314 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 
and dissipation of our national wealth is not one which quickly im- 
presses itself on the people of the older communities, because its most 
obvious instances do not occur in their neighborhood, while in the newer 
part of the country, the sympathy with expansion and development is 
so strong that the danger is scoffed at or ignored. Among scientific men 
and thoughtful observers, however, the danger has always been present; 
but it needed some one to bring home the crying need for a remedy of 
this evil so as to impress itself on the public mind and lead to the 
formation of public opinion and action by the representatives of the 
people. Theodore Roosevelt took up this task in the last two years of 
his second administration, and well did he perform it. 
As president of the United States, I have, as it were, inherited this 
policy, and I rejoice in my heritage. I prize my high opportunity to do 
all that an executive can do to help a great people realize a great na- 
tional ambition. For conservation is national. It affects every man of 
us, every woman, every child. What I can do in the cause I shall do, 
not as president of a party, but as president of the whole people. 
Conservation is not a question of politics, or of factions, or of per- 
sons. It is a question that affects the vital welfare of all of us—of our 
children and our children’s children. I urge that no good can come 
from meetings of this sort unless we ascribe to those who take part in 
them, and who are apparently striving worthily in the cause, all proper 
motives, and unless we judicially consider every measure or method 
proposed with a view to its effectiveness in achieving our common pur- 
pose, and wholly without regard to who proposes it or who will claim 
the credit for its adoption. The problems are of very great difficulty 
and call for the calmest consideration and clearest foresight. Many of 
the questions presented have phases that are new in this country, and 
it is possible that in their solution we may have to attempt first one 
way and then another. What I wish to emphasize, however, is that a 
satisfactory conclusion can only be reached promptly if we avoid acri- 
mony, imputations of bad faith, and political controversy. 
The public domain of the government of the United States, in- 
cluding all the cessions from those of the thirteen states that made 
cessions to the United States and including Alaska, amounted in all 
to about 1,800,000,000 acres. Of this there is left as purely government 
property outside of Alaska something like 700,000,000 of acres. Of 
this the national forest reserves in the United States proper embrace 
144,000,000 acres. The rest is largely mountain or arid country, offer- 
ing some opportunity for agriculture by dry farming and by reclamation, 
and containing metals as well as coal, phosphates, oils and natural gas. 
Then the government owns many tracts of land lying along the margins 
of streams that have water power, the use of which is necessarily in the 
conversion of the power into electricity and its transmission. 
