a final solution

[from an unsigned essay titled "Conservation" in the November, 1939 issue of Nature Magazine]

We belive that if we could take the leaders of this present world conflict to a high alpine meadow in Glacier National Park, for example, far from the highways and all the other refinements of our vaunted civilization, and there talk and climb, watch the mountain goat on his crag and the bear in his wanderings, the story might well be different. If there, together, they could breathe the pure air of the outdoors and not the fetid atmosphere of pub, bistro or beer hall, and sleep beneath stars undimmed by city lights, we believe that hatreds might be dissolved, and not intensified in defiance of all that is natural.