During the trip a letter was prepared and presented to me asking me
to summon a conference on the conservation of natural resources. My
intention to call such a conference was publicly announced at a great
meeting at Memphis, Tenn.
In the November following I wrote to each of the Governors of the
several States and to the Presidents of various important National
Societies concerned with natural resources, inviting them to attend the
conference, which took place May 13 to 15, 1908, in the East Room of the
White House. It is doubtful whether, except in time of war, any new idea
of like importance has ever been presented to a Nation and accepted
by it with such effectiveness and rapidity, as was the case with this
Conservation movement when it was introduced to the American people
by the Conference of Governors. The first result was the unanimous
declaration of the Governors of all the States and Territories upon
the subject of Conservation, a document which ought to be hung in every
schoolhouse throughout the land. A further result was the appointment of
thirty-six State Conservation Commissions and, on June 8, 1908, of the
National Conservation Commission. The task of this Commission was to
prepare an inventory, the first ever made for any nation, of all the
natural resources which underlay its property.
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