With changes of conditions which brought a realization of dangers from waste, the need of a national policy of conservation arose. A rise of prices of raw materials in connection with every resource is probably the strongest economic force leading to more scientific utiliza tion, and this is the strongest guarantee of con servation, hut legislation is also needed.
The Roosevelt administration first saw the importance of a more active national control of natural resources for the benefit of the pub lic. In February 1907, calling attention to the waste of mineral resources, the President recommended legislation for separation of tht title to the surface of the land from the title to the underlying mineral fuels, in order that the latter at least might be withheld from monopolizing or speculative private interests and kept for the public benefit. He considered that "the conservation of our natural resources and their proper use constitute the fundamental problem which underlies almost every other problem of our national life? Early in 1907 he took the first practical step toward the solu tion of the problem by the appointment of the Inland Waterways Commission to investigate and recommend a full and comprehensive plan for the development and utility of the water resources of the country. In May 1908 he took the second step in calling at the White House a conference of governors to which facts regard ing natural resources were presented by ex perts and at which plans for conservation were considered. This conference began a definite movement for conservation. Following its first meeting the President took an additional step by the appointment of a National Conservation Commission composed of about 50 members under the chairmanship of Gifford Pinchot who was head of the forestry division. This com mission made the first national inventory of natural resources, published in 1909. It directed attention to the waste in extraction and treat ment of mineral products, the decrease of soil fertility, the extinction of wild game and fur bearing animals, the decrease of forests by timber industries and by fires, the waste of water in public and private irrigation projects and the great losses by failure to utilize the power of water flowing over government dams.
Disclosures of recent government investiga tions thus begun are appalling. Experts report
that many natural resources are rapidly nearing exhaustion; that at the present rate of con sumption and with present wasteful methods the timber can last only 30 or 40 years, that the supplies of available coal can be expected to last only 150 years, and the supply of petroleum only 50 years, that the supply of high grade iron can last only 100 years and the known copper deposits only 50 to 100 years.
Advocates of the new policy proposed not only to conserve by more economic methods of extraction but also by substitutes to reduce the consumption. The storage and properly di rected release of vast water power which has remained uncontrolled and unused can be made to save other resources from damage and at the same time to conserve enormous supplies of coal. By complete utilization of this neg lected resource, floods may be reduced, better means for irrigation provided, waterways im proved for navigation, and larger power se cured for industrial purposes.
President Roosevelt withdrew large areas of western public land from sale and settlement for the purpose of investigating their resources, and recommended legislation for protection of interests nterests of the general public in their for ests, minerals and water powers. Important steps toward a national policy were taken by the creation of national forests (under acts of 1891 and 1907) and the Forest Service. The latter is a bureau of the Department of Agri culture which successfully protects and admin isters the public interests in the national forests, which contain one-fifth of all the standing timber in the United States, protect the head waters of every western river and aid in sup porting half the sheep in the western ranges. It also co-operates with State bureaus. It protects the forests from fire and depredations, improves the conditions for timber growth, pro tects the water supply and utilizes the forage crop. Besides the practice of scientific forestry it conducts investigations and collects much useful information for dissemination. The new policy defeated the attempts to cede the national forests and the entire public domain to the Western States which cannot so well administer them in the interests of the whole people.