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The Conservation of Public Lands
1909
I transmit
herewith a report of the National Conservation
Commission, together with the accompanying
papers.
This report, which
is the outgrowth of the conference of governors
last May, was unanimously approved by the recent
joint conference held in this city between the
National Conservation Commission and governors
of States, state conservation commissions, and
conservation committees of great organizations
of citizens. It is therefore in a peculiar sense
representative of the whole nation and all its
parts.
With the statements and conclusions of this
report I heartily concur, and I commend it to
the thoughtful consideration both of the
Congress and of our people generally. It is one
of the most fundamentally important documents
ever laid before the American people. It
contains the first inventory of its natural
resources ever made by any nation. In condensed
form it presents a statement of our available
capital in material resources, which are the
means of progress, and calls attention to the
essential conditions upon which the perpetuity,
safety and welfare of this nation now rest and
must always continue to rest. It deserves, and
should have, the widest possible distribution
among the people.
The facts set forth in this report constitute an
imperative call to action. The situation they
disclose demands that we, neglecting for a time,
if need be, smaller and less vital questions,
shall concentrate an effective part of our
attention upon the great material foundations of
national existence, progress and prosperity.
This first inventory of natural resources
prepared by the National Conservation Commission
is undoubtedly but the beginning of a series
which will be indispensable for dealing
intelligently with what we have. It supplies as
close an approximation to the actual facts as it
was possible to prepare with the knowledge and
time available. The progress of our knowledge of
this country will continually lead to more
accurate information and better use of the
sources of national strength. But we can not
defer action until complete accuracy in the
estimates can be reached, because before that
time many of our resources will be practically
gone. It is not necessary that this inventory
should be exact in every minute detail. It is
essential that it should correctly describe the
general situation; and that the present
inventory does. As it stands it is an
irrefutable proof that the conservation of our
resources is the fundamental question before
this nation, and that our first and greatest
task is to set our house in order and begin to
live within our means.
The first of all considerations is the permanent
welfare of our people; and true moral welfare,
the highest form of welfare, can not permanently
exist save on a firm and lasting foundation of
material well-being. In this respect our
situation is far from satisfactory. After every
possible allowance has been made, and when every
hopeful indication has been given its full
weight, the facts still give reason for grave
concern. It would be unworthy of our history and
our intelligence, and disastrous to our future,
to shut our eyes to these facts or attempt to
laugh them out of court. The people should and
will rightly demand that the great fundamental
questions shall be given attention by their
representatives. I do not advise hasty or
ill-considered action on disputed points, but I
do urge, where the facts are known, where the
public interest is clear, that neither
indifference and inertia, nor adverse private
interests, shall be allowed to stand in the way
of the public good.
The great basic facts are already well known. We
know that our population is now adding about
one-fifth to its numbers in ten years, and that
by the middle of the present century perhaps one
hundred and fifty million Americans, and by its
end very many millions more, must be fed and
clothed from the products of our soil. With the
steady growth in population and the still more
rapid increase in consumption our people will
hereafter make greater and not less demands per
capita upon all the natural resources for their
livelihood, comfort and convenience. It is high
time to realize that our responsibility to the
coming millions is like that of parents to their
children, and that in wasting our resources we
are wronging our descendants.
We know now that our rivers can and should be
made to serve our people effectively in
transportation, but that the vast expenditures
for our waterways have not resulted in
maintaining, much less in promoting, inland
navigation. Therefore, let us take immediate
steps to ascertain the reasons and to prepare
and adopt a comprehensive plan for
inland-waterway navigation that will result in
giving the people the benefits for which they
have paid, but which they have not yet received.
We know now that our forests are fast
disappearing, that less than one-fifth of them
are being conserved, and that no good purpose
can be met by failing to provide the relatively
small sums needed for the protection, use and
improvement of all forests still owned by the
Government, and to enact laws to check the
wasteful destruction of the forests in private
hands. There are differences of opinion as to
many public questions; but the American people
stand nearly as a unit for waterway development
and for forest protection.
We know now that our mineral resources once
exhausted are gone forever, and that the
needless waste of them costs us hundreds of
human lives and nearly $300,000,000 a year.
Therefore, let us undertake without delay the
investigations necessary before our people will
be in position, through state action or
otherwise, to put an end to this huge loss and
waste, and conserve both our mineral resources
and the lives of the men who take them from the
earth.
I desire to make grateful acknowledgment to the
men, both in and out of the government service,
who have prepared the first inventory of our
natural resources. They have made it possible
for this nation to take a great step forward.
Their work is helping us to see that the
greatest questions before us are not partisan
questions, but questions upon which men of all
parties and all shades of opinion may be united
for the common good. Among such questions, on
the material side, the conservation of natural
resources stands first. It is the bottom round
of the ladder on our upward progress toward a
condition in which the nation as a whole, and
its citizens as individuals, will set national
efficiency and the public welfare before
personal profit.
The policy of conservation is perhaps the most
typical example of the general policies which
this Government has made peculiarly its own
during the opening years of the present century.
The function of our Government is to insure to
all its citizens, now and hereafter, their
rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness. If we of this generation destroy the
resources from which our children would
otherwise derive their livelihood, we reduce the
capacity of our land to support a population,
and so either degrade the standard of living or
deprive the coming generations of their right to
life on this continent. If we allow great
industrial organizations to exercise unregulated
control of the means of production and the
necessaries of life, we deprive the Americans of
today and of the future of industrial liberty, a
right no less precious and vital than political
freedom. Industrial liberty was a fruit of
political liberty, and in turn has become one of
its chief supports, and exactly as we stand for
political democracy so we must stand for
industrial democracy.
The rights to life and liberty are fundamental,
and like other fundamental necessities, when
once acquired, they are little dwelt upon. The
right to the pursuit of happiness is the right
whose presence or absence is most likely to be
felt in daily life. In whatever it has
accomplished, or failed to accomplish, the
administration which is just drawing to a close
has at least seen clearly the fundamental need
of freedom of opportunity for every citizen. We
have realized that the right of every man to
live his own life, provide for his family, and
endeavor, according to his abilities, to secure
for himself and for them a fair share of the
good things of existence, should be subject to
one limitation and to no other. The freedom of
the individual should be limited only by the
present and future rights, interests and needs
of the other individuals who make up the
community. We should do all in our power to
develop and protect individual liberty,
individual initiative, but subject always to the
need of preserving and promoting the general
good. When necessary, the private right must
yield, under due process of law and with proper
compensation, to the welfare of the
commonwealth. The man who serves the community
greatly should be greatly rewarded by the
community; as there is great inequality of
service, so there must be great inequality of
reward; but no man and no set of men should be
allowed to play the game of competition with
loaded dice.
All this is simply good common sense. The
underlying principle of conservation has been
described as the application of common sense to
common problems for the common good. If the
description is correct, then conservation is the
great fundamental basis for national efficiency.
In this stage of the world's history to be
fearless, to be just, and to be efficient are
the three great requirements of national life.
National efficiency is the result of natural
resources well handled, of freedom of
opportunity for every man, and of the inherent
capacity, trained ability, knowledge and will,
collectively and individually to use that
opportunity.
This administration has achieved some things; it
has sought, but has not been able, to achieve
others; it has doubtless made mistakes; but all
it has done or attempted has been in the single,
consistent effort to secure and enlarge the
rights and opportunities of the men and women of
the United States. We are trying to conserve
what is good in our social system, and we are
striving toward this end when we endeavor to do
away with what is bad. Success may be made too
hard for some if it is made too easy for others.
The rewards of common industry and thrift may be
too small if the rewards for other, and on the
whole less valuable, qualities, are made too
large, and especially if the rewards for
qualities which are really, from the public
standpoint, undesirable, are permitted to become
too large. Our aim is so far as possible to
provide such conditions that there shall be
equality of opportunity where there is equality
of energy, fidelity and intelligence; when there
is a reasonable equality of opportunity the
distribution of rewards will take care of
itself.
The unchecked existence of monopoly is
incompatible with equality of opportunity. The
reason for the exercise of government control
over great monopolies is to equalize
opportunity. We are fighting against privilege.
It was made unlawful for corporations to
contribute money for election expenses in order
to abridge the power of special privilege at the
polls. Railroad-rate control is an attempt to
secure an equality of opportunity for all men
affected by rail transportation; and that means
all of us. The great anthracite coal strike was
settled, and the pressing danger of a coal
famine averted, because we recognized that the
control of a public necessity involves a duty to
the people, and that public intervention in the
affairs of a public-service corporation is
neither to be resented as usurpation nor
permitted as a privilege by the corporations,
but on the contrary to be accepted as a duty and
exercised as a right by the Government in the
interest of all the people. The efficiency of
the army and the navy has been increased so that
our people may follow in peace the great work of
making this country a better place for Americans
to live in, and our navy was sent round the
world for the same ultimate purpose. All the
acts taken by the Government during the last
seven years, and all the policies now being
pursued by the Government, fit in as parts of a
consistent whole.
Our public-land policy has for its aim the use
of the public land so that it will promote local
development by the settlement of home makers;
the policy we champion is to serve all the
people legitimately and openly, instead of
permitting the lands to be converted,
illegitimately and under cover, to the private
benefit of a few. Our forest policy was
established so that we might use the public
forests for the permanent public good, instead
of merely for temporary private gain. The
reclamation act, under which the desert parts of
the public domain are converted to higher uses
for the general benefit, was passed so that more
Americans might have homes on the land.
These policies were enacted into law and have
justified their enactment. Others have failed,
so far, to reach the point of action. Among such
is the attempt to secure public control of the
open range and thus to convert its benefits to
the use of the small man, who is the home maker,
instead of allowing it to be controlled by a few
great cattle and sheep owners.
The enactment of a pure food law was a
recognition of the fact that the public welfare
outweighs the right to private gain, and that no
man may poison the people for his private
profit. The employers' liability bill recognized
the controlling fact that while the employer
usually has at stake no more than his profit,
the stake of the employee is a living for
himself and his family.
We are building the Panama Canal; and this means
that we are engaged in the giant engineering
feat of all time. We are striving to add in all
ways to the habitability and beauty of our
country. We are striving to hold in the public
hands the remaining supply of unappropriated
coal, for the protection and benefit of all the
people. We have taken the first steps toward the
conservation of our natural resources, and the
betterment of country life, and the improvement
of our waterways. We stand for the right of
every child to a childhood free from grinding
toil, and to an education; for the civic
responsibility and decency of every citizen; for
prudent foresight in public matters, and for
fair play in every relation of our national and
economic life. In international matters we apply
a system of diplomacy which puts the obligations
of international morality on a level with those
that govern the actions of an honest gentleman
in dealing with his fellow-men. Within our own
border we stand for truth and honesty in public
and in private life; and we war sternly against
wrongdoers of every grade. All these efforts are
integral parts of the same attempt, the attempt
to enthrone justice and righteousness, to secure
freedom of opportunity to all of our citizens,
now and hereafter, and to set the ultimate
interest of all of us above the temporary
interest of any individual, class, or group.
The nation, its government, and its resources
exist, first of all, for the American citizen,
whatever his creed, race, or birthplace, whether
be be rich or poor, educated or ignorant,
provided only that he is a good citizen,
recognizing his obligations to the nation for
the rights and opportunities which he owes to
the nation.
The obligations, and not the rights, of
citizenship increase in proportion to the
increase of a man's wealth or power. The time is
coming when a man will be judged, not by what he
has succeeded in getting for himself from the
common store, but by how well he has done his
duty as a citizen, and by what the ordinary
citizen has gained in freedom of opportunity
because of his service for the common good. The
highest value we know is that of the individual
citizen, and the highest justice is to give him
fair play in the effort to realize the best
there is in him.
The tasks this nation has to do are great tasks.
They can only be done at all by our citizens
acting together, and they can be done best of
all by the direct and simple application of
homely common sense. The application of common
sense to common problems for the common good,
under the guidance of the principles upon which
this republic was based, and by virtue of which
it exists, spells perpetuity for the nation,
civil and industrial liberty for its citizens,
and freedom of opportunity in the pursuit of
happiness for the plain American, for whom this
nation was founded, by whom it was preserved,
and through whom alone it can be perpetuated.
Upon this platform--larger than party
differences, higher than class prejudice,
broader than any question of profit and
loss--there is room for every American who
realizes that the common good stands first.
The National Conservation Commission wisely
confined its report to the statement of facts
and principles, leaving the Executive to
recommend the specific steps to which these
facts and principles inevitably lead.
Accordingly, I call your attention to some of
the larger features of the situation disclosed
by the report, and to the action thereby clearly
demanded for the general good.
WATERS
The report says:
"Within recent months it has been recognized and
demanded by the people, through many thousand
delegates from all States assembled in
convention in different sections of the country,
that the waterways should and must be improved
promptly and effectively as a means of
maintaining national prosperity.
"The first requisite for waterway improvement is
the control of the waters in such manner as to
reduce floods and regulate the regimen of the
navigable rivers. The second requisite is
development of terminals and connection in such
manner as to regulate commerce."
Accordingly, I urge that the broad plan for the
development of our waterways, recommended by the
Inland Waterways Commission, be put in effect
without delay. It provides for a comprehensive
system of waterway improvement extending to all
the uses of the waters and benefits to be
derived from their control, including
navigation, the development of power, the
extension of irrigation, the drainage of swamp
and overflow lands, the prevention of soil wash,
and the purification of streams for water
supply. It proposes to carry out the work by
coordinating agencies in the federal departments
through the medium of an administrative
commission or board, acting in cooperation with
the States and other organizations and
individual citizens.
The work of waterway development should be
undertaken without delay. Meritorious projects
in known conformity with the general outlines of
any comprehensive plan should proceed at once.
The cost of the whole work should be met by
direct appropriation if possible, but if
necessary by the issue of bonds in small
denominations.
It is especially important that the development
of water power should be guarded with the utmost
care both by the National Government and by the
States in order to protect the people against
the up-growth of monopoly and to insure to them
a fair share in the benefits which will follow
the development of this great asset which
belongs to the people and should be controlled
by them.
FORESTS
I urge that
provision be made for both protection and more
rapid development of the national forests.
Otherwise, either the increasing use of these
forests by the people must be checked or their
protection against fire must be dangerously
weakened. If we compare the actual fire damage
on similar areas on private and national forest
lands during the past year, the government fire
patrol saved commercial timber worth as much as
the total cost of caring for all national
forests at the present rate for about ten years.
I especially commend to the Congress the facts
presented by the commission as to the relation
between forests and stream flow in its bearing
upon the importance of the forest lands in
national ownership. Without an understanding of
this intimate relation the conservation of both
these natural resources must largely fail.
The time has fully arrived for recognizing in
the law the responsibility to the community, the
State, and the nation which rests upon the
private owners of private lands. The ownership
of forest land is a public trust. The man who
would so handle his forest as to cause erosion
and to injure stream flow must be not only
educated, but he must be controlled.
The report of the National Conservation
Commission says:
"Forests in private ownership can not be
conserved unless they are protected from fire.
We need good fire laws, well enforced. Fire
control is impossible without an adequate force
of men whose sole duty is fire patrol during the
dangerous season."
I hold as first among the tasks before the
States and the nation in their respective shares
in forest conservation the organization of
efficient fire patrols and the enactment of good
fire laws on the part of the States.
The report says further:
"Present tax laws prevent reforestation of
cut-over land and the perpetuation of existing
forests by use. 'An annual tax upon the land
itself, exclusive of the timber, and a tax upon
the timber when cut is well adapted to actual
conditions of forest investment and is
practicable and certain. It is far better that
forest land should pay a moderate tax
permanently than that it should pay an excessive
revenue temporarily and then cease to yield at
all."
Second only in importance to good fire laws well
enforced is the enactment of tax laws which will
permit the perpetuation of existing forests by
use.
LANDS
With our
increasing population the time is not far
distant when the problem of supplying our people
with food will become pressing. The possible
additions to our arable area are not great, and
it will become necessary to obtain much larger
crops from the land, as is now done in more
densely settled countries. To do this, we need
better farm practice and better strains of
wheat, corn and other crop plants, with a
reduction in losses from soil erosion and from
insects, animals and other enemies of
agriculture. The United States Department of
Agriculture is doing excellent work in these
directions and it should be liberally supported.
The remaining public lands should be classified
and the arable lands disposed of to home makers.
In their interest the timber and stone act and
the commutation clause of the homestead act
should be repealed, and the desert-land law
should be modified in accordance with the
recommendations of the Public Lands Commission.
The use of the public grazing lands should be
regulated in such ways as to improve and
conserve their value.
Rights to the surface of the public land should
be separated from rights to forests upon it and
to minerals beneath it, and these should be
subject to separate disposal.
The coal, oil, gas and phosphate rights still
remaining with the Government should be
withdrawn from entry and leased under conditions
favorable for economic development.
MINERALS
The accompanying
reports show that the consumption of nearly all
of our mineral products is increasing more
rapidly than our population. Our mineral waste
is about one-sixth of our product, or nearly
$1,000,000 for each working day in the year. The
loss of structural materials through fire is
about another million a day. The loss of life in
the mines is appalling. The larger part of these
losses of life and property can be avoided.
Our mineral resources arc limited in quantity
and can not be increased or reproduced. With the
rapidly increasing rate of consumption the
supply will be exhausted while yet the nation is
in its infancy, unless better methods are
devised or substitutes are found. Further
investigation is urgently needed in order to
improve methods and to develop and apply
substitutes.
It is of the utmost importance that a Bureau of
Mines be established in accordance with the
pending bill to reduce the loss of life in mines
and the waste of mineral resources and to
investigate the methods and substitutes for
prolonging the duration of our mineral supplies.
Both the need and the public demand for such a
bureau are rapidly becoming more urgent. It
should co-operate with the States in supplying
data to serve as a basis for state mine
regulations. The establishment of this bureau
will mean merely the transfer from other bureaus
of work which it is agreed should be transferred
and slightly enlarged and reorganized for these
purposes.
CONCLUSIONS
The joint
conference already mentioned adopted two
resolutions to which I call your special
attention. The first was intended to promote
co-operation between the States and the nation
upon all of the great questions here discussed.
It is as follows:
" Resolved , That a joint committee be appointed
by the chairman, to consist of six members of
state conservation commissions and three members
of the National Conservation Commission, whose
duty it shall be to prepare and present to the
state and national commissions, and through them
to the governors and the President, a plan for
united action by all organizations concerned
with the conservation of natural resources. (On
motion of Governor Noel, of Mississippi, the
chairman and secretary of the conference were
added to and constituted a part of this
committee.)"
The second resolution of the joint conference to
which I refer calls upon the Congress to provide
the means for such co-operation. The principle
of the community of interest among all our
people in the great natural resources runs
through the report of the National Conservation
Commission and the proceedings of the joint
conference. These resources, which form the
common basis of our welfare, can be wisely
developed, rightly used, and prudently conserved
only by the common action of all the people,
acting through their representatives in State
and nation. Hence the fundamental necessity for
cooperation. Without it we shall accomplish but
little, and that little badly. The resolution
follows:
"We also especially urge on the Congress of the
United States the high desirability of
maintaining a national commission on the
conservation of the resources of the country,
empowered to co-operate with state commissions
to the end that every sovereign commonwealth and
every section of the country may attain the high
degree of prosperity and the sureness of
perpetuity naturally arising in the abundant
resources and the vigor, intelligence and
patriotism of our people."
In this recommendation I most heartily concur,
and I urge that an appropriation of at least
$50,000 be made to cover the expenses of the
National Conservation Commission for necessary
rent, assistance and traveling expenses. This is
a very small sum. I know of no other way in
which the appropriation of so small a sum would
result in so large a benefit to the whole
nation.
THEODORE
ROOSEVELT.
THE WHITE HOUSE, January 22, 1909.
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