My quiet Friday afternoon involved working on the Reprint collection. It is a challenge not read every title. I made it as far as #0165. This small publication was written 100 years ago by Walter P. Taylor and it is titled, Two Kinds of Conservationists. It is as pertinent today as it was a century ago:
Only a little study of the conservation situation in America is sufficient to show we have allowed certain parties at interest to take more than their rightful share of the resources of wild nature which as a matter of simple justice belong, not only to all the people now living, but also to the generations of the future indefinitely. Only a little study suffices to emphasize certain obvious necessities which must be complied with if we are to bring to bear any effective remedy.
It is at the point that there is an unconscious separation of the people into two groups; the apathetic and the active…
There are two kinds of conservationists; the conservationist of the folded hands and the conservationist of the clenched fist.
It is always a little eerie when a voice from the past speaks to us across time and space. You can read the rest of this article online. The finding aid to the Walter P. Taylor papers at the MVZ is also available online.