We have been deciding, and the decision is not yet fully made, whether
the future shall suffer the long train of ills which everywhere has
followed, and must always follow, the abuse of the forest, or whether by
protecting the timberlands we shall assure the prosperity of all of the
users of the wood, the water, and the forage which our forests supply.
Nothing less than the whole agricultural and commercial welfare of the
country is in the balance. No other conservation question compares with
this in the vital intimacy of its touch on every portion of our national
life.
Other great questions only less vital I cannot even refer to, but one of
the central ones remains--our whole future is at stake in the education
of our young men in politics and public spirit. The greatest work that
Theodore Roosevelt did for the United States, the great fact which will
give his influence vitality and power long after we shall all have gone
to our reward, greater than his great services in bringing peace, in
settling strikes, in preaching the crusade of honesty and decency in
business and in daily life, is the fact that he changed the attitude of
the American people toward conserving the natural resources, and toward
public questions and public life.
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