Shamefacedly I acknowledged my country's guilt, and the guilt which was evident on the majestic shores of the Hudson. We are wasteful, extravagant and reckless--great defects in our national spirit, and most in evidence in our treatment of nature's beauty and wealth. We shall have to remedy that, in fact we are just beginning to do it; if not from any sense of guilt, from the same sheer necessity which makes the nations of the Old World careful of their national wealth. "The Conservation of our National Resources" is a fine phrase; it represents not only an economic, but a spiritual gain--this feeling of responsibility for the next generation. It is a new and most valuable asset of our national spirit; yet I must confess that I fear the coming of a day when we, too, shall have to practice the sordid little economies of the Old World and think with anxiety about the to-morrow. It has always seemed to me that here the miracle of the loaves and fishes might be performed indefinitely, and that there always would be left over the baskets full of fragments. Somehow, in common with the rest of mankind, I have associated generous plenty with the American spirit, and I trust we shall never have just our dole and no more. I recall walking one evening with the Herr Director and the Frau Directorin through the well-regulated, officially trimmed and "_Streng Verboten_" forest which encircles his native city. My children were with us--young, vigorous, American savages, who have a superabundance of the American spirit although they have not a drop of American blood in their veins. We passed a small mound of freshly mown hay and they promptly jumped into it, tossing a few handfuls as an offering to their aboriginal deity, the wind. If they had dashed into the plateglass window of a jeweler's shop or had desecrated the most holy shrine, they could not have caused greater consternation. "_Um Gottes Himmels Willen die Polizei!_" cried the Herr Director and the Frau Directorin echoed: "_Die Polizei!_" Although this happened about ten years ago, my children have not forgotten their fright. I suppose we still lack this virtue of economy, and yet I hope we may not lose that certain largeness of nature and that generosity of spirit which have characterized us. I love the generous spaces, the unfenced lawns, which make of the whole village one common park; the grass and clover free to the touch of our children's feet, the fragrant flowers wasting their bloom, and berries and cherries enough for the wild things of the woods. May the future not bring more high walls and narrow lanes, big game preserves for the rich, and scant patches of soil for the poor; castles for capital and tenements for labor. And may we never see written over every blade of grass: "_Streng Verboten_."