The conception that water is, on the whole, the most important natural resource has gained firm hold in the irrigated West, and is making rapid progress in the humid East. Water, not land, is the primary value in the Western country, and its conservation and use to irrigate land is the first condition of prosperity. The use of our streams for irrigation and for domestic and manufacturing uses is comparatively well developed. Their use for power is less developed, while their use for transportation has only begun. The conservation of the inland waterways of the United States for these great purposes constitutes, perhaps, the largest single task which now confronts the Nation. The maintenance and increase of agriculture, the supply of clear water for domestic and manufacturing uses, the development of electrical power, transportation, and lighting, and the creation of a system of inland transportation by water whereby to regulate freight-rates by rail and to move the bulkier commodities cheaply from place to place, is a task upon the successful accomplishment of which the future of the Nation depends in a peculiar degree. We are accustomed, and rightly accustomed, to take pride in the vigorous and healthful growth of the United States, and in its vast promise for the future. Yet we are making no preparation to realize what we so easily foresee and glibly predict. The vast possibilities of our great future will become realities only if we make ourselves, in a sense, responsible for that future. The planned and orderly development and conservation of our natural resources is the first duty of the United States. It is the only form of insurance that will certainly protect us against the disasters that lack of foresight has in the past repeatedly brought down on nations since passed away.
CHAPTER II
HOME-BUILDING FOR THE NATION
The most valuable citizen of this or any other country is the man who owns the land from which he makes his living. No other man has such a stake in the country. No other man lends such steadiness and stability to our national life. Therefore no other question concerns us more intimately than the question of homes. Permanent homes for ourselves, our children, and our Nation—this is a central problem. The policy of national irrigation is of value to the United States in very many ways, but the greatest of all is this, that national irrigation multiplies the men who own the land from which they make their living. The old saying, "Who ever heard of a man shouldering his gun to fight for his boarding house?" reflects this great truth, that no man is so ready to defend his country, not only with arms, but with his vote and his contribution to public opinion, as the man with a permanent stake in it, as the man who owns the land from which he makes his living.
Our country began as a nation of farmers. During the periods that gave it its character, when our independence was won and when our Union was preserved, we were preeminently a nation of farmers. We can not, and we ought not, to continue exclusively, or even chiefly, an agricultural country, because one man can raise food enough for many. But the farmer who owns his land is still the backbone of this Nation; and one of the things we want most is more of him. The man on the farm is valuable to the Nation, like any other citizen, just in proportion to his intelligence, character, ability, and patriotism; but, unlike other citizens, also in proportion to his attachment to the soil. That is the principal spring of his steadiness, his sanity, his simplicity and directness, and many of his other desirable qualities. He is the first of home-makers.
The nation that will lead the world will be a Nation of Homes. The object of the great Conservation movement is just this, to make our country a permanent and prosperous home for ourselves and for our children, and for our children's children, and it is a task that is worth the best thought and effort of any and all of us.
To achieve this or any other great result, straight thinking and strong action are necessary, and the straight thinking comes first. To make this country what we need to have it, we must think clearly and directly about our problems, and above all we must understand what the real problems are. The great things are few and simple, but they are too often hidden by false issues, and conventional, unreal thinking. The easiest way to hide a real issue always has been, and always will be, to replace it with a false one.
The first thing we need in this country, as President Roosevelt so well set forth in a great message which told what he had been trying to do for the American people, is equality of opportunity for every citizen. No man should have less, and no man ought to ask for any more. Equality of opportunity is the real object of our laws and institutions. Our institutions and our laws are not valuable in themselves. They are valuable only because they secure equality of opportunity for happiness and welfare to our citizens. An institution or a law is a means, not an end, a means to be used for the public good, to be modified for the public good, and to be interpreted for the public good. One of the great reasons why President Roosevelt's administration was of such enormous value to the plain American was that he understood what St. Paul meant when he said: "The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." To follow blindly the letter of the law, or the form of an institution, without intelligent regard both for its spirit and for the public welfare, is very nearly as dangerous as to disregard the law altogether. What we need is the use of the law for the public good, and the construction of it for the public welfare.