Part 7 (2/2)

No argument ought to be needed to convince the people of the United States that this great work of national defense against Nature's forces should arouse the same patriotic inspiration and stimulate us to the same superhuman effort and energy that we would put forth to prevent any section of our country from being devastated by war. But if such an argument were needed it is found in the condition of Mesopotamia to-day, as compared with the days of Babylon's wealth and prosperity.

The people who dwelt on the Babylonian plains, and who made that empire great and populous, sustained themselves by the irrigation of the desert.

The same processes of slow destruction which are now so evidently at work over a large portion of our own country, gradually overcame and destroyed the people of Mesopotamia. The floods finally destroyed the irrigation systems. The desert triumphed over man. One of the most densely populated regions of the earth became again a barren wilderness.

At the end of the Thirty Years' War Germany was a land wasted and destroyed by war, but war had not destroyed the fertility of the soil.

Crops could still be raised in the fields, and trees could be planted on the mountains that would grow into forests. All this was done, and modern Germany rose out of the ruins of the Germany of three hundred years ago.

War had destroyed only the surface, leaving the latent fertility of the land to be revived by indomitable human labor.

In Mesopotamia it was different. There the forces of Nature destroyed the only means of getting food from the desert. Therefore the desert prevailed and humanity migrated or became extinct. Will anyone question that the defense of Mesopotamia against the desert should have aroused the same intensity of patriotism among her people that has been aroused in past wars for the defense of Germany, or as has been aroused for the defense of Belgium and France and England in the present war?

Nature's processes of destruction work slowly but surely. In Mesopotamia they have gone forward to the ultimate end. An entire people who once const.i.tuted one of the greatest empires of the world have succ.u.mbed to and been annihilated by the Desert.

Nature's forces have worked the same complete destruction in many other places in Persia and Asia Minor, and on the eastern sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean.

Northern Africa was once a fertile and populous country. Its wooded hillsides and timbered mountains gave birth to the streams by which it was watered. It is another region of the earth that has been conquered by the destroying forces of nature. The resources of vast areas of that country, its power to sustain mankind, have been finally destroyed by those blighting forces as completely as the city of Carthage was obliterated by the Romans.

If the fertility of the lands of Northern Africa had been as indestructible by Nature's forces as the fertility of the lands of Central Europe, a new nation would have arisen in Northern Africa, nursed into being by that indestructible fertility. Wherever the natural resources are destroyed the human race becomes extinct.

A battle with an invading army may lead to temporary devastation. A battle with the Desert, if the Desert triumphs, means the perpetual death of the defeated nation.

_Which conflict should call for the greatest patriotic effort for national defense?_

Patriotism exerted for the intelligent protection of any country from the destruction of its basic natural resources, is aimed at a more enduring achievement when it fights the destroying powers of Nature than when it fights against a temporary devastation by an invading army.

The complete deforestation and denudation of the mountains of China and the floods caused thereby resulted from the intensive individualism of her people, and from their utter lack of any systematic organization of governmental machinery to protect the resources of the country.

An organized system of forest preservation and flood protection, based upon and springing from a spirit of patriotic service to the nation as a whole, would have saved China from the destruction of resources of incalculable value to her people, and it would have saved millions from death by famine.

_Is death by war any worse than death by famine?_

The chief original causes of the great famines of China have been floods which were preventable. In some of her largest valleys the floods have resulted primarily from the denudation of the mountains and the destruction of the woodland and forest cover on the watersheds of the rivers.

In ”The Changing Chinese” by Prof. Edward A. Ross some vivid descriptions will be found of the havoc wrought by deforestation and flood. Here is one of the pictures he has drawn for us of Chinese conditions:

”On the Nowloon hills opposite Hong Kong there are frightful evidences of erosion due to deforestation several hundred years ago. The loose soil has been washed away till the country is k.n.o.bbed or blistered with great granite boulders. North of the Gulf of Tonkin I am told that not a tree is to be seen and the surviving balks between the fields show that land once cultivated has become waste. Erosion stripped the soil down to the clay and the farmers had to abandon the land. The denuded hill-slopes facing the West River have been torn and gullied till the red earth glows through the vegetation like blood. The coast hills of Fokien have lost most of their soil and show little but rocks. Fuel-gatherers constantly climb about them grubbing up shrubs and pulling up the gra.s.s. No one tries to grow trees unless he can live in their midst and so prevent their being stolen. The higher ranges further back have been stripped of their trees but not of their soil for, owing to the greater rainfall they receive, a verdant growth quickly springs up and protects their flanks.

”Deep-gullied plateaus of the loess, guttered hillsides, choked water-courses, silted-up bridges, sterilized bottom lands, bankless wandering rivers, d.y.k.ed torrents that have built up their beds till they meander at the level of the tree-tops, mountain brooks as thick as pea soup, testify to the changes wrought once the reckless ax has let loose the force of running water to resculpture the landscape. No river could drain the friable loess of Northwest China without bringing down great quant.i.ties of soil that would raise its bed and make it a menace in its lower, sluggish course. But if the Yellow River is more and more 'China's Sorrow' as the centuries tick off, it is because the rains run off the deforested slopes of its drainage basin like water off the roof of a house and in the wet season roll down terrible floods which burst the immense and costly embankments, spread like a lake over the plain, and drown whole populations.”

We are following faithfully in the footsteps of China in our national policy of non-action or grossly inadequate action. It is only a question of time when we will suffer as they have suffered, unless we mend our ways, and arouse our people to the spirit of patriotic service necessary, over vast areas in the United States, to protect our mountains, forests, valleys, and rivers from the fate of those in China.

The Chinese people, lacking in national patriotism, were overcome by the invasion of barbaric hordes from the North, and were also overwhelmed by the destroying powers of Nature. A national spirit of patriotism, bearing fruit in national organization, would have protected them from both disasters, as it actually did protect the j.a.panese. The j.a.panese have not only successfully defended themselves against the aggressions of Russia. In the same spirit of energetic and purposeful patriotism, they have preserved and utilized to the highest possible extent the resources of their country. They have defended j.a.pan against the destructive forces of Nature which have devastated China.

The hillsides and mountains of many sections of China are bared to the bone of every vestige of forest or woodland cover. The floods have eroded the mountains and filled the valleys with the debris. Torrential floods now rage and destroy where perennial streams once flowed. In j.a.pan, those perennial streams still flow from every hillside and mountain, feeding the myriad of ca.n.a.ls with which her fertile fields are laced and interlaced.

The result is that on only 12,500,000 acres of intensively cultivated soil j.a.pan sustains a rural population of 30,000,000 people.

The power of j.a.pan as a nation lies in the racial strength of her people.

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