Man so thoughtlessly destroyed
By Murray Bourne, 30 Jul 2006
This is an interesting quote from Theodore Roosevelt, US president from 1901 to 1909.
We of an older generation can get along with what we have, though with growing hardship; but in your full manhood and womanhood you will want what nature once so bountifully supplied and man so thoughtlessly destroyed; and because of that want you will reproach us, not for what we have used, but for what we have wasted...So any nation which in its youth lives only for the day, reaps without sowing, and consumes without husbanding, must expect the penalty of the prodigal whose labor could with difficulty find him the bare means of life.
~Theodore Roosevelt (Arbor Day message to the school children of the United States, April 1907)
Roosevelt was way before his time in the conservation movement:
"It seems time for the country to take account of its natural resources and to enquire how long they are likely to last."
~ 1908 Conference of Governors
See more in Wikipedia: Roosevelt the Conservationist.
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