I conceive this task to partake of the highest spirit
of patriotism.
CHAPTER XII
THE PRESENT BATTLE
Conservation has captured the Nation. Its progress during the last
twelve months is amazing. Official opposition to the conservation
movement, whatever damage it has done or still threatens to the public
interest, has vastly strengthened the grasp of conservation upon the
minds and consciences of our people. Efforts to obscure or belittle the
issue have only served to make it larger and clearer in the public
estimation. The conservation movement cannot be checked by the baseless
charge that it will prevent development, or that every man who tells the
plain truth is either a muck-raker or a demagogue. It has taken firm
hold on our national moral sense, and when an issue does that it has
won.
The conservation issue is a moral issue, and the heart of it is this:
For whose benefit shall our natural resources be conserved--for the
benefit of us all, or for the use and profit of the few? This truth is
so obvious and the question itself so simple that the attitude toward
conservation of any man in public or private life indicates his stand in
the fight for public rights.
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