d in the
mountains searching for seepages and tracing them to their source; the
rough and two-fisted driller, a man generally of unusual physical
strength, who handled the great tools of his trade; the venturesome
"wildcatter," part prospector, part promoter, part operator, the
"marine" of the industry, "soldier and sailor too"; the geologist who
through his study of the anatomy of the earth crust could map the pools
and sands almost as if he saw them; the inventor; the chemist with still
and furnace; the genius who found that oil would run in a pipe--these
and many more, in most of the sciences and in nearly all of the crafts,
have created this American industry. If they are permitted they will
reveal the world supply of oil. And upon that supply the industries of
our country will come to be increasingly dependent year by year.

BY WAY OF SUMMARY.

It would seem to be our plain duty to discover how little oil we need to
use. To do this we must dignify coal by grading it in terms not merely
of convenience as to size, but in terms of service as to its power. We
should save it, if for no better reason than that we may sell it to a
coal-hungry world. We should develop water power as an inexhaustible
substitute for coal and if necessary compel the coordination of all
power plants which serve a common territory. New petroleum supplies have
become a national necessity, so quickly have we adapted ourselves to
this new fuel and so extravagantly have we given ourselves over to its
adaptability. To save that we may use abundantly, to develop that we may
never be weak, to bring together into greater effectiveness all power
possibilities--these would seem to be national duties, dictated by a
large self-interest.

I have gone only sufficiently far into this whole question to realize
that it is as fundamental and of as deep public concern as the railroad
question and that it is even more complex. No one, so far as I can
learn, has mastered all of its various phases; in fact, there are few
who know even one sector of the great battle front of power. A Foch is
needed, one in whom would center a knowledge of all the activities and
the inactivities of these three great industries, which in reality are
but a single industry. We should know more than we do, far more about
the ways and means by which our unequaled wealth in all three divisions
can be used and made interdependent, and the moral and the legal
strength of the Nation shoul