82 The Environmental Debate
The wastes which most urgently require
checking vary widely in character and amount.
The most reprehensible waste is that of destruc-
tion, as in forest fires, uncontrolled flow of gas
and oil, soil wash, and abandonment of coal in
the mines. This is attributable, for the most part,
to ignorance, indifference, or false notions of
economy, to rectify which is the business of the
people collectively.
Nearly as reprehensible is the waste aris-
ing from misuse, as in the consumption of fuel
in furnaces and engines of low efficiency, the
loss of water in floods, the employment of ill-
adapted structural materials, the growing of ill-
chosen crops, and the perpetuation of inferior
stocks of plants and animals, all of which may
be remedied.Source: Report of National Conservation Commission, Vol.
I, 60th Cong., 2nd sess., Senate Document 676 (Washington,
D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1909), pp. 13-14.profit, with no concern for the future or thought
of the permanent benefit of country and people,
a wasteful and profligate use of the resources
began and has continued.
The waters, at first recognized only as aids
to commerce in supplying transportation routes,
were largely neglected. In time this neglect began
to be noticed, and along with it the destruction
and approaching exhaustion of the forests. This,
in turn, directed attention to the rapid depletion
of the coal and iron deposits and the misuse of
the land.
* * *In the first stage, the resources received lit-
tle thought. In the second they were wastefully
used. In the stage which we are entering wise and
beneficial uses are essential, and the checking of
waste is absolutely demanded.
* * *Document 71: WJ McGee on Conservation (1909)
William John (always referred to as WJ, without periods, at his insistence) McGee became involved in federal
resource work when he joined the United States Geological Survey in 1878, at the invitation of John Wesley
Powell [see Document 58]. His interest in managing natural resources to serve the public was sparked at a
meeting of the Lakes-to-the-Gulf Deep Waterway Association in 1906. This was several months before Gifford
Pinchot became an active conservationist [see Document 73] and joined McGee in his effort to have the Inland
Waterways Commission established by President Theodore Roosevelt. The appointment of this commission on
March 14, 1907, marked the beginning of a national crusade in support of conservation.[Gifford] Pinchot and [James R.] Garfield
[secretary of the Interior, 1907-1909] espe-
cially, and [President Theodore] Roosevelt in his
turn, sought to counteract the tendency toward
wholesale alienation of the public lands for the
benefit of the corporation and the oppression or
suppression of the settler; and in the end their
efforts resulted in what is now known as the
Conservation Movement....
On its face the Conservation Movement is
material—ultra-material.... Yet in truth there
has never been in all human history a popular
movement more firmly grounded in ethics, in the
eternal equities, in the divinity of human rights!
Whether we rise into the spiritual empyrean or
cling more closely to the essence of humanity, we
find our loftiest ideals made real in the Cult of
Conservation....... What right has any citizen of a free coun-
try, whatever his foresight and shrewdness, to
seize on sources of life for his own behoof that
are the common heritage of all; what right has
legislature or court to help in the seizure; and
striking still more deeply, what right has any gen-
eration to wholly consume, much less to waste,
those sources of life without which the children
or the children’s children must starve or freeze?
These are among the questions arising among