VITAL RESOURCES OF THE NATION.
Dr. Henry Sturgis Drinker, President of Lehigh University, a Delegate from the State of Pennsylvania, from Lehigh University, and from the American Forestry Association.
What subject is there to which the constant attention of Conservationists, of patriotic men and women, could be better devoted than to the care of the vital resources of the nation—the care of the lives of all our people, not of a selected few, the teaching and the impressing of the lessons of steady life, of sobriety, of continence, and of due rest and recuperation from the wear and tear of our American life. Surely we have good reason to be proud of the intelligence and activity of our people, formed as they are of the intermingling of many peoples, with a resulting product as a nation that is markedly free from in-breeding and its usually unsatisfactory outcome.
I think it was Mr. Lieber, in the course of his gracious and cordial opening address of welcome to the Congress, who referred to our duty to endeavor to alleviate the condition of the sweat-shop and mine workers, but is there not another and equally great duty of which we are habitually more neglectful? What is our duty, the duty of society, to those self-sacrificing, altruistic men, devoted to public service, men such as Dr. Wallace, Mr. White, Mr. Farquhar, who devote themselves to and ably lead great movements like this Congress for the betterment of conditions among our people—men who are not only captains of industry, but generals in the army of public service, and leaders and exemplars in the pursuit of public duty? What should we, as a body, say to them and to others like them (for, thank God, America owns a great army of good men like them), who uphold the good cause of public service? They become in leading these great movements, in a measure, the custodians of the public welfare, but—“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes”? Who shall watch these very guards, and see that they conserve the intelligence, patriotism and energy, that goes out from them to public welfare, that it may not be prematurely exhausted? Surely we should take measures to have them feel how the Nation values them as a public asset, and how they owe it to their country as well as to their homes to heed and to preach to others the wise words of dear old Mark Twain, who (writing from Naples in 1867) sent us these words, pregnant with the lesson of the higher Conservation:
“We walked up and down one of the most popular streets for some time, enjoying other people’s comfort, and wishing we could export some of it to our restless, driving, vitality-consuming marts at home. Just in this one matter lies the main charm of life in Europe—comfort. In America, we hurry—which is well; but when the day’s work is done, we go on thinking of losses and gains, we plan for the morrow, we even carry our business cares to bed with us, and toss and worry over them when we ought to be restoring our racked bodies and brains with sleep. We burn up our energies with these excitements, and either die early, or drop into a mean and lean old age, at a time of life which they call a man’s prime in Europe. When an acre of ground has produced long and well, we let it lie fallow and rest for a season; we take no man clear across the continent in the same coach he started in—the coach is stabled somewhere on the plains and its heated machinery allowed to cool for a few days; when a razor has seen long service and refuses to hold an edge, the barber lays it aside for a few weeks, and the edge comes back of its own accord. We bestow thoughtful care upon inanimate objects, but none upon ourselves. What a robust people, what a nation of thinkers we might be, if we would only lay ourselves on the shelf occasionally and renew our edges.”
As the official call for this Congress stated, we have in previous meetings dealt with four great subjects—our forests, waters, lands, and minerals, but in taking for its theme this year the subject of “Vital Resources,” the Congress is studying the very life of the Nation, is seeking to benefit our people not only by the conservation of our material natural resources, but to do good to them by bringing home the duty of life Conservation in our whole Nation; and what greater task can patriotic men and women devote themselves to than this, and what words can epitomize the sentiment underlying this service better than those in Sophocles’ “Oedipus,” where it is said:
“Methinks, no work so grand
Hath man yet compassed, as with all he can
Of chance or power, to help his fellow-man.”