A body, in many respects ideally fitted to give the necessary impulse and direction to the work of organisation, is already in the field. The leaders of the Conservation idea, recognising that their policy, in common with other policies, will need an organised public opinion at its back, have founded a National Conservation Association. Mr. Gifford Pinchot has now been selected as its President. Before he was available, the task of organising and setting to work the new institution was unanimously entrusted to and accepted by President Eliot, of whose qualifications all I will say is that we foreign students of social problems vie with his own countrymen in our appreciation of his public work and aims. These two appointments are sufficient proof of the serious importance of the work, and bespeak public influence and support for the Association. I have no doubt that this body would be fully qualified to formulate and initiate the Country Life movement, and act as the central agency for the active promotion of its objects. Its members, who, I am sure, agree with Mr. Roosevelt in regarding the movement as a necessary complement to the Conservation policy, might even feel that for this very reason it was incumbent upon them to set their organisation to this work.
There is, however, one consideration which will make Mr. Pinchot and his associates hesitate to adopt this course. The doubt relates to the distinction I have drawn between the Conservation policy and the Country Life movement, the one seeking to promote legislative and administrative action, and the other, while it may give birth to a policy, being chiefly concerned with voluntary effort.[11] Although the National Conservation Association is founded for the purpose of educating public opinion upon the Conservation idea, it may decide to support the Conservation policy of one party rather than that of another. It would thus become too much involved in party controversy to act as a central agency of a movement which must embrace men of all parties. Should this view prevail, the difficulty can be easily surmounted by following the Irish precedent, where we had a very similar and indeed far more delicate situation to save from political trouble. An American Agricultural Organisation Society could be founded for the purpose in view, and as it is probable that leading advocates of the Conservation policy would take a prominent part in the Country Life movement, the interdependence of the two ideas would have practical recognition.