Then there is the question of conservation. What is our fear about
conservation? The hands that are being stretched out to monopolize our
forests, to prevent or pre-empt the use of our great power-producing
streams, the hands that are being stretched into the bowels of the earth
to take possession of the great riches that lie hidden in Alaska and
elsewhere in the incomparable domain of the United States, are the hands
of monopoly. Are these men to continue to stand at the elbow of government
and tell us how we are to save ourselves,--from themselves? You can not
settle the question of conservation while monopoly is close to the ears of
those who govern. And the question of conservation is a great deal bigger
than the question of saving our forests and our mineral resources and our
waters; it is as big as the life and happiness and strength and elasticity
and hope of our people.

There are tasks awaiting the government of the United States which it
cannot perform until every pulse of that government beats in unison with
the needs and the desires of the whole body of the American people. Shall
we not give the people access of sympathy, access of authority, to the
instrumentalities which are to be indispensable to their lives?




IV

LIFE COMES FROM THE SOIL


When I look back on the processes of history, when I survey the genesis of
America, I see this written over every page: that the nations are renewed