April 1909.] 



384a 



MiscellaneonA. 



Neither the primitive man nor the 

 pioneer was aware of any duty to 

 posterity in dealing with the renewable 

 resources. When the American settler 

 felled the forests, he felt that there was 

 plenty of forest left for the sons that 

 came after him. When he exhausted 

 the soil of his farm he felt that his son 

 could go West and take up another. So 

 it was with his immediate successors. 

 When the soil-wash from the farmer's 

 fields choked the neighbouring river, he 

 thought only of usine: the railway rather 

 than boats for moving his produce and 

 supplies. 



Now all this has changed. On the 

 average the son of the f armer of to-day 

 must make his living on his father's 

 farm. There is no difficulty in doing 

 this if the father will exercise wisdom- 

 No wise use of a farm exhausts its 

 fertility. So with the forests. We are 

 over the verge of a timber famine in this 

 country, and it is unpardonable for the 

 Nation or the States to permit auy 

 further cutting of our timber save in 

 accordance with a system which will 

 provide that the uext generation shall 

 see the timber increased instead of 

 diminished. (Applause.) Moreover, we 

 can add enormous tracts of the most 

 valuable possible aKiicultural land to 

 the national domain by irrigation in the 

 arid and semi-arid regions and by drain- 

 age of great tracts of swamp lands in 

 the humid regions. We can enormously 

 increase our transportation facilities 

 by the canalization of our rivers so as to 

 complete a great system of waterways 

 on the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf coasts 

 and in the Mississippi Valley, from the 

 Great Plains to the Alleghenies, and 

 from the northern lakes to the mouth of 

 the mighty Father of Waters. But all 

 these various cases of our natural 

 resources are so closely connected that 

 they should be co-ordinated, and should 

 be treated as part of one coherent plan 

 and not in haphazard and piecemeal 

 fashion. 



It is largely becaue of tbis that I 

 appointed the* Waterways Commission 

 last year, and that I have sought to 

 perpetuate its work. I wish to take this 

 opportunity to express in heartiest 

 fashion my acknowlede:emen i to all the 

 members of the Commission. At great 

 personal sacrifice of time and effort they 

 have rendered a service to the public for 

 wt^ich we cannot be too grateful. 

 Especial credit is due to the initiative, 

 the energy, the devotion to duty and the 

 far-sightedness of Gifford Pinciiot (threat 

 applause ), to whom we owe so much of 

 the progress we have already made in 

 handling this matter ot the co-ordination 

 and conservation of natural resources. 



If it had not been for him this Con- 

 vention neither would nor could have 

 been called. 



We are coming to recognise as never 

 before the right of the Nation to guard 

 its own future in the essential matter of 

 natural resources. In the past we have 

 admitted the right of the individual to 

 injure the future of the Republic for his 

 own present profit. The time has come 

 for a change. As a people we have the 

 right and the duty, second to none other 

 but the right and duty of obeying the 

 moral law, of requiring and doing 

 justice, to protect ourselves and our 

 children against the wasteful develop- 

 ment of our natural resources, whether 

 that waste is caused by the actual 

 destruction ot such resources or by 

 making them impossible of development 

 hereafter. 



Any right thinking father earnestly 

 desires and strives to leave to his son 

 both an untarnished name and a reason- 

 able equipment tor the struggle of life. 

 So this Nation as a whole should earnest- 

 ly desire and strive to leave to the next 

 generation the national honour un- 

 stained and the national resources unex- 

 hausted. There are signs that both the 

 Nation and the States are waking to a 

 realization of this great truth. On 

 March 10, 1908, the Supreme Court of 

 Maine rendered an exceedingly impor- 

 tant judicial decision. This opinion was 

 rendered in response to questions as to 

 the right ot the legislature to restrict 

 the cutting of trees on private land for 

 the prevention of drought and floods, 

 the preservation of the natural water 

 supply, and the prevention of the 

 erosion of such lands, and the conse- 

 quent filling up of livers, ponds and 

 lakes. The forests and water powers of 

 Maine constitute the larger part of her 

 wealth and form the basis of her indus- 

 trial life, and the question submitted by 

 the Maine Seuate to the Supreme Court 

 and the answer of the Supreme Court 

 alike bear testimony to the wisdom of 

 the people of Maine and clearly define a 

 policy of conservation of natural 

 resources, the adoption of which is of 

 vital importance, not merely to Maine, 

 but to the whole country- (Applause.) 



Such a policy will preserve soil, forests, 

 water power as a heritage for the 

 children and the children's children of 

 the men and women of this generation ; 

 for any enactment that provides for the 

 wise utilization of the forests, whether 

 in public or private ownership, and for 

 the conservation of the water sources 

 of the country, must necessarily be legis- 

 lation that will promote both private 

 and public welfare ; for flood prevention, 

 water power development, preservation 



