the doctrine of human rights, while all around us and beneath our feet the

essence of human and all other life as well has flowed away unchecked, the

wasting of a vital natural resource nearly unnoticed. 
In its disregard of the fact that the natural resources of any land 
arc not inexhaustible, the American civilization has shown no greater de-

gree of unwisdom than has been exhibited since the dawn of history by every

race or nation whose destiny it has been to discover new lands and to occu-

py tiem. The histories of the continents that mankind has discovered dur-

ing the ages since the first nomadic tribes emerged from central Asia may

all alike be written under the same three chapter titles-Exploration, Ex-

-loitation, and Exhaustion. It would seem that as mants intelliuoncc devol-

oped and as greater knowledge came to him, his treatment of the soil tnd
its 
products--organic and inorganic--would grow loss and less wastofl and do-

structive as the vital nature of his dependence upon these things become

more and more apparent. 
Actually the opposite thing has occurred. Man has used his intelli- 
gence and growing ingenuity in ways to hasten the destruction of natural
re- 
sources and to reduce the interval of time elapsing between the exploration

of npw fertile territory and the exhaustion of the greater part of its natur-

al wealth. The ravge of Asia 'Ias a slow process, one that required thousands

of years to accomplish with the crude implements that early man h-d been
able 
to invent. In less than four and a half centuries since Columbus made the

discovery that introduced the most profligate era the world will ever know,

the most fertile part of the continent of North America has been reduced
to 
a condition so nearly comparable with the Asiatic scene as to be appalling.

An astute European who visited our country at a time when the carni- 
val of destruction was well under way remarked that Americans regarded trees

as enemies and felt that they did well to cut them down. They had the same

hostile attitude toward streams and natural reservoirs of water; toward the

tough-rooted grasses that clogged the plow; ,and toward every wild creature

inhabiting the prolific region. It was as if the race, impatient of the 
slow processes of evolutionarj doom, seized upon every device and contri-

vance that could be used to hasten the end. In some phases of modern war-

fare 1 scorched ewth" is now a recognized weapon for the destruct"
  of an' 
enemy. Its strategy requires the destruction of every living thing Upo 
the land and oven the organic resources of the soil itsblf. For three cOr-

turies Americans have been employing the scorched-earth strategy, not a-

gainst a hostile power, but most effectively against themselves and their

institutions. 
Awakening to the Menace to the Resource 
A study of the history of the conservation of organic resources, 
including wildlife in France, Germany, and the British Isles, furnishes 
ground for encouragement to conservationists in this country. Here we 
find indications that at some stage in the process of land utilization 
the inhabitants of these older countries bccamo aware of the dangcrs of 
 
- 2-