Conservation Through Engineering / Extract from the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Franklin K. Lane, Secretary
United States Geological Survey George Otis Smith, Director
Bulletin 705
FRANKLIN K. LANE
Extract from the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior
WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1920
The plea for constructive policies contained in the report of the Secretary of the Interior to the President deserves a hearing also by the engineers and business men who are developing the power resources of the country. The largest conservation for the future can come only through the wisest engineering of the present.
The conditions under which the utilization of natural resources is demanded are outlined by Secretary Lane, and it will be noted that the program recommended calls for the cooperation of engineer and legislator. To bring this power inventory to the attention of the men who furnish the Nation with its coal and oil and electricity, this extract from the administrative report of the Secretary of the Interior is reprinted as a bulletin of the United States Geological Survey.

By Franklin K. Lane.
In an age of machinery the measure of a people's industrial capacity seems to be surely fixed by its motive power possibilities. Civilized nations regard an adequate fuel supply as the very foundation of national prosperity—indeed, almost as the very foundation of national possibility. I am convinced that there will be a reaction against the intense industrialism of the present, but as it must be agreed that the race for industrial supremacy is on between the nations of the world, America may well take stock of her own power possibilities and concern herself more actively with their development and wisest use.
THE COAL STRIKE.