utilization. The long cvcle of drought "beginning in 1915 and c-ohtinuing 

 w-lth an intensity almost unbroken for two decades was responsil)le for- a new 

 and mounting interest "by the puhlic in the condition of organic -national ' 

 resources of all kinds. Words and phrases descriptive of soil erosion, .■ 

 lov/ered water tahles, and the destruction of vegetative cover had "been 

 meaningless terms and vague to the mind of the average citizen. Suddenly 

 they "became clothed with disturbing significances when the somher, "baleful 

 shadov/s of the dust storms drifted across the country, telling of the de- 

 ■struction of millions of tons of fertile soil, or when floods roared .unchecked 

 along the inland v/aterways like huge ruptured arterie§ spilling out the very 

 life blood of the Nation. The conservationist now finds an interested and 

 anxious .audience v/here hitherto his v/arnings had been ignored or heard with 

 tolerance aii'd politely concealed contempt. The great hand of Hature was 

 writing a message of foreboding; the symbols vrere whirling clouds of choking ■ 

 dust, thunderous.- torrents, dying cattle, and destitute humanity. The mes- 

 'sag-e means that the economic and social security of the Nation is utterly 

 'dependent upon the national ability to conserve and administer v;-isely the 

 organic resources and products of the soil, " - ■. . 



■ WIIDUPE HEEDS IGNORED DURING D3\^lOP^ffiNT PSIilOD 



From the time v/hen the first activities by white men toward the colo- 

 nization and settlement of the v/ild lands of North America were first under- 

 taken, the greatest efforts and the best intelligence of the increasing popu- 

 lation have been directed toward solving those problems that concern man in 

 hi-s relations to his fellows, Americans have displayed vision -and ability 

 to anticipate the needs and stresses of the future most convincingly in their 

 development and application of social and political principles. They have 

 created a form .of government in .conformity with their convictions of liberty 

 and .eq^uality among men that has been of sufficient strength to maintain the 

 country's position among other nations of the v/orld, but in accomplishing 

 •these things another relationship of fundamental importance was for a long 

 time ignored, Eor centuries America sent fev/ ambassadors to Nature, within 

 whose realms lie the Nation's most profound interests and responsibilities. 

 Laws have been made, institutions raised, universities established, and long 

 wars fought to. preserve 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 av;ay unchecked,, the wasting of a vital natural resource nearly unno- 

 ticed,. , ' 



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

 are not inexhaustible, American civilization has shown no greater degree of 

 ignorance 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 occupy them. 

 The histories of the continents that mankind has discovered 'during the ages 

 since' the first nomadic tribes emerged from central Asia may all alike be 

 written under the same three chapter titles — ^Exploration, Exploitation, and 

 Exhaustion, It woiild seem that as man's intelligence developed and as greater 

 knowledge came to him, his treatment of the soil and its' products — organic 

 and inorganic— would grov: less and less wasteful and destructive as the vital 

 nature of his dependence upon these things became more and more apparent. 



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