ew ideas, new entries with new enthusiasms, independent men, shall be
welcomed? when your sons shall be able to look forward to becoming, not
employees, but heads of some small, it may be, but hopeful, business,
where their best energies shall be inspired by the knowledge that they are
their own masters, with the paths of the world open before them? Have you
no desire to see the markets opened to all? to see credit available in due
proportion to every man of character and serious purpose who can use it
safely and to advantage? to see business disentangled from its unholy
alliance with politics? to see raw material released from the control of
monopolists, and transportation facilities equalized for all? and every
avenue of commercial and industrial activity levelled for the feet of all
who would tread it? Surely, you must feel the inspiration of such a new
dawn of liberty!

* * * * *

There is the great policy of conservation, for example; and I do not
conceive of conservation in any narrow sense. There are forests to
conserve, there are great water powers to conserve, there are mines whose
wealth should be deemed exhaustible, not inexhaustible, and whose
resources should be safeguarded and preserved for future generations. But
there is much more. There are the lives and energies of the people to be
physically safeguarded.

You know what has been the embarrassment about conservation. The federal
government has not dared relax its hold, because, not _bona fide_
settlers, not men bent upon the legitimate development of great states,
but men bent upon getting into their own exclusive control great mineral,
forest, and water resources, have stood at the ear of the government and
attempted to dictate its policy. And the government of the United States
has not dared relax its somewhat rigid policy because of the fear that
these forces would be stronger than the forces of individual communities
and of the public interest. What we are now in dread of is that this
situation will be made permanent. Why is it that Alaska has lagged in her
development? Why is it that there are great mountains of coal piled up in
the shipping places on the coast of Alaska which the government at
Washington will not permit to be sold? It is because the government is not
sure that it has followed all the intricate threads of intrigue by which
small bodies of men have tried to get exclusive control of the coal fields
of