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Governor  Walter  F.  Frear.  Mr.  Chairman,  Senators,  Rep- 
resentatives, Ladies  and  Gentlemen : The  administration  of 
President  Roosevelt  has  been  marked  by  an  extraordinary 
number  of  not  only  remarkable  events  and  achievements  but 
great  movements  for  reform  and  advancement,  which  could  be 
instituted  only  by  a man  of  his  courage  and  energy,  breadth 
of  view  and  farsightedness.  It  is  difficult  to  say  which  of  these 
events  or  movements  future  historians  will  select  as  the  most 
notable,  but  a great  many  believe  that  it  will  be  the  move- 
ment for  the  conservation,  the  development  and  the  better 
utilization  of  the  natural  resources  of  the  country.  The  people 
are  becoming  awakened  as  never  before  to  the  gravity  of  the 
situation,  to  the  fact  that  the  national  prosperity  is  dependent 
upon  the  proper  conservation  and  use  of  the  natural  resources. 
They  are  coming  to  realize  as  the  result  of  recent  investigation 
that  the  forests  of  the  country  will  be  exhausted  in  a single 
generation  if  the  present  wastefulness  is  not  checked ; they 
are  coming  to  realize  that  there  is  very  little  public  land  left 
for  settlement ; they  are  coming  to  realize  that  in  only  a few 
generations  the  iron  and  the  coal  mines  will  be  exhausted. 
Now,  this  movement  for  the  conservation  and  development  of 
the  natural  resources,  while  it  has  been  preparing  in  one  way 
and  another  for  many  years,  has  grown  with  wonderful  rapid- 
ity in  the  last  few  years.  It  had  its  origin  in  many  causes, 
but  it  came  about  principally  through  the  feeling  that  the 
transportation  facilities  of  the  country  were  wholly  inadequate. 
Many  organizations  had  been  formed  to  promote  the  develop- 
ment of  various  water  ways  in  the  country  for  purposes  of 
transportation,  and  about  two  years  ago  the  President  attended 
a meeting  of  one  of  these,  and  as  a result  of  that  meeting  and 
many  requests  made  to  him,  he  appointed  a commission  known 
as  the  Inland  Waterways  Commission,  consisting,  I believe,  of 
nine  persons,  distinguished  in  their  several  lines  of  work,  to 
investigate  the  subject  of  the  inland  waterways  with  a view 
to  affording  the  necessary  transportation  facilities,  which  the 
railroads  could  not  furnish.  The  farmers  had  not  only  to  pay 
high  prices  for  getting  their  products  to  market,  but  they 
actually  could  not  get  them  to  market  at  all  in  many  instances 
because  there  were  not  railroads  enough.  This  commission 
began  work,  but  before  it  got  very  far,  it  found  that  the  pro- 
blem was  larger  than  that  of  mere  transportation  facilities.  It 
found  that  although  there  were  50,000  miles  of  inland  water 
ways  in  the  United  States  which  were  navigable  or  could  be 
made  navigable,  that  the  United  States  was  far  behind  Euro- 
pean nations  in  the  development  of  such  water  ways.  It  found 
that  the  water  resources  of  the  country  had  to  be  developed 
and  utilized  in  a way  to  meet  other  needs  than  those  of  mere 
transportation,  such  as  those  of  irrigation,  generation  of  power, 
and  domestic  and  municipal  use.  They  found  that  the  public 
