59 
A NATIONAL  INVENTORY. 
If  you  do  no  more  than  fix  attention  upon  the  problem,  you 
will  have  done  well.  It  augurs  well  for  the  future  that  you 
are  here,  and  it  is  to  the  credit  of  our  country  that  in  this  matter 
it  should  take  the  lead  among  the  nations  of  the  world.  All 
we  are  asking,  gentlemen,  is  that  the  national  government  shall 
proceed  as  a private  business  man  would,  as  a matter  of  course, 
proceed.  He  will  regularly  take  account  of  stock,  so  that  he 
may  know  just  where  he  stands.  If  you  find  that  he  does  not, 
that  he  does  not  know  how  his  outgo  corresponds  with  his  in- 
come, you  will  be  afraid  to  trade  with  him.  The  same  measures 
of  prudence  demanded  from  him  as  an  individual/  are  demanded 
from  us  as  a nation.  Unfortunately,  nations  have  been  slow  to 
profit  by  the  example  of  every  individual  among  them  who 
makes  a success  of  his  business.  The  United  States  is  substan- 
tially the  first  nation  to  prepare  to1  take  an  inventory  of  its 
stock  in  hand,  and  it  has  only  begun  to  do  so,  in  any  definite 
way,  within  the  last  few  months.  Last  May,  you,  the  Governors 
of  the  States  and  Territories,  met  at  the  White  House  to  confer 
with  each  other  and  the  President,  upon  the  material  basis  of 
our  national  welfare.  You  united  in  a memorable  declaration, 
which  should  hang  on  the  wall  of  every  school,  and  every 
citizen  who  is  a voter  in  the  United  States  in  the  next  gener- 
ation should  know  about  it.  Out  of  the  conference  at  which 
the  declaration  was  adopted  grew  the  National  Conservation 
Commission,  whose  chief  duty  was,  as  I have  said,  to  prepare 
an  inventory  of  the  national  resources  of  our  country,  those 
resources  which  are,  in  the  language  o!f  the  Governors,  the 
foundation  of  our  prosperity.  This  report  is  to  be  used  by  the 
President  in  transmitting  to  Congress  information  as  to  the 
State  of  the  Union  so  far  as  the  natural  resources  are  concerned. 
THE  COMMISSION. 
The  Commission  consists  of  Senators  and  Representatives, 
members  of  the  executive  departments,  and  public  spirited 
private  citizens  familiar  with  particular  resources.  It  is  wholly 
without  funds,  and  it  has,  therefore  depended  altogether  on  the 
public  spirit  of  its  members  and  the  cooperation  of  the  execu- 
tive departments  at  Washington  and  in  the  several  States,  espe- 
cially the  scientific  and  statistical  bureaus. 
I wish  to  take  this  opportunity  to  express  on  behalf  of  the 
people  of  this  country  my  profound  appreciation  of  the  disin- 
terested work — work  so  valuable  that  it  could  not  be  paid  for 
adequately  and  which,  as  a matter  of  fact,  was  not  paid  for 
at  all — performed  by  the  members  in  private  who  have  given 
so  lavishly  of  their  best  time  and  thought  in  forwarding  this 
cause.  Its  work  has  brought  these  bureaus  in  closer  and  more 
effective  cooperation  than  ever  before,  and  for  this  matter  its 
