This commission while carrying on its investigations discussed the general policy of conservation and suggested to the President the calling of a convention for the purpose of discussing the conservation of the nation's resources. Thus originated the celebrated White House conference of May 13-15, 1908. The opening session presented an impressive scene, for there were assembled in the east room of the White House, upon the invitation of the President, the Vice-President, seven members of the cabinet, all of the justices of the Supreme Court, most of the representatives and senators, thirty-four governors of States together with their advisers, and representatives of the governors of the remaining States, governors of the Territories, representatives of sixty-eight national societies, and numerous special guests. The opening address of President Roosevelt was a notable effort. "This conference," he said, "on the conservation of natural resources is in effect a meeting of the representatives of all the people of the United States called to consider the weightiest problem now before the nation. . . . We have become great in a material sense because of the lavish use of our resources, and we have just reason to be proud of our growth. But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone; when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted; when the soils shall have been still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields, and obstructing navigation. These questions do not relate only to the next century or the next generation. One distinguishing characteristic of really civilized men is foresight; we have to, as a nation, exercise foresight for this nation in the future, and if we do not exercise that foresight, dark will be the future!" During the meeting numerous addresses were made on the conservation of the minerals, of the soils, of the forests, and of the waters of the country. In his address on the conservation of ores and related minerals, Andrew Carnegie declared that during the three-fourths of a century from 1820 to 1895 nearly 4,000,000,000 tons of coal were mined by methods so wasteful that 6,000,000,000 tons were either destroyed or allowed to remain in the ground forever inaccessible. From 1896 to 1906 as much coal was produced as during the preceding seventy-five years. During this decade 3,000,000,000 tons were destroyed or left in the ground beyond reach for future use. Basing his statements on the investigations of scientists, he showed that at the present rate of increase in production the available coal of the country would be exhausted in two hundred years and the workable iron ore within a century. [Illustration] Copyright by Underwood and Underwood. The President, Governors, and other leading men at the National Resources Conference, at the White House, May 13 to 15, 1908.