for their children.

Before the cultural advantages of life may be enjoyed by the many,
wealth must be produced in sufficient quantities to provide food and
shelter. This provision of the economic necessaries is not a far goal.
Livelihood, when secured, does not make of man either a saint or an
artist, but it is a necessary step in the pursuit of either goodness or
beauty. The body must be fed before it will function, just as the engine
must be fed with fuel before it will run. The provision of a supply of
economic essentials is not the ultimate object of life, but until some
such provision is made, life in its fullest terms is impossible.

7. _Guaranteeing Livelihood_

The millions who inhabit the earth have a direct and immediate interest
in organizing economic life in such a way that the supply of economic
goods is made regular and certain. This is the premise on which all
constructive thinking about economics is necessarily founded.

How is this hope to be realized? What means are at hand to insure the
ultimate success of these efforts to guarantee livelihood?

Nature has provided an ample supply of the resources out of which the
economic necessaries may be produced. These resources fall mainly into
three general classes:

1. Climate, including those conditions of light, air, rainfall and
temperature that make possible the maintenance of life in its many
forms.

2. Fertility, including those qualities of the earth that are useful
to man in the pursuit of his economic activities.

3. Power, including those forces of nature which man may harness and
compel to do his bidding.

Climate, fertility and power are variously distributed over the earth.
The heat near the equator and the cold of the arctic regions make any
highly organized forms of economic life difficult. Consequently it is in
the temperate zones that industrial civilizations have developed. The
deposits of minerals and fuels are quite uneven. Take iron as an
example. The available deposits of iron ore are concentrated mainly in
Brazil, Cuba, the Appalachians and the Great Lake Basin, so that the
Americas and particularly North America have far more than a
proportionate share of the iron ore supply. Copper, coal and petroleum
are distributed with even greater irregularity. Equally uneven is soil
fertility. Beside a garden spot, like the Mississippi Valley, lies a
great Colorado-Utah desert. Nature has provided those requisi