ground for encouragement to conservationists in this country, Hexe we 

 find indications that at some stage in the process of land utilization 

 the inhabitants of these older countries became aware of the dangers of 



