CONSERVATION AND COMMON SENSE
Thomas F. Williams*
It is"% pleasure to be here this evening and to hawes&tois opportunity
to share a few thoughts with you at the Soil Conservation Society of
America's symposium on land application of waste materials.
Last December, your Executive Vtce President, Wayne Pritchard, sent
me a copy of the materials sent to the technical speakers outlining the.
chapters of what will become a book at the conclusion of'your'three-
day meeting. Mr. Pritchard very considerately suggested that I not be
frightened by it--that the program committee would like my presentation
to be in a much lighter vein, giving some of the experiences I have had.
Well, I looked boldly through the outline of what will become a
20-chapter volume covering—comprehensively', it seems to me—every con-
ceivable facet of the land application of waste materials, and had the
sinking feeling that there-is nothing I could say to you that you do not
already know all about. Then my attention turned eagerly to the
suggestion that I talk in a lighter vein. This offered no relief. As
a civil servant in the Federal government who has worked for many years
in the vineyards and wastelands of the environmental protection area, I
could be fairly certain that my lighter vein, along with several others,
had already been cut and drained several times—bureaucratically speaking,
of course.
*D1rector, Technical Information Staff, Office of Solid Waste Management
Programs, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Presented at the National
Conference, "Land Application of Waste Materials," sponsored by the Soil
Conservation Society of America in Des Moines, Iowa, March 17, 1976.
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WefT then, I thought, how about concentrating on Mr. Pritchard's
suggestion that I talk about some of the experiences I have had. That
would be all right, provided I could have an absolute guarantee of
successful plastic surgery, a new identity, and safe, surreptitious flight
to a faraway foreign land. So, you did not frighten me, Mr. Pritchard--you
scared me half to death.
A number of important events had to occur before you could convene
this symposium on the land application of waste materials. Among others, .
it required 500 million years of vertebrate history; the evolution of the
hominid brain to its present size, which was completed within the last
one million years; the Industrial Revolution, which began roughly three
hundred years ago, the creation of this country, which, as we all know,
is celebrating its 200th birthday; and, finally, the occurrence and cele-
bration of Earth Day, just six years ago. All of these events, except the
last, had to occur before we could create the immense land disposal
and related environmental problems which confront us today. The last--
Earth Day--had to occur before any appreciable number of us became aware
of the fact that, in the process, we had created a complex fabric of
interwoven by-product problems capable of smothering all of our accom-
plishments.
A year or two ago, I read a series of essays by Richard N. Goodwin
entitled "Reflections on the-Ameri^an-'Condition," I was particularly
struck by two statements which illustrate two strongly-held and long-
prevailing views in American thought which are at the root of our current
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environmental concerns. At one point Mr. Goodwin wrote, "...by the 19th
Century, many believed that the whole of existence could, be compacted
within the framework of scientific reason." At.another, he wrote,
"Technology, moreover, provided the belief in the compelling miracles of
scientific-reason. It pumped riches from the earth, illuminated the ni.ght,
carried men into the skies. It worked. This dazzling success was the
key to power. The,metamorphoses were ready: first, it works; then, if
it works, it must be true; and, finally, if it is true, then it alone
must be true."
Until the beginning of this decade we were terribly certain that
through the random1 use of science and technology—through automation,
through nuclear power, and through chemisty--we were moving toward a
better life for everyone. Look up, America! See what you've got. In
April, 1970, for the first time,..we asked ourselves: Is it the real thing?
That occasion marked the beginning of what I believe can accurately
be called a worldwide environmental revolution. I do not use the word
"revolution" lightly--! use-it, because the environmental movement so
seriously challenges so many powerful traditional cultural values that
have come to us from the original industrial revolution. Moreover, they
challenge just as certainly every society on this globe, regardless of
the form of government that society might have. So, Earth Day 1970 has
implications far profounder than its overt manifestations—the rallies,
the teach-ins, the hundreds of articles and broadcasts it spawned.
The wave of environmental awareness which crested in 1970 certainly
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did not come out of nowhere. More things than I could possible recount
contributed significantly. Certainly'of great and immediate importance
were the two major streams of growing concern about air pollution and
water pollution. These had clearly distinct and separate origins. The
conservation movement, as you know, had its genesis in'concern for
forests, plains, and wildlife, and, hence, was focussed primarily on
water problems, since water is so essential to what naturalists regard
as the natural world. The traditional conservation community was some-
what late in joining the movement to control air pollution, because air
pollution was regarded fundamentally as- a health problem, most directly
affecting urban areas. As long as those important streams of concern
and interest were separate, there was little chance for broad public
understanding of the root issues of the environmental dilemma.
Throughout the 1960's, there was growing public indignation about the
problems of air and water pollution, and, though many at that time may
have thought that the total solution to the problems was simply to place
stoppers, so to speak, on the main stacks and outfalls of industries and
.municipalities, this illusion faded as interest in air and water nollu-
tion finally merged. Only then did we open our eyes to the fact that
urban and rural environmental problems cannot be separated, that these
problems stem from the uses and misuses of science and technology in this
century, from the way cities are built, from the way our transportation
needs are met or not met, from the way we extract resources, manufacture
and distribute goods, dispose of wastes, from the way we think or fail
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to think, and finally—and most important—from the way we feel about
ourselves and the rest of mankind.
By 1970, we were finally ready to understand that society has to
make difficult choices that require careful measurement of public bene-
fit against public risk—that raise difficult questions about conflict-
ing private and public rights--and it became clear that we have to make
such decisions every day and every year in the social and economic
spheres on the basis of scientific data which, at worst, is nonexistent,
and at best, by the very nature of s^ ience, is often incomplete. Earth
Day marked the beginning of the end of Science, spelled with a capital
"S."
It is not surprising then, that Science's stepchild, Technology, is.
no longer automatically worshipped by everyone at that famous American
/ • ' * ••
shrine where progress and prosperity were always linked to growth. In the
past six years, western man has begun to accept a fact so fundamental that
it is perceived intuitively by primitive people—that is, that we live in
a closed life-support system, in which all life elements, including that
-* ' ' '
fallen god, Man, himself, are interdependent. With this realization,
people have begun to recognize that scientists, businessmen, govern-
\
ment officials, and all other "experts" are subject to human erroi—that
their interpretations of scientific and social data can be greatly
influenced by uncharted—including largely unconscious—factors
of a personal and cultural nature. In contrast, most people, at the
beginning of this century, bel.ieved that nothing would distort our
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progress toward a technological heaven on earth, provided we stuck to
the scientific method and were "rational" and "objective."
Well, the people no longer believe this. With the awakening came
widespread public concern and protest about environmental degradation,
which in this decade has produced truly meaningful changes in our atti-
tudes, habits, and institutions. Growing concern about the pollution of
air and water in the last decade led, at the dawn of this one, to a much
i . • .
broader environmental awareness, which both produced, and is symbolized
by, the National Environmental Policy Act. This/unique law, which marked
the beginning of the end of 194 years of frontier philosophy, set forth
the remarkable notion that man and nature must exist in productive har-
mony. It was a point of view that Thomas Jefferson knew very well, but
in 1970 it struck us with all the impact of a profound idea that no one
had ever thought of before.
For awhile everything went onward and upward swimmingly, and environ-
mental progress was almost as wonderful as even the more youthful Earth
Day celebrants could have hoped for. Then suddenly and unexpectedly, the
advocates of the greening of America ran into some Arabs with a lot of
brown oil".
The gasoline shortage which, in the fall of 1973, hit the average
motorist harder than a six-inch snowfall, was also quite a significant
"event. It occurred less than four years after Earth Day. So we had 194
v
years of a general public intent to develop the biggest and the fastest
and the first and the best of all the great technological machines. Then
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we had less than four years to restructure some of our attitudes and
institutions after our belated realization that the by-product problems
of random technological development also needed attention, when suddenly
everyone's attention was focussed on the energy shortage.
As soon as they were able to get their bearings, the view that
most environmentalists took of the energy crisis was expressed in*a state-
ment that Russell Train, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection
Apency, made not so very long ago. Mr. Train said, "The good news in the
energy crisis is that it confirms what environmentalists have been saying
all along: that if we continue to indulge in a 'no deposit, no return'
attitude toward our earth and its resources, we will both run out of
energy and irretrievably ruin our environment." Without question^ Mr.
Train was right.
But right does not make might—at least, not in the short run. The
energy shortage was seized upon by those who were never very happy with
what Earth Day symbolized in the first place, as a rallying cry for what
has become, in effect, a counter-revolution to the Earth Day revolution.
The counter-revolutionists imply that, in the name of acquiring energy,
we must turn back the clock, give up the environmental gains we have
achieved, and stop asking for more of them. They are appealing to the
hearts and minds of millions upon millions of people who certainly must
be confused at times by the strident, conflicting, and often absurd
arguments of those who take their stand on the polar extremes of the
environmental issue. The counter-revolutionists are now getting their
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kicks by striking back at the barefoot ecologists who, since 1970, have
been advocating that we throw out the baby with the wash. They urge that
we turn our backs on the fantastic benefits, as well,as on the problems,
we have derived from the use of science and technology and give it all
back to Mother Nature who, I presume, would turn the earth into a
wilderness. Yet the counter-revolutionists are no more sensible than
those they criticize. They talk as if Mother Nature were the enemy and,
\
clinging to the social and environmental views which were" in vogue in 1928,
they urge us to give the earth over to "-.he blind, multi-national bulldozer
until, I presume, the whole planet would be paved over with asphalt and
concrete.
It is instructive to note that, despite their apparently conflicting
positions, these two extreme groups resemble each other in their funda-
mental disregard for the rights of a public accustomed to democracy.
The blind bulldozer patrists ride roughshod over public opinion and
.preach a gospel of aggressive exploitation, deriding anyone who suggests
we ought to look before we leap.
The barefoot motherrknows-best ecologists, in their zeal to protect
what they regard as the natural world, also display an aggressive dis-
regard of the real dilemmas posed to the public at large by environmental
issues. Their motherly concern for the world does not always include a
respect for the opinions and problems of the children of this planet, and
their approach all too often, when the chips are down, turns out to be as
tyrannical, angry, and dictatorial as those of their prime enemy—the
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blind bulldozer patrists.
Now, in 1976, the latter are getting back afthe former; they finally
have their hands on the microphone again, and they are suggesting in,
every way possible that we need fuel and we had better get it;, no matter
what the environmental, occupational, or public health costs. They suggest
in a variety of ways—some obvious and some not—that we can forget all
this nonsense about using land properly, about controlling residuals, about
controlling air pollution, about making the water really cLean. They
suggest we are over-concerned about vinyl chlorides, oxides of nitrogen,
arsenic, mercury, and scores of other chemical compounds which have thrown
a shadow over the shining dream. They say to hell with all this silly talk
about saving the chimpanzee and the whale and the State of Montana. In
short, like'some of the environmentalists'who made them so angry in 1970,
they offer a simple answer to a host of complex problems.
They are feeling very strong right now. Recently Russell Train
received a letter from an industrialist who complained that one of EPA's
public information brochures, which includes a rather pretty picture of
cans littering a beach, should not be distributed, because it is unfair
to the cans. -
Can the counter-revolutionists turn back the clock and bring back
those wonderful times of yesteryear? We do not have to go very far back
in time to remember how great it was for the original Pepsi generation.
It wasn't so long ago that I was admonished by the principal physician
of^.the Federal air pollution program who said,'"If you are going to
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persist in talking about the effects of air pollution on the respiratory
system, be surd to cite the advantages which occur when heavy pollution
obscures the sun and thereby cuts down on skin cancer rates." Never mind
that everyone has to breathe but does not have to go naked in the sun.
Never mind that skin cancer as a public health issue is minor compared to
lung cancer and emphysema.
A little farther back, when particulate pollution in Pittsburgh was
x
so heavy that you could li-terally walk into a buildingyon many winter days,
some members of the chamber of commerce, attempting to -attract tourists to
the city, explained that the sulfur, in Pittsburgh's air should be an added
attraction, since, as everybody knew<,/s'ulfur and molas/ses had been used
for a long time as a springtime remedy for whatever,ailed you. Thev did
/
not say where tourists were to get the molasses, but there was plenty of
sulfur in the air.
Those were the days when, if anyone suggested that.,air pollution
smelled bad and ought to be curtailed, somebody would always say, "That's
a good smell--that's the smell of money."
It wasn't so long ago,-when the promoters 'of. nonreturnable beverage
cans were first acquainting the public with the advantages of that product.
One of their advertisements .-showed a contented fisherman on a stream who
had just finished his beer and .had got rid of the empty can by throwing
it into,the water. Out of sight, out of mind was good, advertising policy
HI the good old days.
The good old days were not so long ago,'when we created the coal
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mine waste piles of Appalachia, the uranium waste piles of Colorado,
the dumps of all varieties in every region of the country, generally
polluting the air and surface waters and continuously leaching a witch's
brew of acids, organics, heavy metals, and other assorted contaminants
into the groundwaters.
In between the strip-mine and the dump, we carried out the Nation's
business as if the supply of energy and materials were limitless. In
our design of almost anything you can name—from the buildings in which
we live and work to the vehicles in which we transport ourselves to the
hospitals in which we are born and the vaults into which we are put to
final rest—we always gave far too little consideration to the conserva-
tion of materials and energy. The good old days when we conducted our
personal, our governmental, and our industrial affairs as if energy and
materials were meant to be squandered, as if the land, air, and water—
the earth itself—were merely another disposable commodity.
The counter-revolutionists seem to be longing for a world that used
to be or, better, a world that never was, and their longings do not square
with reality. The realization that we had been fooling ourselves by
seeking a fool's paradise, which surfaced at the beginning of this
decade was, on the other hand, a movement toward reality—a return to
common sense. Common sense, which was held in such high esteem by the
founding fathers of our Nation, is the most important fuel upon which
an open society runs. To quote Hannah Arendt, from her book The Human
Condition:
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"It is by virtue of common sense that the other sense perceptions
are known to disclose reality, and are not merely felt as irrita-
tions of our nerves, or resistance sensations of our bodies. A
noticeable decrease in common sense in any given community, and a
noticeable increase in superstition and gullibility are, therefore,
almost infallible signs of alienation from the world."
Alienation from the world, from common sense, from reality, results,
*
at best, in gross absurdity; at worst, in disaster, A serious look at
our traditional practices in virtually any aspect of waste management
makes it quite clear that our traditional environmental behavior has been
replete with absurdities—and marked by more than a few disasters. The
more obvious disasters, of course, continue to occur with the surprising
sudden impact of domestic time bombs, which no one intended to create in
the first place. Recent incidents near Washington, D.C., involving
Kepone at one industrial facility and arsenic at another, are typical
examples. Others are no doubt silently waiting to explode in virtually
every region of the country.
Earlier I remarked that right does not make might in the short run.
But in the long run right prevails or, at least in an environmental sense,
our irrational actions eventually bear their bitter fruit, and what we
did not do right, we pay for. This point is certainly illustrated, in
the areas of municipal sludges, hazardous industrial wastes, and municipal
solid waste, on which EPA's Office of Solid Waste Management Programs is
currently placing its major resources and emphasis. As a more concrete
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example, let me recount briefly some of the dynamics, contradictions, and,
yes, absurdities inherent in the relatively discrete area of municipal
solid waste management, which is familiar to everyone./
The collection and disposal of residential and commercial solid
wastes is currently carried out at a total, annual cost of about $3.5
billion. It costs an average of $26 to collect, process, and landfill a
ton of municipal solid waste. It is expected that this cost will rise to
$50 a ton by 1985.
Most of this municipal waste ends up on the land. There are some
18,500 known land disposal sites in the United States. Some masquerade
. as sanitary landfills, but fewer_than. 6,000 of them meet State regula-
tions. And there are unknown numbers of illegal open dumps.
Moreover, recent investigation gives us good reason to question
whether the sanitary landfill which does comply with current standards
of good practice, is really good enough to protect groundwater s'upplies
from leachate damage.
Almost half of our cities estimate .tbat^they will run out of known
and available municipal waste disposal sites within a few years. Our
48 largest cities now spend nearly half of their environmental budgets
on solid waste collection and disposal.
Moreover, there is little incentive to curb municipal waste growth.
The various costs of disposal are borne by taxpayers and are not included
/
in the costs of the products that make up the waste stream. Those who
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produce and those who consume products, therefore, do not receive the
cost signals that would serve as incentives to curtail unnecessary
contributions to the waste stream.
Projections to 1985 indicate that wastes disposed of will amount to
some 30 million tons above the 1973 figure of 135 million even if the_
tonnages of waste recovered for recycling or use as fuel are increased
almost fourfold over 1975 levels. There is no easy way out of the
disposal problem alone.
How about the resource conservation side of municipal solid waste
management?
Ironically, in spite of greatly increased environmental concern, we
are currently recycling a lower percentage of our resources than ever
before in history. The United States annually consumes over 200 million
tons of major metals, paper, glass, rubber, and textiles. It has been
estimated that about three-fourths of the total comes from virgin
res.ources; the remaining quarter is obtained from resource recovery
operations. Virtually all of the recovered materials are derived from
discards of industrial processing and manufacturing, rather than from
post-consumer waste discarded into the municipal solid waste stream.
The mixed municipal wastes from our larger urban areas now pose an
environmental problem, but they could be made to generate 830 trillion
BTU's of energy—the equivalent of 400 thousand barrels of oil per day,
which is nearly a third of the Alaskan pipeline's projected flow. Seven
percent of our iron, 8 percent of the aluminum, 5 percent of the copper,
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3 percent of the lead, 19 percent of the tin, and 14 percent of the paper
consumed each year could be supplied from what is now waste. And these
are simply the obvious potentials, based on the recovery of mixed resi-
dential and commercial wastes.
EPA has identified over 60 .major metropolitan areas where mechanical
energy/materials recovery seems feasible. These areas account for about
180,000 tons of solid waste a day, 66 million tons annually, or more than
half of the municipal waste stream.
Probably less that 2 percent of the energy and materials available
from1 the municipal waste stream is being recovered 'toxte$-. Dry fuel pro-
duction and steam recovery incinerators have been demonstrated and are
actually being employed-in a few cities. Energy recovery by dry or wet,
shredded fuel production as steam and as pyrolytic gas and oil should
i
become viable, demonstrated technical alternatives by 1980. Mechanical
materials recovery systems are somewhere between the demonstration and the
operational phases.
There is growing evidence that utilities and private fuel users are
beginning to view solid waste as an attractive fuel. High materials
and energy prices, along with demands for, environmentally sound disposal
practices, will no doubt force municipalities to place more attention on
resource recovery as it becomes more economically competitive with dis-
posal.
Moreover, bills introduced in the past few years leave little doubt
that Congress is seeking.ways of increasing the incentives for munici-
/•
palities and industries to engage in widespread post-consumer resource
recovery "operations.
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Nevertheless, resource recovery must grow in a national soil and
climate which, historically, has favored in countless ways the careless
use of virgin materials and the random and heedless production and
disposal of wastes. Oblique attention is just beginning to be slightly
\
focussed on the inhibitions to resource recovery which are inherent in
our tax structure, depletion allowances, transportation rates, and tradi-
tional attitudes.
Since even a doubling of current projections of resource recovery
plant installations by 1985 would still leave over 70 percent of the
municipal solid waste stream unrecovered--or 14.5 million tons destined
for disposal—it is clear that waste reduction alternatives must be
given serious consideration. Local'public agencies, whose solixd waste
management expenditures dwarf those of the State and Federal levels, have
virtually no influence over the types and quantities of wastes produced.
Yet we continue to close our eyes to the fact that the producer of what
ultimately becomes waste bases his decisions on the cos'ts that he
directly experiences, not on the costs incurred by those who must dis-
pose of the wastes.
Waste reduction touches most directly at the heart of the environ-
V
mental issue. The furor it has caused has been focussed primarily on
packaging, but this may be deceptive, for the issue raises a central
question which has very disturbing implications for those who hold the
view that high energy/materials use and high consumption are necessarily
the hallmark of a technologically advanced society. Behind the excess
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packaging and the returnable versus the nonreturnable beverage container
arguments lie more serious issues concerning, for example, long-lived
tires, more durable appliances, smaller cars, more renovation in general
and less demolition, and could involve the redesign of many thousands of
products to make them require less energy, use less material., and last
longer.
Packaging activity in the United States has grown at a very rapid
rate over recent decades.--Shipments of containers^and packaging were
valued at $19.7 billion in 1971, an increase of 5 percent since 1970, and
an increase of 82 percent since 1960.
The growth of packaging consumption has led to increased consump-
tion of raw materials and energy, and an increased rate of generation
of solid waste. In 1971, packaging accounted for approximately 47 percent
of all paper production, 14 percent of aluminum production, 75 percent
of glass production, more than 8 percent of steel production, and
approximately 29 percent of plastic production. At that time, energy
used for production of packaging materials represented an estimated 5
percent of total U.S. industrial energy consumption.
Post-consumer solid waste resulting from the discard of packaging
material was estimated at between 40 and 50 million tons in 1971.
Packaging was thus estimated to be between 30 and 40 percent of municipal
solid waste, based on the EPA estimate of 125 million tons of municipal
solid waste in 1971.
The leading edge of the packaging controversy has to do with the
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returnable versus the nonreturnable beverage container. For many years,
those who advocated use of the returnable beverage container based their
case primarily on the litter problem, and those who felt differently
countered by offering litter-control programs of one kind or another and
by 'pointing out that littering in general was a personal problem that
could be overcome only through public education. But in recent years,
as the Environmental Protection Agency finished the resource recovery
V
reports that were called for in the 1970 Resource Recovery Act and the
energy shortage hit home, the battleground has shifted. When energy and
materials consumption and attendant environmental damage are taken
into account, the defense of the nonreturnable beverage container
becomes difficult indeed. Difficult, perhaps, but it is defended with
great amounts of vigor, determination, and money.
I think these brief facts make it clear enough that, no matter how
hard he tries, the local public works director cannot be expected to
cope in a really rational and environmentally sound way with the "simple"
problem of municipal solid waste management. There are too many contra-
dictions in the system—or non-system, and too many issues with broad
national and even international implications clearly beyond his reach.
Many extend far back in time.
Historically throughout the economy, the environmental, public health,
and direct dollar costs of the disposal of waste have affected only slightly,
if at all, the extraction, manufacturing, and distribution decisions of
those sectors of the economy which produce the products which account for
the size and nature of various waste streams.
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Ironically, the progress we are making in air and water pollution
control efforts is one of the important reasons why the undesirable con-
•> •
sequences of mismanagement of solid wastes are beginning to be-noticed.
We are finding that more and more of the discards that we once dumped
freely into the air or water are now being placed on the land in ways
which too often allow them to find their way again into surface or ground
waters, or into the air.
We may be on the threshold of accepting the fact that how a society
treats its land and manages its solid waste is- a fundamental environmental
problem, just as air and water pollution control are, with far-reaching
public health, economic, and social implications, and with an important
bearing on the essential integrity of ecological systems upon which'.we
depend'for life itself. We may now be ready to admit that it is environ-
mental folly to continue to consign valuable resources to the trash
heap while the world's supplies of resources continue to dwindle.
Those who would turn back the environmental clock and have us believe
that our environmental behavior patterns of the past should be continued
simply close their eyes to the inherent contradictions in their attitudes.
They know, however/ that in an open society, it is public opinion which
i .
determines national directions and goals, so public concern about energy
needs is exploited to the fullest. It is often implied that there is some-
thing vaguely un-American in the view that we should conserve resources
and use science and technology selectively and with foresightful plan-=_
ning. Considering some of the methods the counter-revolutionists use,
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perhaps Congress ought to undertake a study to determine whether the,
Environmental Impact Statements, known widely as EIS's, now required of
federal agencies,, should be supplemented by BSIS's to be prepared by
advertisers.
The counter-revolutionists.know that, ever since the beginning of
this decade, the interest and attention of the public are the base on
which improved environmental authorities, practices, and attitudes have
been built. They are betting that ,the people are no longer concerned about
the forests, plains, and mountains of this planet; about the misuse of
natural resources; about noise and pollution. They are betting that the
public no longer cares to be involved in the process of technology assess-
ment which is occurring in our country. They are betting that the ordinary
citizen.is weary of participation in the tremendously important task of
making or influencing decisions which in prior decades only the experts
were expected to make—the expert scientist, the expert legislator, the.H
expert lobbyist, the expert bureaucrat, the expert politician.
Will they win their bet? Mindful of the Chinese proverb, "To
prophesy is extremely difficult—especially with respect to the future,"
I will, in this Bicentennial and election year, adroitly duck my own
question and end my talk with another quotation from Ms. Hannah Arendt.
In,another of her books, On Revolution,, published in 1963, she said
the following, which in 1976 seems quite germane to our environmental
dilemmas:
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"...the revolutionary notions of public happiness and political
freedom have never altogether0v'a'rVfshed frohPthe&Ariie-r'-itan scene;
they have become part and parcel of the very structure of the
political body of the republic. -Whether this structure has a
granite groundwork, capable of withstanding the futile antics of
a society intent upon affluence and consumption, or whether it will
yield under the pressure of wealth, as the European communities
have yielded under the pressure of wretchedness and misfortune,
only the future can tell. There exist today as many signs to
justify hope as there are to instill fear."
ya!331
SW-515
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