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source's. The wise use of all of our natural resources, which are our na- 
tional resources as well, is the great material question of today. I have 
asked you to come together now because the enormous consumption of 
these resources, and the threat of imminent exhaustion of them, due to 
reckless and wasteful use, once more calls for common effort, common 
action. 
Since the days when the Constitution was adopted, steam and elec- 
tricity have revolutionized the industrial world. Nowhere has the revo- 
lution been so great as in our own country. The discovery and utiliza- 
tion of mineral fuels and alloys have given us the lead over all other 
nations in the production of steel. The discovery and utilization of 
coal and iron have given us our railways, and have led to such industrial 
developments as has never before been seen. The vast wealth of lumber 
in our forests, the riches of our soils and mines, the discovery of coal 
and mineral oils, combined with the efficiency of our transportation, have 
made the conditions of our life unparalleled in comfort and convenience. 
The steadily increasing drain on these natural resources has pro- 
moted to an extraordinary degree the complexity of our industrial and 
social life. Moreover, this unexampled development has had a deter- 
mining effect upon the character and opinions of our people. The de- 
mand for efficiency in the great task has given us vigor, effectiveness, 
decision, and power, and a capacity for achievement which in its own 
lines has never yet been matched. (Applause.) So great and so rapid 
has been our material growth that there has been a tendency to lag 
behind in spiritual and moral growth (laughter and applause) ; but that 
is not the subject upon which I speak to you today. 
Disregarding for the moment the question of moral purpose, it is 
safe to say that the prosperity of our people depends directly on the 
energy and intelligence with which our natural resources are used. It 
is equally clear that these resources are the final basis of national power 
and perpetuity. Finally, it is ominously evident that these resources 
are in the course of rapid exhaustion. 
This Nation began with the belief that its landed possessions were 
illimitable and capable of supporting all the people who might care to 
make our country their home; but already the limit of unsettled land is 
in sight, and indeed but little land fitted for agriculture now remains 
unoccupied save what can be reclaimed by irrigation and drainage. 
We began with an unapproached heritage of forests; more than half of 
the timber is gone. We began with coal fields more extensive than 
those of any other nation, and with iron ores regarded as inexhaustible, 
and many experts now declare that the end of both coal and iron is in 
sight. 
The mere increase in the consumption of coal during 1907 over 1906 
exceeded the total consumption in 1876, the Centennial year. The enor- 
mous stores of mineral oil and gas are largely gone. Our natural water- 
ways are not gone, but they have been so injured by neglect, and by the 
division of responsibility and utter lack of system in dealing with them, 
that there is less navigation on them now than there was fifty years 
ago. Finally, we began with soils of unexampled fertility and we have 
so impoverished them by injudicious use and by failing to check erosion 
that their crop producing power is diminishing instead of increasing. 
In a word, we have thoughtlessly, and to a large degree unnecessarily, 
diminished the resources upon which not only our prosperity but the 
prosperity of our children must always depend. 
We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources, 
and we have just reason to be proud of our growth. But the time has 
come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, 
when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted, when the 
soils shall have been still further impoverished and washed into the 
streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields, and obstructing navi- 
gation. These questions do not relate only to the next century or to 
the next generation. It is time for us now as a Nation to exercise the 
