The development of resources and the prevention
of waste and loss, the protection of the public interests, by foresight,
prudence, and the ordinary business and home-making virtues, all these
apply to other things as well as to the natural resources. There is, in
fact, no interest of the people to which the principles of conservation
do not apply.
The conservation point of view is valuable in the education of our
people as well as in forestry; it applies to the body politic as well as
to the earth and its minerals. A municipal franchise is as properly
within its sphere as a franchise for water-power. The same point of view
governs in both. It applies as much to the subject of good roads as to
waterways, and the training of our people in citizenship is as germane
to it as the productiveness of the earth. The application of
common-sense to any problem for the Nation's good will lead directly to
national efficiency wherever applied. In other words, and that is the
burden of the message, we are coming to see the logical and inevitable
outcome that these principles, which arose in forestry and have their
bloom in the conservation of natural resources, will have their fruit in
the increase and promotion of national efficiency along other lines of
national life.
Pages:
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47