Herbert W Armstrong

The economic base of the United States, and by extension, much of the rest of the Western world, is in grave peril. But the danger remains largely unrecognized for now, because it comes from a source that most people are not remotely familiar with or even much interested in once they are told.

On Monday, June 10, I heard about this looming national crisis firsthand in San Francisco. In a speech delivered to the Commonwealth Club, J. Allen Overton, President of the American Mining Congress, warned that the United States is in danger of losing its mining, minerals and minerals processing base — the very foundation of our modern society.

The United States has, along with the other descendants of Joseph, been greatly blessed in this end-time era. We have been exceedingly fruitful nations (Gen. 49:22); we have enjoyed bountiful harvests due to good land, good weather and abundant rainfall — the "blessings of heaven above" (verse 25). In the same verse we were prophesied to also enjoy "blessings of the deep that lies beneath" — an obvious reference to abundant mineral resources.

Now, that latter blessing is eroding away. As Mr. Overton conveyed to his audience, the U.S. mining and mineral processing industries suffer from suffocating governmental regulations, the impact of radical, unbalanced environmentalism, foreign competition and a dangerous overreliance for key minerals on potentially unstable parts of the world.

Yet few Americans sense the impending crisis. As the country shifts into more of a service-oriented and high-tech economy, the public at large, and especially the younger generation, no longer sees that the need for maintaining a strong mineral base is as crucial as it ever has been. Following are some of Mr. Overton's remarks, from his official transcript:

This afternoon I'm here to talk with you about the current state of the minerals base in America and what it implies for our national security and the economic well-being of our people. The stakes are high — yet most Americans are not tuned in to the problem.... I doubt if the average Californian — any more than the average American — gives much thought to mining, other than recalling the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill more than a century and a quarter ago.

Yet, it is not without reason that minerals have been called the bedrock of civilization and, throughout history, the stepping stones of human destiny. Without minerals, we would have no factories or offices...no schools or hospitals...no highways or railroads or planes...no communications networks or energy systems...no means of equipping the military that defends us or cultivating the agriculture that feeds us...no human habitat more advanced than the one that preceded the Stone Age. It can truly be said that the horn of plenty begins with hole in the ground.

Mr. Overton then had a few words to counter the claims and charges of environmental extremists who have brought much pressure to bear on elected representatives to severely curtail mining operations and even minerals exploration, especially on public land:

What cannot truly be said, despite the outcry of assorted zealots, is that all our material bounty has been bought at the expense of raping and ruining the land. Moreover, we ought to remember that over the entire history of this nation, with all the material blessings that mining has produced, only a fraction of one percent of the land's surface has ever been touched by a miner's pick.

From this small area of our land we have produced the stuff to make the things with which to fight all our wars in defense of our liberties, build our cities — our nation — rebuild Europe twice and Japan once. Reflecting on this, one could well paraphrase Churchill and say: Never Has So Little Yielded So Much to So Many.

Mr. Overton reiterated this in the question-and-answer period following his speech when he said that Americans "have forgotten that it takes stuff to make things." It's too easy to expect that the length of copper wire that you need will always be in the hardware store when you want it. People just don't stop to think that a several-years-long process is involved from the point of minerals exploration to on-site development, to extraction, smelting and manufacture of the primary products. Moreover, the basic components of the minerals process — the mines themselves, the smelters, the stamping plants — cannot be, as he said, "turned on and off like a spigot. Once lost, it will take years — if ever — to recover it."

Throughout the minerals industry there is a severe double crisis of unemployment and depressed prices — in the case of copper, the lowest price (adjusted for inflation) since the 1930s. As a result, whole operations have shut down, and remaining industrial giants such as AMAX and Phelps­ Dodge are rapidly diversifying into other fields in a desperate attempt to hang onto their presently unprofitable mining operations.

Conservation, materials substitution (the ongoing plastics revolution), and low-cost, subsidized foreign production are all key factors. Taken together, they present a bleak picture for America:

In this volatile and turbulent time in the world, the alarming fact remains: The U.S. is losing its mining, minerals and minerals processing base. Petroleum refineries — nonferrous smelters and refineries — steel making capacity — large stamping mills — machine tools — component parts and our mining — are increasingly moving offshore to the far end of vulnerable shipping lanes.

By that Mr. Overton implied first of all the dangerous overreliance on southern Africa for key minerals such as chrome, manganese and cobalt. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union — the only other possessor of such key minerals in quantity — continues both to expand its mineral base and to move dangerously close to being able to interdict vital mineral exports to the U.S. Continuing to quote Mr. Overton:

While we have been increasing our reliance on Zambia, Zaire, South Africa and other nations that are marked by social, political and economic instability, and at the far end of vulnerable shipping lanes, what have the Soviets been doing? The Soviets have spent billions of rubles to develop their mineral mother lode in Siberia, and recently completed a new 2,000-mile railroad to connect it with the heartland of its military manufacturing complex.

At the same time, we now see some 90 percent of our essential mineral imports enter our country through the extraordinarily vulnerable shipping lanes of the Caribbean. And athwart those sea lanes is Cuba — that unsinkable "aircraft carrier" — manned by a large number of Soviet personnel today: 7000 civilian advisers, a 2800-man combat brigade, 2800 Soviet military advisers, 2100 technicians — at the Lourdes electronic intelligence facility, where the KGB operates the surveillance system which oversees our east coast and the sea lanes of the Caribbean and the Atlantic.

How dangerously dependent is the United States now on foreign sources?

Just recently the Secretary of the Army testified before Congress that the United States is more than 50 percent dependent on foreign sources for 23 of 40 critical materials essential to the U.S. national security, while the Soviet Union is totally independent of foreign sources for 35 of these same critical 40 materials.

When the Secretary of the Army speaks of critical materials, he means materials that are absolutely essential to the making of tanks, jet engines, planes, armor-piercing shells, missile control systems and other weapons and armored transport in the arsenal of defense.

Some people assert, said Mr. Overton, that Japan and West Germany seem to get along quite nicely without much of a domestic minerals base. Why, then, can't the U.S.do the same?

The answer, of course, is that these two nations and our other allies are sheltered by the umbrella of America's military might, which is held up by our economic strength. And among the sinews of that strength is our ready access to a plentitude and variety of minerals.

The United States does not have the luxury of being able to look to others for its own defense and that of the Free world, and we forget that to our peril. Already the situation is precarious and make no mistake about it: our military leaders understand this well and they are worried.

Mr. Overton, too, understands full well the importance of the possession of mineral resources — and the near-guaranteed access to those minerals the nation doesn't have in abundance — as a major factor of national power. Those of you familiar with Hans J. Morgenthau's classic work, POLITICS AMONG NATIONS, know that he deals at length in chapter nine with the elements of national power. He classifies natural resources as being second in importance to that of geography.

Today's young generations don't think, or like to think, in terms of national power. Certainly the environmental extremists don't think along this line. In this light it is interesting to reflect on the fact that President Theodore Roosevelt was one of the first and foremost American conservationists. But he was a great believer in national power, too. While Mr. Roosevelt was the inspirer of the national park system, he never would have locked up the public resources from prudent development.

Today's most extreme environmentalists are sometimes called "preservationists" because they want to keep nature virtually undisturbed from human activity — the opposite of the instructions given by God to the first man, Adam, who was told (Gen. 2:15) to "tend and keep," not keep away from, the garden in Eden. Also note too that one of the rivers that went out of Eden, called Pishon, flowed "around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there" (verses 11-12, RSV). God placed mineral resources in the earth for humanity's benefit. While the extraction of these God-given resources has often been done in an uncaring manner, this is due to the greed of man. It doesn't have to be this way. Extremists swing to the other end of the pendulum and try to prevent development, even exploration, in order to prevent damage.

Some environmental extremists claim that Christians have taken God's injunction to Adam to "fill the earth and subdue it" (Gen. 1:28), as Biblical license to man to do anything with the physical environment he wishes. Singling out this passage, they overlook the follow-up injunction to "tend and keep" the environment. Thus the extremists conclude the Bible is no guide to the management of the earth's resources. These people are generally ardent evolutionists anyway who believe man is just another form of animal life. They don't believe the clear explanation that man was made in the image of God and was to have dominion over "the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air...and over every living thing that moves upon the earth" (verse 28). To believe such runs counter to their ecologically egalitarian thinking. To continue with Mr. Overton's remarks:

We have seen Congress three times declare in favor of a strong domestic minerals industry, and we have seen many more times that Congress will pass legislation which undermines its own declared policy. When the laws are passed that place de facto OFF LIMITS signs to minerals exploration and development in some two-thirds of our vast public lands — an area nearly equal in size to all the states east of the Mississippi — hardly a thought is given to the impact on the domestic minerals base.

We may not need to mine in these potentially rich lands today, but we ought to find out what's there, and only exploration can tell us, and it involves a negligible disturbance of the terrain. Some areas deserve to be preserved in their pristine state for their unique qualities or even for their historic significance — I wouldn't suggest, for example, mining on Nob Hill or the grounds of the Capitol Building or the White House — but the fact is that multiple use of the land can and does work, as I explained at the outset of my remarks.

In seeking to unlock the mineral wealth of this country, we have no choice other than to keep looking for Nature's needle in Nature's haystack. It's as simple as that. And those who would prevent us from discovering the needle are really giving the country the shaft!

Indeed I do not think these excluded lands will ever benefit posterity so much as they now benefit those few who are rich enough and have leisure time enough to go there and enjoy their undisturbed pleasure — and these are precisely the people who fortify the environmentalist movement.

It is nothing short of galling to see the environmental extremists, wielding the awesome power of their vocal organizations in every precinct of the land, insisting on stricter and stricter standards that have only the most marginal benefits, if any, but require tremendous expenditures without adding one iota to productivity. Have they utterly forgotten the consequence for the American military posture that protects their freedom to engage in even their own irresponsible behavior?...

In saying this, I have no intention of letting the people who administer and enforce the laws entirely off the hook. Quite the contrary.

In the mining industry today, digging into the ground is much easier than tunneling through the Federal Register, but nobody can do one without doing the other. Regulations are written in mind-numbing detail, emphasizing design and engineering standards instead of performance standards and results. They are rigid where they should be flexible, obtuse where they should be clear, prolific where they should be concise, and hopelessly legalistic where they should embody common sense. They are a paradise for bureaucrats and pure hell for the practical businessman.

If an old-time prospector were to return today, he'd be amazed to find that he'd better hire a lawyer, an accountant and an environmental engineer, before he dared risk his grubstake on a mule, a pick and a shovel. Compliance with federal regulations, which are usually as perplexing as they are prolific, has become an item of immense cost for the minerals industry — and, again, one that is probably not equalled anywhere else in the world.

And what comes at the end of the long and tortuous regulatory process? Why, a new beginning, of course. Because the process itself amounts to an engraved invitation to the courtroom, where self-appointed public interest groups, which don't have to earn a profit or pay a tax, look forward to protracted litigation with all the eagerness that an old mining camp would reserve for Saturday night.

I ask you in all seriousness and solemnity, ladies and gentlemen, are all the things I've described the way for a responsible leader of the Free World to conduct itself? Is this the way to pursue the avowed goal of preserving our domestic minerals base? Is this the way to fortify the ramparts of our nation's security, if not, indeed, its survival? Is this the way to ensure that posterity shall have not only a habitat fit for life, but the material blessings that make possible the good life? I think not....

Our increasing dependence on unstable or uncertain foreign sources for our essential minerals imperils our national security and threatens our prosperity at home. It pits our survival as a free nation against the insatiable appetite of the Soviet for world domination through elimination of the U.S. as an economic leader of the free world.

America cannot remain a first rate economic and military power if we have a second rate mining and minerals processing industry. This, after all, is fundamental to the commonwealth of us all.

One can be certain that the Soviets are following any and all courses open to them to foster U.S. weakness in the minerals area. This would include worming their way into positions of subtle influence inside the radical environmentalist movement, to promoting strife in South Africa and influencing reactions to that area among leftists and civil-rights advocates in the U.S.

In his very interesting question and answer period, Mr. Overton (now in his mid-to-late 60s) gave an example illustrating the importance of maintaining a strong economic base and coordinated defense posture and of displaying a sense of national will to any potential aggressor. He told of the experiences he and several other U.S. officials had at the end of World War II interviewing top Japanese wartime leaders.

One of his associates talked with former Prime Minister Hideki Tojo. He asked Tojo: "What caused you to be so bold as to attack the United States?" Tojo replied that the Japanese saw that the U.S. and other Western powers did not react forcefully to Hitler's accession to power; that the U.S. was very slow to gear up its defense industry; that even when faced with impending war, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the draft law by only one vote. "Our perspective," concluded Tojo, "was that the U.S. had likely lost the will to defend itself."

Mr. Overton related a previously untold story of just how close the House of Representatives came to not passing the 1941 draft law. The key figure was the longtime doorkeeper, William "Fishbait" Miller, who retired not many years ago. On roll calls it was his responsibility to admit or refuse to admit those members into the chamber who were outside at the time, usually in their offices. The basic rule he was to enforce was whether the members were judged to be "within the hearing of the voice" of the Speaker at the time. Miller later admitted to friends that he always considered it his responsibility to know where all members stood on issues of national importance. For this reason, on the crucial draft legislation, Miller refused to admit seven onrushing congressmen, all of whom he knew would have voted against the draft. The bill passed by one vote. What power even door­ keepers sometimes have!

Near the end of the Q-and-A period, Mr. Overton stressed that the United States, as leading power in the free world, cannot afford to let its mineral-based industrial strength ebb away, allowing the nation to have merely a service-based economy. "Our enterprises can't only be those of cutting up chickens and cooking hamburgers. " He reiterated the advice given by the lawgiver Solon to the wealthy Greek king Croesus: "He who hath better iron than yours will win all your gold."

Mr. Overton admitted that the American mining industry has a "massive educational problem" trying to get its concerns over to Congress and out to the public at large. Talking about a minerals policy, he says, has all the "sex appeal of a radish." It has no saleability as news copy.

When I introduced myself at the end of his talk, Mr. Overton was very pleasantly surprised. He said he has been taking The PLAIN TRUTH for three or four years. He was introduced to the magazine when a colleague showed him the article in the September 1980 issue entitled "Just Ahead...World Crisis Over Minerals."

Mr. Overton said the editors of The PLAIN TRUTH may use his speech "any way you wish" and departed by saying that we should "keep up the fine job you're doing." We'll certainly give his remarks a much wider circulation — more than the handful of people present to hear him in San Francisco.

— Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau