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Gentlemen:—Conservation has been well described as the making use
through care of our National Resources. Conservation is simply the
intelligent care and use of our Natural Wealth.
The
term is new only that it is UNUSUAL. Heretofore we have exercised
anything EXCEPT intelligence in the use of our Natural Wealth.
We
came into our inheritance much as the idle and profligate youth
succeeds to the fortune of a billionaire father. We have dissipated
that inheritance---like the youth--in one continuous campaign of
reckless extravagance. We have arrived at the sobering period---the
morning after. With weakened constitution, broken credit and loss of
income, we are wondering what happened. We are at the stage when our
drafts upon the bank of Mother Nature are being held over, and the
balance sheet is scrutinized by the Credit Man. It is new and strange,
and somewhat humiliating, but true. Like the spendthrift son, we are
gathering together the scattered remnants of a mis-spent
fortune---trying to make a new beginning; we are ready to try to reform.
We
came upon this seemingly boundless country with its seemingly boundless
wealth, only recently. We turned upon its resources with the belief that
they were inexhaustible; we handled them without regard for the future.
We cut and slashed without a care; we dug and bored and blasted and
burned as if the sole purpose was to annihilate the very earth itself,
and to date we have succeeded well. Our campaign of riotous living is
well nigh ended. By the great family of nations we are looked upon, as
we regard the class known, as the "Newly-Rich." We look upon this
element in our society with pity liberally diluted with contempt; pity
for their weakness, and contempt for their proclaimed superiority.
The
older and wiser nations view us in a similar light and compare the
purposes---both of which appear to be, TO WALLOW IN WEALTH UNWON.
When
the European nations had learned the lesson of wanton waste, and had
suffered through generations of patient toil and wearisome waiting for
the recovery of exhausted Nature---we were just as busy and persistent
in destroying ours---and now, we, like them, will have to suffer the
same patient toil and wearisome waiting for our exhausted Nature to
recover.
But suddenly we awakened, as it were, overnight, and
the word "CONSERVATION" was born. Since 1906 the American People have
been learning its meaning; I might more properly say, its definition,
for as yet, they have not grasped its meaning. They will not until they
have paid the debt they owe to Mather Nature. They will understand the
meaning of Conservation only after they have planted the seed and
patiently watched and waited a century or more for Nature to produce
again the things they robbed her of.
Did it ever occur to our
tiny intellect that it means something to sink the blade of an axe into
the bark of a stately tree? Did you ever stop to think that you were a
near-murderer when you drove the blade of steel into the flesh and
blood of a living, breathing thing, that was as much consequence in
Nature as yourself, and more? Did you ever consider that the tree, like
yourself, is one of a great family of children placed on earth by the
Supreme Architect and builder of the existing Order of things? The
tree, like yourself, was designed as part of the whole, and is just as
necessary.
The natural energy expended in its creation is vastly
superior; its birth and growth and death is none the less complex and
wonderful. Did you ever pause to contemplate that the same Unseen Power
that gave him life, and love---and permitted him to see and understand,
then grow to old age only to wither and die---also makes the seed to
germinate, and, from its birth, the tree to live and have a being, with
its hours of sleep and waking, its mating season and nearly every
attribute of humankind excepting locomotion?
Its little mouths
hunger for food and drink; its lungs inhale fresh air, and to grow it
requires sunlight and frequent baths even as you and I; its trials and
temptations are as yours and mine and none the less severe; and the
same unalterable rule applies to both alike. Each, in so far as itself
is concerned, is an accident---for that Unknown Power gives place to
each alike, and when the time is due gives their place to OTHERS OF
THEIR KIND.
The Designer of things earthly---or heavenly, if you
please---does not substitute MAN FOR TREES, nor birds for beasts. "And
God said, let the earth bring forth the living creatures after its
kind***and everything that creepeth upon the earth after its
kind******"And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree
that is pleasant to the sight and good for food."
MAN, mere man,
is but an infinitesimal part of a single one of all the kingdoms---the
animal kingdom---and hi relation to the myriad things of life, put on
earth by the Maker of it all, is relatively unimportant. Man is among
the least important of all the great elements in Nature. If man were to
become extinct, this same old earth would roll along unconscious of its
loss; the animal life, its vegetive kingdom, its birds and insects, and
the fishes that swim in the sea---all in perfect harmony, would swing
on with this world in a perfect state of equilibrium, unto the end of
time.
But let Man, in his savage barbarity, continue to increase
and multiply at the same ratio as in the recent past; and with the same
degree of intelligence, continue to apply his madness born of
ignorance, toward the other elements in Nature, and the results would be
that he would so unbalance the natural forces as to suffer---first and
surest of all, his own extinction.
Do you comprehend the
tremendous importance of trees in relation to human life? Do you know
the work they do? When you understand that a single mature oak tree, in
a single summer season, drinks up a hundred and twenty tons of water,
drawing it in through its roots and discharging it into the atmosphere
through its leaves. When you understand that without this process, the
air would become incapable of supporting human life. When you
understand that Man is destroying these very necessary trees at the
rate of more than a thousand acres every hour of the day and night, in
the United States---and if the same rate is continued for one hundred
years they will all be destroyed---then you will begin to grasp the
meaning of the work of Conservation.
I am not predicting such a
result. Nature has a way of correcting the errors of man, just as she
has a way of correcting other evils, and she will correct them. She is
applying her remedy now. She is forcing us to adopt the Conservation
Policy. She has said to us, "You have taken more than your share; you
have drawn down my life-giving power until I cannot sustain you longer
in the same way. You must let me recuperate. You have gouged out my
eyes and torn my hair from its roots; you have tapped my veins and let
flow my life's blood; you have hacked and torn my flesh; you have
burned and bruised my body; you have sapped my vitality until I can
stand it no longer. You must henceforth exist as best you can with the
limited aid I can give you. You must wait until I recover my health for
if you continue the same demands, I must soon fail to sustain but a few
of you. If it is difficult to exist, you are to blame. If you find it
expensive and unhealthful, it is because you have not exercised your
rights. If you are denied fresh air, pure water and abundant food, it
is because you have destroyed my ability to supply them to you. If I do
not respond to your every demand and you still complain---witness the
havoc you have wrought and let me direct you to the wilderness for the
study of my RULES AND REGULATIONS.
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The story begins, early in this century, with a man named Anthony Wayne
Cook. He was a lumberman---member of a lumbering family which had
acquired large holdings in northwestern Pennsylvania.
