It was a characteristic arrangement of the old days. More than
that, it was a characteristic expression of the old attitude of
thought and action on the part of the American people toward
their natural resources. Dazzled and intoxicated by the
inexhaustible riches of their bountiful land, they had concerned
themselves only with the agreeable task of utilizing and
consuming them. To their shortsighted vision there seemed always
plenty more beyond. With the beginning of the twentieth century a
prophet arose in the land to warn the people that the supply was
not inexhaustible. He declared not only that the "plenty more
beyond" had an end, but that the end was already in sight. This
prophet was Gifford Pinchot. His warning went forth reinforced by
all the authority of the Presidential office and all the
conviction and driving power of the personality of Roosevelt
himself. Pinchot's warning cry was startling:

"The growth of our forests is but one-third of the annual cut;
and we have in store timber enough for only twenty or thirty
years at our present rate of use . . . . Our coal supplies are so
far from being inexhaustible that if the increasing rate of
consumption shown by the figures of the last seventy-five years
continues to prevail, our supplies of anthracite coal will last
but fifty years and of bituminous coal less than two hundred
years . . . . Many oil and gas fields, as in Pennsylvania, West
Virginia, and the Mississippi Valley, have already failed, yet
vast quantities of gas continue to be poured into the air and
great quantities of oil into the streams. Cases are known in
which great volumes of oil were systematically burned in order to
get rid of it . . . . In 1896, Professor Shaler, than whom no one