The Fight for Conservation | Page 5

independence was won and when our Union was preserved, we were preeminently a nation of farmers. We can not, and we ought not, to continue exclusively, or even chiefly, an agricultural country, because one man can raise food enough for many. But the farmer who owns his land is still the backbone of this Nation; and one of the things we want most is more of him. The man on the farm is valuable to the Nation, like any other citizen, just in proportion to his intelligence, character, ability, and patriotism; but, unlike other citizens, also in proportion to his attachment to the soil. That is the principal spring of his steadiness, his sanity, his simplicity and directness, and many of his other desirable qualities. He is the first of home-makers.
The nation that will lead the world will be a Nation of Homes. The object of the great Conservation movement is just this, to make our country a permanent and prosperous home for ourselves and for our children, and for our children's children, and it is a task that is worth the best thought and effort of any and all of us.
To achieve this or any other great result, straight thinking and strong action are necessary, and the straight thinking comes first. To make this country what we need to have it, we must think clearly and directly about our problems, and above all we must understand what the real problems are. The great things are few and simple, but they are too often hidden by false issues, and conventional, unreal thinking. The easiest way to hide a real issue always has been, and always will be, to replace it with a false one.
The first thing we need in this country, as President Roosevelt so well set forth in a great message which told what he had been trying to do for the American people, is equality of opportunity for every citizen. No man should have less, and no man ought to ask for any more. Equality of opportunity is the real object of our laws and institutions. Our institutions and our laws are not valuable in themselves. They are valuable only because they secure equality of opportunity for happiness and welfare to our citizens. An institution or a law is a means, not an end, a means to be used for the public good, to be modified for the public good, and to be interpreted for the public good. One of the great reasons why President Roosevelt's administration was of such enormous value to the plain American was that he understood what St. Paul meant when he said: "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." To follow blindly the letter of the law, or the form of an institution, without intelligent regard both for its spirit and for the public welfare, is very nearly as dangerous as to disregard the law altogether. What we need is the use of the law for the public good, and the construction of it for the public welfare.
It goes without saying that the law is supreme and must be obeyed. Civilization rests on obedience to law. But the law is not absolute. It requires to be construed. Rigid construction of the law works, and must work, in the vast majority of cases, for the benefit of the men who can hire the best lawyers and who have the sources of influence in lawmaking at their command. Strict construction necessarily favors the great interests as against the people, and in the long run can not do otherwise. Wise execution of the law must consider what the law ought to accomplish for the general good. The great oppressive trusts exist because of subservient lawmakers and adroit legal constructions. Here is the central stronghold of the money power in the everlasting conflict of the few to grab, and the many to keep or win the rights they were born with. Legal technicalities seldom help the people. The people, not the law, should have the benefit of every doubt.
Equality of opportunity, a square deal for every man, the protection of the citizen against the great concentrations of capital, the intelligent use of laws and institutions for the public good, and the conservation of our natural resources, not for the trusts, but for the people; these are real issues and real problems. Upon such things as these the perpetuity of this country as a nation of homes really depends. We are coming to see that the simple things are the things to work for. More than that, we are coming to see that the plain American citizen is the man to work for. The imagination is staggered by the magnitude of the prize for which we work. If we succeed, there will exist upon this continent a