What is the next step?
Shall we go on in the same lines to the certain destruction of the prosperity which we have created, or shall we take the obvious lesson of all human history, turn our backs on the uncivilized point of view, and adopt toward our natural resources the average prudence and average foresight and average care that we long ago adopted as a rule of our daily life?
The conservation movement is calling the attention of the American people to the fact that they are trustees.

The fact seems to me so plain as to require only a statement of it, to carry conviction.

Can we reasonably fail to recognize the obligation which rests upon us in this matter?
And, if we do fail to recognize it, can we reasonably expect even a fairly good reputation at the hands of our descendants?
Business prudence and business common-sense indicate as strongly as anything can the absolute necessity of a change in point of view on the part of the people of the United States regarding their natural resources.

The way we have been handling them is not good business.
Purely on the side of dollars and cents, it is not good business to kill the goose that lays the golden egg, to burn up half our forests, to waste our coal, and to remove from under the feet of those who are coming after us the opportunity for equal happiness with ourselves.

The thing we ought to leave to them is not merely an opportunity for equal happiness and equal prosperity, but for a vastly increased fund of both.
Conservation is not merely a question of business, but a question of a vastly higher duty.