94 The Environmental Debate
Document 78: Stuart Chase on Waste in the Machine Age (1931)
An author of popular books on economic problems in the United States, Stuart Chase urged that the country
develop an industrial order in which production and distribution would be aimed at satisfying the needs of
consumers—in the present and future—rather than of profit makers.[One of the four] main channel[s] of waste is
measured not in man-power, but in tonnage and
horse-power. It is the measure of the gutting of
the continent of North America. For every barrel
of oil which has reached the pipe line, three bar-
rels have been lost under ground; for every ton of
coal which has come out of the pit, another ton
has been left forever unreclaimable in the mine.
We are cutting our forests four times faster than
they are growing, which gives them—at this rate
of exploitation—only another generation, while
our effects at reforestation progress at a rate that
will require 900 years to plant the land now idle
and needing planting. Having cut the wood, we
lose two-thirds of it in process of manufacture.
Having made the paper, we use such wasteful
sizes and grades that ninety-one business organ-
izations taken at random have been found to
throw $1,000,000 a year into the wastebasket.
In soils, fisheries, minerals, bird life, the
neglect of waterpower—the story of ruthless
pioneering, with no provision for the future, is
repeated.... Meanwhile a single Sunday edition
of the New York Times—75 per cent of which
is advertising matter—consumes in wood pulp
about 14 acres of forest land.
* * *
Modern industry, it is universally con-
ceded, is operated on the basis of production
for profit. The usefulness of the thing produced
is a by-product. Realistic defenders of the pre-
sent order admit this, but go on to explain
that the profit motive provides so strong an
incentive for production that more by way of
consumable goods is thrown off—even as a
by product—than could possibly be attained
under any system founded on production for
use only. In short, it is claimed that the wayfar-
ing man secures a greater net benefit from the
profit system—despite its left-handed regard
for his interests—than he could from any sys-
tem designed directly to serve him.
Source: Stuart Chase, Waste and the Machine Age
(New York: League for Industrial Democracy, 1931),
pp. 34, 36.federal government and many of the states are
planning and working constructively to conserve
the nation’s timber resources.
A certain amount of sentiment clusters
about trees and the forests and this I would not
disparage, for I share it. We can however, put that
entirely aside, for the dollars and cents argument
is powerful enough if we have the slightest con-
sideration for future generations.
If no other fact were available to support this
statement one would need only to point out that
in eighty-five years lumber prices have increased
three and a half time as rapidly as average prices
of other common necessities. In consequence, in
part at least, of this rise in price our per capita
consumption of wood has declined by about
forty per cent. Thirty-three of our states are now
sending to other states for their lumber supplies.
We pay two hundred and fifty million dollars
a year of freight because the remaining forests
are so distant from the centers of consumption.
The steel rails of our Northern transportation
system are being laid on ties shipped from the far
Northwest. Our newsprint supplies are coming
from long distances. We use eight million tons of
paper a year. It takes five million trees annually
to support our telephone and telegraph wires.
Wood is a staple necessity of everyday life.
Source: Franklin D. Roosevelt, “A Debt We Owe,” Country
Home 54 (June 1930): 12-13.