Selected Short Stories

Read Roosevelt’s comments on conservation. How does the philosophy in this excerpt illustrate Roosevelt’s plan for a Square Deal for the environment?

Excerpt 3

Conservation means development as much as it does protection. I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us. I ask nothing of the nation except that it so behave as each farmer here behaves with reference to his own children. That farmer is a poor creature who skins the land and leaves it worthless to his children. The farmer is a good farmer who, having enabled the land to support himself and to provide for the education of his children, leaves it to them a little better than he found it himself. I believe the same thing of a nation.

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From the excerpt above, we can infer that Roosevelt'span for the environment was a conservative plan meant to utilize the nation's natural resources, as well as protect them.... to benefit from the environment, but also to insure the environment would be better for future generations.