The Fight for Conservation | Page 4

the added cost.
Mining will become vastly more expensive; and with the rise in the
cost of mining there must follow a corresponding rise in the price of
coal, iron, and other minerals. The railways, which have as yet failed
entirely to develop a satisfactory substitute for the wooden tie (and
must, in the opinion of their best engineers, continue to fail), will be
profoundly affected, and the cost of transportation will suffer a
corresponding increase. Water power for lighting, manufacturing, and
transportation, and the movement of freight and passengers by inland
waterways, will be affected still more directly than the steam railways.
The cultivation of the soil, with or without irrigation, will be hampered
by the increased cost of agricultural tools, fencing, and the wood
needed for other purposes about the farm. Irrigated agriculture will
suffer most of all, for the destruction of the forests means the loss of
the waters as surely as night follows day. With the rise in the cost of
producing food, the cost of food itself will rise. Commerce in general
will necessarily be affected by the difficulties of the primary industries
upon which it depends. In a word, when the forests fail, the daily life of
the average citizen will inevitably feel the pinch on every side. And the
forests have already begun to fail, as the direct result of the suicidal
policy of forest destruction which the people of the United States have
allowed themselves to pursue.

It is true that about twenty per cent, of the less valuable timber land in
the United States remains in the possession of the people in the
National Forests, and that it is being cared for and conserved to supply
the needs of the present and to mitigate the suffering of the near future.
But it needs no argument to prove that this comparatively small area
will be insufficient to meet the demand which is now exhausting an
area four times as great, or to prevent the suffering I have described.
Measures of greater vigor are imperatively required.
The conception that water is, on the whole, the most important natural
resource has gained firm hold in the irrigated West, and is making rapid
progress in the humid East. Water, not land, is the primary value in the
Western country, and its conservation and use to irrigate land is the
first condition of prosperity. The use of our streams for irrigation and
for domestic and manufacturing uses is comparatively well developed.
Their use for power is less developed, while their use for transportation
has only begun. The conservation of the inland waterways of the
United States for these great purposes constitutes, perhaps, the largest
single task which now confronts the Nation. The maintenance and
increase of agriculture, the supply of clear water for domestic and
manufacturing uses, the development of electrical power, transportation,
and lighting, and the creation of a system of inland transportation by
water whereby to regulate freight-rates by rail and to move the bulkier
commodities cheaply from place to place, is a task upon the successful
accomplishment of which the future of the Nation depends in a peculiar
degree. We are accustomed, and rightly accustomed, to take pride in
the vigorous and healthful growth of the United States, and in its vast
promise for the future. Yet we are making no preparation to realize
what we so easily foresee and glibly predict. The vast possibilities of
our great future will become realities only if we make ourselves, in a
sense, responsible for that future. The planned and orderly development
and conservation of our natural resources is the first duty of the United
States. It is the only form of insurance that will certainly protect us
against the disasters that lack of foresight has in the past repeatedly
brought down on nations since passed away.
CHAPTER II

HOME-BUILDING FOR THE NATION
The most valuable citizen of this or any other country is the man who
owns the land from which he makes his living. No other man has such
a stake in the country. No other man lends such steadiness and stability
to our national life. Therefore no other question concerns us more
intimately than the question of homes. Permanent homes for ourselves,
our children, and our Nation--this is a central problem. The policy of
national irrigation is of value to the United States in very many ways,
but the greatest of all is this, that national irrigation multiplies the men
who own the land from which they make their living. The old saying,
"Who ever heard of a man shouldering his gun to fight for his boarding
house?" reflects this great truth, that no man is so ready to defend his
country, not only with arms, but with his vote and his contribution to
public