able equipment for the struggle of life and an untarnished name.
So the noblest task that confronts us all to-day is to leave this
country unspotted in honor, and unexhausted in resources, to our
descendants, who will be, not less than we, the children of the Founders
of the Republic. I conceive this task to partake of the highest spirit
of patriotism.

CHAPTER XII

THE PRESENT BATTLE

Conservation has captured the Nation. Its progress during the last
twelve months is amazing. Official opposition to the conservation
movement, whatever damage it has done or still threatens to the public
interest, has vastly strengthened the grasp of conservation upon the
minds and consciences of our people. Efforts to obscure or belittle the
issue have only served to make it larger and clearer in the public
estimation. The conservation movement cannot be checked by the baseless
charge that it will prevent development, or that every man who tells the
plain truth is either a muck-raker or a demagogue. It has taken firm
hold on our national moral sense, and when an issue does that it has
won.

The conservation issue is a moral issue, and the heart of it is this:
For whose benefit shall our natural resources be conserved--for the
benefit of us all, or for the use and profit of the few? This truth is
so obvious and the question itself so simple that the attitude toward
conservation of any man in public or private life indicates his stand in
the fight for public rights.

All monopoly rests on the unregulated control of natural resources and
natural advantages, and such control by the special interests is
impossible without the help of politics. The alliance between business
and politics is the most dangerous thing in our political life. It is
the snake that we must kill. The special interests must get out of
politics, or the American people will put them out of business. There is
no third course.

Because the special interests are in politics, we as a Nation have lost
confidence in Congress. This is a serious statement to make, but it is
true. It does not apply, of course, to the men who really represent
their constituents and who are making so fine a fight for the
conservation of self-government. As soon as these men have won their
battle and consolidated their victory, confidence in Congress will
return.

But in the meantime the people of the United States believe that, as a
whole, the Senate and the House no longer represe