Passages

On tariffs … A tariff increase on lead-zinc in all likelihood will require us as a nation to use up more productive power to produce the lead and zinc we consume than would be true if we produced exports with which to purchase a part of it. The very purpose of a tariff increase is to enable firms to survive that would otherwise close down.

There is, however, another question: are we or foreign producers going to bear the burden of reducing output when demand falls cyclically? A specific duty [a fixed amount per pound] increase will tend automatically to shift this burden toward our foreign suppliers. That is, as price goes down, the size of the duty relative to price increases … A sliding tariff, under which the specific duty would be increased as price goes down, would carry its effect still further … This country does have a selfish interest in foreign miners. We cannot afford to do very many things that reduce their level of well-being, for retaliation is possible. A nation in the position of the United States will not make friends abroad by attempting to export cyclical unemployment.

—Orris C. Herfindahl, in a lecture given at the Colorado School of Mines

Conservation no longer expresses a self-contained and self-justifying purpose; resources have become means to ends as diverse as growing proteins, living urbanely around cities, and winning international security.

—Henry C. Hart in Perspectives on Conservation