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Title: Proceedings fourth National Conservation Congress: Indianapolis, October 1-4, 1912
Author: Various
Language: English
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CONSERVATION CONGRESS ***
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[Illustration: WOODROW WILSON
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES]
PROCEEDINGS
Fourth
National Conservation Congress
Indianapolis
OCTOBER 1–4, INCLUSIVE, 1912
“Let us conserve the foundations of our prosperity”
(Declaration of the Governors, 1908)
INDIANAPOLIS
NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS
1912
WM. B. BURFORD PRESS
INDIANAPOLIS,—IND.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Officers and Committees, 1912 9
Standing Committees, 1912 10
Officers and Committees, 1913 11
Constitution 13–17
Resolutions 18–23
OPENING SESSION—
Invocation—Rev. F. S. C. Wicks 24
Address of Welcome for the State of Indiana, Hon.
Charles Warren Fairbanks 24–31
Address for the City of Indianapolis, Mr. Richard Lieber 31–33
Address on Behalf of the Local Business Organizations,
Mr. Winfield Miller 33–37
President’s Address, Hon. J. B. White 37–40
Message from the President of the United States 41
Address, Hon. Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War, Personal
Representative of the President of the United States 41–46
Announcements 47
SECOND SESSION—
Invocation, Rev. Dr. A. B. Storms 47
Address, “What the States are Doing,” Dr. George E. Condra 48–61
Address, “Conservation Redefined,” Mr. E. T. Allen 61–66
Report, Dr. C. E. Bessey, Chairman, Committee on Education 66–71
Illustrated Address, “Bird Slaughter and the Cost of Living,”
Dr. T. Gilbert Pearson. 71
Address and Illustrated Lecture, “Federal Protection of
Migratory Birds,” Dr. W. T. Hornaday 72–73
THIRD SESSION—
Invocation, Rev. Dr. Allan B. Philputt 74
Communication from Mr. Gifford Pinchot 74
Address, “The Conservation of Man.” Dr. Harvey W. Wiley 75–91
FOURTH SESSION—
Invocation, Rev. Harry G. Hill 91
Address, “Human Life as a National Asset,” Mr. E. E.
Rittenhouse 92–102
Address, “Public Health Movement,” Prof. Irving Fisher 103–111
Announcement by the President 111
Committee on Resolutions 111
Address, “Authority in Health Control,” Dr. L. E. Cofer 111–122
Address, “Land Frauds,” Dr. George E. Condra 123–130
Address, “Conservation of Land and the Man,” Mrs. Haviland
H. Lund 131–132
Address, “Farmers’ Union,” Mr. Charles S. Barrett 132–134
FIFTH SESSION—
Address, “A Plea for More Educational Opportunities,”
Prof. E. T. Fairchild 134–139
Address, “Hygiene in Relation to Public Health,” Dr.
Oscar Dowling 139–144
Address, “The Duty of the Employer,” Dr. Edward Rumely 144–147
Letter from Mr. Charles A. Doremus, of New York 147
Address, “Conservation of the Human Race,” Dr.
J. N. Hurty 148–154
Address, “The Rescue of the Fit,” Mr. Harrington Emerson 154–160
SIXTH SESSION—
Address, “Human Efficiency,” Dr. Henry Wallace 161–170
Address, “Is the Child Worth Conserving?” Judge Ben B.
Lindsey 170–181
Remarks, Miss Adeline Denny 181
SEVENTH SESSION—
Reading of Telegrams 182
Report from Col. M. H. Crump 182–183
Address, “The Lumberman’s Viewpoint,” Major E. G. Griggs 183–195
Nominating Committee 196
Report, Mrs. Orville T. Bright 196–200
Address, “Saving Miners’ Lives,” Dr. Joseph A. Holmes 200–205
Address, “The Prevention of Railroad Accidents,” Mr.
Thomas H. Johnson 205–214
Address, “Vital Statistics and the Conservation of Human
Life, a National Concern,” Mr. A. B. Farquhar 214–223
Address, “The Prevention of Elevator Accidents,” Mr.
Reginald Pelham Bolton 223–230
Resolution, Mr. R. P. Bolton 231
Resolution, Mr. Frederick Kelsey 231
EIGHTH SESSION—
Address, Honorable Woodrow Wilson 232–240
NINTH SESSION—
Remarks, Mrs. Philip N. Moore 241
Address, Miss Julia Clifford Lathrop 242–249
Address, Mrs. Matthew T. Scott 250–254
Address, Mrs. John R. Walker 255–258
Address, Mrs. Marion A. Crocker 258–262
Paper, Mrs. Elmer Black (See Supplementary Proceedings) 262
Remarks, Colonel John I. Martin, Sergeant-at-Arms 262–263
TENTH SESSION—
Address, “The Problem of Tuberculosis,” Dr. Livingston
Farrand 264–271
Address, “The Conservation of Navigable Streams,” Mr.
Jacob P. Dunn (See Supplementary Proceedings) 271
Address, “Social, Industrial and Civic Progress,” Mr.
Ralph M. Easley 272–281
Address, “Disposition of Sewage,” Dr. Burton J. Ashley 281–286
Remarks, Mr. J. B. Baumgartner 286
Report, Executive Committee, Presented by Mr. E.
Lee Worsham, Chairman 286–287
Remarks, Mr. E. Lee Worsham 287
Report, Committee on Nominations 288
Remarks, Mr. Charles Lathrop Pack 289
Address, “The Investigations of Flood Commission of
Pittsburgh,” Mr. George M. Lehman 289–296
ELEVENTH SESSION—
Remarks, Hon. J. B. White 296
Address, “The Story of the Soil,” Mr. H. H. Gross 297–302
Address, “The Story of the Air,” Prof. Willis L. Moore 303–305
Report, Committee on Resolutions 306
Resolution, Mr. John B. Hammond 306
Presentation of Invitations from Cities Desiring the Next
Congress 306
Address, Mr. Don Carlos Ellis 307–310
SUPPLEMENTARY PROCEEDINGS 312
FORESTRY SECTION 312
Remarks, Mr. D. Page Simons 312
Remarks, Mr. T. B. Wyman 312
Remarks, Maj. E. G. Griggs 313
Remarks, Mr. Charles Lathrop Pack 313
Remarks, Mr. I. C. Williams 313
Remarks, Dr. Henry S. Drinker 313
Remarks, Mr. E. A. Sterling 313
Remarks, Hon. John M. Woods 313
Remarks, Mr. Henry E. Hardtner 313
Remarks, Prof. F. W. Rane 313
Remarks, Col. W. R. Brown 313–314
Remarks, Mr. F. A. Elliott 314
Remarks, Mr. Hugh P. Baker 314
Remarks, Mr. P. S. Ridsdale 314
Appointment of Committees on Resolutions 314
Co-operation with other agencies, permanent organizations
and resolutions.
THIRD SESSION—
Remarks, Mr. H. E. Hardtner 314
Remarks, Mr. T. B. Wyman 314
Remarks, Col. W. R. Brown 314
Remarks, Mr. F. A. Elliott 315
Remarks, Mr. N. P. Wheeler 315
Remarks, Mr. D. Page Simons 315
Report, Committee on Resolutions 315
FOURTH SESSION—
Committee on Permanent Organizations—
Report, Mr. E. T. Allen 315–316
Remarks, Mr. Z. D. Scott 316
Remarks, Mr. F. A. Elliott 316
Remarks, Mr. H. D. Langille 316
Remarks, Mr. W. H. Shippen 316
Register, Forestry Section 317
Address, “The Present Situation of Forestry,” Prof.
Henry S. Graves, United States Forester 318–325
FOOD SECTION 326–327
Address, “Food Conservation by Cold Storage,” Mr.
F. G. Urner 327–334
National Association of Conservation Commissioners 334–335
Accident Prevention Section 335
Review of Progress in the Conservation of Waters 335
Report, Standing Committee on Waters, by Mr. W. C.
Mendenhall 335–344
WILD LIFE PROTECTION 344
Report, Standing Committee on Wild Life Protection, by Dr.
W. T. Hornaday 344–347
Address, “The Vital Resources of the Nation,” Dr. Henry
Sturgis Drinker 347
Paper, “Conservation of the Soil,” Hon. James J. Hill 349–352
Paper, “War is the Policy of Waste—Peace, the Policy of
Conservation,” Mrs. Elmer Black 352–356
Address, “The Conservation of Navigable Streams,” Mr.
Jacob P. Dunn 357–362
Report from the National Fertilizer Association, presented
by Mr. John D. Toll and Mr. Charles S. Rauh 363–365
Dr. W. J. McGee: An Appreciation of His Services for
Conservation, Mr. W. C. Mendenhall 365–367
OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES, 1912.
_President_,
JOHN B. WHITE, Kansas City, Mo.
_Executive Secretary_,
THOMAS R. SHIPP, Washington, D. C.
_Treasurer_,
D. AUSTIN LATCHAW, Kansas City, Mo.
_Recording Secretary_,
JAMES C. GIPE, Indianapolis, Ind.
_Executive Committee._
E. LEE WORSHAM, Atlanta, Ga., _Chairman_.
J. LEWIS THOMPSON, Houston, Texas.
W. A. FLEMING JONES, Las Cruces, N.M.
WALTER H. PAGE, New York.
GEORGE C. PARDEE, Oakland, Cal.
DR. H. E. BARNARD, Indianapolis, Ind.
MRS. PHILIP N. MOORE, St. Louis, Mo.
BERNARD N. BAKER, Baltimore, Md.
HENRY C. WALLACE, Des Moines, Iowa.
GIFFORD PINCHOT, Washington, D. C.
_Local Board of Managers, Indianapolis._
RICHARD LIEBER, _Chairman_.
JOSEPH C. SCHAF, _Vice-Chairman_.
JAMES W. LILLY, _Treasurer_.
L. H. LEWIS, _Secretary_.
FREDERIC M. AYRES.
GEORGE L. DENNY.
EDGAR H. EVANS.
CARL G. FISHER.
C. G. HANCH.
O. D. HASKETT.
ALBERT E. METZGER.
WILLIAM J. MOONEY.
W. H. O’BRIEN.
_Vice-Presidents._
Arkansas—E. N. PLANK, Decatur.
California—FRANCIS CUTTLE, Riverside.
Colorado—I. S. T. GREGG, Golden.
Connecticut—PROF. J. W. TOUMEY, Hartford.
District of Columbia—DR. HARVEY W. WILEY, Washington.
Florida—T. J. CAMPBELL, Palm Beach.
Georgia—L. R. AKIN.
Illinois—BALLARD DUNN, Chicago.
Iowa—PROF. P. G. HOLDEN, Ames.
Louisiana—HENRY E. HARDTNER, Urania.
Massachusetts—PROF. F. W. RANE, Boston.
Missouri—HERMAN VON SCHRENK, St. Louis.
Nebraska—PROF. E. A. BURNETT, Lincoln.
New Jersey—E. A. STEVENS, Hoboken.
New York—DR. W. T. HORNADAY, New York City.
Ohio—J. C. RODGERS, Mechanicsburg.
Oklahoma—T. C. HARRICE, Wagoner.
South Carolina—PROF. M. W. TWITCHELL, Columbia.
South Dakota—GOV. R. S. VESSEY, Pierre.
Texas—W. GOODRICH JONES, Temple.
Washington—A. L. FLEWELLING, Spokane.
Wisconsin—HERBERT QUICK, Madison.
STANDING COMMITTEES, 1912.
_Forests_—H. S. Graves, Washington, D. C., Chairman; E. T. Allen,
Portland, Ore.; Major E. G. Griggs, Tacoma, Wash.; William Irvine,
Chippewa Falls, Wis.; George K. Smith, St. Louis.
_Minerals_—Dr. Joseph A. Holmes, Washington, D. C., Chairman; Dr.
Charles R. Van Hise, Madison, Wis.; Dr. I. C. White, Morgantown, W.
Va.; C. W. Brunton, Denver, Col.; John Mitchell, New York City.
_Lands and Agriculture_—Prof. L. H. Bailey, Cornell University,
Chairman; Prof. George E. Condra, Nebraska; Prof. J. L. Snyder,
Lansing, Mich.; F. D. Coburn, Kansas; Charles S. Barrett, Union City,
Ga.
_Education_—Dr. C. E. Bessey, Lincoln, Neb., Chairman; Dr. David
Starr Jordan, Leland Stanford University, Oakland, Cal.; Dr.
Edward E. Alderman, University of Virginia, Charlottesville; Dr.
E. C. Craighead, Tulane University, New Orleans, La.; Prof. E. T.
Fairchild, Topeka, Kas.
_Vital Resources_—Dr. William H. Welch, Johns Hopkins University,
Baltimore, Md., Chairman; Prof. Irving Fisher, Yale University,
New Haven, Conn.; Dr. J. N. Hurty, Indianapolis, Ind.; Hon. A. B.
Farquhar, York, Pa.; Dr. Oscar Dowling, Shreveport, La.
_Homes_—Mrs. Matthew T. Scott, Washington, Chairman; Mrs. Harriet
Wallace-Ashby, Des Moines, Iowa; Mrs. J. E. Rhodes, St. Paul, Minn.;
Mrs. Sarah S. Platt-Decker,[1] Denver, Col.; Mrs. Amos F. Draper,
Washington, D. C.
_Child Life_—Hon. Ben B. Lindsay, Denver, Col., Chairman; Dr. Samuel
M. Lindsay, New York City; Judge Henry L. McCune, Kansas City,
Mo.; Mrs. Carl Vrooman, Bloomington, Ill.; Dr. Anna Louise Strong,
Seattle, Wash.
_Food_—Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, Washington, D. C., Chairman; F. G. Urner,
New York; Prof. F. Spencer Baldwin, Boston, Mass.; J. F. Nickerson,
Chicago, Ill.; Lucius P. Brown, Nashville, Tenn.; E. H. Jenkins, New
Haven, Conn.; M. A. Scovelle, Lexington, Ky.; Prof. Geo. A. Loveland,
Lincoln, Neb.
_Civics_—Ralph Easley, New York, Chairman; Albert Hall Whitfield,
Jackson, Miss.; B. A. Fowler, Phœnix, Ariz.; H. M. Beardsley, Kansas
City, Mo.; Francis J. Heney, San Francisco, Cal.
_General (including Domesticated Animals and Wild Life)_—Dr. W. T.
Hornaday, New York, Chairman; Dr. L. O. Howard, Washington, D. C.;
Mrs. Minnie Maddern Fiske, New York City; Dr. John Muir, Martinez,
Cal.; D. Austin Latchaw, Kansas City, Mo.; Prof. Geo. A. Loveland,
Lincoln, Neb.
_Waters_—Hon. J. N. Teal, Portland, Ore., Chairman; Hon. Joseph E.
Ransdell, Lake Providence, La.; Walter S. Dickey, Kansas City, Mo.;
Hon. Herbert Knox Smith, Washington, D. C.; W. K. Kavanaugh, St.
Louis, Mo.; Dr. W. J. McGee, Washington, D. C.; Prof. Geo. F. Swain,
Harvard University.
_National Parks (including Mammoth Cave, Ky., and Adjacent
Lands)_—Dr. W. J. McGee,[1] Washington, D. C.; Dr. Henry F. Drinker,
South Bethlehem, Pa.; Hon. William P. Borland, Kansas City, Mo.; Hon.
Gifford Pinchot, Washington, D. C.; M. H. Crump, Bowling Green, Ky.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Deceased.
OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES, 1913.
_President_,
CHARLES LATHROP PACK, Lakewood, N. J.
_Vice-President_,
MRS. PHILIP N. MOORE, St. Louis, Mo.
_Executive Secretary_,
THOMAS B. SHIPP, Indianapolis, Ind.
_Treasurer_,
D. A. LATCHAW, Kansas City, Mo.
_Recording Secretary_,
JAMES C. GIPE, Indianapolis, Ind.
_Executive Committee_,
E. LEE WORSHAM, Atlanta, Ga., _Chairman_.
WALTER H. PAGE, New York City.
J. B. WHITE, Kansas City, Missouri.
B. N. BAKER, Baltimore, Maryland.
DR. HENRY S. DRINKER, S. Bethlehem, Pa.
GEORGE E. CONDRA, Lincoln, Neb.
JOSEPH N. TEAL, Portland, Oregon.
DR. HENRY WALLACE, Des Moines, Iowa.
DR. GEORGE C. PARDEE, Oakland, Cal.
THOMAS NELSON PAGE, Washington, D. C.
GIFFORD PINCHOT, Washington, D. C.
MRS. EMMONS CROCKER, Fitchburg, Mass.
[2]_Standing Committees._
_Forestry_—HENRY S. GRAVES, Chairman, Forest Service, Washington, D.
C.; E. T. ALLEN, Yeon Portland, Ore.; J. B. WHITE, Long Building,
Kansas City, Mo.; W. R. BROWN, Berlin, New Hampshire; E. A. STERLING,
Secretary, Real Estate Building, Philadelphia, Pa.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] At the time the Proceedings went to press the other standing
committees had not been appointed.
CONSTITUTION
OF THE
NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS
_As Amended by the Fourth Congress._
ARTICLE 1—NAME.
This organization shall be known as the National Conservation
Congress.
ARTICLE 2—OBJECT.
The object of the National Conservation Congress shall be: (1) to
provide a forum for discussion of the resources of the United States
as the foundation for the prosperity of the people, (2) to furnish
definite information concerning the resources and their utilization,
and (3) to afford an agency through which the people of the country
may frame policies and principles affecting the wise and practical
development, conservation and utilization of the resources to be put
into effect by their representatives in State and Federal Governments.
ARTICLE 3—MEETINGS.
Section 1. Regular annual meetings shall be held at such time and
place as may be determined by the Executive Committee.
Section 2. Special meetings of the Congress, or its officers,
committees or boards, may be held subject to the call of the
President of the Congress or the Chairman of the Executive Committee.
Section 3. After a call of the Executive Committee by the Chairman,
and after all members of the Committee have been notified of the
meeting in sufficient time to be present, three members shall
constitute a quorum for the transaction of business.
ARTICLE 4—OFFICERS.
Section 1. The officers of the Congress shall consist of a President,
to be elected by the Congress; a Vice-President to be elected by the
Congress; a Vice-President from each State, to be chosen by the
respective State delegations; one from the National Conservation
Association and one from the National Association of Conservation
Commissioners; an Executive Secretary, a Recording Secretary, and a
Treasurer, all to be elected by the Congress.
Section 2. The duties of these officers may at any time be prescribed
by formal action of the Congress or Executive Committee. In the
absence of such action their duties shall be those implied by their
designations and established by custom. In addition, it shall be the
duty of the Vice-Presidents to receive from the State Conservation
Commissions, and other organizations concerned in Conservation,
suggestions and recommendations and report them to the Executive
Committee of the Congress.
Section 3. The officers shall serve for one year, or until their
successors are elected and qualify.
ARTICLE 5—COMMITTEES AND BOARDS.
Section 1. An Executive Committee of seven, in addition to which the
President of the National Conservation Association, the President
of the National Association of State Conservation Commissioners,
and all ex-Presidents of the Congress shall be members, ex officio,
shall be appointed by the President to act for the ensuing year;
its membership shall be drawn from different States, and not more
than one of the appointed members shall be from any one State. The
Executive Committee shall act for the Congress and shall be empowered
to initiate action and meet emergencies. It shall report to each
regular annual session.
Section 2. A Board of Managers shall be created in each city in which
the next ensuing session of the Congress is to be held, preferably
by leading organizations of citizens. The Board of Managers shall
have power to raise and expend funds, to incur obligations of its
own responsibility, to appoint subordinate boards and committees,
all with the approval of the Executive Committee of the Congress.
It shall report to the Executive Committee at least two days before
the opening of the ensuing session, and at such other times as the
Congress or the Executive Committee may direct.
Section 3. An Advisory Board, consisting of one person from each
national organization having a conservation committee, shall be
created to serve during that Congress and during the interval
before the next succeeding Congress. The board shall report to and
co-operate with the Executive Committee.
Section 4. The President shall appoint a Finance Committee of five,
three from the members of the Executive Committee and two from the
Advisory Board, whose duty it shall be to plan ways and means of
increasing the revenue of the Congress, and to prepare a budget
of expenditures. The Chairman shall be a member of the Executive
Committee.
Section 5. The Executive Committee shall appoint, in consultation
with the Vice-President from the State, a State Secretary whose
duty shall be to work with the State organizations for the special
interests of the Congress. Such Secretary shall report progress to
the Executive Committee.
Section 6. A Committee on Credentials shall be appointed, consisting
of five (5) members, by the President of the Congress not later than
on the second day of each session of the Congress. It shall determine
all questions raised by delegates as to representation, and shall
report to the Congress from time to time as required by the President
of the Congress.
Section 7. A Committee on Resolutions shall be created for each
annual meeting of the Congress. A Chairman shall be appointed by the
President. One member of the committee shall be selected by each
State represented in the Congress. The committee shall report to the
Congress not later than the morning of the last day of each annual
meeting.
Section 8. Permanent committees, consisting of five members each,
on each of the following five divisions of Conservation: Forests,
waters, lands, minerals and vital resources, shall be appointed by
the President of the Congress. The Committee on Vital Resources is
to consist of six subordinate committees as follows: Food, homes,
child life, education, civics, and general (including wild life,
domesticated animals, and cultivated plants). These committees shall,
during the intervals between the annual meetings of the Congress,
inquire into these respective subjects and prepare reports to be
submitted on the request of the Executive Committee, and render such
other assistance to the Congress as the Executive Committee may
direct.
Section 9. By direction of the Congress, standing and special
committees may be appointed by the President.
Section 10. The President shall be a member, ex officio, of every
committee of the Congress.
ARTICLE 6—ARRANGEMENTS FOR SESSIONS.
Section 1. The program for the session of each annual meeting of the
Congress, including a list of speakers, shall be arranged by the
Executive Committee. The entire program, including allotments of time
to speakers and hours for daily sessions and all other arrangements
concerning the program, shall be made by the Executive Committee.
Section 2. Unless otherwise ordered, the rules adopted for the
guidance of the preceding Congress shall continue in force.
ARTICLE 7—MEMBERSHIP.
Section 1. The personnel of the National Conservation Congress shall
be as follows:
_Officers and Delegates._
Officers of the National Conservation Congress.
Fifteen delegates appointed by the Governor of each State and
Territory.
Five delegates appointed by the mayor of each city with a population
of 25,000 or more.
Two delegates appointed by the mayor of each city with a population
of less than 25,000.
Two delegates appointed by each board of county commissioners.
Five delegates appointed by each national organization concerned in
the work of Conservation.
Five delegates appointed by each State or interstate organization
concerned in the work of Conservation.
Three delegates appointed by each chamber of commerce, board of
trade, commercial club, or other local organization concerned in the
work of Conservation.
Two delegates appointed by each State, or other university, or
college, and by each agricultural college, or experiment station.
_Honorary Members._
The President of the United States.
The Vice-President of the United States.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives.
The Cabinet.
The United States Senate and House of Representatives.
The Supreme Court of the United States.
The representatives of foreign countries.
The Governors of the States and Territories.
The Lieutenant-Governors of the States and Territories.
The Speakers of State Houses of Representatives.
The State officers.
The mayors of cities.
The county commissioners.
The presidents of State and other universities and colleges.
The officers and members of the National Conservation Association.
The officers and members of the National Conservation Commission.
The officers and members of the State Conservation Commissions and
associations.
Section 2. Membership in the National Conservation Congress shall be
as follows:
[Illustration: _J. B. White_(signature)
OF KANSAS CITY, MO.,
PRESIDENT, FOURTH NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS]
Individual membership: One dollar a year, entitling the member to
a copy of the Proceedings and an invitation to the next year’s
Congress, without further appointment from any organization.
Individual permanent, or life membership: Twenty-five dollars,
entitling the member to a certificate of membership and a copy of the
Proceedings and invitations to all succeeding annual Congresses.
Individual supporting membership: One hundred dollars, or more,
entitling the member to a certificate of membership, a copy of the
Proceedings, and an invitation to all succeeding Congresses.
Organization membership: Twenty-five dollars, entitling its delegates
to the Proceedings, and an invitation to the organization to appoint
delegates to the next Congress.
Organization supporting membership: One hundred dollars, or more,
entitling the organization to appoint one delegate from each State,
each of whom shall receive a copy of the Proceedings.
ARTICLE 8—DELEGATIONS AND STATE OFFICERS.
Section 1. The several delegates from each State in attendance at
any Congress shall assemble at the earliest practicable time and
organize by choosing a Chairman and a Secretary. These delegates,
when approved by the Committee on Credentials, shall constitute the
delegation from that State.
ARTICLE 9—VOTING.
Section 1. Each member of the Congress shall be entitled to one vote
on all actions taken _viva voce_.
Section 2. A division or call of States may be demanded on any
action, by a State delegation. On division, each delegate shall be
entitled to one vote; provided (1) that no State shall have more than
twenty votes; and provided (2) that when a State is represented by
less than ten delegates, said delegates may cast ten votes for each
State.
Section 3. The term “State” as used herein is to be construed to mean
either State, Territory, or insular possession.
ARTICLE 10—AMENDMENTS.
This Constitution may be amended by a two-thirds vote of the Congress
during any regular session, provided notice of the proposed amendment
has been given from the Chair not less than one day or more than two
days preceding; or by unanimous vote without such notice.
RESOLUTIONS.
FOURTH NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS.
The Fourth National Conservation Congress, made up of delegates from
all sections and from thirty-five States of the Union, met in the
City of Indianapolis, do hereby make the following declarations:
Recognizing the natural resources of the country as the prime basis
of property and opportunity, we reaffirm the declaration of the
preceding Congress, that the rights of the people in these resources
are natural, inherent, and inalienable; and we insist that these
resources shall be developed, used and conserved in ways consistent
both with the current and future welfare of our people.
We put chief emphasis on vital resources and the health of the
people; and since health and brains are the first and most important
factors of efficient life, we urge the adoption of all rational and
scientific methods which will lead to their building-up.
To be well born is the primal requirement, and the first step to make
sure that children shall be well born is to stop the multiplication
of those bearing hereditary defects of body and mind. We believe that
science is capable of solving the problem satisfactorily and that
improvement is possible under existing conditions. We earnestly urge
its consideration by the public.
We believe that every State should have wisely ordered health
laws, with officers empowered to enforce them, and also that a
National Department of Health should be created, comporting with the
dignity and importance of the cause. This department should work
effectively for the promotion of the physical and hence the moral and
intellectual health of the people.
The accurate registration of births and deaths, which has been
called the ‘Bookkeeping of Humanity,’ is a fundamental necessity for
a study and knowledge of disease, and for all public health work.
Therefore, we affirm our belief in the importance of vital statistics
registration, and recommend that all States now without proper
vital statistics adopt as early as possible the model bill for the
registration of vital statistics indorsed by the United States Bureau
of the Census, and by many prominent professional and scientific
bodies.
We urge the strengthening of laws safeguarding the health and the
lives of workers in industrial establishments; and we commend
to the employers of labor all practicable safety devices and
proved preventive measures against illness and injury and physical
inefficiency; and we urge upon the other States the investigation of
accidents by elevators and the enactment of laws similar to those on
the statute books of Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.
We commend the activity of all individuals and organizations and
governmental agencies to put an end to such work by children and
women as impairs the health of the race. Childhood is our greatest
resource, and its right to protection in growing to a normal maturity
is inalienable. We deplore the ignorant use of medicines; and we
call upon all humane and educational agencies to teach the waste and
danger of any drug-habit.
We earnestly advocate the employment by communities and manufacturing
concerns of such methods of sewage disposal as will render their
waste products harmless to health and utilize them in the restoration
of soil fertility; and we urge the enactment by States of laws
prohibiting stream pollution and by the Federal Government of such
legislation as will prevent the pollution of interstate and coastal
waters.
Uniform State legislation regulating the refrigeration of perishable
food stuffs is advisable, therefore this Congress recommends that
its Food Committee be requested to study the questions involved in
the production, collection, sanitary preparation, transportation,
preservation and marketing of perishable foods and to report
its findings to the succeeding Congress as a basis for uniform
legislation.
In view of the enormous losses annually sustained by the agricultural
interests of the United States on account of the ravages of injurious
insects, which might be kept more under control by an increase of
insect-eating birds, we urge the passage of Federal laws for the
protection of all migratory birds; and the passage of State laws for
the prohibition of spring shooting and of the sale of game.
We reaffirm the great importance of our fishery resources, which are
threatened with serious diminution. We urge upon Congress and the
States to provide more liberally for the propagation and preservation
of food fishes.
LANDS.
We keenly recognize the need of the people of the country for more
complete and accurate knowledge of their land and its conditions than
is now available, in order to promote their economic, social and
intellectual well-being and to conserve scattered individual energy;
We recognize that such data should be collected by a general series
of State and National surveys arranged in the order in which they
will be most accurate and effective and that many of these are
already in progress;
This Congress earnestly points out the following kinds of data of
which the people have need and the approximate order in which it
should be collected, namely:
1. A thorough geographical survey of public boundaries and cultural
features.
2. Of the form or topography of the earth’s surface.
3. Of the geology, including the structure and economic deposits of
the earth’s crust.
4. Of the kinds and distribution of soils in their relation to
agricultural operations.
5. Of the climate in its local variations and relation to crops and
industry.
6. Of the surface and underground water supply of the country in its
local and regional relation, including flood and storage problems.
7. Of various biological, crop and forestry conditions and relations.
8. And of many other surveys of a more specialized character and
local application which may be adequately carried forward on the
basis outlined above.
We urge the several States and the Federal Government to examine
their existing agencies to determine whether they are completely and
effectively fulfilling these functions.
Further, we reaffirm the action of the last Conservation Congress in
approving the withdrawal of the public lands pending classification,
and the separation of surface rights from mineral, forest and water
rights, including water-power sites, and we recommend legislation for
the classification and leasing for grazing purposes all unreserved
lands suitable chiefly for this purpose, subject to the rights of
homesteaders and settlers, on the acquisition thereof under the land
laws of the United States; and we hold that arid and non-irrigable
public grazing lands should be administered by the Government in the
interest of small stockmen and home-seekers until they have passed
into the possession of actual settlers.
FORESTS.
Believing that the necessity of preserving our forests and forest
industries is so generally realized that it calls only for
constructive support along specific lines—
We commend the work of the Federal Forest Service, and urge our
constituent bodies and all citizens to insist upon more adequate
appropriations for this work and to combat any attempt to break down
the integrity of the national forest system by reductions in area, or
transfer to State authority.
Since Federal co-operation under the Weeks law is stimulating better
forest protection by the States, and since the appropriation for
such co-operative work is nearly exhausted, we urge appropriation by
Congress for its continuance.
We recommend that the Federal troops be made systematically available
for controlling forest fires.
Deploring the lack of uniform State activity in forest work, we
emphatically urge the crystallization of effort in the lagging States
toward securing the creation of forest departments with definite and
ample appropriations, in no case of less than ten thousand dollars
per annum, to enable the organization of forest fire work, publicity
propaganda, surveys of forest resources and general investigations
upon which to base the earliest possible development of perfected and
liberally financed forest policies.
We recommend in all States more liberal appropriation for forest fire
prevention, especially for patrol to obviate expenditure for fighting
neglected fires, and the expenditure of such effort in the closest
possible co-operation with Federal and private protective agencies;
and also urge such special legislation and appropriation as may be
necessary to stamp out insect and fungus attacks which threaten to
spread to other States. We cite for emulation the expenditure by
Pennsylvania of $275,000 to combat the chestnut blight, and the large
appropriation by Massachusetts to control insect depredation, and
urge greater Congressional appropriation for similar work by the
Bureau of Entomology.
Holding that conservative forest management and reforestation by
private owners are very generally discouraged or prevented by our
methods of forest taxation, we recommend State legislation to secure
the most moderate taxation of forest land consistent with justice and
the taxation of the forest crop upon such land only when the crop is
harvested and returns revenue wherewith to pay the tax.
We appreciate the increasing support by lumbermen of forestry reforms
and suggest particularly to forest owners the study and emulation of
the many co-operative patrol associations which are doing extensive
and efficient forest fire work and also securing closer relations
between private, State and Federal forest agencies. Believing that
lumbermen and the public have a common object in perpetuating the
use of forests, we indorse every means of bringing them together in
mutual aid and confidence to this end.
MINERALS.
We reaffirm the opinion of the last Conservation Congress that
mineral deposits underlying public lands should be transferred to
private ownership only by long-time leases with revaluation at stated
periods, such leases to be in such amounts and subject to such
regulations as to prevent monopoly and needless waste; and that in
case of doubt as to availability of such mineral deposits, or while
they are waiting exploration, surface rights to the land should
be transferred by lease only under such conditions as to promote
development and protect the public interest. Natural and manufactured
fertilizing materials should be limited and regulated by law.
Since present conditions in the mining industry result in heavy and
unnecessary loss of life and great waste of natural gas, coal and
other mineral resources, we call to public attention the need of
specific and uniform laws for the betterment of these conditions—laws
as rigid and comprehensive as we enact for the protection of life and
for the right use of property in any other fundamental industry.
WATER POWER.
We reaffirm the previously expressed belief of the Conservation
Congress than all parts of every drainage basin are related and
inter-dependent, and that each stream should be regarded and treated
as a unit from its source to its mouth.
Recognizing the vast economic benefits to the people of water power
derived largely from interstate and navigable rivers, we favor public
control of their water power development; and we demand that the use
of their water rights be permitted only for limited periods, with
just compensation in the interests of the people.
COUNTRY LIFE.
We applaud the betterment of conditions affecting country life, such
as good roads, and organizations for co-operative buying and selling;
and we urge the study of rural credit systems whereby the farmer may
more easily borrow capital at a reasonable rate of interest.
We applaud the work of making rural schools fit rural needs.
DR. W. J. McGEE.
We here place on record our sense of the deep loss by the country
through the untimely death of Dr. W. J. McGee, a member of a
Committee of this Congress, a scientific man of broad attainment, and
of the widest human sympathy, whose helpfulness in these Congresses
and many similar meetings will be sadly missed.
THE EXHIBIT.
We mention with appreciation the work of the Committee on Exhibits,
Mrs. Philip N. Moore, Chairman, which made the instructive health
exhibit under the management of Dr. Winthrop Talbot.
We record our grateful appreciation of the hospitality and
helpfulness of the State Government of Indiana, and of the City
Government of Indianapolis; and of the Local Board of Managers, Mr.
Richard Lieber, Chairman; of the Reception Committee, Mr. Albert E.
Metzger, Chairman; of the Commercial and Industrial organizations
which, through the Commercial Club, made the Congress here possible;
of the State Board of Agriculture, and of the Claypool Hotel, for
their helpful courtesies and generous co-operation; and we thank the
newspapers of Indianapolis for their unusually generous and accurate
reports.
We wish to assure the retiring President, Captain White, of the
heartiest appreciation of the Congress and of the country for his
generous and efficient administration of the complicated business
of the Congress; and Mr. Thomas R. Shipp, the Executive Secretary,
for his zealous labor and good judgment and skilful management;
and Mr. James C. Gipe, the Recording Secretary, for his energy and
efficiency; and Colonel John I. Martin, the Sergeant-at-arms, must
add one more vote of thanks to his ever-lengthening collection.
FOURTH NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS.
_OPENING SESSION._
The Congress convened in the Murat Theater, Indianapolis, Indiana, on
the morning of October 1, 1912, President J. B. White in the chair.
President WHITE—The Fourth National Conservation Congress will now
come to order, and the audience will please rise while the Rev. Dr.
F. S. C. Wicks invokes Divine blessing.
INVOCATION.
_Infinite and Eternal One, we would open our Congress with an
acknowledgment of Thee as the Giver of every good and perfect gift.
Thou hast placed us in a rich and fertile land, teeming with the
things needful for Thy children, and Thou hast laid upon us the great
responsibility of conserving these resources so that these blessings
will extend to our children’s children and to all generations
forevermore. To Thee be all the praise and the glory. Amen._
ADDRESSES OF WELCOME.
President WHITE—On behalf of the State of Indiana, your fellow
citizen, the Honorable Charles Warren Fairbanks, will address the
Congress in words of welcome. (Applause.)
Mr. FAIRBANKS—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: Indiana has
frequently been honored by the presence of conventions of national
importance. Our countrymen, engaged in various and vast pursuits and
in the consideration of a large variety of questions, religious,
social, fraternal, economic and political in their character, have
assembled here from time to time to take counsel together with
respect to the subjects engaging their particular attention, and to
the advancement of our common welfare.
Our State has a hospitality for all who are engaged in promoting the
moral, material and political well-being of our rapidly multiplying
millions. I will not be misunderstood, I know, when I say that we
have never more heartily welcomed to our midst any body of men than
we now welcome the Fourth National Conservation Congress. (Applause.)
We recognize in this great assembly one of the most beneficent
agencies for good which has taken on the form of systematic
organization, national in its scope. It is not sectional, but is as
comprehensive in its purpose as the ample limits of the Republic.
It takes thought, not of the few, but embraces within its generous
purpose one hundred millions of people of all conditions and without
suggestion or partiality for white or black, native or alien born.
How vast and how vital the field of its activities!
How full of promise such an assembly as this is! It is, Mr. Chairman,
a complete answer to the pessimist. No thought of commercial gain
has brought you here; a spirit of altruism, love of country and of
mankind has been the impelling motive which has caused you, at your
own expense, to leave the comforts of your homes and firesides and
your daily vocations to come here and deliberate upon great themes of
larger interest to the great community of which you are a part than
to yourselves.
You hold no commission from the government, yet your service is of
profound importance to it. You are not public servants in a narrow
sense, but in a broad sense you freely serve the public in the best
possible way.
The lesson of men voluntarily devoting themselves to the betterment
of their fellows without the thought of sordid gain is a fine one and
must impress itself in a very vivid and beneficial way upon the minds
of others and tend to elevate the entire mass. What tends to impress
us with our interdependence and to stimulate a feeling of homogeneity
among us as this movement does is of incalculable benefit. It is a
splendid thing for people to fellowship together in this manner, to
take counsel of each other with reference to questions concerning the
common good. It shows that we are interested more in what concerns
the great body of the community than in what concerns ourselves.
General Harrison, gifted statesman and our fellow citizen, once very
happily expressed the fact of the strength of confederated numbers
in a good cause. He told of an engagement during the great Civil
War when he was colonel of an Indiana regiment that was fighting in
the midst of a woods and thicket. The enemy was pressing hard in
front and fighting every inch of ground with a desperation that was
unsurpassed. The Indiana regiment was feeling the shock of war in
an extreme degree, and was almost on the point of discouragement.
They felt they were fighting the battle alone. But in the course of
time, as they emerged into a savannah, they saw a New York regiment,
with its battle flags flying to the breeze; and over there another
regiment from Kansas, and a shout of victory went up all along the
line, for they found they were not a mere detachment, but part of a
great army fighting for a common cause.
So it is a fine thing to feel that we are part of a great army
fighting for a common cause—for home and country, rather than
detached units fighting for ourselves. (Applause.)
Conservation is comparatively new in the vocabulary of our modern
domestic economy, but it is a great word. It has come to be one of
the greatest words of the human language from a practical standpoint.
It is a continent-wide word in America. Conservation in some aspect
of the subject touches every community, every city, every State and
every individual. In other words, in a vital degree, it touches the
welfare of one hundred millions of American citizens. Its importance
is just beginning to be appreciated. Great today, but greater
tomorrow in the progress of affairs. (Applause.)
A good Providence endowed us so abundantly with the prime necessities
of our being that we have not fully realized the fact that there was
either a possibility or danger of dissipating them. We were wont
to boast of our inexhaustible resources. Nature has been prodigal,
and we have been prodigal in the use and abuse of what she had so
generously placed at our hands.
The forests—how vast and how majestic! We were obliged to fell them
for the plow and the harvest, and for homes and cities. We came to
look upon them as in our way—obstructions to our progress, as in a
certain sense they were, but in a large way they were not. And we
carried the work of demolition to the danger point before we realized
our mistake. What nature had been centuries creating for us we
frequently recklessly destroyed in a day.
The soil, the primary source of human life and strength, was rich
beyond compare. In the laboratory of nature the chemical elements
had been so nicely compounded that, to use a familiar simile, the
farmer had only to tickle the land with a hoe and it laughed with
the harvest. In time, Mother Earth began to resent neglect and
abuse, and the crop yield diminished; but that mattered little to
the unthinking, for there were still vast areas of virgin soil and
the food supply was adequate to our needs. In the course of time,
however, there were no unoccupied lands to be pre-empted, no fresh
soil for the asking.
MILLIONS COME TO OUR SHORES.
Millions of men and women flocked to our shores every ten years
from every land beyond the seas, seeking home and opportunity;
millions every decade were added to our population at home by natural
increase. Students of statistics came to realize that in the face
of an increasing demand for food supply at home, regardless of
the millions in the Old World dependent upon our granaries, soil
exhaustion was a subject of very vital importance, a crime, if you
please, not by the statute, but by moral law; and this may be said
with respect to the reckless or ignorant dissipation of all our
natural resources.
We are in a very real sense trustees of the fields and forests, mines
and other sources of wealth, not to use and abuse at our will, but
rather to use for our own reasonable necessities and then to transmit
them unimpaired, so far as possible, and if possible increased in
life-sustaining power, to our children. (Applause.)
By no other method can our civilization be perpetually maintained
upon the highest level and the Republic kept in the forefront of the
nations of the world. The man who owns and tills the soil, who owns
and fells the forest, who owns and mines the coal, has no moral right
to abuse his ownership; no one has a moral right to waste patrimony
which must support not only the owner but the man who is not the
owner, and whose continued comfort and existence must depend upon the
wisdom with which the owner of the soil and forest and mine uses them.
The importance of Conservation derives emphasis from the rapidity
with which our population grows. Our cities will not only multiply in
number, but their inhabitants will increase, population will become
congested everywhere, and the demand upon our natural resources will
be greatly increased. We have added nearly ninety millions to our
population in one hundred years. One hundred years ago we were small
in numbers compared with the older countries. We have outstripped
all but the older empires and republics of Continental Europe.
Take Russia, with her 172,000,000; take India, with 325,000,000,
and China, where they are building a republic upon the ruins of an
empire, with her 400,000,000, and the United States stands fourth
in magnitude of population among the nations of the world, having
outstripped all but these, and with the present ratio of increase,
in one hundred and fifty or two hundred years we will stand not the
last of these great populous countries. And what does this signify?
It signifies that the great subject of Conservation that you are
taking hold of with such intelligent, patriotic interest, will be the
overmastering question then as it is today. (Applause.)
Who can put a practical limitation upon a definition of Conservation?
Conservation of our natural resources does not go far enough. The
public health falls within the subject of Conservation in the fullest
and best sense, and that is susceptible of many subdivisions.
Conservation of the minds and morals, Conservation of our political
institutions—all of these and many more subjects of but little less
importance engage the attention of such men as are assembled here.
I understand, Mr. Chairman, that the human side of Conservation is
to receive particular emphasis in this Congress. I am glad it is
so. We have been so long concerned with the physical resources that
we have failed to give proper credit to really a larger aspect of
Conservation. As important as is the conservation of our natural
resources, far more important is the question of conserving the
health, conserving the intellect, conserving the morality of the one
hundred millions of people we have. (Applause.) I have known men who
were more solicitous regarding the health of a fine horse or dog
than the health of the family. I have sometimes seen (but not in any
of the States from which any of you come) ladies that had a more
affectionate solicitude for a fine cat or a fine poodle than for the
members of her household. (Laughter.) We are getting beyond that.
We are coming to appreciate that that greatest assets in the United
States today are men and women, and we must know how to conserve them.
There is manifest and gratifying awakening upon this subject
throughout the country. We have not begun to appreciate the
possibilities in this field. Men of science, the microscope, the
laboratory and carefully gathered and well-digested statistics have
opened up a new world to our vision. Physicians and surgeons have
been exploring the mysteries of the physical man and familiarizing
themselves with the perils of his environment and learning how to
arrest the work of his destroyer.
They have learned how to locate his worst enemies by the use of the
searching eye of the microscope, enemies who destroy more thousands
than those enemies who come with fleets and armies and flaunting
banners. It was not the Chagres river and Culebra cut which defeated
the French Company in the construction of the Panama Canal, but the
mosquito.
An American physician opened up the way to the completion of this
work of world-wide moment by destroying the insect which had
successfully defeated the French. The white plague, which takes such
tremendous toll annually, is now under siege from every quarter, and
science will in due time win a new victory in removing this scourge.
Better sanitation in cities, villages, schoolhouses, workshops,
homes, on farms and in cities, guarding our water supply against
pollution, insuring pure food and pure drugs and their better
preparation, are a few of the imperative requirements of the day.
And when I speak of pure food and drugs, Dr. Wiley comes to my mind.
(Applause.) He has to do with an aspect of practical Conservation
that will entitle him and his associates to perpetual remembrance in
the United States. (Applause.)
These are all practical questions, the importance of which cannot
be over-emphasized. They concern the health and happiness of many
millions of people and the destiny of the Republic itself.
INDIANA NOT INDIFFERENT.
Indiana has not been indifferent to this great movement. It has taken
up the work of Conservation with full appreciation of its magnitude
and its direct bearing upon the present and future of the State.
Our interests are so diversified that our conservationists in all
branches of the movement find full opportunity for the exercise of
their activities.
We have an agricultural college which is doing much to advance
agriculture, horticulture, stock raising and the like along advanced
lines. Farmers are being interested in the necessity of cultivation
of the soil and the importance of seed selection, drainage and the
like. We have farmers’ short courses instituted by the college which
are proving of immense value. We are conserving the health of the
livestock upon the farms. Sanitation has played an important part in
this branch of work, as it has upon the human side.
We have a board of forestry supported by the State, and a Forestry
Association organized by the people; also a commission to protect the
food supply of our lakes and streams. These are only a few of the
evidences of our progress in Conservation.
We are conserving with particular care the health of our school
children with admirable results. We have learned, somewhat slowly
perhaps, that sound bodies and sound minds should and can go
together, and that to educate the mind and allow the body to
become diseased is false economy on the part of the State and is
nothing short of a crime, committed through either our ignorance or
indifference.
We have sought to guard against and cure occupational diseases which
impair and disqualify so many wage earners. We have more and more
sought to throw around them such safeguards as well protect them
against injury and death, and then to provide an adequate measure of
compensation in case of accident as one of the legitimate burdens
upon industry of the community which ultimately rests upon the public.
HAVE REDUCED ACCIDENTS.
During the last fifteen years we have made much advance in the
conservation of the health of our people. By rigid factory inspection
we have reduced accidents to our workmen from machinery and by
improved sanitation we have protected their health. We have also
rigidly inspected our mines with like results.
In fifteen years diphtheria has decreased sixty per cent.,
consumption has decreased in this same period six to eight per
cent.; deaths from typhoid fever have fallen in the last two years
from almost two thousand to 936 in 1911. Education, better living,
improved sanitation, and an efficient State Board of Health, with
its excellent organization of health officers in every locality, the
co-operation of the press in the education of the people and support
of our health officers, have accomplished a great work in increasing
in a very considerable degree the health, vigor and happiness of our
people.
The net result of it all is told in the vital statistics of the
State. In the last fifteen years the duration of life has been
increased from 38.7 years to 44.6 years.
We are advocating the creation of a State Conservation Board with
supervisory power over all subjects of Conservation now committed
to separate and independent boards or commissions, so as to more
effectively co-ordinate their efforts in a scientific manner,
avoiding duplication and intensifying the work. It is suggested that
a building be erected by the State for the proper accommodation of
the entire Conservation service.
We regard this as a matter of great importance, and there is no doubt
whatever that the State will liberally respond to the prevailing
sentiment in favor of broadening the work of Conservation. It never
pursues any parsimonious policy in supporting whatever concerns the
education, health, moral safety and welfare of our people, so far as
this may be appropriately accomplished under the law.
It is not inappropriate in this presence to observe that the
Conservation of our political fabric must not be left out of
consideration. This is a matter we must always hold uppermost in our
minds, lest we allow harm to come to our priceless heritage.
Partisan utterance would, of course, contravene good taste, and I
shall not offend against it; but I may suggest with propriety that
we should hold fast to the fundamental principles of republican
government, which have been our guaranty of liberty and human rights
and of orderly progress for a century and a quarter.
The political wisdom of our forefathers has been abundantly
vindicated in our experience. Older countries in continental Europe
and in the Orient are turning toward us more and more and fashioning
their political institutions after ours.
We need not be quick to surrender the present well-tried guaranties
we have of justice and the rights of men for theories which neither
upon good reason nor upon experience are commended to our best
judgement.
The program which lies before you is full of the promise of
entertainment and instruction. Men of wide experience, students of
our economic and social needs, will lay before you the rich fruit
gathered by them in the fields of their activities. Specialists in
many branches of the great work of Conservation will make you their
debtors. I shall not, of course, attempt to anticipate the subjects
upon which they will enlighten you.
Custom, my friends, alone has led me to make the observations in
which I have indulged in extending you welcome on behalf of the
State of Indiana. It is quite unnecessary to occupy your time in
discharge of this pleasant duty, which but for his enforced absence
would have been performed by the distinguished Governor of the State.
You would understand me, I know, if I merely said “Welcome.” You
would know that it was no perfunctory utterance, but that it came
from the bottom of the Hoosier heart. In a sense we do not look
upon you as our guests; we prefer to regard you as members of our
household. (Applause.)
President WHITE—The thanks of the delegates, the thanks of the
visitors, and the thanks of the people of the United States are due
and will be given to the Hon. Charles W. Fairbanks for this most
intelligent address, this statement of the principles that lie at
the heart of every true conservationist. (Applause.) He has taken a
forward step, he has led in the great movement in his own State, and
he is now president of the Indiana Forestry Association.
I want to say that it is very fortunate for the people of the country
that this address, and others that will follow, will be published
and sent broadcast over this great land. We are going to teach the
principles of conservation in every home.
It is now fitting that the next speaker should be also a
conservationist—a conservationist of a different type, but no less
a true conservationist, for at his hands, through his work, has
come to the City of Indianapolis a reduction in fire loss from
$600,000 to $300,000 annually. He is President of the Merchants’ and
Manufacturers’ Insurance Bureau, and has practiced conservation in
a most practical manner by reducing the fire loss and saving money
to the people. We who have investigated that subject in Germany and
other countries know how necessary it is that it should be brought
home to us here in our cities and our homes. I now have the pleasure
of introducing to you the Chairman of the Local Board of Managers,
Mr. Richard Lieber. (Applause.)
Mr. LIEBER—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is a very great
pleasure and a distinguished honor to welcome you to our city upon
this auspicious occasion. The City of Indianapolis deeply appreciates
your coming and knows that through participation in your assemblages
and deliberations it will materially profit in those matters which
are of such vast and comprehensive benefit to its citizens. From
here, through your able and learned speakers, potential knowledge
will be disseminated throughout the length and breadth of our beloved
country, which, in its application, will increase the happiness,
contentment and usefulness of our people.
You have come here to consider most serious problems regarding the
conservation of national wealth, more particularly that of vital
resources, and above all, the conservation of human life.
For that reason, coupled with our welcome, is our expression of
thanks for your coming, for “your worth is warrant of your welcome.”
The thought of conservation is comparatively new. It marks a new era
in the development of the country, and nowhere are its lessons more
intensely needed than in a country like ours, vast in its expanse,
relatively sparsely populated and apparently inexhaustible in its
natural riches.
But are these riches inexhaustible? Can we go on in the manner of
our fathers and forefathers, who frequently had to destroy in self
defense?
Not since the days of the migration of nations, not even since the
legendary days of the fall of Troy has the world witnessed anything
like this stupendous conquest of a virgin continent. It is an
intensified Iliad of modern days. No comparison with former ages can
suffice. What are even the wondrous tales of Moses’ messengers of the
great land where “floweth milk and honey” compared with the gigantic
proportions and abounding riches of this modern promised land?
That the pioneer, coming to this land was destructive before he could
be constructive is a matter of historical truth. It could not have
been otherwise. He fought civilization’s battle, that civilization
may enjoy peace and prosperity. But some of these destructive habits
of the settler have taken root in our being and destruction has
continued where construction was needed. What have the American
people not wasted! Land and water, fish and game, coal, natural gas
and too many other riches. Above all, how many useful and dear lives
are drawn into the surging maelstrom of our national waste through
indifference, carelessness and greed!
We find ourselves confronted here with the anamorphosis of
civilization.
Human sacrifice belongs to a dark and unenlightened day, but the
human sacrifice in mills and mines, in railroads and sweatshops in
our time is a dark blot upon our civilization. (Applause.)
In this mad chase after things material at any cost, we must pause,
for a nation will become unbalanced in its natural progress if its
spiritual and intellectual advance be retarded.
Conservation wishes to bring about a more harmonious blending of
these national needs. It teaches a wholesome regard for created
values, it preaches the sanctity of a child’s life and the economic
value of our boys’ and girls’ health, and aside from general
consideration where is an application of conservation ideals and
principles more needed than in our cities. We must learn that a good
man’s or woman’s example in the community is more beneficial and of
greater force than a mere ordinance. Virtue, righteousness and high
principle spring from the seen of teaching that has fallen in mind
and heart; they are inculcated but cannot be legislated. (Applause.)
[Illustration: CHARLES LATHROP PACK
PRESIDENT, FIFTH NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS]
Would it not in this connection be braver for us fathers and mothers
to speak openly to our boys and girls concerning the dangers that
beset them in their course of life end thus turn the energies of
their lives into the board avenues of light, strength and usefulness
than to let them be drawn into the abysmal chasm of a veritable
hell of human waste. Would it not be better to save, to lessen the
inflow, than to clog the mouth of this human sewer by police orders
after prudery, hypocrisy and cowardice have filled it? (Applause.) We
are everlastingly treating symptoms instead of diseases, attacking
effects instead of causes, and we persistently thereby aggravate the
malady.
Let us have more light of thought, more air of true freedom and a
deeper and more sympathetic understanding of our own needs and those
of our fellow man that we may be enabled to show the folly of vice,
the contentment of virtue; that we may alleviate pain and want, and
that the warmth of human sympathy may send hope to the hopeless,
courage to the faltering and faith to the despondent.
With these fervent wishes the City of Indianapolis welcomes the
Fourth National Conservation Congress. (Applause.)
President WHITE—These words of welcome, coming from a different point
of view, are felt deeply by us all. We feel the spur of duty still
greater.
It is very fitting that another side of conservation should be heard
from. The business men, the local business organizations of a city
have done a good work for conservation. Human efficiency is one of
the greatest forces that move the world, and systematic organization
is one of the greatest powers towards efficient conservation of life
and of all material progress. A business man knows that his success
depends upon perfect organization, and that perfect organization is
just as necessary to the conservation of every natural resource.
I have the pleasure of introducing to you Mr. Winfield Miller,
of Indianapolis, who speaks on behalf of the local business
organizations. (Applause.)
Mr. MILLER—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: When I was honored
by the commercial organizations of Indianapolis with the invitation
to extend for them a few words of greeting and welcome to this
National Conservation Congress, I looked into the biggest book, the
Dictionary, for a definition of the word “Conservation.” I found
the word concisely defined to mean “the art of preserving from
decay, loss or injury.” While the definition is not extended, it is
comprehensive and can be readily amplified to cover every phase of
the question.
I then turned to the greatest book, the Bible, and read that early
edict which still holds good, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou
eat bread.” Over this ancient decree and its cause, there have been
volumes of theological commiseration, but in the light of subsequent
history, it is now generally agreed that man has been a greater force
in the garden of the world that if he had remained in the Garden of
Eden.
The thought occurs, however, that resting under the edict of
life-long toil man would, from an early period, have practiced
conservation in all things. But he soon discovered that “the earth
and the fulness thereof” were his, and, as ever, has been injuriously
careless of results.
Again, he was not left without hope. The same great authority, in
language and grandeur of thought unsurpassed, gives a promise of
perpetual inspiration, in this, that “While the earth remaineth,
seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and
day and night shall not cease.” This promise, according to accepted
chronology, has the confirmation of forty centuries of time and gives
man the assurance of a continued field in which to do his work. The
earth, the air, the waters are his environment; they are immutable,
unchangeable. The animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms furnish him
food, clothing, shelter, life. Their best use should be his first and
highest consideration.
Nature has been prodigal in her gifts to man. Her kingdoms have been
his to rightfully exploit. But too long and too often has selfish and
neglectful exploitation been his purpose and practice.
There is abundance for all if nature’s forces are properly conserved
and her products fairly distributed. But some men, in their greed
and haste, have grabbed a thousand-fold more than their necessities
or happiness required. They eat their bread in the sweat of the
other man’s face. On the other hand, the many have been ignorantly
neglectful of the opportunities of their environments—so that life
presses hard, too hard. Avarice, ignorance, waste, have linked arms
to the detriment of civilization.
We must strive for the necessities of food, clothing and shelter.
These sustain animal life, which is worth while; but animal life,
endowed with the highest moral and mental strength, is the goal to be
reached, for the summit of man’s ambitions should shine with human
comfort and happiness. Conservation is the road to that summit and
this National Congress has convened to further blaze the path and
light the road. (Applause.)
Inventions of the last century, mostly within the half century, have
injected into the field of travel and communication means that excite
profound admiration; chemical analysis of the air and soil have shown
that the food supply of the world, if nature’s forces are properly
conserved, is without limit; while the mighty strides made in the
better understanding of the physical needs of man himself insure the
race at large improved health and longer life.
May I briefly indulge in a few common illustrations? The telegraph,
the telephone, the automobile, steam and electric power save time
and shorten distance. In that part of commerce relating to traffic
we have caught the spirit of conservation. The railroad builder no
longer takes the route of the least resistance in construction, but
applies the geometric proposition that the straightest line is the
shortest distance between two given points, works to that end, meets
the difficulties of engineering, reduces gradients, and practically
builds his road along the line of least resistance, conserves time,
saves energy, increases efficiency and lessens rates.
The school books tell us of the “Seven Wonders” of the ancient
world—the Pyramids, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and so on; all to
gratify the vanity of kings and queens; not one for the advancement
of civilization.
In a little more than two years the dream of four centuries will be
realized—the Panama Canal will be completed. The distance from the
Occident to the Orient will be shortened seven thousand miles—the
truly modern wonder in advancing civilization and practical
conservation. (Applause.)
While the physical aspects of this mighty work, as they relate to
the traffic and commerce of the world, stand out in bold relief, but
little less, if any, in achievement, is the practical demonstration
that scientific sanitary methods can clean the plague spots of the
world and make them healthy and habitable for man.
Who can compute the saving of time and energy this mighty work will
bestow on the generations to come. Long after the passions of this
generation have ceased, history will record the names of the strong
men who have brought to full consummation this great waterway, as
true benefactors of mankind.
At this time, our public press is ecstatic over the great harvests
of 1912 that promise such abounding prosperity. Some writers are so
extravagant as to say that the bountiful yields from our soil make
an epoch in history. To speak of one crop only, the corn, or Indian
maize crop, spreads over 108,000,000 acres, and is estimated to be
3,000,000,000 bushels. How enormous! At fifty cents a bushel, its
money value would be $1,500,000,000, or $16.00 to every man, woman
and child in the United States. Measured in bread, there would be
enough to give to each of our 93,000,000 of people a five-cent loaf
for more than 320 days, or nearly one full year. As gratifying as
this is, the average yield is only twenty-seven bushels per acre;
while it is shown that, by proper selection of seed, cultivation and
fertilization of the soil, easily twice the yield could be produced,
which would double the benefits enumerated.
How often do we pass a barren field, the soil too impoverished to
grow wire grass, nettles, or thistles. The every-day farmer will tell
you that a crop or two of clover will restore the necessary plant
life to the soil of that field, and again make it blossom like the
rose. He knows from practical observation and experience the cure, if
he cannot scientifically trace the cause of the transformation.
Truly truth is stranger than fiction. Back of the restoration of
a thousand barren fields restored to productiveness in the simply
way named, lies one of the world’s greatest romances in patient
scientific investigation that will continue to bring untold benefits
to mankind. You know the story of Professor Nobbe, of Forest Academy,
Germany. He also knew that clover and other legumens of the plant
family would restore fertility to the soil. But why? After long and
exhaustive study, labor and experiment, he found that the clover
family were nature’s chemist of the soil; that by an invisible,
intangible cord of attraction they drew from the inexhaustible
reservoir of the air nitrogen so necessary to plant and animal life.
We are told that “nitrogen is what makes the muscles and brain of
man; that it is the essential element of all elements in the growth
of animals and plants, and, significantly enough, it is also the
chief constituent of the gunpowder and other explosives with which
the wars of the world are waged. The single discharge of a 13-inch
gun liberates enough nitrogen to produce scores of bushels of wheat.”
Some day, through this agency, man may turn his attention entirely
from war to the production of food, and in that hour true
conservation of life will have reached its triumph.
We are further told that four-fifths of the air we breath is
nitrogen, and that four-fifths of the atmosphere around us is
nitrogen, so that if mankind dies of nitrogen starvation, it will die
with food everywhere in and about it.
So that, while the human race may be but from three to six months
behind abject starvation, the fact begins to appear that through
science “mankind has just begun to sound the world’s capacity for
food production and that it is practically limitless.”
The proper conservation of the soil by the application of the
research of scientific discovery means increased yields of all plant
crops, with but little greater expenditure of energy. This would
enable the producer of food and clothing to sell more pounds, bushels
and yards at less cost, and still reap as great reward for his labor
as at present. This would forestall the Malthusian doctrine that
population increases faster than the means of subsistence and, still
better, would help to solve the high cost of living that presses
so sorely upon the millions throughout the world today. Man is a
productive machine; so the more machines of the highest type the
world possesses the better for the world.
This conservation movement that is so strongly taking hold of
the minds of thinking men and women, is so big, so broad and so
comprehensive that it covers every phase of human thought and
activity in what is best and highest for the individual as well as
organized society. It is education in the broadest sense.
The Golden Rule is not only a statement but a living principle. To
teach that a just distribution of nature’s gifts to each individual
who is willing to earn and conserve his share is a recognition of
that principle.
The City of Indianapolis esteems it a high honor to have this
Congress with us. To all of its members, and especially to the
distinguished men from other lands who have come to give us their
best thought upon the various questions affecting this great
movement, we extend our most cordial welcome and greeting, and our
deep appreciation of your presence.
Our commercial organizations also cordially join in holding the
door of welcome and hospitality open to you, and bespeak for your
deliberations their kindest sympathy and deepest interest.
President WHITE—This is a proud day for the officers of this
Congress, for its delegates from the different States, and for the
friends of Conservation everywhere, to be welcomed so hospitably,
not only for ourselves who are strangers within your gates, but
generously because of your sympathy in the great cause for which we
stand. The citizens of your great city are noted for their public
spirit, for their broad culture, and as being always found in the van
with the army of those of progressive ideas. It is very fitting that
the State of Indiana should have this Congress within its borders
because of the immense interest shown and all the valuable help
given by its citizens in the conservation of all natural resources,
especially of human life and soil fertility.
To become the best, to do the best for all in a community, we must
each develop the best within us, and must find our greatest reward in
something far beyond the mere accumulation of dollars. Our community
of interests recognizes a reciprocity of duty each to and for the
other. Our title to the regard of our fellow men must come from our
devotion to them and our love of humanity and its highest ideals,
and not from selfish zeal in accumulating monetary wealth, which
only represents the toil, the waste, and the necessities of human
lives. This has been and is the age of commercialism. The measure of
success has been gauged by the amount of money accumulated. In the
language of Goldsmith, our country was in danger of descending to a
condition “where wealth accumulates and men decay.” But I believe a
turning point has been reached; and that we are entering upon a new
era, a more glorious conception of higher duties for mankind; so
that it shall not be asked: “What hath he taken from others in the
competitive struggle for existence,” but rather: “What hath he given
to others of himself for their advancement and development?” He who
lives only for himself and does not plant for those that are to come
after him, lives in vain. I believe the time is near at hand when
a man shall be regarded with pity and as very poor indeed, who has
nothing but money selfishly gained for selfish use.
The Conservation Congress of the United States has a great field to
occupy. Its labors are for the betterment of its citizens in every
way. Its work is to seek for the best methods to do the greatest good
to all for this and for future generations. And in this there is no
partisan politics; but it is such good national politics, that each
party will strive only in seeking for the best methods for the common
good.
Human life, with its possible attainments, is far beyond valuation
in money. We should reverse the tables; and instead of human life
being estimated in dollars, the dollar should be valued only for what
it can do for greater humanity. Dr. Holmes, Director of the United
States Bureau of Mines, in illustrating waste of material resources,
says that in producing one half billion tons of coal, we waste or
leave underground one quarter of a billion tons. And then only eleven
per cent of the energy in coal is utilized; nearly ninety per cent is
lost through inefficiency of boilers, engines and dynamos. How great
a per cent. are we wasting of human life and human efficiency? We
will have abundance of all the necessaries of life, and even of life
itself, if we wisely save, wisely develop and protect, and wisely
use. Human life is our greatest asset, and its waste is a permanent
loss. The wealth of the nation is in its men, thrifty, honest,
capable and patriotic men—in their moral and physical health, the
foundation of their highest efficiency. The milestones of a nation’s
progress are recorded in the history of every generation. In India,
the average duration of life is twenty-five years; in Sweden more
than fifty years; in the State of Massachusetts (the State where
most careful records have been taken) it is over forty-five years.
Wherever sanitary and highest medical science has been applied, it
has been found possible to increase the span of life. In Europe it
is said to have doubled in three and a half centuries. The report
from Massachusetts shows an increase of fourteen years in the past
century. So this humanitarian cause is surely a most economic, worthy
and profitable one. In figuring from the standpoint of capital,
Prof. Mayo Smith estimates that men and women between fifteen and
forty-five years of age are worth an average of one thousand dollars.
But figuring from a human standpoint, they are worth all that there
is, money being only one of the tools to work with in effecting
exchange of commodities, and the products of brawn and brain. We want
to increase the ratio of the value of man to the soil, of man to all
and any of his products, of man to money, and to put man first all
the time. (Applause.)
We will increase the fertility and productiveness of the soil and
we will enlarge the scope and increase the efficiency of the man.
We waste in production as well as in consumption. In agriculture we
will say that we will make the soil produce so many bushels per acre
per man. The man will be first in his wise application of labor and
methods and of means to an end. The “limits of subsistence” under
what political economists used to call their “law of diminishing
returns” has no fear for the conservationist. The developing of human
intelligence is enlarging the production of the soil. Irrigation,
where possible, and where impossible the science of what is called
dry farming brings increasing results. Old farms in Europe produce
more than they did 300 years ago, and this will prove true with
us, and there will be no starvation for the human race because of
increasing population.
And so will it be with all other industries, occupations and
professions. He will be greatest who accomplishes most for man. For
the brotherhood of man was the world made and the fullness thereof.
Such freedom as may benefit any individual and does not in any way
work to the injury of others is natural justice to all. Competition
shall be robbed of the “red tooth and the bloody claw,” and
co-operation and development for the good of all shall be the supreme
object of all our efforts.
We will protect our watersheds by growing forests, and learn to
control our floods, prevent soil erosion, and store the water, and
convert its power into electricity, and from electricity produce
light, heat and power in undiminishing quantity forever. In nearly
every State there is daily flowing to waste power enough, if
arrested and utilized on its way to the sea, to turn every wheel of
industry and to move the traffic of commerce, and furnish light and
heat for every city. It is said that the wheel does not turn with
water that is past, but other wheels farther down the stream do,
and the power is used again and again and finally pumped back by
the sun to the mountains and plains to forever repeat the process
of service to mankind. New discoveries are being made, and the use
for by-products is being multiplied so that they are often found to
be of greater use than the product from which they are derived. We
must protect our forests by preventing forest fires. Government and
State appropriations must be made sufficient for this purpose. In
the report of the Conservation Commission to the President, it is
stated that fifty million acres are burned over annually, and since
1870 there has been lost each year an average of fifty lives and
fifty million dollars’ worth of timber. The lumbermen’s interests
are to prevent fires and to stop waste; and they are anxious to
co-operate with the State and with associations for this purpose, and
are already doing so in many places. The true, saving features of
forestry are becoming better understood, and better applied; and we
will save our forests, and will grow trees, wherever necessary and
profitable, the same as any other crop; and there will be no timber
famine in the near or distant future. Our foresters are studying
the experience of France, Austria, Italy, and Switzerland, coupled
with our own experience, and we are making successful progress.
In Kansas five years ago, according to President Waters of the
State Agricultural College, there was only one school that taught
agriculture. Now nearly five hundred high schools and more than six
thousand rural schools are teaching the principles of agriculture,
forestry and domestic science.
The Commissioner of Internal Revenue reports that for the official
year 1912 ending June 30, the people of the United States drank
more whisky and rum and smoked more cigarettes than ever before in
its history. The smoking of over 11,221,000,000 cigarettes exceeded
the record of 1911 by nearly two billions. Does this make for or
against human efficiency? In this huge traffic is it the man or
the dollar that stands first in importance? Popular education will
be the source of protection, that all may have a fair chance for a
useful life. There are other great factors of vice and crime leading
to national decay. Also there is the enormous waste of human life
by our railroads, mills, mines and factories amounting to tens of
thousands annually, and those permanently injured and made a burden
to themselves and to society to tens of thousands more. In no
civilized country in the world is this loss anywhere near as great in
proportion to work accomplished as in the United States. The greatest
part of this immense loss can be prevented. (Applause.)
Here is thought and work for those in the department of vital
statistics and those in charge of our health departments, who are
laboring for the conservation of human life. Surely there is a
great moral and economic need for this national organization. May
this Congress, which now begins the work of its program, prove to
be another step in advance of its predecessors in the labor of love
and of progressive activities. The work in this vineyard is for both
men and women; for him with one talent as well as for him with ten
talents. Conservation should be taught in our schools and preached in
our churches. It is a call of and for all the people.
In the language of the official call of this Congress, the objects
of this Congress are “to provide for discussion of the resources of
the United States as the foundation for the prosperity of the people;
to furnish definite information concerning the resources and their
development, use and preservation, and to afford an agency through
which the people of the country may frame policies and principles
affecting the conservation and utilization of their resources and
to be put into effect by their representatives in State and Federal
governments.” (Applause.)
President WHITE—The preliminary organization has now been completed.
It was expected that the President of the United States would be
present to honor this occasion, at the opening of this Congress, or
it was at least hoped that it would be possible for him to do so, but
before he knew that he would send a personal representative he wrote
a letter of greeting to the Congress, which I will now read:
MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT.
Beverly, Mass., September 7, 1912.
Hon. J. B. White, President National Conservation Congress, Bemus
Point, N. Y.:
My Dear Mr. White: Inasmuch as I have had to deny myself the pleasure
of being present at the opening of the National Conservation Congress
on October 1st, I want to take this means of conveying to the
officers and delegates my very cordial greetings and good wishes for
a most enthusiastic and instructive session.
You who know of my very real interest in the conservation of our
national resources need no assurance of my hope that your meeting in
every way may be a success, and I only want to say that that interest
has not diminished in the slightest.
May your deliberations be productive of great good in promoting
the cause of Conservation and in enlisting public interest in the
solution of the problems which must be met in giving the people of
the present day the benefit of the nation’s resources, while at the
same time insuring to posterity its full heritage.
Sincerely yours,
WILLIAM H. TAFT.
It was afterwards found possible for the President to be represented
personally, and he has sent the Honorable Henry L. Stimson, Secretary
of War, to represent him here at this Congress. I now take pleasure
in introducing to you Secretary Stimson. (Applause.)
ADDRESS BY THE SECRETARY OF WAR.
(Representing the President of the United States.)
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the National Conservation
Congress: I unite very sincerely in the congratulations which the
former speakers have tendered to you on your assembling here in such
an important and such a noble cause.
I am very happy to be here as the representative of President
Taft—happy, both because of the interest which I know he feels in
the great movement for Conservation, and also because of my own
personal association with and enthusiasm for that movement. Four days
ago, when I was busily engaged in inspecting one of the army posts
of northern Wyoming, in the far away Rocky Mountains, I received an
urgent telegraphic request from the President, that I should come
here today and attend your meeting on his behalf. And the 1,600 miles
or more which separate Fort Yellowstone from Indianapolis, may serve
at the same time as a measure of the President’s interest in your
meeting, and a measure of the depth of my own unpreparedness to speak
to you today. I know, therefore, that you will understand and pardon
me if I talk to you rather informally, merely as one friend to others
interested in a great common cause, and confine the brief remarks
which I shall make to one of the phases of Conservation with which I
have become familiar through the work of the War Department.
Parenthetically, I might say that inasmuch as the Department of War
is not usually considered as a particularly appropriate agency for
the conservation of life, I will have to hark back to the material
side of Conservation in some of its aspects which have been presented
at your former meetings.
Of course, the main work which the Federal Government performs
in regard to Conservation is done through the Department of the
Interior. Incidentally, the truest of all indications of the interest
with which the President regards the conservation of the natural
resources of this country lies in the character and attainments of
the man whom he has placed at the head of that Department in order
to conserve them—Walter L. Fisher. (Applause.) You will all of you
remember how his thorough investigation and clear-cut decision
of the famous Cunningham claims, has settled and disposed of, in
the interest of the people, one of the most bitter controversies
of our cause. You are also undoubtedly familiar with the careful
investigation which he made last year into the very complicated
and serious problems of conservation which confront our Nation in
Alaska; and with the luminous address with which he reported his
conclusions and pointed out a solution of these questions. Though the
work of his Department in investigating and conserving in the public
interest, the water power sites which remain on our public lands, and
our remaining beds of coal and phosphate, has not attracted so much
attention as his work in these former more controverted matters; yet
there is, I think, a very general and well founded feeling throughout
the country that in all these matters the interests of the people of
the United States are being thoroughly protected by the Secretary of
the Interior in accordance with the most intelligent and thorough
views of Conservation. (Applause.)
I allude to his method of thorough investigation because I think it
is characteristic of the attitude of the President himself toward
this whole subject. In order that progress should be real, it must be
based upon carefully ascertained facts. In dealing with the problems
of Conservation, we are dealing with problems which are new to our
Nation. As the honorable speaker who first addressed you pointed
out, we have only recently passed from an era of exploitation into
an era of Conservation. We are surrounded by thousands of our fellow
countrymen who have been brought up to honestly believe that the
only method of developing the country is to turn its resources as
rapidly as possible over into private hands. In putting into effect,
therefore, the new policy to which the Nation has now come, there
must be care taken lest false steps, or the injustice which may come
from hasty action, may not produce a reaction which will delay or
imperil the reform. As a former District Attorney, representing the
people in the enforcement of the law, I have long had it impressed
upon me how essential it was that no hasty, or harsh, or intolerant
action, taken in the heat and controversy of a jury trial, should
thereafter imperil the entire work and by producing injustice, and
a subsequent reversal in the higher courts, bring some great reform
into disrepute or temporary delay. Patience, thoroughness, and
courage, mark the only pathway towards permanent progress and reform.
(Applause.)
Now, the subject which I am going to call to your attention briefly
this morning is one of those few matters where my own Department,
instead of the Department of the Interior, touches upon the problems
of national Conservation. It is also a subject the history of which,
I think, exemplifies clearly the importance of the methods to which
I have just alluded. I wish to point out to you the attitude of the
administration as to the Federal regulation of water power in our
navigable rivers.
It is needless to remind such a body as yours of the importance
of that sphere of Conservation. All our other present sources of
power—such as coal, wood, oil, and the like—are limited, and will be
eventually exhausted. Water power alone is permanent. And just as we
are coming to learn more and more the value of that permanence, we
are simultaneously, through the development of electricity, learning
to transmit its energy to greater and greater distances. No other
subject occupied more keenly the attention of the past session of
Congress, or was more vigorously debated upon the floors of that body.
For many years our national policy, or rather lack of national
policy, towards our waterways and our water power, has presented a
singular inconsistency. On the other hand, we have been spending
hundreds of millions of the taxpayers’ money on the improvement of
the navigation of our great inland waterways. On the other, we have
been granting away permits for the construction of dams on these same
rivers and waterways, which will create water power of incalculable
and increasing value; and we have been doing this without exacting
_for_ the taxpayers any return or compensation whatever.
I believe it was not until the administration of President Roosevelt
that any effort was made to obtain for the public any compensation
for the water power which was thus granted away. Mr. Roosevelt
demanded in his veto of the James River bill, and in several other
messages, that no permits for dams in navigable rivers should be
granted without a reservation of proper compensation to the public
for the grant thus made. His action was courageous and right. But
there were not as yet in the hands of the public sufficient carefully
ascertained facts upon which the constitutional power of the Federal
Government to take such action could be confidently based. And there
was therefore great ground for misapprehension in the public mind of
any action attempting to take such a position. A bitter controversy
at once arose with those advocates of States’ rights, who contended
that the Federal Government had no rights whatever in connection with
water power, that under the Constitution its powers were limited
solely to navigation, and that water power was an entirely separate
and distinct sphere, falling wholly within the jurisdiction of
the several States. Such advocates contended that for the Federal
Government to exact compensation for a water power right, simply
because it was in a position to withhold the permit altogether
if it wanted to, was little better than legalized blackmail; and
the progress of the reform was stubbornly and for a long time
successfully contested.
Even as late as 1906, the General Dam Act, passed by Congress and
approved by the President, conveys to the Executive no clear right
to exact compensation for these grants. It has remained for Mr.
Taft’s administration, following the method of patient investigation
and research which I have above mentioned, to collect the facts
necessary to solve the problem, and to show from these facts that
the jurisdiction of the Federal Government over navigation must
necessarily include jurisdiction over water power as an incident of
the navigation.
Most of the rivers of this country are long and comparatively
shallow. In order to make them commercially navigable, there has
become prevalent among engineers a method of improvement known as
the “slack water” method or the method of “canalization.” The method
consists in building throughout the length of these rivers, a series
of dams and locks, by which the river is converted into a succession
of deep pools, adequate for commerce of a far more important
character than could use the river in its unimproved condition. In
fact, many rivers which are not capable in their natural state of
being used at all commercially, can by this method be made useful and
available for important commerce.
Now, most of the dams thus constructed in a “slack water”
improvement, particularly in the rapid portions of the streams, will
create water power of commercial value. It is also manifest that if
the commercial value of the water power thus created can be realized
by the Government and turned into further river improvement, the
improvement of navigation on our rivers can be greatly expedited,
and the expense to the general taxpayer very much lessened. And, on
the contrary, unless this is done, the complete improvement of the
river will be just so much delayed and postponed. The water power
developed is thus shown to be intimately connected with navigation.
It is a by-product of the improvement which can be turned into
further improvement. And from the standpoint of constitutional law,
it makes no difference whether the dam in question is to be erected
by the Federal Government or by a private corporation. If it is a dam
which is to assist the navigation of the river as well as to create
water power, the power of the Government will be complete. What the
Federal Government can constitutionally do itself it can do through
an agent.
The corps of army engineers to whom are referred all proposed bills
in Congress granting permits for dams for water power have been
accordingly, under Mr. Taft’s administration, directed to investigate
and answer specifically four questions in every report. They are
directed to ascertain in regard to every such bill:
First, is the river on which the dam is to be created a navigable
stream subject to being improved, either now or in the future of the
country, at the expense of the general taxpayer?
In the second place, they are asked whether the dam which is sought
to be constructed will form an essential part of any such improvement.
Thirdly, whether the dam will create water power of commercial value.
Fourthly, whether the value of that water power will tend to increase
with the growth and development of the Nation.
You can see for yourself the pertinence of such questions. Once
answered in the affirmative, there is a case presented upon which the
jurisdiction of the Government’s power can rest.
Trial has now shown that the answers to these questions are nearly
always in the affirmative. And as a result of the information thus
obtained we are in a position now, unlike our position six years ago,
where we can take a step forward, and hold permanently the ground
thus gained.
There is now laid before Congress a sure foundation upon which
we can rest our national right to exact the fair value of these
grants. Investigation has regularly brought out the fact that each
one of these dams is essentially connected with navigation, and
that a failure to preserve the right to regulate them and to exact
compensation for the power created is throwing away a valuable
national asset.
The issue has been sharply drawn by President Taft, and his position
clearly stated in his message, submitted on the 24th of last August,
vetoing the bill which proposed to grant authority to build a dam in
the Coosa River. The Coosa River is in Alabama. The bill in question
sought to authorize the Alabama Power Company to build a dam suitable
for the development of navigation in that river, and at the same time
to create water power for the exclusive benefit of the corporation.
It contained no provision permitting the Federal Government to exact
any compensation for the rights of water power thus granted. The bill
was strongly urged by powerful leaders of both houses of Congress.
It was also vigorously opposed by the leaders of the conservation
movement of Congress. But it ultimately passed. The President vetoed
it in a message which asserts in unqualified language the duty of the
Federal Government to reserve to itself the right to exact proper
compensation. (Applause.) The President says on this point:
“I think this is a fatal defect in the bill, and that it is just as
improvident to grant this permit _without_ such a reservation as it
would be to throw away any other asset of the Government. To make
such a reservation is not depriving the States of anything that
belongs to them. On the contrary, in the report of the Secretary of
War it is recommended that all compensation for similar privileges
should be applied strictly to the improvement of navigation in
the respective streams—a strictly Federal function. The Federal
Government by availing itself of this right may in time greatly
reduce the swollen expenditures for river improvements which now
fall wholly upon the general taxpayer. I deem it highly important
that the nation should adopt a consistent and harmonious policy of
treatment of these water power projects which will preserve for this
purpose their value to the Government whose right it is to grant the
permit.”
There are few subjects of equal importance with the proper
improvement of our great river systems. We are behind many of the
nations of Europe in our appreciation of this importance. The
development of our rivers is not only vitally important for the
commerce that they will thus carry, but even more for the regulative
effect which they should and can have upon the freight rates of
the railroads with which they compete. If Mr. Taft’s position is
sustained, it means that all the potential value of these streams can
be turned toward the improvement of their navigation. As he says, it
offers one of the possible solutions for our swollen river and harbor
appropriations. On the other hand, it also means that the hand of the
nation is to be kept on this great national asset of our water power;
and that this great subject of water power regulation will be handled
comprehensively, consistently, and with due regard for the wants of
the Nation as a whole.
If, however, the view of the opponents of the President prevails,
it means that this necessary improvement of our rivers will be
greatly postponed, and that all the expense of such improvement will
have to be borne by the general taxpayers of the Nation. And it
further means that the closely related subject of our water powers
on these navigable rivers, instead of being treated nationally and
broadly, will be subject to the piecemeal policies of forty-eight
different States. Seldom is there presented an opportunity to apply
the principles of conservation simultaneously to two such important
subjects as river transportation and water power regulation.
(Applause.)
President WHITE—I am sure we all appreciate the address that has just
been delivered by our distinguished representative of the President.
It has left upon our minds the significance of the importance of
protecting those natural resources that are permanent and which
should not be given away to private individuals, or corporations.
We will now hear some announcements.
Mr. THOMAS R. SHIPP (Executive Secretary)—The section of which Dr.
Wiley is chairman, the section on “Food”, will meet this afternoon
at four instead of tomorrow morning. The meeting will be held in the
Palm Room, Claypool Hotel, and will be open to the public. The fact
that Dr. Wiley is at the head of this section and will preside and
speak will make it of great interest to delegates. In addition to
Dr. Wiley, there are other gentlemen of national reputation on this
question who will speak. An invitation is extended to all delegates
to attend this meeting this afternoon at 4:00 o’clock.
President WHITE—If there are no further announcements we will adjourn
until this afternoon at 2:00 o’clock.
_SECOND SESSION._
The Congress was called to order by President White at 2:00 o’clock
p. m.
President WHITE—Gentlemen, we are a little late in getting together
this afternoon, owing to the late adjournment of the morning session.
We have a program for four days, a most entertaining one. Those that
do not get here will miss something, while those of us who are here
are going to gain something.
The audience will please rise while the Rev. Dr. A. B. Storms invokes
the Divine blessing.
INVOCATION—_Our Heavenly Father, we wait for a moment, asking for the
blessings of Thy grace upon us. We need Divine guidance in all our
counsels; may we be guided by Heaven. We return Thee thanks for Thy
great kindness, for the bountiful harvest, for the resources with
which Thou hast stored the earth. We thank Thee for the revelation
of Thy love, for the redemption that speaks of the worth of Thy
children. We thank Thee for all the impulses Thou hast set in motion
for bringing good out of evil, for bringing men to their best. We
pray for the guidance of the divine spirit that in all these councils
which have for their purpose the good of our kind, we may have such
guidance and be sustained by such grace that permanent good shall
come.
May Thy blessing rest upon this Congress, upon all it represents,
upon our people and Nation. May this be a people whose God is the
Lord, we ask in the Redeemer’s name. Amen._
President WHITE—The first thing on this afternoon’s program is a
report from Dr. George E. Condra on “What the States are Doing.”
He is President of the National Association of Conservation
Commissioners. We are very much interested to know how far the spirit
of Conservation is being taken up and applied in the different
States. We will now hear Dr. Condra.
Dr. CONDRA—Mr. President and Delegates: This report, prepared at the
request of the Executive Committee of the Congress, is based on data
received from several Governors, and the conservation organizations
of various States. It can not be given in detail, for that would
require too much of your time. Neither do we deem it advisable to
treat the subject State by State, for it would call for needless
repetition. Consequently the data are reviewed subject by subject
corresponding to the leading departments of Conservation, and the
States are mentioned only in connection with the progress they have
attained in each department. It is assumed that: 1. You are in full
sympathy with State Conservation and its co-operation with Federal
agencies. 2. You do not expect to hear overdrawn statements. 3. You
wish a review of such conservation facts as are really worth while
in development. 4. You know how natural resources control industrial
development. 5. You agree that the leading resources in the United
States are mineral fuels, iron, water, soil, plant and animal life,
the varying importance in the distribution of which determines to
a considerable extent the locations of industrial and commercial
centers, and that these resources are not distributed according to
state lines, but that development is influenced to some extent by
State laws.
COAL.
The importance of coal in our country is much greater than most
people suppose. It is well distributed. The amount of power derived
from it is many times that of all our man power working every
hour of the day. The annual production of our coal leads that of
Great Britain by a wide margin. The ranking States in output are
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky,
Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Wyoming, Tennessee and Maryland. Wyoming
is thought to contain even larger natural stores of coal than
Pennsylvania. Mr. Edward W. Parker, head of the coal division of the
United States Geological Survey, reports over two trillion tons of
unmined coal west of the 100th meridian, lying principally in the
Great Plains and Rocky Mountain provinces, and in smaller districts
farther west.
[Illustration:
MRS. PHILIP N. MOORE
OF ST. LOUIS, MO.,
VICE-PRESIDENT, FIFTH NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS]
It is evident that there is much more coal for future consumption
than most conservationists have claimed. This is a pleasing fact,
for it indicates that industry should not be seriously hampered by
lack of this source of power for many years to come. The argument
that there is enough coal and to spare is used, however, to further
selfish ends. It causes bad management of coal lands at many places.
Notwithstanding the fact that the United States is so favorably
endowed with coal it is coming to be known that some of the better
bituminous and anthracite grades most favorably located are doomed to
early exhaustion. The rapid increase in the use of these is causing
some of the eastern States to show deep interest in conservation.
During the year the conservation of coal was directed mainly towards
larger recovery from the mines, to the study and prevention of mine
accidents, especially those caused by explosions, to improving the
methods of use whereby more power is derived, and to the saving of
by-products in coke making. The National Bureau of Mines lead in
most of these investigations. Several States, mostly in the eastern
province, studied the same problems, as for example, Pennsylvania,
West Virginia, Tennessee, Virginia and Alabama. Illinois was equally
active in the interior province. Practically all coal mines are now
inspected by delegated authority.
The bee-hive coke oven produced relatively less coke during the year
than the by-product oven in which is recovered coal tar and other
useful products of considerable value. Investigations definitely
proved that the most economic way to use certain soft coals is in
the manufacture of producer gas. The culm heaps in the Scranton and
Wilkesbarre districts were drawn upon more than formerly for the
production of the smaller sizes of washed coal. This is an important
utilization of what formerly was waste.
It would seem that every one in this Congress should be deeply
interested in the conservation of coal whether his State produces it
or not, for the permanence of this resource has a power relation,
one that affects the industrial and social development of the whole
country.
PETROLEUM AND NATURAL GAS.
These are uncertain resources as to their occurrence and permanence
of development. The amount of production, however, is very large,
coming from several States, and having increased from about
63,000,000 barrels in 1900 to over 200,000,000 barrels in 1911. New
pools were developed in each province, though the annual production
fell off at places. The largest developments were in California and
Oklahoma, yet Illinois, West Virginia, Ohio, Texas, Pennsylvania,
Louisiana and Indiana were important producers, as they have been for
several years. No new conservation movements were inaugurated except
that California took more definite steps to prevent waste at the
wells. Adequate tankage, together with a high degree of attainment
in refining, are the two leading factors in the conservation of
petroleum. This industry is a splendid example of conservation for
special interests, yet the public is supplied with many useful
commodities, such as kerosene, gasoline, waxes, paraffine, oils, etc.
Kerosene has a close commercial relation to the gas engine and the
automobile industry. The price of gasoline, for reasons not fully
understood by the speaker, made a marked advance. Just how this may
affect the future building of gas engines is not known.
The production of natural gas is even more erratic than petroleum. It
is readily used in the manufacture of brick, tile, glass and cement.
A lack of permanence gives to the gas-using industries a migratory
character, a movement to and from gas regions. For several years
such plants have operated up to their full market capacity in Kansas
and Oklahoma. The financial depressions of 1907 and of the past
year checked some of factory building in and near the gas regions.
For about two years certain companies have been diligent in selling
equipment for making gasoline from natural gas.
The conservation movement is partly responsible for the decrease
in waste of natural gas. Formerly the unused wells of Oklahoma and
Louisiana, especially, were allowed to cast their millions of feet
of fuel into the air without even a remonstrance from the States.
Flambeaux burned night and day in the streets of small towns and
many persons between Indiana and Texas were then heard to say that
gas is cheaper than matches. The States stand indicted. This wrong
to nature and to present and future industry cannot be repaired. The
deed is done, and our only hope is that we may escape without having
to suffer for such an offense.
IRON ORE.
This is the basis of iron and steel manufacture. It supplies the
materials used in harnessing the power of fuel and water and has
importance in mining, transportation, smelting and milling. The
industries connected with iron and steel making in the United
States are conducted in a much larger way than in Great Britain and
Germany next in rank. The increasing use of steel by railroads,
in highway construction, ship-building, the making of engines and
farm machinery, and for large building is causing many persons to
wonder how long this progress can continue unhampered. Is there no
limit to our high grade ore and to the development of the gigantic
enterprises dependent upon coal, iron and steel? What appears to be
the correct answer to this question has been made by good authority.
It is that the supply of high grade ore, like that now used, is not
permanent—that it will not last many years. If this is true, the
time will be when it will become necessary to mine less desirable
ore, grading lower and lower as production continues. This, without
doubt, will have an unfavorable effect upon our whole industrial
organization.
The history of iron in the United States is most interesting. It
shows that one by one many of the small districts were abandoned
for the richer fields of the Lake Superior region, the Birmingham
and Guernsey districts. The States that lost out in this change
now realize that production may again return to their borders when
the richer and larger deposits are exhausted. In consequence of
this several States are beginning investigations looking to the
future utilizing of low grade ores. At the smelters more than
usual thought is given to the quality of output, making it more
durable or otherwise better suited to the use for which it is
intended. Experiments are under way for the purpose of testing out
hydro-electric smelting in parts of California and other western
States where the ore is distant from coal.
Much of the iron and steel conservation is directed by corporate
interests in whom the ownership of ore and the development based
thereon are definitely established.
WATER RESOURCES.
Dr. W. J. McGee, whose death we mourn, once said that “water is
the prime necessity of life.” He also discussed its importance for
drinking, in navigation, for power, and in the production from the
soil of such materials as food and clothing.
The drinking water of the country and small towns is obtained
principally from underground through wells and springs. A few States
are trying to improve their domestic water supply by making sanitary
surveys, noting the relation of the wells to drainage from lots,
privies and other dangerous sources. Typhoid epidemics, due to sewage
entering the water system, occurred in several towns. More than usual
activity was manifest in making careful studies of streams in their
relation to floods, drainage, power, sewage, water supplies and
navigation. The Lakes and Rivers Commission of Illinois has gathered
and published more data than other States in this line. The subject,
“Navigation of Inland Waterways,” with special reference to the
Mississippi and its “Lakes to the Gulf Route,” received new impetus
principally because of its relation to the Panama Route. The Gulf
States are now supported by Illinois especially in a campaign for
larger attainments in this development.
Irrigation had a good year, especially so in the Rocky Mountain and
Great Plains regions. The irrigation development is an important
contributor to the larger industrial life of the whole country.
LAND AND SOIL.
The United States has vast areas of land of many kinds. The soil of
this land is our greatest physical resource. Its fertility feeds
the crops and is therefore of fundamental importance in agriculture
and industrial development based thereon. Nevertheless, it is true
that many disregard this great fact in their farm management. They
conserve their own selfish interests and not the state. Just how to
develop the State’s view point in land management is not known. The
southern States, in co-operation with the United States Department of
Agriculture, are making progress in the solution of this problem. In
many places there, the farmers are showing rapid improvement in crop
rotation and methods of cultivation.
In Texas and Florida, much of the wet alluvial land is being improved
by drainage. The Levee and Drainage Board of Texas surveyed over
300,000 acres last year and constructed 100 miles of levees. Land
valued at twenty dollars an acre became worth seventy-five dollars to
one hundred dollars at a cost of thirty dollars per acre. Deep floods
of the Mississippi River did great damage in Louisiana, Mississippi,
Arkansas and Kentucky, causing the Delta region to put forth a plea
for National aid in draining the wet lands of the South. It does seem
that their plea for support should not go unheeded when such a vast,
fertile area lies unreclaimed.
Nearly every State is studying soil erosion, the tenant system and
land taxation. Dr. E. N. Lowe, State Geologist of Mississippi,
reports that his survey endeavored to secure the enactment of a
law that would tend to check the great losses in the northern part
of the State caused by soil erosion. The bill was opposed by a
prominent senator on the ground that it would interfere with the
personal rights of land owners. The bill did not pass, but Dr. Lowe
is to conduct a campaign of education before the next Legislature is
convened. The difference in viewpoint here shown, is the difference
between the meaning of “legal” and “right.” Does any one have the
right to ruin the land?
Co-operative soil surveys were carried on during the year in the
various States with complete success. Every State now sees the need
of reliable study and mapping of its soils, to serve as a basis for
farm management, taxation, and real estate. At a recent meeting of
the National Tax Association, held in Des Moines, Iowa, the relation
of land surveys and taxation was discussed with considerable detail.
It was the conclusion that land value maps should be prepared by soil
surveys to serve as a physical basis of taxation.
FOREST RESOURCES.
Though originally endowed with vast areas of forest on public domain,
some having great value, our Federal Government was slow to develop
effective measures for its protection, utilization and future
growth. One generation stripped the forest from the agricultural
lands of the central west; and their posterity turned the trick
with interest in the west. No wonder many persons took advantage of
such an occasion as was presented in the Rocky Mountain and Pacific
regions to help themselves where the public treasury was free for
the asking, not having been carefully surveyed and evaluated. The
large timber owners are not alone to blame for this history, which in
considerable part is not what it might have been. It is time, then,
to close the chapter and to turn our attention to present day events
in so far as they are related to forest conservation. Now the State
foresters and Federal forces closely co-operate with the large lumber
producers along several lines. The Weeks Law, recently enacted,
furthers co-operative effort in the prevention of forest fires. One
of the first States to take advantage of this law was Wisconsin.
Then came applications from New Hampshire, Montana and most other
forest States. New York appears to lead in perfecting State patrol.
Most States in the Appalachian province have perfected their patrol
systems. Oregon appears to lead in the Pacific region.
Colorado of the Rocky Mountain province is fighting the Forestry
Commission, the Conservation Commission and Federal agencies, under
the guise of State Rights. Here the National Government has large
reserves and is meeting the expense of fire protection. Certain State
men are diligently spreading the doctrine of State Rights, claiming
that the Federal Government should cede its domain to the State. Such
a sentiment is echoed, but not so forcefully, in a few other western
States. The opponents of this doctrine claim that the States do not
have the means to patrol the forest, and that the State Rights people
are making the campaign for selfish reasons—to secure ownership of
the forest.
During the year, many cities and States added to the area of
their parks and forest reserves. The Maryland Legislature voted
$50,000 for this purpose. The Appalachian bill passed the last
Congress, providing funds for use in establishing reserves in the
Appalachian province. A start in this development has been made at
several places. It is reported, however, that land speculators are
interfering with the project by securing options on land that is
wanted for the reserves.
The work in general tree planting and forestation progressed about
as usual. Promoters handle eucalyptus propositions in California
with varying degrees of success. Many States, especially in the
middle west, are planting catalpa for the production of posts. One
of the largest problems in several States, as in Oregon, Washington,
Wisconsin and Michigan, is that of utilizing the cut-over land. Some
of this is suitable for farming, but much of it is classed as forest
land. The problem then is one of reforestation, which cannot be done
economically on most of the land because of high tax. The tax problem
is closely related to and by many thought to be the controlling
feature in the reforestation of land in private ownership. The
Wisconsin and the Oregon Conservation Commissions are studying
the problem. Louisiana has passed laws intended to promote timber
planting on large holdings.
A few States published helpful literature on economic species of
trees suitable for forestation, shade and decorative purposes. A
little volume by the New Jersey Forest Commission, title “Planting
and Care of Shade Trees,” is a model that other States may well
follow.
Following in line with the recommendations of this Congress, and in
harmony with the policies of state foresters and the Federal Bureau,
considerable progress was made during the year in forest surveys
and forest studies. Fully half of the States are doing this work
under the direction of their geological surveys, forest bureaus, or
Conservation Commissions. Maryland and Rhode Island have completed
such surveys.
Several large lumber producers report improvements in the way of
saving practically all of the timber. When one wants to cite an
example of extreme waste in lumbering, he usually refers to the
Pacific region, perhaps not realizing that the method of utilization
may be determined by commercial limitations. Be that as it may, it
is pleasing to know that some companies in the West, as for example,
the Smith Lumber & Manufacturing Company, are installing by-product
plants. The company above named is building a fiber plant to utilize
the waste mill products by the sulphate process, and to extract the
turpentine from the red fir.
VITAL RESOURCES.
More than usual progress has been made in recent years in learning
that living things, whether forest, forage, cereal crops, game, fish,
farm animals or man, are natural resources subject to development.
Perhaps the greatest result of the Conservation movement is found
in its helpfulness in improving the life and lot of people. Such a
stimulus is needed, for it certainly is time society should conserve
its men and women not only in working efficiency but in fitness to be
fathers and mothers as well.
Most States have departments to promote good seed, fish and game
resources, and the breed and health of animals. Some of the
publications issued by these departments are most attractive and
valuable as, for example, the reports on birds by the North Caroline
Geologist-Natural History Survey.
More than usual State activity is now put forth in improving the
stock, health, life and working efficiency of people. To further this
end there is inspection of water, milk, food, drugs, and factories.
Several States are making preliminary sanitary surveys; others
conduct investigations under the head of “conservation of people.” It
has been learned that the public health can be markedly improved by
observing a few simple safeguards that prevent sickness and disease.
This calls for education, and perhaps for organized inspection
of both the home and the school. State medical colleges begin to
realize their duty in preventive medicine, and in some cases show
a willingness to co-operate with health organizations in extension
work in the conservation of public health. A number of the Southern
States have taken important steps to rid their sections of typhoid,
tuberculosis and the hook worm disease. Mississippi reports marked
progress in this line. The Louisiana Health Train is known to all.
The exhibits at this Congress indicate the great progress attained by
Dr. Hurty and others in their fields. In closing the discussion in
this department it should be noted that practically all parts of the
country show a deep interest in the work of Dr. Wiley and the fight
he has made for pure food. It is further evident that there is a
strong demand for a Federal health department to work in co-operation
with the state departments.
CONSERVATION ORGANIZATION.
Several State departments are related to Conservation work, as for
example, the Geological Survey, Soil Survey, Natural History Survey,
Forest Commission, Public Service Commission, Pure Food Department,
Health Department, and Experiment Stations. So, since most of these
have been in existence for several years, we should know that
conservation work is not a new thing. The various forces were united
into a definite movement, however, in 1908, following the Governors’
conference at Washington. Immediately after the adjournment of that
meeting the Governors appointed State conservation commissions to
serve their respective States. Unfortunately, many commissioners
were selected mainly because of their political affiliations. In
some cases the selections were made wholly on the basis of ability
to serve. Such Commissioners were chosen from among public spirited
citizens, and the State and university departments closely connected
with industrial development.
Practically all commissioners chosen because of political affiliation
did very little work. Most of them were not reappointed after
changes in State administrations. The non-political commissions
did better work as a rule, and soon received financial support and
statutory authority from the State for a wider range of activity.
The commissioners with this authority are now appointed by the
Governor, or they become commissioners by virtue of their connection
with certain university and State departments named in the State
laws. The tendency is to make the commissions entirely non-political
and to give them full charge of certain natural resource surveys
and the State supervision of development, at least to some extent.
A resolution passed by the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress
of this year is of interest in this connection. It reads thus: “We
favor the selection of Conservation Commissioners from among those
who are actively engaged in State surveys, in the investigation of
conservation problems, or in the development of public welfare.”
It further urges that the work of such commissioners be done along
non-political lines and in co-operation with Federal Conservation
efforts. Most States have conservation commissions.
The best organized work is in New York, Rhode Island, Oregon,
Nebraska, Wisconsin, Kansas, Utah, West Virginia and New Mexico. The
New York Commission has three commissioners, a secretary, assistant
secretary, deputy commissioners and several engineers, all well
paid. The Commission has full authority to investigate and supervise
the development of water, forest, fish and game resources. Rhode
Island stands next to New York in organization, duties, and results
attained. Its commission has full charge of the natural history
survey, supervises the development of natural resources, and conducts
an educational campaign. Nebraska’s commission is non-political,
composed principally of heads of departments in the University,
who also direct the various State surveys. The duties of the
commission are largely in supervision and education. A Conservation
Survey unites the efforts of the University and State departments
in systematic surveys of the water, soil and forest and in making
careful field studies of the leading economic problems. Nebraska
holds a Conservation Congress each year with a large attendance.
This Congress has great value in unifying State development. It
is under the guidance of the Commission, Conservation Survey and
public spirited citizens and is an open forum for the discussion
of development problems. The duties of other State Commissions are
similar to those of the States above described. Utah is directing its
effort mainly in the line of making non-political maps.
The Conservation Commissioners together with other persons directing
State development have an organization called the National
Association of Conservation Commissioners. It meets each year as
a department of this Congress. The object of the association is
co-operation, in which each State is able to learn of the progress
attained in other States.
That the conservation activities in the various States are benefited
by the different sessions of the National Conservation Congress
is very evident. The influence also of the National Conservation
Association is helpful.
In concluding this division of my report, I wish to emphasize the
facts that the State conservation commission is coming into a broad
field of work, that it must stand for the best interests of the State
as a whole, that an important part of its activity is to unite the
efforts of departments now existing in a co-operative work that has
practical value to the State. Such commission must be composed of
broad-minded men, preferably those who have a thorough acquaintance
with the departments represented. The commissioners should be free
from political entanglements, and refrain from using their position
for selfish ends. They should stand for the greatest good of their
States first, last and all the time.
Does your State have a commission of this kind?
SURVEY BASIS OF DEVELOPMENT.
The survey idea is now popular. In fact it may be abused in some
cases, especially where the work is done with a lack of scientific
spirit and undue rapidity. Such effort has no place in the
conservation survey which seeks to determine useful facts, those
really worth while in development.
In harmony with the spirit of the year which calls for
the fundamentals, we have the following resolution by the
Trans-Mississippi Congress, passed in its last session:
“Recognizing the natural resources as the physical basis of
development, we urge the States of the Trans-Mississippi region to
make surveys of their leading resources under competent direction,
and to publish reliable reports upon the same. We favor such
reorganization of the State conservation commissions as will qualify
them to make inventories of natural resources, to study industrial
problems, and promote the proper development of the respective
States.”
This demands that Conservation be placed on a survey basis. Just
that thing is the order in many States under the leadership of
conservation activity and through the co-operation of State and
Federal agencies. During the past year, progress was made in
co-operating the work of the different surveys, making them of
greater value to the people and State. It is now understood and
agreed that the following lines of information should be determined
and made available for use in the development of each State as soon
as possible consistent with good work and reliable results and in
about the order herein named. The points considered in the complete
survey are:
A. Topography. By topography is meant the surface features of the
land. Topographic maps have many uses in development. Maryland, New
York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Oklahoma, and a few other States are
now mapped.
B. Structure. By this we mean the underground make-up of a region,
the kind and arrangement of the materials of the land. Structure is
directly related to mineral resources, topography, water supply, and
soils.
C. Surface Water and Drainage. This refers to the amount of run-off,
to such as streams, lakes, marshes, and has importance in irrigation,
navigation, fish culture, city water supplies, etc. Illinois is
leading in this survey.
D. Ground Water. This is water in the land. It is the source of crop
water and the largest source for domestic and town supplies. The
amount of water held by the soil is even more important than the
quantity of rainfall. The depth to the water table, and the quantity,
and quality of well water are of great importance in agricultural
regions.
E. Climate. The elements—temperature, sunshine, wind, humidity, and
rainfall—are recognized as having importance and should be known for
every part of our country. The latest movement is for facts in local
climate, even that of the farm or certain parts of it, and of the
soil.
F. Soils. The relation of soil to industry is generally known.
The soil survey classifies and describes the soils as to origin
and properties, and maps them accurately so that the farmer may
know definitely the kinds and their distribution on his farm. Farm
management demands intelligent comprehension of soil characteristics.
G. Native Life. The native plants and animals of a country represent
the natural selection of the fittest for the conditions encountered.
The life of a region reflects the topography, soil, and climate under
which it lives. In new territory the native plant life reveals to
the keen student much concerning the soil and climatic conditions.
In older communities undisturbed patches of vegetation tell the same
story. By studying such life the qualities needed in cultivated crops
may be fairly well determined and the losses incident to haphazard
experimenting avoided. Native life then needs to be considered in
a rural survey because: (1) It gives a summary history of soil
and climatic influences; (2) it may lead to economic production
of certain native types of plants and animals; (3) it presents
concretely the problem of utilization of waste lands; (4) it will
give emphasis to the need of utilizing our lakes and streams as a
source of food supply.
H. Social and Industrial Conditions. If a move into new territory
is contemplated, the questions of vital interest are not only of
the natural and industrial conditions but also in regard to social
conditions. By this is meant the classes of people as to race and
culture, and the opportunities offered for advance in social and
intellectual lines. These characteristics of people are closely
associated with their occupations. The pursuits of the people are
largely dominated by the physical basis of industry. Hence the
social survey must recognize this influence if it is to correctly
interpret conditions as they exist. Data of most vital interest in
the social rural survey pertain to the following lines: (a) History
of settlement. (b) Condition of agriculture. (c) Education. (d)
Religion. (e) Recreation. (f) Sanitation. The industrial conditions
of a region are practically determined by its physical features. The
development is further related to the biological and social life.
Hence the industrial survey must be based on these fundamentals if it
is to be comprehensive.
In closing this review of the fundamentals in surveys it should
be understood that: 1. The physical and biological surveys should
come first, since they are necessary for accurate work in other
investigations. 2. The special surveys of industries, rural and urban
life should be made from the common basis of physical and biological
conditions and extended into their respective fields.
It should be recognized that the broad controls affecting industry
are structure, topography, drainage, climate, soils and native life,
but that they do not have equal importance in any and every locality.
Any one of them may be the controlling feature with the rest of minor
importance.
It is not a pleasing fact to know that most States have not yet
accurately mapped their lands, waters and forests. The departments
responsible for this work should receive adequate financial support
and the people in turn should demand results.
What progress has your State made in these lines?
RELATION OF EDUCATION TO CONSERVATION.
The State universities of the Middle West especially are meeting
their obligation to the people by training students for real work—for
efficient service. Such institutions, by their instruction, surveys
and extension departments further the development of practically
every line of industrial activity in the State. From these centers
are directed geological, soil, water, sanitary, social, farm
management and other surveys. Consequently the professors and
advanced students get a good work-out and the citizens are caused
to look to the institution for assistance in practically every
development problem that arises. The State universities that are
giving the largest service in this line appear to be Wisconsin,
Minnesota, Cornell Agricultural College, Illinois, and Nebraska. It
is my great privilege to be connected with one of these.
Unmistakably, the present tendency is to associate the public service
State departments and conservation activities more with higher
education, taking them from the field of politics. This noticeable
feature in the rearrangement of conservation activities of the past
year is worthy of consideration by all States.
CONSERVATION OF BUSINESS.
The different lines of business are conserved in many ways. This
applies to practical developments in improving the process involved
in handling commodities all the way from manufacture to sale; to
trade, in the direction of economy in buying, transportation and
sales; to farming in improving methods of cultivation, the better
care of stock, and in less buying on time; to more economic use of
school and church buildings; to the building and maintenance of good
roads and clean streets, and to the improvement of public service
generally. So there is room for practical conservation in many lines.
It prevents waste, increases efficiency, and thereby decreases the
cost of commodities. A very general movement for good business is
the feature of the year. It is promoting real business by demanding
that it be done on the square and free from fraud. This is working a
public good.
At another time, I will discuss the subject, “Land Frauds or
Get-Rich-Quick Schemes,” with special reference to their effect upon
real business.
CONCLUSIONS.
As a summary conclusion, you will permit me to enumerate the things
that stand out in the progress of the year.
1. The prominence of Conservation on many State and National programs.
2. The tendency to place State development on a survey and fact basis.
3. Development of co-operation between State and Federal agencies.
4. Demand by the public for reliable land classifications, soil,
sanitary and agricultural surveys.
5. Interest in soil fertility as a basis for agricultural development.
6. The affiliation of Conservation organizations with educational
departments and removal from politics.
7. Discussion of Lakes-to-the-Gulf Route and success attained in
presenting the cause of drainage in the Mississippi delta region.
8. Modernizing of State universities, making them of greater value to
the State.
9. The determined demand for vocational training in the public
schools.
10. A demand for less extravagance in public service.
11. Taxation of cut-over lands.
12. Perfection of forest control.
13. The very general recognition that people are the most important
natural resource subject to development.
14. Increased regard for sanitation throughout the country.
15. Massachusetts minimum wage law for women.
16. A determined and widespread movement on the part of social
workers to eliminate the social evil.
17. Widespread movement against fraud and the assistance given to the
movement by the Postoffice and National Reclamation departments.
18. More than usual discussion of co-operative enterprises and
methods of distribution.
19. Rapid progress in the building and maintenance of good roads.
20. A growing tendency for the citizens in every part of the country
to outgrow provincialism; to come into respect and appreciation for
the people and institutions of every State; to recognize the fact
that the home State is but a part of the Union and larger world in
which people live not to themselves alone but in helpful relationship
with all others.
President WHITE—This was a very interesting address, which we allowed
to extend beyond the time, because it is a summary of Conservation
work during the past year in all the States. Heretofore, we have had
a report from a representative of each State, but it was thought
advisable this year to have these reports condensed into one paper, a
work which Dr. Condra has done most admirably.
The next address, which is of the greatest interest, is on the
subject of “Human Life, Our Greatest Resource,” and the name of the
gentleman who is to deliver it will be a sufficient guaranty that it
will be replete with interest, and will be useful to every one of us
who listens. I now introduce Dr. William A. Evans, of Chicago.
(Dr. Evans failed to return his manuscript for insertion in the
Proceedings.)
President WHITE—We must hasten on, for we have some other addresses
that will be very interesting to the children. There are a great many
present that have come no doubt to see the wild life pictures. So we
shall have to hasten in order to reach them.
Dr. Bessey, who was to have been next on our program, will be here at
3:30 o’clock.
We shall now call on Mr. E. T. Allen, of Portland, Oregon, whose
subject is “Conservation Redefined.”
Mr. ALLEN—On a hot afternoon, a bare-footed boy, on his way home
from school, in western Washington, eager as any school boy for the
swimming hole, or whatever waiting attraction had kept his eye on the
clock since about 2:00 o’clock, stopped, hesitated, then clambered
down a steep, brushy slope to the stream at its foot, filled his hat
with water, climbed up the hill again laboriously so as not to spill
his burden, and put it on a camp-fire some voting citizen had left
burning by the roadside. It still smoked, so he went back twice,
three times. About then, the man who told me this story came along
and asked the boy why he made it his business to put out that fire.
“Why, it told in a little book I got at school,” was the reply, “why
every one should try to stop forest fires. It told what grown-up
people can do by being careful and passing laws and such, but it said
a boy may do as much as anybody by putting out some little fire with
water or dirt before it gets big.”
Now, the action of that school boy, and of the teacher who handed
him the booklet, and of the State authorities who instructed her to
do so, and of the man who wrote the booklet and enlisted the State’s
co-operation in its distribution to a hundred thousand children, and
of the timber owners through whose protective association that man
was hired and the cost of printing and distributing that booklet
was paid, was Conservation. It was forest Conservation, definitely
conceived, definitely executed, and with an exceedingly definite
result.
About a month ago I was talking to an extremely intelligent man, a
scientific man whose life is devoted to bettering humanity. He said,
“Allen, do you believe in Conservation?”
Rather astonished, I replied, “It’s my trade, isn’t it?”
“Oh, I don’t mean forest protection, like putting out fires and
making trees grow, but forest Conservation—Pinchotism, tying up
everything for future generations.”
Now that man’s conception was the result of Conservation activity,
certainly. Without our agitation there would have been no counter
agitation. No doubt he has read of these congresses every fall and
of countless other forms of our work. But, apparently, only one
interpretation, and that a mistaken one, had ever reached him in a
form definite enough to make an impression. How else can you account
for getting effort and sacrifice from the irresponsible barefoot
school boy, but no realization by a citizen of the highest type that
Conservation wants his help in some way that he can give it?
To what extent these remarks apply to your work along other
Conservation lines, I am not competent to say. In forestry, there has
been, I will not say too much debate, but certainly too little other
use of our Conservation machinery in presenting clear-cut principles
of forest economics in the specific local forms and with the specific
local needs that are necessary to engage and direct accomplishment.
This is true of what we do at these meetings and more true of what we
do when we go home.
What our forests need most is more patrolmen, more trails and
telephones for them to use, more funds and organization to marshal
fire-fighting crews when required, better fire laws and courts that
will enforce them, public appreciation that forest fire departments
are as necessary as city fire departments, more consideration
for life and property by the fool that is careless with match and
spark, realization by more lumbermen that it pays in more ways than
one to do their part, State officials who will handle State lands
intelligently, tax laws that will permit good private management,
consumers who will take closely-utilized products, and a few other
things that demand specific study and specific action. Very few will
follow automatically after any amount of agitation under the general
term of forest Conservation. Do you suppose this would have sent the
boy down the hill after water? No more will it write a good forest
code and drive it through the devious channels of legislation. No
more will it organize a hundred busy lumbermen and install a trained
co-operative patrol. No more will it supply the necessary systematic
campaigning to teach the people of your State and mine in just what
ways their homes and pocketbooks are touched by every injury to
forests or forest industry and exactly what they, as individuals,
must do to prevent such injury.
Without decrying their sentimental aspects, these are business
problems. They call for all the exact facts, all the systematic
planning, all the decisive action, all the appeal to human motives,
selfish and otherwise, that are essential to any business. We have
a commodity to offer. By whatever name we call it, fire prevention,
reforestation, or more vague yet, forest Conservation, we are really
offering prosperity insurance. It must be paid for by the community
in currency of individual and collective effort, by individual care
with the forest and by public policies enforced at public expense. To
make the community pay for this commodity requires the same methods
that make it buy life insurance; the same devising of a sound,
attractive policy that the buyer can see and understand, the same
skilful advertising, the same personal persuasion by its agents.
I believe that if this were a congress of life insurance agents
they would be talking mostly of just these things, particularly of
improved methods to close with procrastinating “prospects,” with a
view to putting these methods into the most definite kind of practice
the day after they got home. We do not need argument on the merit of
Conservation any more than they would on the merit of life insurance.
We are converted, or we would not be here. But we need a whole lot of
instruction in salesmanship, and I believe we fail to make this the
feature of these congresses that it might be.
Let us look ahead, we agents of prosperity insurance, to see what is
to be done after _we_ get home.
The Government needs little but our moral support. The Federal
Forest Service is our highest authority in technique, the national
forests are our most conspicuous examples of practice. But the task
of the Forest Service is stupendous, not only in protecting these
vast forest areas and the lives within them, but also in replanting
denuded areas and managing great timber sales, so new growth will
follow. Congress does not appropriate anything like enough for this
work. The forest rangers out West are working for you and me, not
for Congress. We want more of them, and better facilities for their
work, and it is up to us to say so at the right time, to the right
men, and so emphatically that there will be no misunderstanding.
Petty politics and “retrenchment” would not be practiced so much more
vigorously when dealing with the lives and resources of the people
than when dealing with the “pork barrel” if we Conservationists
were half as free with telegrams as we are with resolutions. Yes,
this means you. So long as you stand for having the appropriations
for preserving the Nation’s forests from three to twenty times less
per acre than the lumberman is spending on his contiguous holdings,
or for any congressional attack upon the integrity of the national
forest system, your Conservation preachments are going to the wrong
address or are not properly spelled in words that look like votes.
There is even greater need of definitions that apply to the situation
of our States. Many have done nothing. Others have ill-balanced laws
passed by some one agency without due consideration of the needs
of others or of the greater need of bringing all into harmonious
co-operation. In few is there a far-seeing comprehensive policy
financed and executed. Here, of all places, forest Conservation must
narrow itself to specific issues. Scattered ideas do not pass good
laws or prevent the passage of bad ones. Propaganda work must be as
forcible and carefully directed as blows with an ax, to cut out one
by one the local foundation of every obstacle. In presenting our
remedy we must prove our knowledge of the principles and technical
frame-work which will insure freedom from politics, just distribution
of cost, effective organization, strict and enforceable fire laws,
systems of patrol and fire-fighting, facilities for educating lumber
men and public management of State-owned lands, fair taxation,
and, above all, co-operation with and stimulation of endeavor by
private owners. Without such knowledge, and skilful publicity and
campaigning, your very success in general agitation may result in
legislation worse than none.
All this involves considerable knowledge of the problems of the
private owner. After all, he controls most of our forest area. His
use of it, our use of it, and the effect of our relations on our
joint use of it, largely determine our forest destinies. And there is
entirely too much forgetting that forests are useless unless used;
that not forests, but forest industry, is what we really seek to
perpetuate. Except from their protection of stream-flow and game,
the community has little to gain from forest preservation unless it
also preserves, on a profitable and permanent footing, the industry
that makes forests usable and worth preserving, that employs labor,
affords market for crops and services, pays taxes, and manufacturers
and distribute an indispensable commodity. Forest wealth is
community wealth, but not without forest industry to coin it.
[Illustration:
E. LEE WORSHAM
OF ATLANTA, GA.,
CHAIRMAN EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, FOURTH NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS]
The lumberman as a class, because he is honest and useful as a class,
should be accorded the same encouragement as a captain of desirable
industry that is accorded the leader in agriculture or irrigation
who develops possibilities of utilizing our resources and supplying
our needs. And as a class, because whatever may be true of the past
he now sees his livelihood dependent upon forest preservation, he
is a stauncher supporter of forest reform than any other class.
He will utilize the present crop closely, and grow a new one,
whenever these are business possibilities. The most efficient and
liberally supported fire organizations in America are the lumbermen’s
co-operative patrols inaugurated in the Pacific Northwest and now
spreading eastward. Most of our best State forest legislation has
been promoted by lumbermen. Where this is not true, we can make it
true quickest, as Judge Lindsay has found with his boys, not by
censure and compulsion that make them sullen or antagonistic, but by
learning their troubles and working with them hand in hand toward the
ends which in the very nature of things must in the long run be of
mutual advantage. And this means that we must talk a common language;
that here, too, forest Conservation must be expressed in practical
terms of fire prevention, just taxation, and business encouragement.
What I have said of propaganda for State and private action applies
to our appeal to the ordinary citizen, with this difference that
because his number is greater, and his interests are more varied, we
must add to the list of our specific personal arguments and to the
list of our publicity mediums for carrying these arguments. Every
vocation, every trait of character, every selfish and unselfish
motive, has its best avenue of approach.
Immediate tangible results come most surely from immediate injury.
Even good laws are of small use unless the public of today is
sufficiently warned to insist on their enforcement. Do not think me
lacking in ideals when I say that our greatest need is vigor and
skill in appealing to human selfishness. The altruist comes to us
unsought. But to reach the hand with the torch, the vote withheld,
the word unspoken; we must find the man, make him listen, and show
the cost of forest destruction to his particular home and pocketbook.
We will not have forest Conservation till we have done this, and we
will not do it until we master and apply the technical knowledge
of mediums and psychological appeal that go into any successful
advertising campaign.
The definitions of Conservation I have outlined are those used by the
Western Forestry and Conservation Association. Its field is the five
Pacific forest States—the Nation’s woodlot—containing over half the
country’s standing timber and capable, by reason of rapid growth, of
growing an adequate supply forever. In this field we practice what we
preach. Our constituent local patrol associations spend from $300,000
to three quarters of a million a year, all paid by lumbermen, but
protecting your resources and mine.
Our booklet reached that school boy and three hundred thousand more.
Through every modern avenue of publicity—newspapers, circulars,
posters, railroad folders, telephone directories and a dozen
others—we carry the lessons of forest economics to every citizen in
terms he can best understand and apply. Although you had not made
that scientific man style himself a conservationist, we had secured
his help in passing a model fire law. We wrote that law. Under
it State, Government and lumbermen work hand in hand to protect
practically every forest acre, sharing the cost, and the lumbermen in
that one State contribute $150,000 a year.
But, best of all, we provide a common meeting ground for all four
agencies in our entire territory, each having the hearty support and
confidence of the others, and we talk only of our joint business of
actual, practical, constructive work. We talk not needs, but methods,
and find means to apply the methods.
We believe in this National Congress of Conservationists. We think
it will enter a permanent future of still higher usefulness when it
develops a more sectional organization, giving the real workers in
every branch opportunity to get the very most out of meeting their
own colleagues, and this not only in the technique of application
but also in the lagging art of promoting the prosperity insurance
of Conservation in terms and policies the public can understand and
cannot evade.
President WHITE—It will now be necessary to drop a curtain in order
to arrange a screen for the illustrated lectures that are going to
follow, so everyone will retain their seats. We shall not be detained
long. While the curtain is dropped, Secretary Shipp will make some
announcements.
The announcements were made by the Secretary.
President WHITE—Dr. C. E. Bessey, of the University of Nebraska,
having now arrived, will read his valuable report for the Standing
Committee on Education:
Dr. BESSEY—Your committee recognizing that in the field of education
we must for a time provide for a propaganda of suggestion and
information, to be followed ultimately, when the public mind has been
adequately wakened, with plans for a campaign of aggressive activity,
now presents the following as a preliminary report. And while we feel
confident that even at this stage something may be done more than the
inauguration of a campaign of agitation, it is certain, nevertheless,
that it is agitation more than anything else that we can best
promote at the present time. And we must not belittle the importance
of this stage of our work, for in every great movement there is
first the period of agitation during which the “seers of visions and
the dreamers of dreams” talk, and urge, and plead, with increasing
vehemence and increasing confidence.
It is our privilege now to promote such a work of agitation.
Accordingly our suggestions are all made with reference to this
preliminary phase of our work.
There are three principal lines along which this preliminary work may
be developed—namely, in the communities, in the schools, and in our
law-making bodies.
I. WORK IN THE COMMUNITY.
Here we have to change the feeling of apathy, and carelessness, and
irresponsibility, to one of active, conscientious responsibility. In
this task we have to deal with the men and women and children who
constitute the community. We must influence all of them. We must
reach them in such a way that there will grow up in the community a
better feeling with regard to the world we live in, and a clearer
appreciation of our relation to it in every way. They must be led to
see that the world is to be used, not destroyed. Just as the child
has to be taught that his toy is to be enjoyed, and played with,
but not wantonly destroyed, so we must bring the men and women in
the community to see that preservation, and not destruction, is the
higher duty. That citizen is the better one who leaves to the next
generation a better world than he found; whose use of Nature’s soil,
and water, and plants, and animals, leaves Nature still the rich
storehouse in which others after him may find these unimpaired, and
in abundance.
How shall such a high sense of responsibility be developed in the
community? How may we awaken this larger and deeper altruism? How can
we bring the men and women of this generation to see that they are
stewards of their Master’s estate?
Your committee commends three agencies as rendering effective service:
(a) _Public Lectures._ For these we may rely upon public spirited
men who are primarily interested in Conservation, as well as many
whose affiliations to different branches of natural science have
prepared them to appreciate the purposes of this propaganda. To these
we may add the great number of ministers of the gospel who nearly
to a man may be depended upon to favor the movement, and to speak
for it as occasion offers. Last of all we may confidently enumerate
the teachers in the public schools and the higher educational
institutions, and from them we may certainly secure many regularly
prepared addresses and many more less formal short helpful talks.
The influence of all of these presentations can scarcely be measured
beforehand, but we confidently predict that in a few years we shall
find that there has been a decided change in the general attitude of
the community from one of ignorant indifference to a more or less
intelligent interest.
(b) _Articles in the Public Press._ We believe in the power of the
public press as a molder of the opinions of the community, and feel
that we must enlist the interest and co-operation of the newspapers
throughout the country. To do this generally will require carefully
considered, nation-wide plans; but a great deal may be done in
every locality by the printing of the addresses referred to above.
Where this is not possible abstracts may always be published, as
well as summaries of shorter talks and discussions. Now and then a
short, pointed article should be prepared and printed in the local
paper. Here we feel the need of admonishing writers to be brief. No
communication should attempt to be exhaustive. Better far to say a
little at a time, and to come back to the subject again and again,
than to say it all at once. Short, suggestive articles are generally
read, while long ones usually become so dry that few read them.
(c) _Books and Pamphlets._ For certain classes of people the appeal
through the more permanent form of publication is far more effective,
and therefore there is in our work a need of the book writer, and the
writer of pamphlets. Here, quite naturally the writer must possess to
a marked degree the ability to present the matter in such a sustained
way that his book or pamphlet will be read throughout. Probably the
most effective writing of this class is that which appears in our
illustrated magazines where by the aid of half-tone reproductions of
striking photographs the interest of the reader is held much more
certainly. Such articles collected into small books or pamphlets
would go far towards stimulating a proper state of mind in regard to
the conservation of our natural resources.
It occurs to us also to suggest that now and then our state
experiment stations might quite legitimately devote a bulletin to
Conservation.
II. WORK IN THE SCHOOLS.
While the community as a whole is receiving such suggestions as
are possible through the agencies mentioned—lectures, addresses,
newspaper articles, books and pamphlets—there is a vastly more
effective means at our disposal in the public schools, dealing as
they do with no less than twenty millions of children. We suggest
that teachers everywhere be urged to include in all the studies
that pertain to nature something in regard to the preservation of
natural objects. This need not be much in amount, and it should be
brought in with care and wisdom. We are reminded that once a very
good cause was much discredited in the schools by the rash unwisdom
of its advocates who insisted upon such an overdose of advice and
admonishment that acute nausea resulted. So we would suggest that in
the following studies care should be taken on the one hand to suggest
conservation while on the other hand still greater care should be
taken not to overdo the matter.
(a) _Nature Study._ Along with an appreciation of Nature there should
be inculcated the feeling that others after us should have the
opportunity of enjoying the same beauties that we have.
(b) _Geography._ As now generally presented this deals more with
the earth and what it contains, than with its political divisions.
Thus the soil, the forest cover, the streams, the water supply, all
fall within this rejuvenated science, and here most readily can be
inculcated the principles of conservation, as applied to the soil,
the forests, the streams, and the underground waters.
(c) _Botany._ When the pupil’s attention is more specifically drawn
to the plant covering of the earth, in the study of botany, it is not
at all difficult to impress upon him the desirability of preserving
the vegetation of the present day for the generations that are to
come after us. No lover of plants can contemplate with pleasure the
thought that for the botanists of the twenty-first century certain
curious orchids, some rare trees, and possibly some Golden Rods,
may be as completely extinct as are the Paleozoic Calamites and
Lepidodendrids. The latter perished from the face of the earth, and
we know of them now only by the fragments that have been preserved in
the fossils which we dig up from the old rocks. Extinction has been
the fate of many a plant, and extinction of plants now living is by
no means improbable. The botanical teacher should preach the doctrine
of preservation, the preservation of the plants of the present for
the people who come after us.
(d) _Zoölogy._ So, too, the teacher of zoölogy should improve his
opportunity to help create a feeling favorable to the conservation
of the present animal life. Especially do we need a propaganda of
conservation in relation to the birds of the country. And here we
remark that there are methods of presenting this part of zoölogy
which emphasize rather the living bird in the tree than the dead
bird in the cabinet. And these methods are happily displacing those
that suggested if not required the death of every bird studied. We
are well aware of the fact that it is not so much the killing of
birds for study that threatens the extinction of some species, as the
wanton killing for the sake of killing, and as in the case of birds
of fine plumage, the killing for the money value of the dead birds.
Yet we realize that the place to begin is to educate the children
of the schools not to kill birds for any purpose. When they have
regard for the life of a bird they may be trusted not to kill one
needlessly.
(e) _Geology._ In this the pupil comes to see the foundations of
the earth, fortunately little of which man may injure or deface.
And yet how thankful we are that on the hills of New England there
have been preserved in their original ruggedness the great masses
of granite that have withstood the elements for millions of years.
And who is not gratified that the great wall of the Palisades on the
Hudson River has been saved for all time? These cliffs were valuable
for crushing into gravel for road-making, and for the quarrying of
building stone, but certain men of finer sensibilities felt that the
Palisades had a far higher value for their grandeur and beauty. And
so the Palisades were saved.
We need more of this fine sense of the value of rocks, and lakes,
and waterfalls, and cliffs, and mountains, and of the need of their
preservation.
(f) _Conservation Clubs._ Aside from much that may be done in school
classes to foster a spirit of conservation something further may be
accomplished by taking advantage of the club forming instinct of
children. Conservation clubs, Conservation leagues, Conservation
guilds, pacts, societies, or what-not, may be suggested by the wise
teacher, who can discreetly keep himself in the background while the
youngsters do the work. If a nauseating namby-pambyism can be avoided
such clubs may be joined by even the most vigorous of boys, the very
class in whom it is desirable to develop the spirit of conservation.
III. WORK THROUGH LEGISLATION.
What has been already outlined is probably enough for the present,
but the American people are not satisfied unless something is done
in the way of enacting our ideas into laws. In the present condition
of society we act as though we thought it quite impossible to do
anything on a large scale without having the sanction of a direct
law in regard to it. We are only very slowly learning that some of
the best of human activities have been developed independently of
legislation, and no doubt the time will come when we shall not be so
anxious to have our plans formulated into laws found in our statute
books. But for the present we may suggest the following legislation
as helpful. We purposely avoid suggesting the passage of laws dealing
with details. They must come later, when the conservation sense of
the public has been adequately aroused. Here we may consider state
and national laws.
(a) _State Laws._ These may well include those intended to preserve
rare birds, and in some places certain rare plants which are in
danger of extermination. To these may also be added provisions
for the preservation of important natural features, as forests,
waterfalls or massive rocks that lend interest or beauty to the
general landscape.
(b) _National Laws._ These may deal with larger problems, as the
preservation of certain widely distributed birds. Naturally, too, it
is the National Government that must take the initiative in regard to
the conservation of the great forests, waterways, waterfalls, and the
features in the national parks and reserves.
Carefully drawn laws, both State and National, covering the foregoing
will no doubt aid the cause of Conservation. Too much must not be
attempted. More good will result from a constant vigilance with
regard to the passage of bad laws which give away the heritage of the
community, than from attempts now to formulate a general conservation
code.
Respectfully submitted,
CHARLES E. BESSEY (Chairman),
DAVID STARR JORDAN,
EDWIN A. ALDERMAN,
E. T. FAIRCHILD,
EDWIN B. CRAIGHEAD,
Committee.
President WHITE—We have all been very much interested in this
valuable contribution to Conservation, coming from such distinguished
contributors as were on this committee, and I desire, for the
officers of the Conservation Congress, to thank the committee for its
admirable report. I feel that every delegate here would like to join
in an expression of thanks for such an interesting and such a helpful
paper, which will go forth to all sections of the country. All those
who desire to so express thanks please rise to their feet. (The
entire audience rose to its feet.)
This is a very grateful and pleasant expression of thanks. I thank
you.
We will now be entertained by an illustrated address by Dr. T.
Gilbert Pearson, of New York City, Secretary of the National
Association of Audubon Societies. The subject is “Bird Slaughter and
the Cost of Living.”
(Dr. Pearson’s address, which, unfortunately, was not recorded by
the official reporter, was heard with keenest interest by a large
audience and was interrupted by frequent applause. The speaker
prefaced his illustrated lecture with a vivid statement of wild life
conditions, which was heard with closest attention.)
President WHITE—I am sure you have been entertained by the very
excellent address we have just heard. And there is another
interesting address to follow. I want every one of you to know we are
having a very interesting Congress and a very large attendance. This
afternoon there have been three section meetings going on: one, I
understand, with about one thousand people in attendance. All belong
to the Conservation Congress.
We will now listen to a discussion of “Federal Protection of
Migratory Birds,” by Dr. W. T. Hornaday, Director of the New York
Zoölogical Park.
Dr. HORNADAY—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: The subject
presented to this Congress by the Committee on Conservation of Wild
Life is one of the most practical subjects that you could possibly
imagine. It touches the market basket and the dinner pail, and I know
of nothing that can come much closer home to a family than that.
Within the last three months, in the City of New York, we have had
riots in our streets on account of the high cost of certain articles
of food.
Whenever I have an opportunity to stand before an audience and speak
in behalf of wild life, “I would that my tongue could utter the
thoughts that arise in me.”
We have reached the period now when it is absolutely necessary for
us to adjust our ideas according to new conditions. I am trying to
place before you conditions as they exist throughout the United
States today, and I think when that has been done the facts will
suggest to you the logical conclusion. The trouble is that our system
of protecting wild life is nine-tenths absolutely wrong. We are
confronted today by a slaughter of wild life throughout the whole
United States, throughout the whole continent of North America, and
throughout the world, that is absolutely appalling.
Now, in the City of New York there are several national organizations
which make it their business to keep in touch with the conditions of
wild life throughout the world. Unless a person takes pains to keep
in touch with those conditions, as those national organizations do,
you lose sight of the things that are actually going on and which
ought to be of common knowledge. But our lives are so busy, there is
so much to do, the days are so short, and we are so pressed for time
that we grasp only the things that come close to us.
Now, take the slaughter of bird life, it is not like the cutting
down of a forest. When a forest is cut down the stumps are left to
be constant reminders of the destruction for days, for weeks and for
years. When your bird life is destroyed, it simply fades from view.
It fails to return in the spring and you go about your day’s business
and you see the beauties of the forest and field, but you forget to
what extent the birds have disappeared. It is a difficult thing to
obtain an accurate estimate of the decrease in the general volume of
wild bird life throughout a given year, but it is possible to obtain
such estimates. Now, there is in the United States a tremendous
force at work destroying wild life. The force that is preserving wild
life is not nearly so large and not nearly so active. I will show
you presently a picture especially designed to bring this home to
you. Dr. Pearson has set before you many beautiful pictures showing
bird life in protected areas. That points an important moral which
I do not wish to forget. It means that if we are diligent, if we
reform our system and our laws we can to a very large extent bring
back the vanished bird life. There is hope for the future. Today we
are confronted by the prospect of a country gameless and birdless
everywhere except in the protected areas. We all know how important
the game preserves and the protected bird areas are. We cannot have
too many of them; they cannot be too large. But there is a vast
volume of bird life that cannot be protected in the preserves, the
migratory phase of bird life, which we cannot control except for
short periods of the year.
I believe that the subject we are now bringing before you is one in
which it is possible for the members of this Conservation Congress
to achieve a practical result of the greatest magnitude and in the
shortest possible time and with the least effort of any subject that
will be presented to this Congress. I know that is a large order,
but I think that before I conclude you will agree with me that my
proposition is not exaggerated.
When I was assured that I could have the honor and the privilege of
speaking to this Congress on the subject of wild life, the first
thought that occurred to me was to endeavor to place before you some
ocular proof of the slaughter of wild life that is now going on at
so terrific a rate. I gathered from my side table a collection of
pictures that had dropped into my hands from various portions of the
United States and outside, and those pictures I wish you to see now.
They will tell a story of their own with very few words from me, and
after that we will come to the logical conclusion.
Dr. Hornaday here gave an illustrated lecture which was thoroughly
enjoyed.
President WHITE—The Congress will now stand adjourned until 8:15
o’clock this evening, when Dr. Harvey W. Wiley will speak, at
Tomlinson Hall.
* * * * *
A large reception was given by the officers of the Congress and the
Local Board of Managers to the speakers, delegates and visitors, at
7:30 o’clock, Claypool Hotel.
_THIRD SESSION._
The Congress was called to order by President White, in Tomlinson
Hall, at 8:30 o’clock p. m.
President WHITE—We are a little late opening this meeting, because
we are trying to do so much in different places, and we do not all
get in one place at the same time. But I am glad to see such an
enthusiastic meeting here tonight. The audience will rise while the
Rev. Dr. Allan B. Philputt, of the Central Christian Church of this
city, invokes the Divine blessing.
INVOCATION.
_Lord, our God, we ask that Thy blessing may rest upon us in what
we believe is work well-pleasing to Thee and for the upbuilding and
welfare of our common humanity. We pray Thee, bless Thy servants who
have gathered here to instruct and lead us on with the mighty host
of those who are willing to follow in the good ways that shall be
pointed out for the preservation, not only of our material resources,
but for our moral, intellectual and spiritual well-being. We pray
that strength may be given those who lead, and guidance and light,
and the heartiest co-operation on the part of all our citizenship.
May we be interested in these things which will add to our happiness,
and wealth, and peace and plenty, and by which we may also come to
a better knowledge of Thee and Thy laws. May Thy blessing rest upon
all the sessions of this great Congress, especially upon those who
have sacrificed time and means to come here and give themselves
unreservedly to this great cause. May Thy favor rest upon those
present, may Thy blessing be upon those who are strangers within our
city, and may hospitality be unbounded, may sympathy and cordiality
flow from heart to heart until we feel the strong ties that bind us,
not only in one State, but with every State in our great Republic.
This we ask through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen._
President WHITE—I have a communication to read to this audience from
an old, well-known and well-loved conservationist, one of the great
leaders in conservation work. I do not think there is any politics in
this. I will read it.
“Omaha, Neb., September 30, 1912.
Capt. J. B. White, National Conservation Congress, Indianapolis:
Please tell the Congress I am keenly sorry to be away. I should be
with you, except that I believe I can do the cause of Conservation
more good where I am. We are working to make this continent a better
home for a better race. It is a great task. I wish you the best of
meetings and complete success.
GIFFORD PINCHOT.”
The speaker of this evening is well known to us all. He has impressed
himself and his subject upon the people of this great country in the
past few years, and he needs no introduction from me. I have long
wanted to know how old people managed to grow old and keep looking
young. I do not mean to infer that the speaker of this evening is
getting old, as I understand he has a boy only about a year old
(applause); but I have found out his age, by persistent and tactful
undertaking, and, being in pursuit of some way of living to a good
old age myself, I inquired as to his habits. I will not give them to
you now, except to say that he told me, briefly and epigrammatically,
that he doesn’t smoke, he doesn’t drink (applause), he doesn’t chew,
and he says he doesn’t swear (applause)—only occasionally. (Laughter.)
I now take great pleasure in introducing to you Dr. Harvey W. Wiley,
who will speak on the subject “The Conservation of Man.” (Applause.)
Dr. WILEY—The National Conservation Congress has at its previous
meetings discussed in a most illuminating and helpful way the great
problems of Conservation as applied to the soil, to the forests, to
the mines, and to the running streams.
I do not suppose it is proper, with an audience of this kind, to
refer to earlier papers, but I do believe I am the first person
who ever made a public address in this country upon the subject of
Conservation, and I am certain, as far as I know, that I am the last
one that is making such an address. But as long ago as 1893 and being
a very old man, as you have heard, I can remember that far back—I
made an address on the conservation of the soil, so I am really the
father of the conservation movement in this country as well as of a
very fine boy. (Applause.) I miss my dear friend, Gifford Pinchot,
whom I love as a brother, but who has fallen into the patent medicine
habit and is giving us “absent treatment.” I am not at all sure that
he is doing a better work out there than he would be here. In the
words of the Scotch poet, “I hae ma doots.” But still we were glad
to hear from him and know he has not lost interest because of the
strenuous political life he is now compelled to lead.
With this great work, from its inception, I have been in deepest
sympathy and have collaborated in such a manner as I could to further
it. The work accomplished has produced benefits which are difficult
to measure by any standard which can be properly appreciated.
The American people have come to believe in the application of a
single standard of value and this is a scientific principle with
which, as a rule, I would have no quarrel, but unfortunately the
single standard which Americans have been taught to value is that
which pertains to the almighty dollar. The Conservation Congress,
however, has not been blind to the fact that the standards of ethics,
health, morality and happiness are of even far greater value than
that of money. Nevertheless, in order to present the subject in a
manner easily grasped by the American people, attempts have been
made to measure the value of health and life by a money standard.
As a justification of this, we have the procedures of the courts,
based upon statutory enactments, which fix a money value upon life,
although in many cases, after mature deliberation, it has been found
that the life for which compensation has been asked, was of small
value. In like manner, in the treatises which have been written on
the public health and its value as a national asset, it has been
attempted to portray in dollars the most precious of all human
possessions, namely, life. And, in point of fact, it is not wholly
unscientific, though undoubtedly unsentimental, to thus value human
existence. All useful members of a community render services of some
kind, for which payment is made in the coin of the realm. Following
one of the established customs of great financial operations, it has
been customary to capitalize the human life on its earning capacity,
either active or prospective. The infant and the child, measured upon
an actual earning capacity, would have practically no value, but
this would be an unscientific method of determining worth, because
of the fact that the infant and the child represent the necessary
preparatory stages of earning capacity. Based upon this fact they
both have a real monetary value.
I shall not take up the time of this address with any effort to
ascertain the actual values which may safely be assigned to the
infant, the child, and the grown-up person. This has been carefully
and sufficiently accomplished by other investigators. Abraham Lincoln
said that in so far as efficiency is concerned the human race may be
divided into three classes, namely, one, those who work effectively;
two, those who work to no purpose, and three, those who do not work
at all. Judging by rigid standards which have been set up by students
of efficiency, class one is probably the least numerous of the
three. Class two is composed of well-meaning people who do work, are
willing to work, and anxious to work, but who do not know how, and
therefore waste their energies. Class three is made up of the idle
rich, the idle poor, and that considerable portion of our population
incapacitated by disease or otherwise exempt from taking part in any
useful employment.
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE CONSERVATION OF MAN.
Primarily, in the study of the conservation of human efficiency,
that is of man, man himself and knowledge of what he is, and what
he has been, within the years in which man has been studied, in a
scientific way, is of the utmost importance. Unfortunately, we have
not access to a universal system of demography, inasmuch as only a
few countries have adopted scientific demography in its entirety.
The world descriptions of human life, health, and efficiency are,
therefore, exceedingly fragmentary. We are too apt to base our ideas
upon personal acquaintance and knowledge of the efficiency of man,
than upon a scientific study thereof, and yet, in order to have a
proper view of the subject of the conservation of man, the actual
state of his health and his capacity for useful labor must engage our
attention.
The Division of Vital Statistics of the Census Bureau has done
much to furnish the student of humanity with fundamental data, and
first of all let us consider what is the expectation of life in the
various countries according to the latest authorities which can be
secured. The Division of Vital Statistics has prepared the following
table, which is to be accepted as the most authoritative which is
accessible. No claim is made, of course, for entire accuracy, but it
is sufficient to show what the condition was in this country twelve
years ago. It is reasonable to suppose that conditions have improved
somewhat in the twelve years which have passed since the compilation
of the data submitted.
EXPECTATION OF LIFE IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES ACCORDING TO LATEST LIFE
TABLES.
(The “expectation of life” is sometimes known as the “mean
after-life time,” “average after-life time,” “mean duration
of life,” and “average duration of life.” Data are from the
international tables in _Statistik des deutschen Reichs_, Bd. 299,
_Siechetafeln_; the French _Statistique internationale_; the English
Registrar-General’s Report; Supplement, 1891–1900, and Census
Bulletin No. 15, Twelfth Census, Tables for the United States, or
rather for that part of it having fairly complete registration of
deaths, will be published in connection with the Reports for 1910,
now in preparation.)
EXPECTATION OF LIFE IN YEARS.
Males. Females.
——————————————————— ————————————————————
At One Ten At One Ten
COUNTRY OR STATE. Years. Birth. Year. Years. Birth. Year. Years.
England and Wales 1891–1900 44.13 52.22 49.63 47.77 54.53 51.97
Healthy Districts 1891–1900 52.87 59.13 54.16 55.71 60.53 54.46
France 1901 45.31 53.10 49.25 48.69 55.34 51.53
Italy 1899–1902 42.83 50.67 51.25 43.17 50.08 51.00
Austria 1900–1901 37.77 49.17 48.22 39.87 49.31 48.54
Belgium 1891–1900 45.39 53.51 50.32 48.84 55.88 52.78
The Netherlands 1890–1899 46.2 54.8 51.7 49.0 56.2 53.0
Sweden 1891–1900 50.94 56.25 52.79 53.63 58.04 54.61
Massachusetts 1893–1897 44.09 52.18 49.33 46.61 53.58 50.70
German Empire 1891–1900 40.56 51.85 49.66 43.97 53.78 51.71
New South Wales 1891 49.60 —— 50.89 52.90 —— 53.39
India 1901 23.63 —— 34.73 23.96 —— 33.86
District of
Columbia (white) 1900 41.64 49.30 46.37 45.77 52.89 49.90
Massachusetts
(white) 1900 44.29 53.13 50.15 47.80 54.96 51.70
New Jersey (white) 1900 44.06 52.05 49.27 48.27 54.45 51.59
One of the most remarkable facts presented by the above table is
in the marked increase in the expectation of life after the age
of one year. In other words, the terrible infant mortality, which
prevails in all countries, is so great that the expectation of life
at birth is a number of years less than at the age of one year. In
England and Wales, the infant mortality decreases the expectation
of life at birth, in round numbers by eight years; in France and
Italy about the same; in Austria, by eleven years; in Sweden, by six
years; in the German Empire, by eleven years; in Massachusetts, by
nine years. In the report, of the Bureau of the Census on Mortality
Statistics, printed in 1909, and referring to the calendar year 1908,
data are collected from seventeen States, the District of Columbia,
and seventy-four registration cities, comprising a total of 51.8
per cent. of the total estimated population of the country. The
total number of deaths registered in this area in 1908 is 691,574,
corresponding to a death rate of 15.4 per 1,000 of population, which
is said to indicate a remarkably favorable condition of the public
health.
In the mortality statistics for 1910, two years later, the
registration area, which included in 1910 an estimated midyear
population of 58.3 per cent. of the total population of continental
United States, the deaths reported were 805,412, representing a death
rate of 15 per 1,000 population. The death rate for 1909 was only
14.4 per 1,000. While these variations are marked, the work has not
been carried on for a sufficient length of time to do more than to
warrant an expression of opinion that the death rate in this country
is generally receding. It varies as shown, on both sides, having
decreased very considerably from 1907 to 1909, but increased to a
very marked degree in 1910 over 1909. The registration area covers
the following States in toto, and some of the principal cities in
the other States: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Maine,
Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire,
New Jersey, New York, North Carolina (municipalities of 1,000
population and over in 1900), Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah,
Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
The extension of the system of registration to a larger area and
number of population and the improvement in the efficiency of
securing data are all to be considered in comparisons of very small
periods of time. For one hundred million of population a death rate
of 15 per 1,000 indicates a total of 1,500,000 deaths per annum.
This figure may be accepted as being sufficiently accurate for all
practical purposes at the present time as representing the death rate
of today in the United States.
Comparing the United States with other countries and giving the
expectation of life at birth as the basis of comparison, we may
safely assume that the average expectation of life for the United
States is in round numbers 44 years. Comparing this with the other
countries we find that Sweden, Holland and New South Wales have a
lower death rate than the United States. England, France, Belgium
and Holland have almost the same death rate. The German Empire and
Austria have a higher death rate. India is the banner country for
shortness of life, the expectation of life in India being a little
over half that in the United States.
WHAT ARE THE DISEASES WHICH ARE MOST ACTIVE IN CAUSING THE DEATH OF
OUR PEOPLE?
In the registration area of 1910, 154,373 infants under one year of
age died, in round numbers one-fifth of all the deaths. Assuming the
total deaths to be 1,500,000, the number of children dying in the
United States every year under the age of one year is 300,000. A
striking illustration of the danger of the hot months for children
under 2 years of age is shown by the fact that the number of deaths
from diarrhœa and enteritis for July and August was 12,535 and 12,565
respectively, while in February the deaths from the same causes were
1,373. From these data it is evident that during the hot two months
nearly 1,000 infants under the age of one year die every day in the
United States.
The report of the Division of Vital Statistics shows that beginning
with the second month of life diarrhœa is the most serious cause of
infant mortality. While infantile diarrhœa and its allied disease,
enteritis, is the most frequent cause of death among infants, the
greatest destroyer of the human race, without respect to age, is
tuberculosis, which caused 10.7 per cent. of the deaths from all
causes in 1910. Next in importance in destructiveness is found
organic disease of the heart, causing 9.5 per cent. of all the
deaths. For all ages diarrhœa and enteritis come third in fatality
with 7.8 per cent. Close after this comes pneumonia with 6.7 per
cent. Kidney disease causes a mortality of 6.6 per cent.
The number of deaths from tuberculosis during the year 1910 was
160.3 per 100,000, or for 100,000,000 people 160,300. The death rate
from tuberculosis from 1900 to 1909, inclusive, was 183 per 100,000.
Apparently the death rate for tuberculosis is decreasing.
The number of deaths from cancer in 1910 was 76.2 per 100,000, or a
total of 76,200; the highest death rate ever recorded from cancer.
Evidently the deaths from career are increasing in proportion to the
population.
I wish sometimes that every house in this country could be burned to
the ground, if the people could escape. Why? Because tuberculosis and
cancer are house diseases, and if every house were burned, we would
not have them any more—at least until we built new houses. But we can
purify our houses, we can live out doors, we can sleep out doors most
of the year, and by the teaching and practicing of the principles
of hygiene and sanitation we need not burn our houses at all. But
people do not know, and worse than that, they do not care. They
take no interest in such things. If you were discussing the tariff
tonight, the house would not hold the people; if you were discussing
trusts, there would be no standing room; but when you discuss this
tariff on human life—they are not interested.
Organic disease of the heart: The number of deaths in 1910 was
141.5 per 100,000, which is a very large increase over that of the
preceding year of 129.7 per 100,000. The total number of deaths from
heart disease was 141,500.
Pneumonia: The death rate from pneumonia for 1910 was 147.7 per
100,000, making a total of 147,700 deaths from this disease. The
death rate from this disease increased considerably over that of the
preceding year.
Kidney disease: The total number of deaths from kidney disease in
1910 was 99 per 100,000, making a total of 99,000 for an estimated
population of 100,000,000. This includes all forms of kidney trouble,
nephritis and Bright’s disease.
Typhoid fever: The death rate from typhoid fever was 23.5 per
100,000, a total of 23,500 for the estimated population of
100,000,000.
You older men like me who were in the war know that war is hell—not
because you are shot—that is glory; but because you die of disease;
and if you will read the military history of the Civil War, so-called
(I do not know why, for it was not so very “civil”) you will see that
while one man died of wounds, four died of disease, because we did
not understand the principles of serum prophylaxis. We are not going
to have in the next war four men die of fever where one is killed in
battle.
One of the curious features in connection with typhoid fever is that
some of the most sparsely settled States show the highest rates of
fatality, for instance the number of people dying in Colorado of
typhoid fever is 41.9; in Montana, 39.9, and Utah, 37 per 100,000.
Only one of the thickly populated States equals this—Maryland, 40.7
per 100,000. Some of the lowest death rates for typhoid fever were
found in New Hampshire, 10.7; Massachusetts, 12.4; Rhode Island,
13.6; Vermont, 14; New Jersey, 14.5, and Connecticut, 14.7. Of cities
of 100,000 population or over in 1910, Omaha, Nebraska, showed the
highest rate, namely, 86.7; Minneapolis, Minn., 58.7; Kansas City,
Mo., 54.4; Atlanta, Ga., 50.1; Birmingham, Ala., 49.5; Nashville,
Tenn., 48.9; Milwaukee, Wis., 45.7; Spokane, Wash., 45.4, and
Baltimore, Md., 42. The lowest rates shown for some of the large
cities were those of Bridgeport, Conn., 4.9; Paterson, N. J., 7.1;
Cincinnati, O., 8.8, and Cambridge, Mass., 9.5 per 100,000. These
cities seemingly are as well protected against typhoid fever as some
of the cities of Europe, where death rates are as follows: London,
4; Edinburgh, 2; Dublin, 10; Paris, 7; Brussels, 19; Amsterdam, 7;
Copenhagen, 3; Stockholm, 4; Christiania, 2; Berlin, 4, and Vienna,
4 per 100,000. Thus, evidently in such cities as Cincinnati, Berlin
and London, death from typhoid fever is no longer a terror.
Measles, which is supposed to be almost a harmless disease, causes
a large number of deaths, the death rate for 1910 being 12.3
per 100,000 population, or a total of 12,300 for the estimated
population. In some cities the number of deaths by measles was almost
as high as that by typhoid fever, notably in Pittsburgh, Pa., 33.1;
Providence, R. I., 31.9; Kansas City, Mo., 28.4; Lowell, Mass., 28.1;
Albany, N. Y., 23.9; Columbus, O., 23.6; Buffalo, N. Y., 22.1, and
Richmond, Va., 21.1 per 100,000. Scarlet fever is not so deadly a
disease as measles, since the fatalities per 100,000 for 1910 was
11.6. Death rates from this disease were high in the following cities
of 100,000 population or over: Buffalo, N. Y., 53.6; Lowell, Mass.,
41.2; St. Paul, Minn., 30.2; St. Louis, Mo., 27.1; Kansas City, Mo.,
23.2; Milwaukee, Wis., 22.3; Pittsburgh, Pa., 22.2; Rochester, N. Y.,
21.4, and New York, N. Y., 20 per 100,000.
Whooping cough produced as many deaths as measles and scarlet fever,
the death rate for 1910 being 11.4 per 100,000 population. Diphtheria
and croup produced a death rate of 21.4 per 100,000 population, or a
total of 21,400 for the estimated population.
Influenza, or “la grippe,” caused a death rate of 14.4 per 100,000
population for 1910. This disease is less prevalent than for the
preceding ten years. The above data are sufficient to show the
principal causes of death, old age, unfortunately, being so small a
factor as to be almost negligible in the compilation.
It might be interesting to extend these vital statistics to a greater
length, but a sufficient number of data have been given to establish
some of the fundamental principles which should guide physicians and
the sanitarians of the future in their work.
THE MEANS OF AVOIDING AVOIDABLE DEATH.
The question which is now presented for discussion at this Congress
is, How can avoidable death be successfully avoided? I have not
included in the discussion of this question the deaths by accident,
which are lamentably all too frequent in this country. The motor car,
the aeroplane, the railway, and the steamboat, still continue their
deadly work in increasing violence as our population grows denser. It
is easy to understand how the State could do much toward preventing
these unfortunate accidents. No doubt concerted action on the part of
the States will soon be perfected to prevent so many of the horrible
catastrophes, whose descriptions form the principal reading matter,
after murder and suicide, in the morning journals. And this leads us
to say that murder as a means of ending human life is more prevalent
in this country than in any other country of the world, and in
consideration of the features which relate to the conservation of
man the prevention of murder should receive particular attention.
A study of the above data reviewed in connection with the known
etiology of disease, shows clearly where the work of the conservation
of man, especially by the prevention of disease, should begin and
on what line it should be prosecuted. To this end it is sufficient
to call attention to the fact that diseases are naturally divided
into two classes: those which are communicated and those which are
produced by the conditions of the personal environment. Physicians
are pretty well agreed at the present time that disease is rarely
inherited, therefore, most of the causes which produce death are
those which come from without, or those which are developed from
within by improper habits of life. But one may inherit deficient
vitality and thus fall an easy victim to an infectious disease. The
point for us to consider most particularly in this connection, is to
what extent we can prevent these diseases, that is, those which are
contracted from without.
EDUCATION OF FUNDAMENTAL IMPORTANCE.
It would be well to classify the efforts which we are making for
the prevention of disease in some systematic order. I will begin,
therefore, with the one which is the most important of all, and that
is education.
In order to secure proper protection for the citizen, he must be made
to understand that he needs it. Further than this, it must be made
plain that the protection of the individual from communicable disease
is not by any means wholly within his own power. Unless the State
acts, the individual in many cases is powerless; hence education
beginning in the family, continued in the public school, and
illustrated in practical adult life, is the most important feature of
prophylaxis. Into the details of education I cannot go, but one thing
I do with to insist upon, namely, that the child should be taught
early, frequently and constantly, that most of the disease he has to
fear are like enemies in the dark. I need not refer again by detail
to the statistics of mortality, but simply would say that if the
diseases which produce some of the most deadly inroads into humanity,
such as tuberculosis, measles, whooping cough, scarlet fever,
diphtheria, croup and typhoid fever, are solely communicated to the
individual from without, they are the diseases which the State must
help the individual to avoid. On the other hand, organic diseases of
the heart, nephritis and Bright’s disease, are apparently more of
a personal character, due either to inherited weak qualities or to
errors of diet or faults of metabolism. These are diseases which we
should be taught to avoid by strict attention to personal hygiene.
They are not, so far as known, communicable, and therefore the State
can do little, aside from educational work, towards their prevention.
Another disease which may be partly communicated and partly the
result of improper nutrition, is enteritis, and especially infantile
diarrhœa, diseases which by proper education might be almost wholly
avoided.
DISEASES OF UNKNOWN GENESIS.
There remain two great causes of human death, namely, cancer and
pneumonia, which are still practically beyond control, because of our
ignorance of their etiology or our powerlessness to prevent their
progress. These diseases are considered communicable, that is, they
are induced by specific infection, but the methods and the exact
nature of the infecting germs are still subjects of investigation. It
is true that we are told of the organism which produces pneumonia,
and it is said to be constantly in the mouth of even healthy people,
and we read almost monthly of the discovery of the real cause of
cancer, but in spite of all this, these diseases remain as a rule
unknown in character and are gigantic and terrible enemies which
we have to fight in the dark. To one point attention should be
called in regard to the increase in such diseases as those of the
kidneys and the heart, that are essentially diseases of old age,
just as tuberculosis and typhoid fever are diseases of early life.
In proportion as we save people from tuberculosis and typhoid fever,
just in that proportion will we save men and women who subsequently
become victims of old age diseases. Therefore the increase in
the number of deaths due to these causes may be an index to the
increasing longevity of the people, instead of the opposite.
It is of course a question, which unfortunately we are unable
to decide for ourselves, as to whether we should be saved from
tuberculosis and typhoid fever for the express purpose of being
killed by cancer, kidney lesions and diseases of the heart. Upon
the whole I think, however, that terrible as these diseases are,
especially cancer, most people would rather die of cancer at 70 than
to succumb to tuberculosis at 30. But in the great problem of the
conservation of human life we must not lose sight of the fact that
many experienced and competent investigators are devoting their
whole time to revealing the secret of these dread diseases, which
still baffle the skill of the physician. We may hope in the near
future that at least pneumonia and cancer may be put upon the same
footing as typhoid and tuberculosis, that their actual genesis will
be disclosed, and thus the road made clear toward their prevention.
It is along these lines that education must go, because we cannot
develop a public sentiment for the protection of life and health
except by the desire of the people to live and be well, and the
education of the youth and the adult is the best method of securing
that result. When the people are educated, then we can successfully
introduce the other methods of saving human life.
PREVENTION OF COMMUNICABLE DISEASES.
It is a self-evident fact, granting a disease to be of communicable
origin by a specific germ, that the disease may be prevented if its
victim be protected from infection. In other words, such diseases
as tuberculosis, typhoid fever and others of the same character,
which are undoubtedly communicated from individual to individual,
could be wholly exterminated if the opportunities for communication
were destroyed. We may assume, therefore, that all specific diseases
due to a specific organism are capable of elimination by the simple
exclusion of the organism.
Based on this are the great factors of prevention, namely, quarantine
and segregation, which are practically one and the same. It stands to
reason that an infected center should be removed or so isolated as
to be no longer dangerous. For the same reason the infected center
should not be allowed to enter a new community. Based upon this
principle our systems of quarantine and segregation should be greatly
strengthened. It is not a question of the wishes of the individual
in this case; if it were, no ship would be detained and quarantined,
and few people would go to a smallpox hospital or tuberculosis
sanitarium. The principle of the welfare of the race as superior to
the interests of the individual is dominant in these particulars.
Tennyson, who foresaw many of the great truths of science, has
beautifully presented this principle in his well-known stanza:
“Are God and nature then at strife,
That nature sends such fearful dreams?
So careful of the type she seems,
So careless of the single life.”
In the protection of the public health it will become as much the
duty of each State and Nation to provide sanitary detention camps for
infectious diseases and rigidly enforce residence therein, as it is
to watch the border and establish strict quarantine.
IMMUNITY.
It is evident, however, that it will take a long course of education
and almost revolution in the sentiment of the people, to establish
a system of segregation and quarantine as rigid and as perfect as
that which is outlined. What then is the next best resort? I answer
immunization. If we cannot keep the infectious organism from contact
with the human body, we should endeavor to make the body immune from
its ravages. There are two methods which might be adopted; the one
which could be most generally practiced is that of good nutrition,
proper housing, fresh air, pure water and pure foods. The child that
sleeps in the open and eats an abundance of pure, wholesome foods and
takes a proper amount of exercise, will escape most of the diseases
of infancy and grow into manhood with a body immune to almost every
infectious germ. I need not go into detail in regard to the actual
mechanism of immunity to prove the fact that a well-nourished body,
sustained by blood of high nutritious power and bearing its untold
millions of organisms, armed cap-a-pie to destroy intruders, is a
sufficient illustration of immunity. The physiologists will describe
to you the nature of the phagocytose opsins, and the hormones by
means of which this immunity is secured.
For the above reason the campaign for pure and wholesome food lies at
the very foundation of the protection of the public health. It is a
mistaken idea that a food is not to be condemned unless it produces
diseases. A food is to be condemned which is in any way so debased
as to undermine nutrition and impoverish the blood, and thus open
the door of the body to the invitation of every germ that may be
coming along the road. Thus the addition to foods of bodies which in
themselves are not poisonous or harmful, but which debase the product
and make it less palatable or less nutritious, is a crime of the same
magnitude as that of adding to the foods poisonous and deleterious
ingredients or of suffering it to fall into advanced stages of
decomposition.
What a sorry spectacle, in the light of these facts, was presented
at the Fifteenth International Congress of Hygiene and Demography
at Washington last week, when Professor Long, member of the Remsen
Board, which has validated the use of some of these poisons,
attempted to justify the addition of an active drug to the food
supply of the nation! Such an act was so foreign to the purposes
of the Congress as to constitute an unpardonable anachronism. Dr.
Long was one of the most enthusiastic protagonists of benzoate of
soda in the Federal Court in Indianapolis when those who secured the
appointment of the Referee Board in defiance of law sought to force
the people of Indiana to eat their adulterated products. The people
ask for bread and Dr. Long and his assistants give them a stone in
the form of the moribund benzoate.
Of a similar pernicious and mercenary character was the paper
presented by Professor Sedgewick, of Boston, in which he urged the
use of infected oysters and diseased meats as human foods. Professor
Sedgewick was one of the principal witnesses in the celebrated egg
case in New Jersey, where he testified that eggs so decomposed as
to produce death when injected into guinea pigs were wholly fit for
human food if sufficiently disguised in taste and smell by baking!
Oysters, according to Sedgewick, should be classified into good, to
be eaten raw by the rich, and bad, to be cooked and eaten by the
poor. Meats of diseased animals should also be eaten by the poor,
unless so badly diseased as to be physically seen to be unsound.
This is the doctrine of modern hygiene according to its prophets
Long and Sedgewick. I cannot subscribe to these doctrines. There is
plenty of clean food for both rich and poor. To excuse processes
of growing food animals, and manufacturing foods which permit and
condone unsanitary methods and introduce active drugs into the
finished products, stimulates and encourages reprehensible practices,
which all interested in the public health should condemn. Happily the
Federal courts, both in New Jersey and Indiana, were unconvinced by
such specious arguments, and condemned the very processes which were
praised and defended before the world’s congress of sanitarians.
The workers for the conservation of man do not yet fully realize the
great importance of the food supply of the country as a means of
producing immunity of disease. The well-nourished body is clad in
armor and bears an impenetrable shield which enables one to march
into the midst of dangers and for the most part escape unscathed.
All power and ethical spirit, therefore, to the men who are chosen
to administer the food laws, in order that they may realize the
importance of their office to the health of the people, and the life
and efficiency of our citizens. Let them learn to put a heart and a
soul into science.
IMMUNITY OF HEREDITY.
We are all familiar with the common phrase, the foundation principle
of eugenics, “He inherited a good constitution.” It is undoubtedly
true that we come into the world with widely different vitalities.
The true principles of scientific immunity to disease therefore lie
imbedded in the human life principles of long past aeons. The ideals
of eugenics, as formulated by Francis Galton and elaborated by his
nephew, the son of the immortal Darwin, are but irridescent dreams. If
man is to be bred scientifically, there must be many selected mothers
and a very few high grade fathers. The human race is not yet ready to
face the problem in the true light of science and contemplate a race
of males of which 75 per cent. are eunuchs. This is kako- instead of
eu-genics. As long as the heart is whole, men and women with only
one lung will fall in love. For untold centuries to come we must be
resigned to human race composed principally of scrubs. But there
is one principle of eugenics which can be and ought to be put into
practice. It has been done partially in some States, especially in
Indiana. It should be generally adopted. The degenerate, the vicious
and the imbecile should not be allowed to propagate. These are
classes of society that have no right to multiply. Before proceeding
further in restricting parenthood let us see that individuals of both
sexes, criminally vicious or imbecile, are segregated or rendered
impotent. And even here only the typically bad cases are to be
treated. It would be too nice a question for the jury if there was
a doubt of any kind, even inconsiderable. Among those of average
intelligence, education should do the rest. Teach those who are
physically diseased the duty of celibacy. Persuade and not force
them.
INDUCED IMMUNITY.
Another method of securing immunity in the human organism is by
the development of some morbid condition of a nature similar to or
identical with the disease to be combatted, so as to produce in the
system anti-bodies, specifically adapted to fight the particular
disease which has generated them. The principle of immunization
by this method rests upon the successful experiments, or rather
observations, respecting a given virus. Jenner’s observations in
regard to smallpox were purely empirical, and it remained for Pasteur
to develop a scientific basis of induced immunization. Serum-therapy
is by no means half so important as serum-prophylaxis, and here
again comes the importance of education, because there is still
a very large and respectable body of our citizens who resent any
interference on the part of the State with their rights as regards
medical relations. It looks almost like tyranny to force a citizen
to subject himself to inoculation of any kind when his own belief in
the efficacy of the process is hostile and where he resists enforced
immunization. But here again the right of the people asserts itself
and thus justifies compulsory vaccination. While education can do
much to remove this prejudice, we must expect to always have with us
those who conscientiously resent inoculation, and condemn all efforts
to prevent disease.
Since, because of lack of care and proper supervision, grave
disorders and disease and sometimes death result from the practice
of inoculation, the State owes a special duty to its citizens in
seeing that all forms of inoculation materials, no matter what their
nature may be, are of the purest and best. Of course, the thought
presents itself that induced immunization is only a confession of
inability to protect the health by isolation of the invading virus.
It is something like the pasteurization of milk, which is a mute
tribute to insanitary conditions, uncleanly cows, and long keeping;
but here it seems that there is no choice left. The impossibility of
complete isolation, at least for many years to come, is apparent, and
hence the desirability of general immunization becomes obvious. The
successful inoculation which has lately been accomplished against
typhoid fever is another promise of what the future may bring in
the way of immunization by induction. Meanwhile it is the part of
wisdom for those who seek the public welfare by the conservation of
life to urge both prophylaxis and immunization, in the hope that
the infecting centers will become so few and so remote that good
nutrition, and all that it implies in a sanitary way, will eventually
become a sufficient protection against communicable diseases.
THE SUPERVISION OF DRUGS.
Hand in hand with the supervision of our food supply, we should not
forget the control of drugs. I am far from believing that drugs are
an efficient remedy for all human ills; in fact, I am convinced that
they are not. They are at best only adjuncts, except in those cases
where specifics have been discovered, as in the case of quinine and
malaria, and the arsenic compounds, which have proven so useful in
combating syphilis. But without discussing the efficiency of drugs, I
think we will all admit that as long as they are articles of commerce
they should be pure and of constant strength. To this end we should
support, with all our enthusiasm and ability, the efforts which are
made to perfect the pharmacopœia, and to standardize and purify the
drugs of commerce.
THE CONSTANT THREAT OF PROPRIETARY MEDICINES.
In this connection I cannot refrain from alluding to one of the
greatest dangers of drugs, and that is, their indiscriminate use
by the laity. The fakers that pretend to find sovereign remedies
for every disease, through the medium of the newspaper and the
periodical, of the postal card and the circular, inflame the minds
of the people and induct them into indiscriminate drugging. One can
generally, by taking up a paper in any locality and scanning its
columns even carelessly, see the wonderful vogue of these fakes
and crimes. Such falsely praised substances as Peruna, Kilmer’s
Swamp Root, Duffy’s Malt Whiskey, and the whole brood of wretched
specifics, serve to illustrate the great danger to which we are
subjected. But the worst of it all is that through the carelessness
of physicians, and sometimes through their criminal pretentions,
habits are formed for certain drugs, such as cocaine, opium and its
products, chloral and alcohol, which enslave their victims, weaken
their vitality, and invite disease. I think I do not exaggerate it
when I say that the drug habit, no matter how induced, is a menace
to the American people. No matter how slight the ailment or how
easily controlled, the first advice and the first act is to “take
something,” no matter what, or whoever may recommend it, for every
imaginable ailment. The effect of this continual drugging upon the
human body is more easily imagined than described. The nerves and
stomachs of our people are gradually succumbing to the bombardment
of pills, pellets and powders. For the sake of gain every possible
influence is brought to bear upon the American people to increase the
consumption of drugs. The danger is so imminent and so acute that it
is hoped that through the means of education a public sentiment may
yet be awakened in this country which will protect our people against
all these nefarious concoctions. I would not for a moment in any way
curtail the right of citizens to consult accredited physicians, no
matter to what so-called school they might belong; but it is the duty
of the State, as an additional safeguard, to the health and life of
our people, to see to it that no one sets himself up as a physician
unless he has qualified himself in the fundamental principles of
anatomy, hygiene and physiology, to understand the human body and
its operations. We are too prone to tolerate physicians who tell
you that the blood which supplies the brain passes into the cranium
altogether through the canal of the spinal cord. Charlatanry,
quackery, and ignorance in the practice of medicine should be rigidly
suppressed. The people of the nation who have freedom of choice
should not be left helpless victims of avarice and ignorance.
DANGERS OF STIMULANTS.
In addition to drugs, as commonly considered, the people of our
country are also subjected to imminent dangers in the use of stimuli,
which have no food value and which induce activities that are beyond
the power of the system to sustain. I refer especially to such
beverages as tea, coffee, and alcoholic drinks and the manufactured
articles containing their active principles, such as coca cola and
all the great army of “olas,” and to tobacco, as an illustration of
additional dangers to which we are likely to succumb. In spite of the
fragrance of the coffee, and the aroma of the tea, and the flavor of
the rum, and the dreams of the pipe, I am inclined to the belief that
it was a sad day for humanity when these things were first brought
to the attention of man. In so far as intellectual development is
concerned, I find the nations of antiquity, and especially the
powerful nations of Greece and Rome, developed to be leaders in
architecture, masters of painting and sculpture, and geniuses in
poetry and expression, without the aid of any of the stimuli which
the artist, the poet and the writer are supposed to depend upon today.
It would indeed be a happy day for the community if all of these
stimuli, as appetizing as some of them are, could be relegated to
the scrap heap, and the art of their use forever lost. (Applause.)
Meanwhile, we all understand that this Utopian condition is at
present impossible, and hence we must content ourselves with
education and with legal control to prevent the abuse of these bodies
and to eliminate the injury which they have done. Temperance may
always be practiced, even where prohibition fails. It is therefore
the duty of every one concerned with the public health to urge
the extremest moderation in the use of tea, coffee, tobacco, and
alcoholic beverages, in the hope that the injuries which have already
been wrought may be avoided in the future, and temperate indulgence
take the place of unbridled consumption until the day of final
elimination arrives.
SUMPTUARY LAWS.
In the interest, therefore, of the public health and the lengthening
of life and increasing the efficiency of man, we must bring ourselves
to the point of acknowledging that the State should control
things which in themselves are injurious and unnecessary must be
established. In other words, the individual’s rights, so dear to
every lover of freedom, the cardinal principle of democracy, must
give way to the public good. No one has any right to practice any
habit, or induce others to do so, which in itself is likely to prove
injurious to humanity. I would leave to the individual the largest
freedom in everything that is good, and restrict his activities to
the lowest minimum in everything that is bad. I would not make of man
a machine, nor would I desire that he should live in an environment
which in any way would tend to affect his evolution and progress
injuriously, and so I preach what seems to me the only solution of
all these evils—education, temperance, legal restriction of abuse,
and leave the rest to the manly part of humanity.
If I can in my life just put one nail in the coffin of quackery and
false medicine, I will not have lived in vain; if by my voice I can
get one man or woman interested in a healthy way of living, my work
will not be in vain; if I can save one infant from premature death,
my life will be well spent.
I believe when you conserve a man physically you conserve him
mentally and morally, and then sin and sorrow and suffering will
pass. There are only two learned professions in the world that are
necessary—one is agriculture and the other is teaching. If you feed
men right and teach them right, there will be no law breaking, and
hence we will need no lawyers; there will be no sickness, so we will
need no physicians; and when you have a country that is so happy as
to have no law breakers or sick people, you will not need anybody’s
help to get you into heaven, so we can do away with the ministers.
(Laughter.)
THE PROLONGATION OF LIFE.
What is in sight in the way of prolonging human life? I have briefly
laid down what seems to be the fundamental principles of the
conservation of man and the prevention of disease. If this plan can
be carried out, is there any hope to be offered to man of greater
freedom from disease and a longer life? I answer unhesitatingly in
the affirmative. Why should we be content with an average life of
44 years? There is historical evidence to show that man’s greatest
activities are developed with experience and that the age between
60 and 70 is more productive for one who has lived in accordance
with nature. It is shown from statistics that we die sixteen years
before we reach the maximum usefulness of man. I would like to see
more old age. I would like to see more men and women with gray hair
and more wrinkled faces than I can see today. To all this, objection
may be made that a place must be made for the young man and young
woman; that the old man and woman keep the young from development and
usefulness. But to this I reply, that there is infinite opportunity
for good work offered to all. If we can secure a race free from
disease, endowed with all those qualities of mind and body which make
for human efficiency, we need not ask that every one become eminent
and wealthy, but each can perform the duties which come to him in a
way to develop a uniform excellence of the human race. We have room
in the country for millions of people. We welcome the infant and the
child, but let us keep the man and woman. There is room for all.
This is my message to you tonight—the conservation of man—not only
his health, but his life, the most precious possession man has.
(Applause.)
Col. JOHN I. MARTIN—I move that the fullest acknowledgment and thanks
of this gathering be and are hereby tendered to Dr. Wiley for his
very interesting and splendid address.
The motion was seconded by many delegates and carried unanimously.
After announcement by the Secretary, the Congress adjourned until
9:30 o’clock Wednesday morning.
_FOURTH SESSION._
The Congress convened in the Murat Theater, Indianapolis, on the
morning of October 2, 1912, and was called to order by President
White.
President WHITE—I want to take this occasion to state that there is
a child’s welfare exhibit richly worth seeing. It is an education in
itself and is installed at the Capitol building. Every one should
embrace the opportunity of seeing it.
The audience will now arise while the Rev. Dr. Harry G. Hill, of
Irvington, invokes Divine guidance.
INVOCATION.
_Father of us all and maker of all that is good, source of all light
and life and love, early upon this morning, the second day of this
Congress, we bring our respects to Thee and bow before Thee as the
One worthy of worship, and invoke Thy blessing and benediction upon
all who meet with us. We thank Thee that Thou hast so bountifully
blessed us, and would have Thee, through these ministrations, at this
time impress upon our minds that we are stewards of a great wealth,
and we ask Thee to help us that we may so minister that there may be
an equal distribution to all Thy people of the great goods with which
Thou hast endowed us. May we hold above everything else the wealth
of human life, and may we look to our work as that of making a better
world, a better place for men._
_May Thy blessing rest upon the deliberations of this hour, on all
those who are participating in this Congress, and may it go on and do
much good in the years that are to come, that Thy knowledge shall be
in the hearts and minds of men, and they shall serve Thee and make
this is a great opportunity to increase Thy rule and kingdom through
Christ, our Lord and King. Amen._
President WHITE—In the study of Conservation in this Congress we are
getting around to the fundamental basis of all vital conservation.
We are getting to the point where Conservation should have first
begun—the study of human life as a national asset. It was Pope who
said “The proper study of mankind is man.”
I take please in introducing to you, as the first speaker of this
morning session, one who has had a great deal to do in the actual
figures, the actual statistics, the actual knowledge of why human
life is a national asset and why it should be conserved. I take
pleasure in introducing to you Mr. E. E. Rittenhouse, of New York
City, Conservation Commissioner of the Equitable Life Assurance
Society of the United States, whose subject is “Human Life as a
National Asset.” (Applause.)
Mr. RITTENHOUSE—The National Conservation Congress has been engaged
in the noble task of guarding posterity against the waste of our
natural resources by the present generation. It has had a most
far-reaching influence, for its purposes are in tune with public
sentiment, and with the spirit of the age. It has now given another
and still more commanding reason for its existence by joining
earnestly in the campaign for the conservation of our “human assets.”
This is a field of usefulness that will endure for all time. However
important the protection of our natural material resources may be,
our greatest obligation to posterity is to preserve the health,
virility and morality of our race.
The first and most important item in humanity’s Bill of Rights is
_the right to live_.
The primary purpose and function of organized society is to guard the
lives of its members from needless destruction. Liberty, education,
wealth and other earthly blessings are important—but we must be alive
to enjoy them.
The nation with the keenest sense of justice and the highest standard
of intelligence and morals—virtues which some of us modestly claim
for our people—is the one which should place the highest value upon
human life and surround it with the greatest protection.
How would our civilization rank by this method of measurement? What
have we already accomplished in preventing life waste? What is our
present loss? How can it be reduced?
We may well rejoice over the achievements of the patient heroes of
the laboratory and of the unselfish and devoted men of medicine who
have provided, disseminated and applied the knowledge of prevention
so far as it has gone. To them, to the press, the clergy, and the
other good men and women who have helped spread the gospel of disease
prevention belong the chief credit for the reduction of the death
rate by nearly 25 per cent. in the past thirty years.
To these benefactors of our race is also due the honor of initiating
and developing the widespread interest which now prevails throughout
our country in the conservation of health and life. They have
demonstrated that morbidity and mortality can be reduced—that human
life can be prolonged by spreading and applying our present knowledge
of the science of disease prevention. At the close of last year
we had to the credit of these life savers over 400,000 lives that
would have been lost that year if the death rate of 1880 had still
prevailed.
If the present thirst for knowledge of health and life conservation
continues to increase, it is not only possible, it is reasonably
certain that during the next thirty years the present death rate of
15 per 1,000 population in the registered area will be reduced to 10.
While we have every reason to felicitate ourselves upon this
wonderful result of the spread of life-saving intelligence, we must
not overlook these facts:
1. That this great life-saving movement is still in its infancy.
2. That it has been directed almost wholly against preventable
contagious diseases, and that the waste of life from these maladies
has only been reduced—the loss is still excessive.
3. That while we have reduced the mortality from these diseases
common to infancy and early adult life, the degeneration diseases of
middle life and old age, against which we have waged no war, have
been steadily increasing.
4. That we have increased the average length of human life only
by increasing the proportion of people living in the younger age
periods, while the average duration of life of those who pass into
middle life and old age has been constantly shortened.
In other words, we are still furiously burning the candle at both
ends—slower at one but faster at the other.
It is important that this point should be clearly understood. It is
natural to conclude at first glance that if we are saving these lives
of the younger age period that naturally there are more older people
to die, but that does not follow. In the first place, we are dealing
with a death rate, the death rate for 1,000 population not in the
bulk, and while it is true that the passing of these lives over
into the older age period does affect that rate, it only affects it
slightly. It has been asserted also that the lives saved from these
communicable diseases have been weakened and that they die early
after passing into middle life. It is also true that that does not
explain the extraordinary increase in the death rate in the older
age period. In England and Wales they have the same reduction in the
death rate of communicable diseases common to the earlier age period,
but not any increase above forty.
With all its blessings modern civilization has introduced hazards,
habits and conditions of life which may not only invite, but which
have increased in many ways, physical, mental and moral degeneracy.
What excuse have we Americans to offer for the excessive waste
of human efficiency and human life from which the Nation is now
suffering?
Surely we can not plead ignorance nor poverty, for we have both the
knowledge and the money wherewith to stop this annual sacrifice.
How can we explain our growing contempt for the value and sacredness
of human life? There is no other civilized country where this
greatest of all assets—the most precious gift of the Almighty,—is
held so cheaply as in this glorious land of ours.
And why do we continue to view with indifference the constantly
multiplying evidences of the mental and physical degeneracy of our
race?
We may agree that in the long run the trend of humanity is ever
upward, and that this is but a temporary reaction, but can we
afford to rest wholly upon the hope that race deterioration will
automatically cease when our people have had time to adjust
themselves to modern conditions? Wise men doubt it. This problem will
not solve itself; this adverse tendency will be checked only when our
people are made to see conditions as they actually exist, and are
aroused to the need of correcting them.
This is our task. Let us briefly survey it.
In order to measure the effectiveness of the Nation’s life
Conservation work, and the magnitude of the task remaining undone,
we must now compare our efforts not with those of the past, nor with
those of other communities or countries, but with our present loss
from preventable and postponable sickness and mortality.
What are the principal items of life waste?
What evidence have we of degenerate tendencies? Here are some of
them—the estimates are from competent sources and are based upon
official records.
AN INDICTMENT.
Our birth rate is steadily declining, and at the same time the span
of life is steadily shortening.
Twenty-seven per cent. of our annual deaths are of babies under age
5; 200,000 of them die from preventable disease; about 150,000 of
these are under age 1.
To offset this waste of life, large families are demanded. Would
it not be well to stop this needless destruction of infants before
asking for an increase in the supply?
Of the 20,000,000 school children in this country not less than 75
per cent. need attention for physical defects which are prejudicial
to health.
Insanity and idiocy are increasing.
Diseases of vice, the most insidious enemy of this and future
generations, are spreading rapidly according to medical men. So far
we have lacked the moral courage to openly recognize and fight this
scourge.
The alcohol and drug habits are constantly adding new victims to the
degenerate list and to the death roll.
Suicides are increasing and now reach the enormous total of about
15,000 annually.
Lynchings and burnings-at-the-stake continue, and are common only to
our country.
Attempts upon human life by individuals and mobs under trifling
provocation, or none at all, are obviously increasing.
Over 9,000 murders are committed every year, and it is estimated that
but an average of 116 murderers are executed for these crimes. We
have the appalling estimated homicide record of over 100 per million
population as against 7 in Canada, 9 in Great Britain and 15 in Italy.
In the United States the death rate above age 40 has increased
steadily for years (about 27 per cent. since 1880), while it has
remained virtually stationary in England and Wales.
The important organs of the body are wearing out too soon—the
diseases of old age are reaching down into the younger age periods.
The death rate from the degenerate diseases of the heart, blood
vessels and kidneys, including apoplexy, has increased over 100 per
cent. since 1880. These diseases claim over 350,000 lives annually.
The doctors tell us that fully 60 per cent. of these deaths are
preventable or postponable if the disease is discovered in time.
Periodical health examinations would detect these chronic diseases
in time to check or cure them, but aside from the efforts of the
Equitable Life Assurance Society and another smaller company, no
public campaign to educate our people to this vital need is being
carried on.
All of our money, all of our energy, seem to be directed against
diseases that can be communicated. Is not a life lost from Bright’s
disease as valuable as one lost by typhoid fever?
The annual loss from pneumonia aggregates 135,000 lives, a large
portion of which is due to weakened bodily resistance resulting from
these degenerative affections.
Cancer, a baffling disease to which our people in their present
physical condition are highly susceptible, claims 75,000 lives
annually and is increasing very fast. Deaths from external cancer
alone have increased 52 per cent. in ten years.
Pellagra, a deadly plague new to this country, is increasing rapidly
in some of our Southern States, and it excites but slight public
concern.
Over 150,000 Americans are destroyed annually by tuberculosis. We
know how to prevent it, but our taxpayers object to the expense and
leave the battle almost wholly to charity.
Nearly a million afflicted people are spreading the poison of
tuberculosis to the well, with virtually no official restraint or
supervision because of the expense.
Over 25,000 Americans are still sacrificed annually to the
preventable filth disease—typhoid fever. About 300,000 suffer from it
and are more or less impaired by it.
Other germ diseases are wasting more lives than typhoid and
tuberculosis combined. We are warring against them, but compared to
the lives still being lost our efforts are feeble and only partially
effective.
Over 90,000 Americans are killed annually by accidents and various
forms of violence. Our efforts to prevent the steady increase of this
waste have failed.
The annual economic loss due to preventable disease and death is
conservatively estimated at $1,500,000,000, and our life loss at
about $250,000,000.
To prevent fire waste our cities spend through the public service
approximately $1.65 per capita, and to prevent life waste, 33 cents
per capita.
It is estimated that 1,500,000 of our people are constantly suffering
from preventable disease, and that during the next ten years American
lives equaling the population of the Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain
States (about 6,000,000) will be needlessly destroyed if the present
estimated mortality from preventable and postponable disease
continues.
_These are the conditions we are asking our people to correct. Is
there anything unreasonable in the request?_
The money loss is stupendous, but if this does not impress our
people, surely they should be stirred to action when they reflect
upon the immeasurable sum of sorrow, suffering, poverty, immorality,
crime and the hereditary degeneracy which results from this wholesale
wrecking and destruction of human life from preventable cause.
RACE SUICIDE.
We are not only reducing the fertility of our race and also
shortening the span of life, but we are permitting at least 650,000
lives to be destroyed annually which we could save by the application
of simple and well-known precautions.
This is the real race suicide problem.
If we would save these lives, they together with their natural
offspring would solve the problem of maintaining an adequate surplus
of births over deaths. What we need is not necessarily larger
families, but _more_ families. A larger number of small families is
surely preferable to a smaller number of large families.
THE DOLLAR AND THE DEATH RATE.
The primary duty of conserving our human assets resting with the
State, it is obvious that the State must lead in the national
movement. It is, therefore, the first duty of every individual and
of every unofficial organization interested in this efficiency and
life-saving campaign to rally to the support of the public health
service.
We must not only teach the individual how to guard his life against
preventable disease and accident, we must educate our communities to
the need of an effective public health service to enforce sanitary
regulations and otherwise guard the health and lives of their members.
But it takes money to carry on a great educational movement, and it
takes money to conduct the public health service.
The war against preventable disease and death is therefore in the
final analysis, a struggle between the dollar and the death rate.
So far the dollar is ahead. The body politic seems still to prefer a
high death rate to a slight and temporary increase in the tax rate.
“How much,” says the American taxpayer, “will it cost to reduce this
annoying death rate to the lowest possible limit?”
“About $1.50 per capita at first, much less later on,” answers the
health officer, “and you will gain immeasurably by the increase in
the wealth and happiness of the community.”
“Very well,” says the taxpayer, “here is 25 cents; we will save two
bits’ worth of these lives. The rest will have to die. We have much
more important places for our money; we must improve the streets
and roads, beautify our cities with much needed parks and public
structures. We must improve our harbors and rivers, build canals, and
encourage commerce generally. Besides, we are absolutely obliged to
use about two and a half billion dollars this year for automobiles,
jewelry, candy, alcoholic drinks, tobacco, diamonds and other similar
urgent needs of life. What is the loss of a few hundred thousand
lives compared to these vital necessities?”
And so the health officer plods along with his two-bit appropriation
and naturally runs a two-bit health service. His own fitness and
efficiency may be 100 per cent., but the effectiveness of his
department only 15 per cent. because of the 25-cent limit.
TRIFLING WITH A SOLEMN DUTY.
_National Government._—Of all the money provided by the people for
the expenses of the National Government only about 1.3 per cent. is
used for the conservation of health and life.
Our national health corps has an international reputation for
efficiency and achievement. Although the service is under-manned and
its personnel underpaid, the patriotism and high sense of duty of
these able and energetic men have spurred them to the performance of
the very highest service to their country and to humanity. They have
not only jeopardized their lives, but numbers of them have sacrificed
health and life in the performance of duty.
Through their discoveries in the science of prevention, they have
been the means of saving thousands of lives, not only for one year
but for all years to come. They have won the admiration of the
American people and deserve their most hearty support.
And yet, when it is proposed to co-ordinate the various public health
activities of the Government in order to increase the efficiency
and usefulness of this splendid body of men, the interest of our
countrymen in this service seems to end with admiration. For
notwithstanding our confidence and appreciation we have permitted a
small but active body of people who are more concerned in treating
disease than in preventing it to block the consummation of this
thoroughly sensible and business-like consolidation of the various
bureaus under one responsible head.
We have many educational agencies at work throughout the country
which are directly or indirectly arousing public interest in health
conservation, but this experience emphasizes the need for a permanent
central organization to stimulate interested people to back up their
judgment with action, and no organization is better fitted to render
this invaluable service than this National Conservation Congress.
At the last session of this Congress Dr. Harvey Wiley told you
something about the dangers of impure food, drink and drugs, and what
was being done to guard the public against them. Your individual
interest was excited. How long did it continue? Were any of you
inspired to give actual support and assistance in the enforcement of
the pure food laws or to any other official public health activity?
To be interested and to agree is not enough—again, we must act,
individually as well as collectively, and stimulate others to act.
_States._—The same lack of practical support of the public
life-saving service exists in most of the States. The appropriations
for the public health work of our State departments can only be
characterized as trifling. The exception is Pennsylvania, which is
paving the way for a fully adequate health service, as was explained
to you at the third session of this Congress in the able paper of Mr.
A. B. Farquhar.
The appropriation for the Pennsylvania State Health Department is
about 48 cents per capita. Arkansas makes none at all, the State of
New York spends about 1.7 cents; Massachusetts, 4.2; Florida, 10;
Indiana, 1.8; Kansas, 2.7; Virginia, 1.9, and so on.
_Municipalities._—We have many cities with active and efficient
health officers, but there is not a city in this country with an
adequately equipped and financed health department. Not one of them
has sufficient financial support to successfully perform its task,
which must be measured by the preventable sick and death list in
each community. And we must not confine this list to contagious
affections. It must include an educational campaign against all
preventable diseases.
The duty of the State to teach our people, through the health
departments, how to avoid preventable disease of all kinds that they
may live healthful and productive lives, is just as imperative as
is the duty of teaching them, through our schools, how to avoid
illiteracy and how to live intelligent and useful lives.
While health appropriations have increased over former years, all of
our cities place the value of property far above that of human life
in applying measures to prevent waste. Here are a few examples:
In 1911, fifty of our important American cities, with an annual
preventable death list of 117,724 people (which means an economic
loss of at least $200,000,000) spent through their public service to
prevent life waste, an average of 30 cents per capita, and through
their fire departments to prevent fire waste, $1.63 per capita.
Here are a few examples: Providence, R. I., spent for health
conservation, 11 cents; for fire prevention, $1.99 per capita;
Portland, Ore., health, 13 cents; fire, $1.91; Minneapolis, health,
14 cents; fire, $1.67; Louisville, health, 12 cents; fire, $1.36.
In 1910, 184 American cities could spare but two per cent. of their
total public appropriations for the public health service. The
average for all expenses was $16.54 per capita. Of this but 33 cents
was for the public health. Seventy-one of these 184 cities spent
less than 15 cents per capita for the public health, and among these
are such cities as Quincy, Ill., 2 cents; Lansing, Mich., 5 cents;
Rockford, Ill., 6 cents; Scranton, Pa., 7 cents; Bridgeport, Conn.,
9 cents; Portland, Ore., 10 cents; Harrisburg, Pa., 12 cents; Jersey
City, N. J., 13 cents; Springfield, Ill., 14 cents.
There are many of our largest cities that are well below the average
of 33 cents per capita. Among them: Toledo, 15 cents; St. Paul, 17
cents; Minneapolis, 18 cents; Indianapolis, 20 cents; Kansas City,
Mo., 20 cents; Milwaukee, 20 cents; Cincinnati, 21 cents; Chicago, 22
cents; St. Louis, Mo., 26 cents; Buffalo, 27 cents; San Francisco, 28
cents.
The natural result of this sort of economy is that the health laws we
have are not properly enforced.
How can we benefit from the pure food laws, for example, while we
refuse to provide the means of enforcing them?
The great city of New York has an ably administered health
department, but it has only thirty inspectors to supervise over
27,000 food dispensing establishments. The request of the health
officer for an inspection force of 209 men has been steadily ignored
for years.
How do you suppose the meat ordinances of Philadelphia are enforced
where the people allow the health department but seven inspectors to
watch over 8,000 meat shops and slaughter houses?
How can the eight pure food inspectors in Kansas be expected to
enforce the pure food laws in the drug and grocery stores, the meat
shops, bakeries, etc., in 800 towns? These inspections must be made
frequently to be of any value.
These are not exceptions, they are examples.
Could anything be more absurd from a business point of view than this
record of “economy” in providing for the public life-saving service?
HOW SOME COMMUNITIES SAVE MONEY.
Some prosperous American communities hold human life so cheaply that
they maintain no public health service at all. Others—and there are
many of them—have a mere skeleton service. The citizens imagine that
if they appoint a health board consisting of doctors, all will be
well with them. The suggestion that the board be provided with money
to carry on its functions would be regarded as wanton extravagance.
There are scores of cities and towns which select a doctor to head
the health department and expect him to earn his living by practicing
his profession among the very people over whom he is supposed to
exercise police authority in enforcing sanitary and other health
regulations.
There are cities of from 5,000 to 100,000 population that hire a
doctor on the “part time” plan as chief health officer, and pay him a
trifling salary. Whether he is a competent sanitarian or in any way
skilled in the prevention of disease is a matter of little concern
to them. The fact that they are saving a few dollars in his salary
fills them with joy and indifference as to the consequences to the
community.
I know of a thriving, wealthy young city in the South of 130,000
population with a substantial preventable death rate which saves as
much as $800 annually in this way.
I know of a prosperous New England city of 40,000 population with but
three people in its health department—two of them are “part time”
employes. It is a six cents per capita department _and 50 per cent.
of the annual deaths in that city are of children under five years of
age_.
In theory, we must all stand ready to serve the State when called
upon, even at personal loss. But does it not seem the height of
absurdity to expect a competent professional man to leave his
practice to take charge of these under-manned and under-financed
health departments at the small salaries which our States and cities
offer them? If he does his duty, he is sure to make enemies during
his term of service, and if he is an able man he will certainly lose
money by leaving his practice.
Surely we offer our health officers every inducement to follow the
line of least resistance.
A SAMPLE GROUP OF CITIES.
An investigation was recently made of forty-four Illinois cities
averaging in population about 16,000; fifteen of them had over 20,000
population, and three had over 50,000.
The average salaries paid the chief health officer amounted to the
magnificent sum of $300 annually.
Twelve of these cities paid nothing for health protection—and
this included three cities of 22,000 population and one of 30,000
population.
One city of 26,000 population employed a layman as a health officer.
In one of 22,000 the police matron served as “health officer” when
she was not otherwise engaged.
Twenty-nine of these cities made no pretense of supervising their
milk supply.
Only nine of them had isolation hospitals for contagious diseases.
Thirty-one of them kept no mortuary records whatever.
These conditions exist in a prosperous agricultural and manufacturing
State—and they can doubtless be found to exist in almost any State in
the Union.
AGENCIES THAT CAN HELP.
These are unpleasant facts, but they give us an idea of the way we
are performing the primary function of government—the guarding of
human life against avoidable destruction.
We have now briefly considered the extent of the waste of the most
vital asset of the nation, and how we are conserving it, or rather
how we are not conserving it.
Now let us rejoice over the fact that we not only know how to reduce
this waste, but that thanks to those who have aroused the life
conservation sentiment in this country, a general improvement in the
public health service is taking place in many States and cities. The
experiment has been successful. We now know what we can do. We have
the wealth and knowledge, and the machinery is organized throughout
the country to rapidly correct our appalling record of life waste.
Our work is to induce our people to use it.
Every business and social organization should do its full share of
this work.
The life insurance institutions of this country have a constituency
of 25,000,000 policyholders. These policyholders are directly
interested in the promotion of longevity, not only from the
humanitarian but from the financial viewpoint; for the lower the
mortality among policyholders, the greater will be the saving and the
larger the dividends to policyholders, which means a reduction in the
cost of their life insurance. It is estimated that about $50,000,000
is lost annually by postponable mortality among the insured.
The Equitable Life Assurance Society, with which I have the honor to
be connected, is endeavoring to do its part not only in conserving
the lives of its policyholders, but in stimulating community
action. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company of New York is also
rendering a valuable public service in Conservation along somewhat
different lines. Two or three of the small companies, and perhaps
the same number of fraternal insurance societies, have also given
it attention. Let us hope that the time is near at hand when the
other two hundred-odd life insurance companies, and the fraternal
societies as well, will also increase their usefulness to their
policyholders and the public by joining in this great work.
SOME SUGGESTIONS.
This Congress will be asked to do and to advocate many things, for
there are a multitude of independent activities connected directly or
indirectly with this general subject. Among others I sincerely trust
the following suggestions will be duly considered:
1. To encourage business institutions, civic, social and religious
organizations which have influence over any considerable number
of people to join in at least some of the many phases of the life
conservation campaign.
2. To encourage the education of the individual to adopt healthful
habits of life—to avoid the intemperate life, which means excess in
eating, drinking, working, playing—and unhealthful indulgence in
indolence as well.
3. To encourage communities to establish and maintain ample public
health organizations consistent with the magnitude of the work in
hand.
4. To advocate the organization of local health leagues as a
stimulus to public interest and to give aid and support to the
public health service.
5. To encourage the slowly growing sentiment for a rigid supervision
(and isolation if necessary) of tubercular victims, which is the
only way in which this devastating plague can be stamped out.
6. To advocate the employment of civic nurses in the health service,
who may also act as health inspectors and aid in educational work.
7. To advocate the issuance and distribution by the States or
municipalities of an official prevention manual to teach the public
how to avoid preventable disease.
8. To urge every individual to go to his or her doctor for
periodical health inspections to detect disease in time to arrest or
cure it.
9. To urge employers of labor to give their employes these
examinations free as a part of their efficiency and welfare program.
10. To encourage philanthropy, now so generously contributing for
the care of the sick, to also enter the field of disease prevention
which it has so far quite generally neglected.
Human life is our paramount asset. Its conservation should be your
paramount issue.
President WHITE—The audience is certainly indebted for this great and
interesting paper. It is hard to get over stubborn facts and figures,
especially where figures are facts.
A great doctor once shocked the people of the country by saying that
everybody should be chloroformed when they arrived at the age of
sixty. From this paper it would seem we ought at least to reach the
age of sixty, the age of being chloroformed, and, better still, we
had better so conduct the board of health and so support liberally
the board of health in our city that people may just begin to live
when they get to be sixty.
I now have the pleasure of introducing Prof. Irving Fisher, of
Yale University, who has given this subject many years of study
and research and will now speak to you upon the “Public Health
Movement.” (Applause.)
Prof. FISHER—The Conservation movement is a movement to prevent
waste. When the Conservation Commission was appointed, four years
ago, emphasis was placed on the wastes of our natural resources,
but by the time the Commission made its report, it had come to
the conclusion that by far the most serious as well as the most
preventable wastes are the wastes of human life.
A generation ago it was a common impression that the average human
lifetime was fixed as by a decree of fate. When I was in college one
of our reverend instructors showed us a mortality table and said
with great impressiveness: “There is no law more hard and fast than
the law of mortality.” I believed it, and even yet many people are
under this delusion. Pasteur did much to introduce a more optimistic
view. He stated his belief in these immortal words, “It is within
the power of man to rid himself of every parasitic disease.” He
staked this opinion on his own wonderful laboratory revelations as
to germ life. Today we can confirm his words by absolute statistics.
And now his successor, Metchnikoff, has surpassed even Pasteur in
optimism. Metchnikoff is devoting himself to the question of the
prolongation of human life and already gives us a vision of the time
when centenarians will be regarded merely as in the prime of life and
when the normal span of a century and a quarter will be a frequent
occurrence.
The growing consciousness that human life is not a fixed allotment,
which we must accept as our doom, but a variable, which is within our
power to control, has recently led to extraordinary exertions all
over the world to save human life. This impulse has gained strength
also from the great and almost universal decline in the birth
rate. Old countries like France, and new countries like Australia,
are confronted with the specter of depopulation. Consequently,
as human life becomes scarce, it becomes precious—like any other
commodity! These two facts, the consciousness that much mortality
is preventable, or at any rate postponable and the fact that
increasingly fewer babies are being born in the world, are together
operating to produce a great health movement throughout the world.
Nothing will stop it until the whole world is convinced of the
paramount importance of this problem of human Conservation.
This world-wide movement for the conservation of human life has
expressed itself in many ways—in medical research; in societies
for preventing tuberculosis, infant mortality, social diseases,
alcoholism, and vice; in the growth of sanatoria, dispensaries,
hospitals and other institutions; in an immense output of hygienic
literature, not only technical books and journals, but also popular
articles in the magazines and daily news papers; in the constant
agitation and legislation for purer foods, milk supply, meat supply
and water supply; in the movement to limit the labor of women and
children and to improve factory sanitation; in the establishment of
social insurance in Germany, England, Denmark and other countries;
in the improvement of departments of health; in the spread of
gymnastics, physical training and school hygiene; in the revival of
the Olympic games and the effort to revive the old Greek ideals of
physical perfection and beauty, and last, and most important, in the
sudden development of the science of eugenics.
In the summer of 1911 was held in Dresden a unique world’s fair,
devoted exclusively to health—the International Hygiene Exhibition.
In this were shown the fruits of the whole movement in all
lands—except, alas, our own; for to our shame it must be said that
we, as yet, are among the backward nations in this movement for the
conservation of human life. Our Congress was asked to appropriate
$60,000 to erect a building and supply an exhibit to show what we
have done for our part in this movement, but Congress thought it
could not afford so large an expenditure for so small (!) an object,
and the result was that from the millions of people who visited this
exhibition one constantly heard the question asked: “Where is the
United States?”
And those few Americans who did go to visit the exhibition found that
other nations had far outstripped us in this movement for national
sanitation and health. Some of the achievements already attained by
other nations should be recorded among the wonders of the world. One
is the striking decline of the death rate in the city of London.
Within two decades, London’s death rate has virtually been cut in
two and is now only thirteen per thousand, or less than that of most
cities one-fiftieth its size.
Probably, however, the greatest achievement of any country is that
of Sweden, where the duration of life is the longest, the mortality
the least and the improvements the most general. There alone can it
be said that the chances of life have been improved for all ages of
life. Infancy, middle age and old age today show a lower mortality
in Sweden than in times past, while in other countries, including
the United States, although we can boast of some reduction in infant
mortality, the mortality after middle age is growing worse and the
innate vitality of the people is, in all probability, deteriorating.
The reason why Sweden of all countries has succeeded in improving
the vitality of middle age and old age, while other nations have
failed, is, I believe, to be found in the fact that Sweden, of all
nations, has seen the problem of human hygiene as a whole instead
of partially. In most other lands, and particularly in the United
States, public health has been regarded almost exclusively as a
matter of protection against germs; but protection against germs,
while effective in defending us from plague and other epidemics of
acute diseases, is almost powerless to prevent the chronic diseases
of middle and late life. These maladies—Bright’s disease, heart
disease, nervous breakdowns—are due primarily to unhygienic personal
habits. Medical inspection and instruction in schools, as well as
Swedish gymnastics, have aided greatly in the muscular development of
the citizens of Sweden. Swedish hard bread has preserved their teeth.
The Gothenburg system is gradually weaning them from alcohol. There
has even been a strong movement against the use of tobacco. Other
countries are tardily following in the path which Sweden has trod so
successfully.
The significant fact is that Sweden has not hesitated to attack the
problems of personal habits. I believe we must have a revolution
in the habits of living in the community if we are going really to
realize the promise of Metchnikoff and others as to the prolongation
of human life. Health officers in this country have not regarded it
as a part of their duty either to live personally a clean, hygienic
life, or to teach others to do so, or even to investigate what those
conditions of well-being are which make for personal vitality.
I can remember, thirteen years ago, talking with a doctor in Colorado
as to the habits of living of his patients. I said to him, “You tell
me that tuberculosis is a house disease, and that the reason it
exists is because people do not open their windows. Why, then, do
you not tell your patients they must open their windows, or sleep
out of doors?” He said, “I wouldn’t dare to do that; I would lose
my practice. They would think I was a crank and meddling in their
personal affairs.” Today that battle has been largely won. Today, not
only in Colorado and California, and in the places where there is
perpetual sunshine, sleeping out of doors is common and not confined
to invalids, but indulged in by the community generally. Even in New
England and throughout the country you will find sleeping balconies
going up all over. The change has even affected in some degree the
architecture of the country, and while as yet only a minority of the
people sleep out of doors, yet I believe it is true that the majority
of the people in the United States have far more air in their
sleeping and living rooms today than ten years ago. The fact which
the doctor in Colorado did not dare tell his patients thirteen years
ago, has in some way been told to the people of the United States.
But there are many other things that need to be told, after we are
sure that they are true. When we have, through our National, State
or municipal officers made thorough investigation and have been
able to discover the actual truth as regards eating and drinking,
hours of work, recreation and play—all those facts that go into
what may be called personal habits, then we may gradually overturn
existing unhygienic habits of living. John Burns attributes a large
part of the great reduction in London mortality to the improved
personal habits of working men, particularly in regard to alcohol.
In this country, Dr. Evans, both as health officer of Chicago and
later as health editor of a Chicago newspaper, has shown how public
instruction in personal habits can be made effective, and it will be
largely through affecting personal habits that the life insurance
companies will improve the longevity of their policy holders.
Scientific men today have reached substantial agreement that alcohol
is a poison. When everybody understands this, the days of alcohol
as a beverage will be numbered. Sweden in the thirties was called
drunken Sweden, but today the antialcohol movement there has
converted Sweden into one of the soberest of countries.
But the use of tobacco, tea and coffee ought also to be investigated,
so that we may know how far they are deleterious, and to spread this
knowledge among the people.
Fashions are in their essence changeable and the time will come when
the world will not be built on fashion but on reason. Japan has made
more rapid progress in civilization than any other nation, because
the late Mikado resolved and publicly stated that the institutions
of Japan must not be tied by tradition but must be based on reason.
When we have replaced tradition by reason, we shall have gotten a
solid basis for civilization, and this must apply to ancient customs
and habits of every kind. I am firmly convinced that we are looking
at only one-half of this public health movement as long as we confine
ourselves to the acute or infectious diseases. We shall not get more
than half the results obtainable until we realize that there must be
a revolution in the personal habits of the people.
Yet the United States, in spite of its shortcomings, has some special
triumphs to record. We have, through hygiene under Colonel Gorgas,
made it possible to dig the Panama Canal. We have virtually abolished
yellow fever on our shores and in Cuba. We have nearly eliminated
hook worm disease in Porto Rico and are gradually doing the same in
the Southern States. We have found a cure for spinal meningitis. We
have, in New York, made an object lesson in the last year of reducing
the summer death rate of infants in a striking manner. We have, by
individual milk stations in Boston and other cities and in individual
sanatoria, dispensaries and other institutions, demonstrated that the
death rate from specific diseases can often be cut in two.
Yet we have depended altogether too much on private initiative. In
New York the summer death rate of infants was reduced chiefly through
the work of the milk committee and individuals like Nathan Straus.
The elimination of hook worm disease and the discovery of the cure
of spinal meningitis came through the gifts of Mr. Rockefeller. It
is well that individuals should apply themselves to these problems
and without such personal interest they could never be solved.
Nevertheless, progress will be many times as rapid when the problems
for the nation are managed in a national way. There are three great
agencies to which we must look for the saving of human life in the
future and it has been the object of the Committee of One Hundred on
National Health, of which I am President, to help stir these three
agencies into activity in this country. They are the public press,
the insurance companies and the Government.
To a limited extent, all of these agencies have increased their
health activities in recent years. A few years ago, popular articles
on public health were seldom seen because the public and the press
thought the subject of disease uninteresting and repulsive. Today, on
the other hand, one can scarcely pick up a popular magazine without
finding not only one but several articles dealing with questions
of public health; and it has been found possible not only to make
these articles interesting, but, by emphasizing the positive, or
health side, instead of the negative, or disease side, to render
them attractive and beautiful. And yet, as Dr. Wiley has said, the
newspapers in spite of all the good they are doing with their right
hands are, with their left hands, in their advertising columns trying
to undo that good by advertising the fraudulent part of the “healing”
profession who are trying to line their own pockets at the expense of
the lives of the public.
The second great agency from which I believe we may expect wonderful
results in the future is life insurance. As our committee pointed out
to the Association of Life Insurance Presidents several years ago,
life insurance companies can save money by preventing deaths just
as fire insurance companies have saved money by preventing fires,
and steam boiler insurance companies have saved money by preventing
explosions. Since this suggestion was made, a number of progressive
life insurance companies have tried the experiment. The Metropolitan
and the Equitable have established departments of human conservation
and a number of other and smaller companies have undertaken similar
enterprises. The Postal Life Insurance Company has recently published
the statistical results of their experience, worked out in a most
careful manner, and have demonstrated absolutely that it pays life
insurance companies to save human life. This being the case, we may
expect life insurance companies in the future to become active in
life conservation. Already there are probably fifteen million policy
holders in the United States insured in companies which are trying
to do something for their health—through medical examinations,
instruction in hygiene, utilization of visiting nurses, participation
in civic health movements and otherwise. To save human life merely
to save money is sordid enough, but it is well to harness commercial
motives, when possible, in the service of humanity.
The third, and most important, agency is the government. State
and National health offices are becoming yearly stronger and more
efficient; and yet much remains to be done, particularly by the
National Government. We need a National Department of Health or
a Department of Labor which shall include in its operations the
conservation of human life. We have already passed the phosphorus
match bill to prevent one of the worst industrial diseases—phossy
jaw. We have passed effective legislation in regard to interstate
commerce in prostitution. We have established a Children’s Bureau and
a Bureau of Mines to prevent industrial accidents in mining. We have
enacted suitable legislation in regard to cocaine and habit-forming
drugs. We have a Pure Food Law and laws for the inspection of meats.
Yet, as Dr. Wiley, Mrs. Crane and others who have watched the
operation of these laws at close range well know, they need to be
executed with a stronger hand.
The truth is that as yet we have only made a feeble beginning in
public health work, especially in this country. We need first of all
to do what Sweden has done for a hundred and fifty years—namely, to
keep proper vital statistics. Vital statistics are the bookkeeping of
health, and we cannot economize health any more successfully than we
can economize money unless we keep books. At present only a little
over half of the population of the United States has statistics of
its deaths, while the statistics of the births are as yet nowhere
sufficiently accurate to be called real statistics.
Our National Statistician, Dr. Wilbur, illustrates by a story how
much better we keep our commercial books than our books of vital
statistics. In a Western State a girl was entitled to a fortune when
she became twenty-one. Reaching, as she supposed, her twenty-first
birthday, she laid claim to the fortune. Much to her surprise, her
father said, “But you are only nineteen;” and then the two tried to
look up the records. They had no family Bible, they had no public
record office to go to, and they were at sea as to how to discover
exactly the date when she was born. However it suddenly occurred to
her father, who was a farmer, that the very day his daughter was
born a calf was born on his farm and the birth of the calf had been
recorded. In that way he established the date of the birth of his
daughter.
In view of the great slack of our vital statistics, therefore,
we cannot measure even the death rate, much less the number of
preventable deaths in the United States. All that we can do is to
study carefully the registration area and on this basis to work out
certain minimum figures.
Four years ago, as a member of President Roosevelt’s Conservation
Commission, I endeavored to do this and to report on the condition
of our “National Vitality.” I found, after getting together all
the statistics available and taking account of the degree of
preventability of different diseases as estimated by experts that,
out of some 1,500,000 deaths annually in the United States, at least
630,000 are preventable. Of these preventable deaths, the greater
number are from seven causes. These seven causes include three great
diseases of infancy, then typhoid fever, which usually makes its
attack in the twenties, then tuberculosis, accidents in industry, and
pneumonia which come in the thirties.
Now 630,000 unnecessary deaths per year mean over 1,700 unnecessary
deaths per day or more than the lives lost on the Titanic disaster.
The nation cannot continue indifferent to hygiene as it gradually
dawns on the public that for lack of hygiene we suffer a Titanic
disaster every day of the year. The popular imagination was deeply
stirred by the image of 1,600 helpless human beings suddenly engulfed
in mid-ocean. That was a vivid dramatic picture which the blindest
of men could see and understand. It led to immediate official action
on both sides of the Atlantic to safeguard human life at sea. Yet
on land we lose three hundred and sixty-five times as many lives
as this every year and never stop to add it up. They are scattered
and diffused throughout the land—a Wilbur Wright lost from typhoid,
a handful of miners in an explosion, some railway employes in an
accident, some victims of lead poisoning, a little army of infants,
here a few and there a few. Yet these deaths are just as real and
mean an infinitely more serious loss than were the deaths from the
Titanic disaster. Moreover, they could be as easily prevented.
And concomitant with this unnecessarily great death rate, there
is, of course, a colossal aggregate of needless sickness. We have
no real statistics, but by analogy with English statistics we may
assume that, on the average, for every death per annum there are two
persons sick during the year. This makes about three million people
constantly lying on sick beds in the United States, of which, on the
most conservative estimate, at least half do not need to have been
there.
If, now, on the basis of these figures, we try to compute how much
human life is needlessly shortened in the United States, we find
that it is shortened at least fifteen years. Again, if we translate
these preventable losses into commercial terms, we find that, even
by the most conservative reckoning, this country is losing over
$1,500,000,000 worth of wealth producing power every year.
What does this mean? To us individually, it means that we are losing
a large part of our rightful life not only by death itself which
cuts off many years we might have lived, but also from diseases and
disabilities which are not fatal but cripple the power to work and
mar the joy of living. I believe I am far within the facts when I
venture the opinion that the average man or woman in the United
States is not doing half of the work nor having half of the joy of
work of which the human being is capable.
With all this room for improvement before our eyes, it is not
surprising that the zeal of the health movement is growing fast. Each
success serves as justification for further effort.
One of the most encouraging symptoms of progress is the great
attention which is being paid to public health in the present
political campaign. All three of the party platforms included planks
in behalf of public health. The Democratic and Progressive platforms
were particularly explicit and emphatic and all the candidates have
emphasized health in speeches and in their record in public life.
The Democratic campaign managers are carrying out plans to make
progressive health legislation prominent in the campaign.
These and other indications augur well for better legislation,
more energetic enforcement of the law and, above all, a more
appreciative public sentiment as to the transcendent importance of
the conservation of human life. It is now reported that the Hon.
Dr. Roche, Secretary of State in Canada, is in strong sympathy with
the proposal there for the establishment of a Federal Department
of Health and the Republic of China is reported to have already
established such a department.
From all these indications of actual activity as well as from the
logic of the situation we are justified in predicting that an age
of human conservation is at hand. Men and women are waking to
their responsibility to the race. Eugenics will be a watchword of
the future. To squander our natural resources is ignoble indeed,
but far worse is it to squander our vital resources. The most
sacred obligation of each generation is to bequeath its life
capital unimpaired to the generation which comes after. Scourges
like typhoid and tuberculosis must be swept off the face of the
earth. Habit-forming drugs, including alcohol (and even tobacco,
especially for young boys) must be recognized in their true light
as means of depleting the vitality of nations. Prostitution and
the white slave traffic must be condemned anew as robbers of the
race. Industries which kill and maim, poison or infect their
workers, which deform and stunt little children, which incapacitate
women for normal motherhood, which through overlong hours of toil
close each successive day’s work with progressive exhaustion,
must be controlled. Machinery was made for man, not man for
machinery. Immigration which drains European public institutions
of their criminal, insane, feeble-minded and other defectives and
delinquents and sets these creatures loose in America to breed with
and contaminate our population, must be regulated. Marriage laws
and customs must be adjusted so as to discourage or forbid the
procreation by the unfit. All these and other hygienic and eugenic
reforms will be realized as fast as public sentiment becomes educated
to the solemn responsibilities and higher valuations of human life.
The noblest task, therefore, which I can conceive for any man is to
aid in erecting true ideals of perfect manhood and womanhood. Our
ideals, though improving, are not yet worthy to be compared with
those of Japan or Sweden and the ideals even of these countries have
not yet reached the level of those of ancient Greece still imaged
for us in imperishable marble. With superior knowledge our health
ideals should excel those of any other age. These ideals should not
stop with the mere negation of disease, degeneracy, delinquency and
dependency. They should be positive and progressive. They should
include muscular development, a sound mind in a sound body, integrity
of moral fiber, a sense of the splendor of the perfect human body as
a temple of the human soul, a sense of the enjoyment of all life’s
proper functions. As William James said, simply to breathe or move
our muscles should be a delight. The thoroughly healthy person is
full of joy and optimism. He rejoiceth like a strong man to run a
race. Said Emerson, “Give me health and a day and I will make the
pomp of emperors ridiculous.” Our health ideals should be nothing
short of an abiding sense of the sweetness and beauty, the nobility
and holiness, of human life.
President WHITE—We have had wonderful addresses this morning from the
distinguished speakers upon this question of conservation of human
life.
I wish now to announce the Committee on Credentials: Mr. E. T. Allen
of Portland, Ore., Mr. Volney T. Foster of Chicago, and Col. W. A.
Fleming Jones of Las Cruces, N. M.
I wish also to announce the Chairman of the Committee on Resolutions:
Mr. Walter H. Page of New York. The different State organizations
will report to him a member for that committee from each particular
State. It will be well to report to Mr. Page either tonight or early
in the morning.
We all need to be put under authority. We find people are not taking
good care of their health, of themselves or of the community. We
will now hear from Dr. L. E. Cofer of Washington, D. C., Assistant
Surgeon-General of the United States Public Health Service, who will
address the Congress on the subject of “Authority In Health Control.”
Dr. COFER—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I do not think any
invitation has ever been received with more satisfaction than the
one for a representative of our service to appear before you. It was
received with the greatest gratification.
The Public Health Service is absorbed in the work of health
conservation and Surgeon-General Blue evinced the greatest interest
in your invitation for him to send a representative to explain
the scope of the work being performed and discuss the question of
authority in connection therewith.
This topic is now receiving the consideration of many authorities
on public health matters, and on this account one may approach
the subject in a hopeful attitude. I say “hopeful” because public
health as an institution is rapidly growing, and its practical
value is becoming more and more manifest, and sanitary science is
not now nearly so far in advance of its practical application as it
was even a few years ago. The possibilities of sanitation in the
general advancement are being made a part of all high ideals of
government, so that it is not to be wondered at that the general
government should be called upon to do its share. The difficulty lies
in determining just what the government should do in aid of public
health and just what should be left to the States and municipalities.
History furnishes no precedents for this Nation to follow. It is
almost useless to seek a model for our guidance in some foreign
country. A nation with our conditions of boundary and magnitude,
with millions of immigrants coming to our shores from all parts of
the earth, has its own salvation to work out in the public health as
well as in many other problems. In other words, we must rely upon
ourselves, whether we proceed in haste or by feeling our way step by
step. There is a marked divergence of sentiment growing in regard
to national health control. One is that the government should do
far more than it is now doing towards the protection of the public
health, another that too much is expected of the National Government,
and that there is a tendency on the part of State governments to call
upon the Federal Government for service which should be performed
by the States themselves, but which service is asked for largely
in the interest of economy. These widely differing ideas in regard
to the apportionment of public health responsibility lead us to a
consideration of the provisions of the Constitution of the United
States relative to this matter. These provisions are contained in
Section VIII, paragraphs I and 3:
Section VIII. The Congress shall have power—
Par. 1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to
pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare
of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be
uniform throughout the United States.
Par. 3. To regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the
several States, and with the Indian tribes.
It has been held by some that the powers of the National Government,
relating to public health, are restricted to paragraph 3, which
gives the right to Congress to regulate commerce, and, in regulating
commerce, to so regulate it as to prevent its being a carrier of
disease. Others have held that under the general welfare clause,
in paragraph 1, Congress has the right to legislate for the public
health.
Should the latter interpretation be the correct one, Congress could
establish the national health control over States and municipalities
with regard to municipal and domestic sanitation, with all details
as to house drainage, plumbing, sewerage, and disposal of garbage,
water supply, ventilation, school houses and public buildings
ventilation, examination of milk supply, food and drugs, disposal of
the dead, disinfection of dwellings, etc. Would it be desirable for
the National Government to have such authority? Would it be tolerated
by the people? It is a fact that the American people have already
decided this question when the old National Board of Health was
abolished.
The National Board of Health was created by an act of Congress,
approved March 3, 1879. Another act was approved June 2, 1879,
clothing the board with certain quarantine powers, but this last act
was limited to a period of four years, at the expiration of which
time Congress declined to renew it. The National Board of Health,
therefore, had an active existence from 1879 to 1883. The act
establishing the board remained upon the statute books until February
15, 1893, when it was formally repealed by Congress.
To state the case concisely, the National Board of Health was not
in accord with the spirit of American government, and the people
rejected it. Now, what do the American people want? I will not
attempt to answer this question, but will suggest that they want
a general sanitary administration which is capable of steady
development, and yet may be subject to such modifications as the
changing conditions of our country may necessitate, a sanitary policy
which can be made to expand until it will answer the public needs not
only for the present but even for decades to come.
Its direct aim should be the ultimate intelligence and education
of the average citizen in matters relating to his personal health,
and the health of his commonwealth. No better plan for sanitary
government appears at the present time than one modeled upon the
structure of the general government itself. Broadly stated, this
sanitary policy expects of each State a sanitary autonomy whose
influence should be appreciated by every individual in every hamlet,
however small, in its domain. It contemplates a State pride in the
development of sanitation, a self-reliance and an unwillingness to
surrender functions or call for aid from the general government
excepting after the clearest convictions of propriety or necessity.
This policy expects from the general government that since it
controls commerce, both maritime and interstate, it will prevent
commerce from conveying disease; that it will respect the sanitary
institutions of the States; that it will have such organizations
and establishments as properly belong to its sphere of action to
supplement where States fail, and to enable it to wield its peculiar
power when urgency demands.
As an apt illustration of this conception of authority in health
control, let us consider the present activities of our Federal Public
Health Service. These are as follows:
1. The prevention of the introduction of infectious and contagious
diseases.
2. The sanitary regulation of foreign commerce.
3. The observance of international sanitary treaties.
4. The prevention of the spread of infectious and contagious
diseases from one State to another through co-operation with State
and municipal health authorities.
5. The collection and dissemination of sanitary information.
6. The conduct of scientific research in matters pertaining to the
public health.
7. The enforcement of sanitation in Federal territory and in
connection with Federal administrative affairs.
THE PREVENTION OF THE INTRODUCTION OF INFECTIOUS AND CONTAGIOUS
DISEASES.
The chief national quarantine law is that approved February 15, 1893,
amended and extended by acts of Congress approved August 12, 1894,
March 2, 1901, and June 19, 1906.
Under these acts the maritime quarantine administration has become
national, many state stations having been voluntarily surrendered
to the Government, others supplanted by the General Government,
because of failure to comply with government regulations, and others
superseded by direct authority of law.
The diseases excluded from the country by the national quarantine
establishment are cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, typhus fever,
leprosy and plague.
Some quarantine stations are inspection stations only, but many
are large institutions, comprised of hospitals, quarters, barracks
for detention of crews and passengers, wharves and disinfecting
machinery, and boarding vessels, all requiring good administrative
ability on the part of the commanding officer, who must also be
expert in the detection of disease.
When a ship from a foreign port arrives off a port of the United
States, it is met by a quarantine officer for inspection under the
national regulations. Fifty medical officers of the service are
engaged in this work at forty-seven separate stations, extending
along the Pacific, the Gulf and Atlantic coasts from Alaska to
Portland, Me. Without the quarantine certificates given these
officers and the bill of health obtained at the foreign port, the
ship would not be allowed entry by the collector of customs and
without his permit it would be unlawful for the ship to unload its
cargo.
At a few ports, not more than three or four in number, this
inspection is made by a State quarantine officer, a relic of the
system which prevailed prior to 1893, when quarantine was considered
a State rather than a National function. They are obliged, however,
to enforce the National regulations, and are subject to inspection by
the Federal officers, and if they fail or refuse to comply with the
United States regulations the President is authorized to detail an
officer of the Government for that purpose.
In addition to the diseases remanded by quarantine, others are
excluded under laws relating to immigration, and for this purpose at
the principal ports of entry there are also stationed seventy medical
officers, who, during the past year, for example, examined more than
1,280,000 immigrants, certifying more than 30,000 of them on account
of physical and mental defects. The immigration laws exclude persons
afflicted with any loathsome or any dangerous contagious disease, or
having mental or physical defects which may affect their ability to
earn a living.
Humanity requires the treatment in hospital of immigrants arriving
sick with ordinary as well as prohibitive diseases, and the large
hospitals connected with the stations are under the professional
conduct of service officers.
Although the immigration stations are under the control of
commissioners attached to the Department of Commerce and Labor,
nevertheless the medical officers are subject in their professional
work to supervision by the Public Health Service, and their
instructions as to the medical inspection of aliens are prepared by
the Surgeon-General and approved by the Secretary of the Treasury.
THE SANITATION OF FOREIGN COMMERCE.
At certain foreign ports and at certain times, depending upon the
presence of the various quarantinable diseases, either in the foreign
ports of departure or in the country contiguous thereto, officers
of the Public Health Service are detailed by the President to serve
in the offices of the American consuls, to assist them in enforcing
the quarantine regulations for foreign ports. These officers keep
themselves informed of the prevalence of contagious disease in these
cities and the surrounding country. They sign a bill of health which
certifies that all the regulations required to be enforced at foreign
ports on vessels leaving for the United States have been complied
with.
This involves a knowledge of the point of origin of the freight and
passengers, disinfection of material from an infected locality, the
personal inspection of passengers, particularly steerage passengers,
and their detention if necessary. The power of enforcement of these
regulations lies in the above mentioned act of Congress approved
February 15, 1893, which imposes a penalty of $5,000 upon any vessel
from a foreign port seeking to enter a port of the United States
without this consular bill of health. The consul can legally refuse
a bill of health if the regulations are not complied with.
In this connection it may be said that officers of the Public
Health Service are stationed constantly at such ports as Hongkong,
Shanghai and Amboy, in China; Yokohama and Kobe in Japan; Salina
Cruz, Manzanillo and Puerto Mexico in Mexico; Guayaquil, Ecuador; La
Guaira, Venezuela, and Havana, Cuba. During the summer of 1911, on
account of cholera conditions prevailing in Italy, Russia and France,
there were officers of this service detailed in the offices of the
American consul at Naples, Genoa, Palermo, Messina and Catania, in
Italy, at Libau in Russia, and at Marseilles, France. In addition
to this, officers were ordered to several other foreign ports of
departure, there to confer with the American consular officers as to
the enforcement of the regulations for foreign ports, and for the
purpose of insuring uniformity of procedure.
The State Department has done much to assist in the quarantine and
sanitary work in foreign ports, through the interest it has aroused
in the said work on the part of its consular corps.
THE OBSERVANCE OF INTERNATIONAL SANITARY TREATIES.
These treaties or conventions establishing them have been ratified by
the Senate of the United States, as well as by the other governments.
The International Sanitary Bureau of American Republics at Washington
was founded by the International Conference of American States
held in the City of Mexico in 1901. That conference also called
for international sanitary conventions, which are now held every
two years. Two have been held in Washington. The object of the
conventions is to freely discuss all matters relating to the public
health and particularly those which affect the American Republics,
and the purpose of the international Sanitary Bureau is to encourage
the execution of the resolutions or agreements decided upon by the
conventions. The convention held in Washington in 1905 drew up a
treaty with regard to the quarantine treatment of cholera, plague
and yellow fever, which was signed ad referendum by the official
delegates, and has been confirmed by practically all of the American
Republics. At the meeting in Mexico in December, 1907, action
was taken which has brought the International Sanitary Bureau at
Washington into relations with the International Office of Public
Hygiene at Paris.
The International Office of Public Hygiene at Paris was formally
inaugurated December 9, 1907. It is the outgrowth of international
sanitary conferences at Rome, Venice and Paris, with regard to the
bubonic plague. The following governments are represented: Algeria,
Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, British India,
Bulgaria, Egypt, Canada, France, Great Britain, Holland, Italy,
Mexico, Peru, Persia, Portugal, Roumania, Russia, Servia, Sweden,
Spain, Switzerland, Tunis, Turkey and the United States.
Each of these governments has agreed to pay its pro rata of the
expenses necessary to maintain the international office. The
principal object of the office is to collect and bring to the
knowledge of the participating States facts and documents of a
general character relating to public health, especially as concerns
infectious diseases—notably cholera, plague and yellow fever—as well
as the measures taken to combat these diseases.
PREVENTION OF THE SPREAD OF INFECTIOUS AND CONTAGIOUS DISEASES.
These operations are conducted under two laws. One is the national
quarantine act of 1893, already referred to, which contains
practically the same provisions for interstate as for maritime
quarantine. The other is the annual law passed by Congress
appropriating an “epidemic fund” which contains a provision that
it may be used in aid of State and local boards of health in the
enforcement of their quarantine regulations, as well as those of the
national service—to be used, however, only against certain specified
epidemic diseases, viz., cholera, yellow fever, smallpox, typhus
fever and bubonic plague.
Now, with these two laws in hand, and when the appearance of any of
the above-named diseases in any State so require, the officers of
the Public Health Service are at once upon the scene with the double
object of seeing that the Treasury Interstate Quarantine Regulations
are enforced by the State or local authorities and to offer aid, as
authorized by law.
When aid is extended, the Government’s funds must be expended by its
own officers, and the latter are therefore placed in charge and have
the co-operation and assistance of the State or local authorities.
They have, therefore, the support of the State and local laws and
regulations, as well as those of the Federal Government. This is
fortunate, since experience has shown the importance, in a Republic
like ours, of local sympathy and support.
THE COLLECTION AND DISSEMINATION OF SANITARY INFORMATION.
The Public Health Bureau, through its Division of Sanitary Reports
and Statistics, compiles and publishes each week a pamphlet called
the Public Health Reports. It contains a statistical report from all
cities in the United States of more than 10,000 inhabitants, and
some others, giving the morbidity and mortality in each city with
regard to twelve diseases and the total mortality from all diseases.
It contains also a statement of the weekly mortality in some 120
foreign cities from thirteen communicable diseases. It gives special
information concerning quarantinable diseases and sanitary measures
in the United States and foreign countries. The foreign information
is received through the United States consuls and service officers
abroad.
Collective investigations are being made of the prevalence of
pellagra, infantile paralysis and leprosy.
A compilation has been prepared of state laws bearing upon reporting
diseases, with a view to increasing the collection of morbidity
statistics and bringing about improved methods and greater uniformity
in their collection.
CONDUCT OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH.
In the District of Columbia, in a commodious building, the Public
Health Service has its hygienic laboratory, a research laboratory
exclusively for public health investigations. It is conducted in four
divisions, viz., bacteriology and pathology, chemistry, zoölogy and
pharmacology. This organization brings under the same roof, and in
intimate association, scientific workers in each of these several
branches, interesting facts developed in one line of investigation
being made freely known to the investigators in other lines of
research.
Officers are detailed to receive instruction in this laboratory,
thus enhancing the scientific attainments of the corps and giving
opportunity for selection of those best qualified for permanent
detail in research work. In this manner specialists have been and are
being developed on various subjects, such as typhoid fever, pellagra,
hookworm disease, infantile paralysis, scientific disinfection, etc.
Public Health Service officers may be found in the States
investigating other diseases than those named in the epidemic law,
viz., typhoid fever, infantile paralysis, cerebro-spinal meningitis,
hookworm disease, malaria, pellagra, dengue fever, milk sickness,
etc. These investigations are usually made at the request of State
health authorities. The bureau at Washington, on receiving a request
from a city or locality for expert aid, invariably refers the request
to the State Board of Health before compliance.
The laws permitting these investigations are, first, the interstate
section of the quarantine law of 1893; and second, the act of
Congress approved March 3, 1901, providing a building for the
hygienic laboratory for investigations of contagious and infectious
diseases and matters relating to the public health. As the
investigations require laboratory examinations, they come within this
last named law and the appropriation which supports it.
In various States of the Union, there are thirteen establishments
engaged in the production of vaccines, antitoxins and serums,
which play so important a part in modern therapy. The variation in
the potency and the occasional impurity of these products caused
Congress to pass an act July 1, 1902, requiring a license for their
manufacture for sale in interstate traffic.
ENFORCEMENT OF SANITATION IN FEDERAL TERRITORY.
In the Philippine Islands, where the government is by commission and
a legislature, much work of value to the public health is performed
in the bureau of science under the insular government. There are,
however, in the several ports of the Philippines medical officers
of the Public Health Service under appointment from the Treasury
Department in Washington, engaged in the transactions of both
incoming and outgoing quarantine. Two of these officers, in addition
to their supervision of the national quarantine, are also director
and assistant director, respectively, of the public health of all the
Philippines.
In Hawaii you will also find medical officers conducting the national
quarantine. They are also assisting the territorial health board in
preventing the recurrence of plague by the extermination of rats
and continuous bacteriological examination of those captured. One
of these officers is the official sanitary adviser of the Governor
of Hawaii, and is carrying on a campaign for the eradication of
disease-bearing mosquitoes.
Here also may be observed the leprosy investigation station, also
controlled by our officers, both on the island of Molokai, where
hospital and other accommodations have been erected under the law of
March 3, 1905, appropriating $100,000 for this purpose, and at the
receiving station at Honolulu, where cases are seen in the earlier
stages.
In Porto Rico public health officers are enforcing the United States
quarantine regulations under the acts of Congress relating to Porto
Rico and national quarantine. The campaign which has practically
eradicated plague from San Juan is being conducted by the Federal
Public Health Bureau.
In the Canal Zone you will find two commissioned officers enforcing
quarantine regulations at Ancon on the Pacific and Colon on the
Atlantic. These officers are loaned to the Isthmian Canal Commission.
This is an important adjunct to the work of the canal, because it
would be useless to clean the zone if fresh importations of disease
were permitted.
I will now devote a few words to the Health Bureau organization in
Washington by means of which all the functions or activities above
described are administered under one head.
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE BUREAU OF PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE.
The law which changed the name of the Marine Hospital Service and
made it a Public Health Service was approved July 1, 1902. This law
fixed the status of the officers, enlarged the hygienic laboratory
and gave it an advisory board, provided for the conferences with the
State and Territorial Boards of Health, provided for compilation and
publication of statistics, and directed that the President should
prescribe rules for the conduct of the service and the uniforms of
its officers and employes.
It also provided for a Public Health and Marine Hospital Bureau at
Washington.
By an act of the Congress approved August 14, 1912, the name of the
Public Health and Marine Hospital Service was changed to Public
Health Service. The public health functions and duties of the service
were extended and certain changes were made in the salaries of the
officers.
The Public Health Service is under the supervision of the Secretary
of the Treasury, and is in charge of the Surgeon-General, who has six
Assistant Surgeons-General in charge of the Bureau Divisions. These
divisions are as follows:
1. Foreign and Insular Quarantine and Immigration.
2. Domestic (Interstate) Quarantine.
3. Personnel and Accounts.
4. Marine Hospitals and Relief.
5. Scientific Research and Sanitation.
6. Sanitary Reports and Statistics.
The above lengthy description of our present public health activities
has been necessary not only in order to demonstrate their character,
and scope, but also as an illustration of the variety of legal
authority existing for the enactment on the part of the general
Government of public health work.
This paper will not admit of the incorporation into it of the
national laws relating to public health which are now operative,
but a careful inspection of these laws will demonstrate that they
will admit of such interpretation as would make possible an almost
unlimited amplification of our present public health activities, the
limit being only one of appropriations and officers.
Careful analysis of the present health laws and activities will
also show that the Government is seeking to control nothing which
any other public health organization would wish to control. The
foundation of the national public health service is in the quarantine
law of February 15, 1893, referred to above. The quarantine service
is today almost entirely national, notwithstanding a local sentiment
for State or municipal control, which exists in two or three cities
only, and which it is believed is destined to a short tenure for the
following reasons:
It must be admitted that maritime quarantine should be a national
affair. It is a concomitant to commerce, over which under the
Constitution the national government has absolute control, and it
naturally belongs to that department of the government regulating
commerce in other respects. In other words, it seems especially
appropriate that quarantine should be one of the functions of the
Treasury Department which registers, licenses and enrolls all
merchant vessels of the United States, inspects the hulls, boilers
and machinery of such vessels, determines the number of passengers
which said vessels may carry and provides for the housing and rations
of the crews.
Besides this, it carefully examines all pilots upon American
vessels and determines upon granting them licenses. It enforces
the navigation laws and aids vessels in distress by an efficient
revenue cutter service. It also provides for the care of the sick
of our merchant marine. Then why should it relegate to a State
authority, or health officer of some small port, the one remaining
act of surveillance over vessels, namely, the determination as to
whether they may be admitted to entry from a sanitary standpoint? Why
should it be left to a local appointee, responsible only to a mayor
or governor, the power to determine whether all the people and the
merchandise on vessels destined for all ports of the United States,
shall be permitted to enter without detention; and why should it give
this local officer power to detain such vessels; and further than
that, why should such local officers desire that power?
In the same way, the other activities of the Public Health Service
conflict in no way with the functions and prerogatives of the State
and local boards of health. Therefore, the term “national health
control” is a misnomer. The term “national health co-operation” would
be much more descriptive of the conditions actually existing. The
interstate health activities above described must of necessity be
governmental functions. The duties and responsibilities connected
with them could not be discharged by States with any degree of
uniformity. Therefore, interstate commerce laws are considered as
appropriate national enactments, and their operation encroaches upon
no State or municipal rights.
It may be said with a feeling of conviction that the health control
in the United States today is just exactly in accordance with the
desires of the people. The people know that their State and municipal
boards are being aided by the health activities of the national
government rather than being encroached upon. In addition to this
the Federal Public Health Service and the State and municipal boards
are acting in harmony to the following ends: They are controlling
commerce, in order that commerce may not be clogged, and where
necessary they are laying the net of healthful restraint for purposes
of good.
The government is receiving the good-will and co-operation of the
State and local health authorities in its work of catching and
throwing back the diseased persons who seek entrance to our shores
in the great Waves of immigration. They stand together to check the
merchant or the manufacturer when he is ready or willing to risk the
lives of the people by furnishing improper or impure food or drug
products. They stand together to frustrate the lawyer who seeks by
illegal technicality in the behalf of an individual, or steamship
company perhaps, to force a way around a sanitary barrier erected for
the protection of the people at large. Again, the municipal, State
and government health authorities are standing together to stimulate
the knowledge of our legislators in public health needs and are
combining their knowledge to insure reasonable appropriations for the
carrying out of general public health projects.
The mission of the three classes of sanitarians above mentioned
may go still further. It may go to the extent of prodding the
conscience of the tardy doctor, and even to the sweeping aside of the
sentimental obstructions which the unenlightened are able to put in
the path of the conservation of life. There is ample law for present
and probably for future needs, and the control of national health
remains, after all, today where it has remained in the past, and
where it always will remain, that is, with the American people, not
solely with the government, nor with the State or municipal health
agencies. Each of the great nations of the world has gone about the
direction of its public health work in its own way, and always with
the realization that the ideal is not necessarily the practical, and
what is best today may be supplanted by better tomorrow.
To summarize the situation, we have today State boards of health
in control of State sanitation, operating under proper and ample
State law. We have municipal health organizations operating under
their own legal authority, and finally we have the United States
Public Health Service, operating under several laws, as stated
before, more far-reaching in their scope than is indicated by the
activities pursued under their authority. The people, apparently,
are satisfied so far as the Public Health Service is concerned. When
the people want anything more they will demand it, and if available
appropriations will not admit of compliance with such requests
they will be forthcoming. Therefore, I am at a loss to suggest
what additional health legislation is necessary or desirable to be
engrafted upon that already existing in this country, and I am unable
to see the necessity for any different plan of organization so long
as the people, in whose behalf the organization is being maintained,
are satisfied.
In closing, I wish to say that I have endeavored simply to place
various facts before this Congress, and while I do not pretend to
have exhausted this branch of the subject, I fear that I can not say
the same with regard to your patience.
President White here requested Dr. Henry Wallace, of Des Moines,
Iowa, to take the Chair.
Chairman WALLACE—We are now ready to hear the report of the Committee
on Lands and Agriculture. The first speaker will be Dr. George
E. Condra, of Lincoln, Neb., whose subject is “Land Frauds, or
Get-Rich-Quick Schemes.”
Dr. CONDRA—Mr. President and Delegates: Some of you may recall the
fact that the speaker has briefly outlined this subject at each of
the preceding Congresses, under the head, “Conservation of Business.”
The discussion offered at this time is based on reliable information
secured from many States. It is largely the result of field work. The
data are presented according to the viewpoint of Conservation and
should be so considered.
Do you fully realize that the principles of Conservation are
permeating every department of human industry, improving the
processes, increasing efficiency, and promoting common honesty, that
the idea of equity is increasing in force? That it is being extended
to business not for the purpose of holding it in check, but primarily
for protection against fraud? This movement for square dealing
certainly is in order for business is sore with graft and tracked by
fraud at every turn. Plain it is that many transactions in the realm
of commerce fall outside the sphere of true business. They grade
from those that are doubtful on through to those that are plainly
fraudulent and therefore criminal. The term “business,” however, has
a splendid meaning which should be conserved. It symbolizes honesty,
stability, honor and reliability. Sharp practice, double dealing and
doubtful promotion are but parasites and should be so regarded. They
have no legitimate place in business and are being eliminated.
Several persons have spoken in this Congress on pure food, eugenics,
etc. Their messages will tend to make people healthier and better fit
to be fathers and mothers. All this is good. Dr. Wiley and others
have emphasized the importance of pure food and health laws, but how
many go back of this matter of health and food to the land, or source
of our food and raiment and show the great need for pure land laws?
(Applause.) The State trains its sanitary engineers, lawyers and
physicians for their life work. It examines the lawyers and doctors
before permitting them to practice, but how about land agents? They
are good and bad. Many of them have no special qualifications for
their work and should not be permitted to do about as they please
without restriction, promoting this and that deal which may or may
not have merit. Grant me your closest attention and I will point
out certain classes of fraud that operate in connection with the
development of mineral lands, irrigation, fruit lands, eucalyptus
culture, drainage, dry land farming and the small tract propositions.
_Promotion of Mineral Land._—The amount of money sent from the
country and town and city to doubtful mine promoters is enormous.
The return for this outlay is small, in some places less than one
cent for each dollar. Yet the public does not fully realize that
nearly all reasonably sure propositions are not available for wanton
promotion, that a mere prospect is not a mine, and that fraudulent
promoters are hurting the mining business.[3]
_Oil and Gas Promotion._—The excitement caused by a developing oil
field is intense. Agriculture gives way to a spirit of speculation
and overvaluation and everything looks good to an investing public.
Fabulous returns appear to be in sight for all who invest in time.
This gives opportunity for professional promoters to do their work,
sometimes on a large scale. They claim a sure thing even when
wildcatting. So they send unwarranted prospectuses broadcast and the
money harvest is on. It is difficult to place the criminality of such
procedure. We only know that it works out badly as a rule. You should
know that it is bad business to accept the unqualified statements of
most oil and gas promotion concerns as a basis for investment. These
persons and concerns interfere with legitimate development and should
be brought under control.
_Irrigation Schemes._—The Federal Government spends vast sums in
developing the irrigation resources of several dry land States. Such
reclamation is of economic importance. Furthermore, many reliable
individuals and private companies do as well and even better in
developing some projects. As a result of successful irrigation
thousands of happy homes are made where once was only dry land.
Notwithstanding this fact there are fraudulent irrigation promoters.
Scheming individuals sell illegitimate propositions which can not
succeed because of lack of water, unsuitable land or heavy graft.
Such promotion has gone on to such an extent as to call for severe
criticism by many practical irrigationists of the West, and the
Reclamation Department of the Federal Government is increasing its
diligence in checkmating the work of persons who attempt to promote
bad projects.
_Fruit Land Promotion._—Have you visited the great fruit districts
of Oregon, Washington and other Northwestern States? Do you know
what care is there given to the cultivation and marketing of
apples especially? The fruit is so perfect in form and color. It
is accurately graded for the Eastern and foreign markets. These
splendid successes are widely known and are taken advantage of
by scheming persons who promote the sale of any and all kinds of
land in and near fruit districts. One of the leading fruit men of
Washington says that thousands and thousands of dollars are going
into the hands of concerns that are sure to fail and that the fruit
business is being hurt by such operations. The trouble of it is
that the average investor does not know that the fruit business is
highly specialized, and that many matters concerning soil, exposure,
climate, markets, etc., not known to him, are the features that
determine success and failure. Furthermore, the fraudulent promoter
does not know, neither does he care.
Doubtful promotion of this kind is not confined to the Northwest
alone. It has hurt the South and may do damage to New York and
other States in which are lands well suited for fruit raising, if
the proper authorities do not conserve the larger interests of the
industry and State against promoters.
_Eucalyptus Promotion._—For many years the forests of the United
States have been in process of depletion. Some have seen in this,
and with good reason, an approaching timber famine. The alarm has
been sounded, and the demand has gone forth for better methods in
timber utilization, for fire protection, and tree planting. This
is the right thing without doubt, but it affords a loop-hole for
promoters. It is understood, also, that some trees grow faster and
are more all-purpose than others. The eucalyptus are of this kind.
They are of many kinds. Such trees can not be grown on any and every
type of soil and are limited somewhat by climate. It so happens that
California, because of its soil and climate, is the leading State in
culture of eucalyptus. It has several successful groves and larger
plantings, yet the situation is promoted for all it is worth, and
perhaps more. The public (in the Central and Western States) is
worked by carefully-planned selling schemes. The fact is that there
is too much graft in some of them. The process has gone on to such
an extent as to cause the friends of eucalyptus planting to sound a
warning against such procedure. This should cause investors to make
a more careful inquiry of reliable persons, not controlled by the
promoters, before parting with money. The trees must have suitable
soil, climate, and care.
_Drainage Schemes._—One of the largest lines of development in the
United States is in the field of drainage, whereby swamp and flood
lands are improved. The amount of land that either has or can be
reclaimed by drainage is said to be about 75,000,000 acres. The
Federal Government, various States, companies, and individuals, are
doing this work. Much of such development is well founded, yet there
are bad deals, which might be called deliberate steals in some cases.
Examples of these exist in a few States and much money has been
squandered on projects that can never succeed. Teachers, ministers,
farmers, merchants and others are victimized. In the language of one
of Florida’s representatives at the National Irrigation Congress
of this year, “Persons selling certain wet lands of Florida are
practicing fraud and should be prosecuted as criminals. They are
hurting the good name of Florida and swindling people in the North.”
This person severely criticized certain cities of the North as being
promotion centers. Further comment is not necessary.
_Dry Land Deals._—Much dry land promotion is fraudulent, caused in
part by misinformation on the part of agents, but due to some extent
to deliberate misrepresentation. For instance, there are places in
Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, western Nebraska, Wyoming, and
other States subject to such promotion. The fact is that a part of
the land in the dry area of each State named is well suited for dry
farming, but that unscrupulous agents sell anything and everything to
unsuspecting persons as being good, awaiting the plow and successful
development. So it is that geographic position has been overworked.
The following points are sometimes overdrawn in securing sales:
a. The idea that nearly all agricultural land is under cultivation.
b. The notion that dry farming methods are successful on almost any
kind of dry land.
c. That the climate, referring to the rainfall especially, is
becoming more favorable for agriculture in dry regions as the years
go by. This notion, used in deceiving thousands of people, is greatly
in error.
d. Advantage is taken of such fluctuations in rainfall as occur from
year to year and at more or less regular periods, ten to twelve years
apart. During the wet years the country is boomed; at dry times the
people move out and industry wanes. These ups and downs are recurring
features on certain areas not permanently suited for farming. The
process works havoc with the misguided settlers, hurts a State that
encourages it, and brings no lasting beneficial results to land men
who manage the operation.
Apparently, Nature is no respecter of persons, especially so on the
dry, sandy lands. It is coming to be known that there is no permanent
change for the better in rainfall, frost belts or any thing of the
kind. Some lands are better suited for grazing than for ordinary
farming and should be so managed.
The speaker is pleased to be the servant of a State that stands
strongly against misrepresentation of land values. Such a policy
works out the greatest good in the long run. It breeds a healthy
demand for a fact basis of development and minimizes the tendency to
“stand up” for the home State by unwarranted “boostings.”
_Land Schemes in General._—There are many other land projects. The
public has invested largely in small tract propositions in Florida,
Texas, and other States. Much of this promoted land has considerable
value, but some of it is over-estimated, and many investors are quite
apt therefore to lose all or nearly all of their money. Certain kinds
of land look more inviting during one season of the year than at
another. For example, there are places in Texas and Mexico to which
the promoters take their victims in the dry season and to other
lands during the wet season. This year the speaker heard a Texas
representative declare, in a national meeting, that many of the
small tract propositions, together with certain other land schemes
of his State, are filled with fraud. He criticized northern people
for promoting Texas. This should serve at least as a warning to
unthoughtful investors. The good agricultural propositions of Texas
and elsewhere are handled by responsible land agents.
The movement for the reclamation of the so-called abandoned lands
of some of the older States is quite apt to be hurt by unreliable
promoters.
_Misrepresentation and Overvaluation._—Not only do some promoters
misrepresent propositions for the purpose of receiving gain
therefrom, but they often advance the sale price unduly. Many
examples of this kind have come to my attention. Two weeks ago I
received a prospectus from Oklahoma, advertising lead and zinc land
for sale at $6.00 a block, twenty feet square, making 1,089 blocks in
the tract of ten acres. This would be $6,534 for the land. I happen
to know the region and own land close to the small tract. The fact
is that one can purchase such a place at $10.00 or less an acre, or
at not to exceed $100 for ten acres. So the difference between $100
and $6,534 is too much of an advance for those who invest. What do
you think of such a deal? The persons handling it use the general
statement of a geologist which recites the fact that the geological
formation that contains zinc and lead in the Joplin District, some
thirty miles distant, extends through the promoted land. This
statement has no specific importance, but is sufficient for persons
who accept the “get-rich-quick” bait. It is my judgment that Oklahoma
should not permit such a clean-up. (Applause.)
The public craze for land makes it easy for promoters to do their
work. Many farmers, dominated by a spirit of consideration for their
children, accept the “spiel” and assurance of the “dopster,” sell in
agricultural regions and move onto nearly worthless land, believing
that it will become about like the old home place in time, and that
each child will then have a farm and home. May we not say that he
who deceives a family in this way is a mean man? (Applause.) Can you
think of a worse service to a community? Certain railroads are not
free from blame in that they promote this traffic. The farmer who
accepts the bad “dope” is also to blame. It has taken a long time for
the people to learn that mere belief, opinion, and sentiment are not
strong enough forces to overcome the influence of land not suited for
agriculture.
If our land seekers could realize how important and far-reaching is
this matter of choosing favorable places for home building, they
would be less easily led astray. They would consider soil, climate,
water supplies and other necessary conditions of success, as they
actually exist, and be governed less by the old arguments and slogans
so often used for land development in general. They would pay less
attention to deceptive literature written for the special purpose of
securing emigrants and sales. They would inquire into the methods
whereby this phase of the land business is carried on, and avoid
being carried off of their feet, especially when on “home-seekers’”
excursions and worked by a well-organized plan.
Formerly, the newer States encouraged the work of grafting land men.
Time has shown, however, that this was bad business and really a
drawback to permanent development. The present trend is to conserve
the interests of those who go onto and manage the land, making it
easier for them to succeed. They are assisted by the publicity of
useful facts and the censure of fraud. Furthermore, it is coming to
be recognized that State emigrant agents, agricultural experiment
stations, soil surveys and Conservation Commissions should not lend
their support to any interest other than that which brings the
best results to the people of the State. They should stand for the
policies that insure permanent development and do so as their plain
duty. Do you know how public men are urged and tempted to further
the interests of promotion concerns and that there are plenty of
opportunities to sell one’s influence? That it requires diligence
and courage to rightly serve the State? Happily, our public-spirited
citizens who have at heart the best and largest interests of
their States, stand strongly against misrepresentation whether
unintentional or not. They claim that doubtful promotion serves only
in closing deals, and in directing settlers to the land, but that
in the long run the process works a positive harm to the misguided
people and to the State as well, if the land is not suited for
habitation. Fortunately, most States are coming to this viewpoint.
They have learned that it pays to tell the truth when transplanting a
population and directing the permanent development of a State.
Where do you delegates stand on this proposition, and what is to be
the attitude of your States?
_Promoters’ Methods._—Do you know the signs of fraud? They are
exposed in the method used in securing money from the community.
The plan is about as follows: A selling scheme is perfected. It is
constructed in a way that leaves no flaws, apparently. Each agent
learns the scheme; he becomes skilled in applying it to the different
types of individuals. Too often it is of little concern whether
the project has merit or not. The chief object is to get money.
Extravagant claims are made in which returns of 100 per cent. or more
a year are said to be a sure thing. The influence of nationality,
church, and fraternal orders are brought to bear in securing sales.
The support of persons with good standing in the community is
secured. Those who assist the promoter are given a reduction for
their influence. The dope is given them often and systematically. So
they soon realize the greatness of the project. This is promotion
psychology. The land is offered at high enough price to permit
reduction for quick sale, which bait works in many cases. Persons
filled with greed for money are easy victims. The above kind of
thing, though less common than formerly, is practiced in most States,
and the wonder of it is that it can continue and why it is permitted
to continue. It is fraudulent and should be stopped entirely if we
are to conserve the interests of good people.
_Effects of Land Fraud on Local Business._—Many families lose enough
through fraudulent entanglements to give a college education to the
son, a piano to the girls, and general improvements for the home
or farmstead. The drain is away from home and school. Perhaps the
greatest loss is the people who are lured to places where in many
cases they are less well off than in the old home. Persons who lose
in bad deals become suspicious of real business done by reliable men
in the community. They refuse to invest in local developments in
which the returns are sure, though smaller than those promised by
promoters. Many are put out of business entirely by land frauds.
Do you agree with me in that it is not good business to farm the
land, cash in its fertility and then scatter the proceeds among
grafters? Let us quit chasing the ends of the rainbow, and turn our
attention more towards the right use of the fruits of our labor in
education and home building. (Applause.)
_Regulation._—There are many laws for the conservation of business.
The Federal Government prosecutes persons who make fraudulent use of
the mails. There is opportunity under the law to recover on account
of misrepresentation; but these laws are not sufficient. Public
sentiment is now ripe for the enactment of special laws to conserve
business against land frauds. Nebraska has made a special study of
the subject, reduced fraudulent procedure by the force of publicity
and public opinion, and will pass special conservation laws in its
next Legislature. Kansas has gained distinction by the enactment
of the well-known “Blue Sky Law.” This is good so far as it goes.
It provides for registration, reports, supervision and penalties.
Many States, as, for example, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Texas, are to
undertake legislation of this kind at the next sessions of their
Legislatures.
Provision should be made in the special act against land frauds for
field examination and report upon properties offered for sale. This
field work might be done by the State Soil Survey, or the State
Conservation Commission.
An essential feature of the act will be the registration of realty
agents and the furnishing of proof that they are competent and
reliable. This will reduce the number of land agents and insure the
responsibility of those permitted to do business. The Western realty
men are now framing a law of this kind to meet the needs of the
various States.
Apparently there is no opposition to the proposed legislation for it
is to conserve business and eliminate fraud. It is sure to receive
the support of all unless we except those who make gain through
doubtful promotion. If opposition appears before the various
Legislatures it will have the embarrassing position of being on the
side of fraud.
_Summary._—Let me close this report with the following statements:
1. This discussion, though favorable to reliable land agents is
against doubtful promoters.
2. Realty agents should have a practical knowledge of land
classification, soil types and the land business.
3. Reliable and competent real estate agents have an important place
in the State. They are against promoters and promotion values.
4. No one should deal with an agent who is not favorably known and is
not good at the bank.
5. See the land you purchase. Also get a reliable report upon it from
a competent, disinterested party. Base your transaction on facts—not
on opinions. Get a good title and not a mere promise to deliver.
6. Keep out of the “get-rich-quick” schemes. Quit chasing the ends of
the rainbow. If your fever gets too high, consult a banker.
7. As a rule, it is best to avoid the “home seekers’” excursions and
“boom” literature, unless you are sure of your footing.
8. Consult disinterested old-time residents whose places show that
they are actual, successful tillers of the soil in the locality
where you are to buy. They will give you the farm value, and not the
promotion value.
Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready to support in this important
movement? (Applause.)
Chairman WALLACE—I am sorry we haven’t half an hour longer to give
Dr. Condra to skin those skunks.
We will hear from Mr. Charles S. Barrett, President of the Farmers’
Union, and finally from Mrs. Lund, of California. I want these
speakers to show their appreciation, their gallantry, by giving her
the last five minutes, and I am going to call them down unless they
do.
Dr. CONDRA—It has been suggested that we close this discussion in one
minute. I am very sorry that neither Mr. Barrett, or Dr. Bateman can
be heard.
My friends, when a State puts upon its statute book an adequate law,
no fake concerns will seek to do business in that State. That is
true. Now, we ask that your committee be continued to the end that
we may report the conditions of the soil and the development of the
soil. I thank you and give ten minutes additional time to the lady.
Chairman WALLACE—It is my great pleasure to introduce Mrs. Haviland
H. Lund, of California, whose subject is the “Conservation of Land
and the Man.”
Mrs. LUND—It is a great pleasure to follow Dr. Condra, because his
speech is such a good precedent for what I have to say.
If the masses of the American people knew what one man could
accomplish for himself, physically and financially, upon from one
to five acres of land, this knowledge would revolutionize the
life of the Nation. The congestion in our cities is more than a
country-wide menace. It is an unnecessary outrage. There is land,
good, health-giving land, enough for all the people.
The conservation of the man has been too long overlooked.
The commercial policy of the Nation could scarcely be called
far-sighted—so wasteful have we been of all natural resources.
We have despoiled our forests, impoverished our soil, given away the
public domain. Our labor conditions in many respects shame us in
comparison with other nations. Looking about today, it would seem
that our thought has been “Get all we can, no matter how, and waste
it as we will, for after us, the deluge!” But a new commercial and
political spirit is being born; a renaissance of righteousness is
setting in, and the commercial leaders of the country are taking
stock, as it were, of the actual situation.
Big business men are realizing that a healthy man is worth more
in dollars and cents than a half sick one; it is recognizing that
sanitation is a good investment. It is beginning to wake up to the
fact that the children are more valuable producing machines when
they are well protected, housed, fed and educated. The cry of the
philanthropist to give because it was right and necessary that these
conditions be ameliorated, has met with only sporadic response, but
this new call to do the right thing because it pays in dollars to do
it, is meeting a greater answer from the people.
Little Farms Magazine found it impossible to evade the responsibility
imposed upon it by its readers. We roused them to a desire to go
out upon the land—to try the new condition. They came to us for
information. We could not go into the land business. We decided to
form “Forward-to-the-Land Leagues” in all principal cities.
Moneyed men are not asked to contribute alms but only to invest their
money at a nominal rate of interest, which the workingman with his
own home and garden, with health and a living assured, is willing and
able to pay. This has been proved where the experiment has been tried
in the manufacturing cities in England, and in such communities as
San Ysidro, Southern California, in our own country.
The work of the Little Farms Magazine in the founding of these
Forward-to-the-Land Leagues has been unique and necessary. And its
purposes two fold.
In the first place, it was of the utmost importance in meeting the
grave problems confronting the nation, particularly that of the
bringing our ratio of agricultural production where it safely
balances the ratio of population, to have a medium by which knowledge
of the intensive methods of agriculture could be brought to the
individual.
The widespread interest in the forward-to-the-land movement, which
has been taken up alike by press and magazine, has created a hunger
for specific information which occasional columns of general news
can not satisfy. Little Farms Magazine tells, specifically, how a
small acreage will yield and has yielded, industrial independence. It
quotes stories of those who have made good after leaving the old work
of bookkeeping and clerking and taken a “little farm.”
The problem which the farm presents today is not the same as that
of yesterday. The loneliness and isolation no longer obtains. The
message that the Little Farms Magazine takes to the world today
is that _scientific agriculture makes the acreage necessary for
individual maintenance so small that social life can be developed
on the farm in the most ideal manner_. The magazine advocates the
upbuilding of the social center, with its library, its clubhouse and
gymnasium, its moving pictures and mechanical music.
As I came through the country from the Pacific Coast and saw the
empty acres of farm land waiting, and then entered the big eastern
cities, and looked into the hopeless, pallid faces of its people,
I could think that the earth, if it had a voice, would cry aloud
with the cry of Him of long ago, who said: “How often would I have
gathered thee as a hen gathereth her chickens, but ye would not.”
Chairman WALLACE—There are fifteen minutes left. If Mr. Barrett,
President of the Farmers’ Union, is here we would be glad to give it
to him.
Mr. BARRETT—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: Speaking for
approximately three million American farmers, I can say with absolute
accuracy that the primary article in the creed of Conservation should
be the conservation of the man on the land.
In volume and variety of resources, the United States is the
mightiest nation in the world. It is true that the British Empire
may, through its dependencies, have a greater territorial reach, but
from the standpoint of a continuous stretch of land and the body of
acres cultivated and susceptible to cultivation, America admittedly
leads the world.
The effect of this handicap is indicated not only in the present
breadth of our domestic and international commerce, but to a greater
extent in the promise of its more wonderful commercial conquests
yet to come. The Nation is barely on the threshold of its destiny.
That fact should not mislead us as to the difficulties in the way of
making the destiny real, and not merely a boastful prophecy.
In the process of transmuting our possibilities into assets—what
is the dominant factor? The American farmer. I challenge any of my
distinguished audience to mention a single phase of commerce, one
feature of trade, the smallest detail of actual subsistence that does
not eventually trace back to the man plodding out there on the acres.
Napoleon said an army traveled on its belly. He could have said, with
equal truth, that civilization travels on its belly. And the farmer
is the factor that fills the Great American Stomach, and that keeps
full every dinner pail, regarding which we have heard so much during
political campaigns. More than that, he also clothes the armies of
development. Nor must we forget that with the South’s cotton as the
lever, he keeps the international trade balance on the American side
of the ledger. You tell me the manufacturer plays a large part in
our current and our probable development. This is true. You tell me
also, that what might be called trade-strategy, pure and simple—the
proverbial “Yankee shrewdness”—is going to win for America the bulk
of the world’s business.
I do not dispute these assertions. But I answer: That back of
trade-strategy and of dollar-diplomacy is—the American farmer.
Without him, all would be in vain; without him, all of those
resources we agree ought to be conserved would melt into impalpable
air.
Let us admit, then, that the farmer is the keystone in the arch
not only of national advance, but of sheer national existence. His
problems, then, are the Nation’s problems and his welfare, the
Nation’s welfare. No nation is stronger than its farmers. If the
farmer is poorly nourished, if the Government is negligent of his
rights, indifferent to his mental development and moral soundness,
the way will be surely blocked to our national march forward.
It is to the vital interest of America to cultivate intensively not
only the farm, but—what is more important—to cultivate intensively
the farmer. What use to conserve our resources, unless we conserve
the man behind the resources? The stability of national progress and
of government itself is dependent upon conserving the farmer.
All of you within hearing of my voice may say: “We concede these
facts. Are we not, right now, trying to aid the farmer, to conserve
him, to intensively cultivate his possibilities and safeguard his
rights?” And I answer: “Probably you are. But you can not help—you
can not conserve—you can not cultivate the farmer unless you mix and
mingle with him in the first person—not for twenty-four hours, but
more likely for twenty-four months or twenty-four years.” I give
full credit to the splendid intentions of the men who have tried and
who now are trying to aid the farmer. But you can not adequately
grasp his problem by using field-glasses from the convention hall or
interviewing him over a long distance telephone, so to speak.
The scientists who are searching for secrets, the missionaries who
are looking for converts, use neither of these methods. They go
straight to the scene of battle. And so must all persons do, my
friends, if they expect intelligently to conserve, to cultivate
the American element which is the pivot of all other elements in
this country. Study him at first hand, then your sympathies will be
practical, not theoretic; your suggestions based on conditions, not
on conjecture. Fight with him, side by side, in the ranks, day by
day. That is the only way you can learn of the foes—not the least
of which is his own weakness—which he has to combat, and what his
victory means to the weal or woe of this common country of ours.
At this point President White reassumed the Chair.
President WHITE—The ex-President of this Congress, familiarly called
“Uncle Henry,” and, in dignified circles, Dr. Henry Wallace, but who
doesn’t like the name and prefers “Uncle Henry,” will speak tonight,
as will Judge Ben B. Lindsey, of Denver, Colo., the children’s friend.
The morning session is now at an end. We hope you will get back here
at 2 o’clock, because we have a very full program.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] These statements are based on many specific examples of
fraudulent promotion.
FIFTH SESSION.
The Congress reconvened in the Murat Theater, at 2:00 o’clock p. m.,
and was called to order by President White.
President WHITE—On account of Professor Fairchild’s being called
away, having to leave on an early train, we will listen to his
address first this afternoon. Professor Fairchild is foremost in the
ranks of modern education, in teaching the conservation of human
life, the conservation of the soil, and everything that goes to make
up thorough manhood among the boys of the land. I now introduce to
you Prof. E. T. Fairchild, of Topeka, Kan., President of the National
Educational Association, whose subject is “The Duty of the Teacher.”
Professor FAIRCHILD—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the
Congress: With your permission I want to change my subject as
printed. It is not the subject of my remarks this afternoon. I should
like to call it “A Plea for More Equal Educational Opportunities.”
In the few minutes allowed me, I can only hope to sketch briefly some
of the conditions that confront us today. I shall have some things to
say that represent definitely a great lack of progress, but that I
may not be labeled as a pessimist, I wish at the beginning to state
as my conviction that the present is the best moment educationally
that the world has ever seen. Had I the time, I should like to
describe to you the marvelous progress that has taken place in
certain types of our educational activity.
The growth of our universities and colleges is little short of
marvelous. In a single decade in these United States the increase in
enrollment has been fully 98 per cent. This increase in enrollment
has also been manifested in Europe, in England, where there has
been a genuine increase in the number of provincial universities.
The increase in enrollment in the past ten years is most marked
in Germany. In Germany, where there have been no new institutions
erected the increased enrollment in a single decade represents 60
per cent. Such is the history of the increased enrollment, which,
with increased efficiency in the way of larger and more efficient
faculties, has taken place in this country and in Europe. It is
a world-wide movement, my friends, and so far as I can see, is a
recognition that the best field of opportunity to the ambitious and
capable youth is through the college.
Then we come to the story of the success of our high schools. Here
again the growth has been phenomenal. Those schools in number and
in enrollment have gone forward by leaps and by bounds. In a single
State, in my own, if I may be pardoned for this allusion, let me tell
you what has happened in five years. The increase in the number of
high schools in five years is one hundred per cent. and the increase
in the number of teachers one hundred and twenty per cent. This is
simply typical of the condition all over these United States. Again
we have a concrete instance of the conviction upon the part of our
people that the boy or girl of today who is to have something like
an equal chance tomorrow, should have the opportunities provided by
our high schools. I wish I had time to expand before you this growth
and its meaning to our nation, but it is not my purpose to discuss
that at length. I want to say, however, that as the result of this
marvelous activity and growth we have had in our high schools and our
graded schools in the cities, we have reached a maximum term. We are
having a constantly enriched curriculum and generous expenditures
are being made everywhere. Modern buildings, the latest word in
lighting and heating and ventilation are found everywhere. Thorough
organization characterizes this type of our educational work.
A vital point in the development of this growth, this high
organization, is the expert supervision that has charge of these
schools everywhere.
It is upon these higher institutions, the universities, the colleges
and the high schools that the emphasis of educational thought
and interest has been bestowed. Here notable investigations are
constantly in progress with a view to still greater efficiency. Here
the active and moral influence of the best and wisest of our country
finds expression. Every one is aware of these educational activities
and all are proud of them. We are spending money most generously for
the city grade schools, for the high schools, for the colleges and
the universities.
But, good friends, now I come to the essential thing I wish to
present to your attention. Of the twenty-five million boys and girls
in the United States today of school age a majority receive their
foundation training in the rural schools, or in an environment that
is characteristically rural. And what of these types of schools? Do
we find the same advancement? Do we find the same public concern?
Do we find the same skill and organization and supervision? Do we
get such results as are being secured by city schools? They do not
measure up in the character of teaching, friends, in the kind of
courses of study, in the length of the term, in the results obtained
and this is perfectly obvious to the student of rural schools. There
has been no such progress. What we have too often is the untrained
teacher in the rural schools; terms ranging from three months up
to six and seven; buildings that lack in every modern application
of light, heat, ventilation and sanitation and all attractiveness;
ground that too often is the sore spot of the community; houses that
too often represent or suggest the pest house rather than a place of
learning; inadequate support financially and inefficient supervision.
I want to speak briefly, then, to you in the few minutes that I have
left as to four vital defects, as I view them, that it seems to me
are the defects that we, as a nation, ought to undertake to remedy.
First, we have too many untrained, inexperienced teachers in these
schools. In saying this, my good friends, I am not unmindful of the
fact that in thousands of communities in this country of ours are
to be found rural conditions that are most pleasant, that there
are thousands of teachers in rural schools consecrated to their
work, performing a daily service for those boys of inestimable
value; but listen, in one of the largest cities of this Union the
superintendent of public instruction in a report said of 10,500 rural
school teachers 9,400 are themselves but eighth grade graduates.
I want to avoid being too explicit in pointing to the places, but
I personally know of a State, a State that stands well above the
average, I think, educationally in the United States, in which of the
8,000 rural school teachers 4,400 in 1910 had only such training as
is found in the country school and not beyond the eighth grade. In
too many places this condition prevails. I believe I am well within
the truth when I say that of the teachers of the fourteen million
boys and girls in the rural districts of America today who are being
taught, more than fifty per cent. of those teachers have themselves
an academic training that does not extend beyond the grades.
But, to return to the subject of the high schools, that I spoke of a
moment ago. See how conditions have changed as to the training and
kind and character of the teachers that must be placed therein. It is
rare that you see a teacher of a high school who is not a graduate
of a high school and in many cases of a normal school. In the rural
school, the first defect is that we have too many poorly trained
teachers.
The next thing I wish to speak of as a great defect in our present
system is our manner of raising and distributing tax. You are aware
that the prevailing unit of school organization in America is the
district. In my own State we have 13,400 teachers; to boss, guide and
direct those 13,400 teachers is an army of 30,000 school officers.
By the way, he is the most numerous officer in this country. Within
a radius of three miles you will run across a school officer in
most of the States of the Union, a condition that makes for lack of
uniformity, lack of singleness of purpose, the most wasteful, the
most extravagant system that could be devised. But I want to speak
a word in regard to taxation. The trouble is, good friends, that
our system of distribution of taxes is utterly unfair and utterly
prejudicial to the best interests of the child. On the one side of
the road is a district having a splendid valuation with a low tax
that may maintain eight months of school with a splendid teacher, a
good building, and on the other side of the road, the maximum reached
by law or gone beyond it, they are only able to supply the most
inferior facilities for the boys and girls. The day must come when we
shall have a prevailing system at least with the county as a unit for
the taxes to be raised and distributed, so that the boy or girl who
lives in some poor part of that county or State shall have the same
opportunity as far as money will bring it to have a good teacher. The
fact is that poor communities are the ones that ought to have the
best teachers in all this land (applause), and that the contrary is
too often true I am sure you will all agree.
Let me say as to the courses of study now a word or two. I have,
good friends, said to you that there are twenty-five million boys
and girls of school age in America, fourteen million of these in
rural schools. Now, listen, of these fourteen million less than
twenty-five per cent. are so much as completing the work of the
grades in this, the morning of the twentieth century. If this does
not spell tragedy then I have no means of interpreting these facts.
Less than twenty-five per cent. To assign the reasons for this is
difficult, but because of the kind and character of these schools,
because they are lacking, because they are not making the progress,
because they have not the attractiveness that our city systems
have, is a reason why these boys and girls do not stay. But there
is another and further reason. The course of study too often lacks
vitality; somehow and someway we have not grasped the thought that
the school has a larger and wider duty than consuming all its time
and energy in text book knowledge. Somehow and someway we have
failed to see there, as we are coming to see in our more highly
organized system, that to interest that boy and girl, to send them
out capable, self-sustaining citizens, we must do more than consume
our time and energies on the text book knowledge. I should like to
see a reasonably but not rigidly classified course of study with
adequate attention to fundamentals, to large opportunity for hand
work and with every possible connection between the experience of the
school and the actualities of life. We must vitalize these schools.
Another important thing in connection with our rural schools is this:
the great majority of these boys and girls are denied high school
privileges. Here in the city of Indianapolis with the splendid system
of high schools that they have small wonder is it that the boy and
girl in the grades if possible persevere in the work, looking forward
always to the opportunity to get this liberal education afforded in
the high school. Often this is not true in the country. As I said a
moment ago, the great majority of these boys and girls are denied
such opportunities, denied for geographical reasons, for financial
reasons. If every township there could be created a rural high
school, in its course of study emphasizing the things that are most
needed in the lives of the boys and girls in that township, preparing
them by a well developed and organized course of study for the great
and important and practical business of life—if such an institution
could be put within the reach of those fourteen million boys and
girls, don’t you agree with me that many more than twenty-five per
cent. would finish the work of the grades in the hope that they, too,
might enter these schools and enjoy their advantages. And so I say,
there is another great defect that some way ought to be overcome.
Now, just a word or two further. The last defect that I will mention
is the question of supervision. In my judgment the commanding reason
for the development and growth of our city schools is the skilled
supervision supplied by the city superintendent. If we could have
like supervision in these schools in the country the development
would be marvelous and it would be rapid and vital. We have county
superintendents. They have them here in Indiana. We have them in
our State, but in no single instance so far as I am aware, is this
supervision adequate. First of all, to remedy the question of the
supervision of our schools, the question of the superintendency
should be taken absolutely out of politics. (Applause.) It is a
crime against the children of this nation to select either a city
superintendent or a county superintendent upon any other basis than
educational qualifications. (Applause.) The children of Indiana, the
children of every other State of this Union will never come into
their own, good friends, until the supervising element is selected
because of their being experts in the job they are looking for.
Now, just one other thing on that. It is perfectly preposterous to
expect a superintendent in a county such as there are in my State,
for illustration, to visit one hundred and fifty or more schools,
going over roads in all times of year, in all conditions, to make
his visits worth while. He may get there once a year. We ought to
imitate Oregon in this respect. In Oregon they have subordinate
superintendents, one for every twenty schools. There they can
accomplish something.
My time is more than taken. You have been patient, as has your
President. I thank you most sincerely. I only regret that I can only
touch the edges of this problem.
In conclusion, you representatives of this National Conservation
Congress, here is the problem. The great thing we need to do, first
of all, is to make public everywhere the actual condition of the
rural schools. Publicity is the first step; organization is the
second; organization of national scope and of State scope. Give me
twenty common people in any State in this Union and I will guarantee
to see that the rural schools make more real genuine advance in the
next five years than under ordinary circumstances they would do in
ten years.
The country is the Nation’s great recruiting ground. Here we look for
the best men and women of tomorrow who are to take leadership, who
are to represent in their actions and in their lives the good red
blood that characterizes the Anglo-Saxon race. Are we doing our duty
when but a paltry three million five hundred thousand out of a total
of fourteen million are not so much as accomplishing the work of the
grades? (Applause.)
President WHITE—Louisiana has been first and foremost in several
phases of Conservation. Louisiana stands first in making forestry
possible by wise and beneficial laws that encourage forestry, and I
think Louisiana stands among the first in its State Board of Health,
doing something worth while in every parish. I have the pleasure of
introducing to you Dr. Oscar Dowling, of New Orleans, Louisiana,
President of the Louisiana State Board of Health, who will speak on
“Hygiene in Relation to Public Health.”
Dr. DOWLING—Mr. Chairman, Members of the National Conservation
Congress, Ladies and Gentlemen: We are very glad to have this
opportunity to appear before this great Congress. In the beginning
I want to say that we owe much of our enthusiasm to the good work
of the Indiana State Board under Dr. Hurty, and to your pure food
department, under Dr. Barnard; also to Dr. Evans, of Chicago, and
Dr. Wiley, of Washington. We have endeavored to imitate them in some
ways, but nevertheless, in some ways we have fallen short.
Hygiene, the science of preservation and promotion of health, in
some form, has been recognized by every nation since the dawn of
civilization.
Among the people of antiquity, conquest and domination were directly
dependent on physical vigor, hence their laws regulating this feature
of national life. Among the Greeks, the health idea was embodied
in the cult of Hygeia which arose hundreds of years before the
Christian era, consequent probably to a devastating plague. In the
early period of Rome, when courage and patriotism were cardinal
virtues, physical development was provided for and emphasized. Social
and political fluidity in the middle ages precluded the evolution of
organized thought or systems in sanitary science.
Individuals set aside conventional thought and method and strove with
Nature that they might learn her secrets; their work was not in vain,
but with few exceptions their discoveries were unimportant.
The experimental method popularized in Baconian philosophy gave an
impetus to the study of the physical sciences, but many decades
passed before notable deeds were recorded. It was the nineteenth
century, scientific in spirit and achievement, that made vital the
long result of time and opened a perspective before undreamed of. The
awakened health conscience of today is the crystallized result.
In scientific annals, the discoveries of the bacteriologist rank
among the first. Perhaps, in the evolution of knowledge no truths are
more potential. Within a generation the influence is marked, not only
in relation to the individual and community, but in effect on the
civilized world. The sanitarian with this knowledge was enabled to
demonstrate control of environment. The success of the experiment has
opened a new world just as surely as did the discovery of October,
1492.
The changed viewpoint of the relative value of hygiene in its
application to life is due not wholly to the discoveries in medical
science. It is one phase of the general awakening to the defects of
the present social order: a manifestation of the modern attitude
toward “waste.” Efficiency implies economy, not alone of expenditure,
but of material resource and vital force.
Conservation and preservation of the material wealth of the country
is dominant in the intellectual activity of all enlightened people.
But it becomes increasingly apparent that the Nation which conserves
its mines, forests, soil and sources of power is poor indeed if its
men lack virility and mental initiative. This thought is back of the
public health movement. The impulse is in part commercial, in part
scientific. It grows out of recognition of the futility of remedial
and philanthropic measures and the conviction of the potentialities
of science for human betterment. In import the movement is ethical
and spiritual; it is beyond question the greatest of modern times.
This meeting is significant of the changed attitude toward the
Nation’s greatest natural resource—its people. The Congress is
national, its purpose conservation, its main topic—to quote from the
invitation—the conservation of vital resources. There is significance
also in the topics selected for discussion in the health section.
They relate to the larger aims of sanitary science. In the popular
mind health work has reference only to superficial conditions,
control of epidemics, cleaning of streets and similar activities, but
the hygienist knows that sanitary regeneration means an attack on
many existing institutions, customs, practices and methods that lie
deep in the roots of the social structure.
Housing, child labor, industrial occupations, labor insurance, vital
statistics, food supply, community methods and conditions are the
subjects chosen for discussion. Their primary importance is apparent.
The period of twenty minutes allotted for the opening of this
division makes imperative only brief suggestive statements of
the essentials in their relation to public health and individual
well-being.
Mr. Lawrence Veiller, in the Annals of the American Academy, says:
“We have paid dear for our slums.... No one has ever attempted to
estimate the cost to the Nation of our bad housing conditions,
because it is an impossible task.... Who can say of the vast army of
the unemployed how large a portion of the industrially inefficient
are so because of lowered physical vitality caused by disadvantageous
living conditions? Of the burden which the State is called on to
bear in the support of almshouses for the dependent, hospitals for
the sick, asylums for the insane, prisons and reformatories for the
criminal, what portion can fairly be attributed to adverse early
environment?” Describing surroundings, the author continues: “The
sordidness of it all, the degrading baseness of it, unfortunately is
withheld from the eyes of most of us. What it can mean to the people
who have to live in the midst of it we can but faintly conceive.
Let us frankly admit that these conditions result in imposing upon
the great mass of our working people habits of life that are more
compatible with the life of animals than with that of human beings.”
Moreover, not alone in the slums do these conditions exist. In almost
every city of the Union, a few blocks from the main thoroughfares,
there are congested districts unspeakably bad.
With the knowledge we now have of the relation to health and sickness
of air, sunlight and propagating agencies of disease incident to
dirt, it is nothing short of criminal to tolerate such conditions.
If physical suffering only were the result, indifference would be
unpardonable, but overcrowded homes, insanitary in every respect,
make for low standards of decency and morality. Vice, with its
correlatives, disease and pauperism result. Often crime and insanity
make the chain complete. The conditions of life in the middle ages as
recorded in history seem to us barbarous in the extreme; relatively,
ours really are. Then, there was no certainty as to the effect of
insanitary environment; the people did not know; we do, yet with
inexplicable indifference communities not only let the worst obtain,
but they permit a perpetuation of the system. Authorities stand
aghast at the expense involved in the tearing away of a whole section
of a city, but the cost of such a measure easily, often probably,
may become a mere item in comparison with the economic loss from an
epidemic of a virulent type.
It is a hopeful sign that a few enlightened municipalities have set
an example in remodeling districts, not only in the erection of
comfortable homes, but further in the establishment of healthful
and beautiful environments. The housing problem is one of the
most difficult and complex of our day. It can be solved only by
enlightened legislation supported by public opinion.
About a century and a quarter ago the factory system began to
develop with intensity in England. Later, in this country, it grew
by leaps and bounds. Child labor with its attendant evils was a
logical result. For nine years there has been systematic effort to
control the unhygienic features of the system. Some good has been
accomplished, but because of the nature of the problem progress
is slow. The injury to the child is plainly apparent. Long hours
in poorly ventilated rooms, with constant use of the same set of
muscles, stunts and dwarfs the body; equally, the mind. Toil of this
nature uses up the young life; it leaves the State the burden of
caring for an individual hopelessly inefficient if not worse. But
of more importance is the consequential physical deterioration. If
these youthful toilers grow to maturity their bodies are devitalized;
if they marry their children are almost invariably low in vitality.
Hygiene in its application does not imply the remedy of existing
conditions alone for the individual or the present; it looks to
the future. Therefore, protection of the child is a principle of
paramount importance.
Child labor laws are now more humane than a few years ago; conditions
in many factories have been vastly improved. But as yet we are far
from an ideal stage in the regulation and supervision of this feature
of industrial life.
Every argument concerning the employment of children in factories
may be applied to women engaged in similar occupations. In the mills
and shops where women stand all day, where they endure for hours not
only unhygienic environment, but in addition mental anxiety, where
the whip “employed by the week only” is held over them, the nervous
strain as well as physical exertion saps the very foundations of
vitality. Investigations made by Dr. R. Morton of New York, show
the health of industrial women is proving a serious thing in the
United States, and unless conditions are bettered that there will
be a general breakdown of the working women of the country. Nor is
this the sum total of the consequences. In the children of these
women low vitality is perpetuated. Records quoted by Dr. George Reid,
Health Officer of Stafford, England, give the mortality of children
under one year of age as greater among those of mothers who work in
factories than among home mothers. Statistics compiled by him show
the death rate one hundred and forty-five per one thousand births for
infants of home mothers and two hundred and nine per one thousand
births for infants of mothers who work in factories. The injury to
the State is apparent.
On the question of prevention of occupational diseases, I cannot
do better than quote the measures suggested by Dr. H. Linenthal,
of Boston. They are: collection of accurate data about working
conditions; data relative to the effect of occupation on mortality;
proper medical instruction; reporting to health authorities specific
industrial diseases; examination of all industrial workers; exclusion
of minors and women from certain industries; sanitary laws for
factories; regulation of dangerous trades by health authorities, and
the carrying of an educational campaign of hygiene among employers
and employes. The comprehensiveness of these measures indicates the
extension of the problem. No movement of recent times is more humane
and economic than the one termed industrial insurance.
The purpose is the capitalization of the workingman’s energy at the
time of his greatest productivity; the basic principle that every
far-sighted social policy is founded more on energy reserve than
money reserve. The aim is to secure for the nation the greatest
possible reserve of bodily and mental force and power and physical
and moral health.
The problem has been attacked in various ways by different
countries. Germany has been the most successful. There the
workingman’s insurance has attained the dimension of a gigantic
social institution. Dr. Frederick Zahn of Munich, Director of
the Bavarian Statistical Office, in a recent address, gave the
following interesting figures: Out of 16,000,000 laborers in Germany,
14,000,000 are carrying sick insurance, and 15,700,000 invalid and
old age policies.
In the past twenty-five years over one billion six hundred million
dollars have been paid in benefits. In addition, prophylactic
measures are provided for.
Only those familiar with the necessities for correct data in health
work appreciate the immediate and imperative need for statistical
information. Records of births and deaths and of supplementary
details form a basis for advancement. Without such data, the
sanitarian gropes in the dark. Yet no request from the health
department is so lightly treated. Reform in this can be wrought
slowly. Appropriations to pay registrars and enforcement through the
courts are the means for the inauguration of a more perfect system.
One of the hygienic essentials in this country is education in the
relative values of food products. The phenomenal growth of the urban
population which has reduced the number of producers and the almost
universal practice of adulteration make imperative the enforcement of
stringent laws and instruction in the nutritive value of classes of
foods and the economy of selection.
The campaign for a supply of clean, pure milk in many centers has
grown out of the effort to lower the infant mortality rate. It has
stimulated inquiry and supervision of other food products which is
encouragingly prophetic.
Hygiene in its application to personal and community life is
essentially preventive. This idea is not sufficiently understood to
be taken at its real value; curative measures the people commend,
but possible calamity seems remote, therefore, prevention does not
appeal. It is this concept of the collective mind that lies back of
the extravagant parsimony universal in health appropriations. It also
explains public apathy and indifference.
The most practical means for sanitary progress are two, education of
all the people in the primary truths of hygiene, and the application
of the science through governmental agencies. These are so closely
related that they are practically inseparable, but logically may be
differentiated.
Hygiene is an organized science; its principles are rational and
demonstrable; its application will bring returns economic, ethical
and spiritual. This must be acceptably taught to the people by
methods suited to the present state of the public mind. Conviction
that will lead to action is the end to be sought. Education will
create a public sentiment persistent and insistent for measures
promotive of public good. Concomitant with this effort, in fact a
part of it, the various units of government should be executives
in the establishment of hygienic measures and the abolition of
insanitary conditions. When people believe that the eradication of
typhoid fever and hookworm disease is more important than high or
low tariff; when they become convinced that malaria is a national
disgrace and uncleanliness a relic of barbarism, there will be money
and judicial decisions for the elimination of these defects.
Fortunately, these are the views of an increasingly large number of
people. There is a health awakening. The principles of the science
of health are every day becoming concrete in laws, and habits of
thought and living. It is the conviction of the progressive minority
that a Nation’s first duty is to conserve and protect its citizens,
to develop a community of efficient men and to minimize natural
disadvantages. Further, that collective intelligence must plan for
the preservation of the people and the perpetuity of the State, and
in so doing must recognize public health as fundamental, both in the
simple phases and in its comprehensive aspect. (Applause.)
President WHITE—The next subject to be discussed is by one who
employs labor in the State of Indiana, and who is a large employer of
labor. His subject is “The Duty of the Employer.” I now take pleasure
in introducing to you Dr. Edward A. Rumely, of Laporte, Indiana.
Dr. RUMELY—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: Four generations
ago, there were but three millions of Americans scattered along
the Atlantic Seaboard. Back of them was a vast virgin continent,
the richest the white man had ever found in the long migration upon
which our race started ages ago. The American continent was rich in
timber, in the soil fertility of its vast valleys and prairies, and
rich beyond measure in the superabundant deposits of mineral wealth.
The first settlers were few in number; they brought with them but
few tools and little wealth that today we would call capital. It was
the natural and proper thing for them to set to work to gain, with
the least possible labor, the great natural wealth that the virgin
continent treasured for them.
They killed the fur-bearing animals, felled the trees to export
lumber, dug in the quickest way the mineral wealth of the land and
started to grow such crops as would carry to market the greatest
value from the fertility of the virgin prairies. Wheat was easily
transported, and each bushel contained from twenty to thirty cents
of soil value. Hence with wheat our prairies were taken under
cultivation, and from the returns of the wheat crops cities and
railroads and homes were paid for.
Only today, when the average yield per acre has gone down from forty
to thirteen bushels are we beginning to see clearly that by this
process we have been drawing heavily upon our soil capital.
While the population was small, labor was difficult to secure. Cities
had to be built, roadways opened, railroads constructed, rivers
bridged, and a continent brought under subjection. The process of
the past four generations was possible only because our fathers
economized their own labor and created, as fast as possible, the
values they needed to barter off into the markets of the world for
capital from the superabundant natural wealth that surrounded them.
Today, we are mining our iron, copper, lead and other metals more
rapidly than any other country in the world. The pioneer farmers
who worked the soils of the south with tobacco and of the east with
wheat, can no longer move off to the west, when, having exhausted the
fertility of our lands, they find farming no longer profitable. The
hundred thousand vigorous Americans who went last year to Canada with
energy, capital and American tools are a concrete evidence that we
have reached the end of the course which we have been traveling.
The whole country has been startled by the warning of the far-sighted
men, and now the demand for conservation of our natural wealth is
becoming more and more insistent. We have been made to realize that
every child born brings a mouth that must be fed, a body that must
be sheltered and clothed, but no increase in natural wealth. We must
still learn that every child does bring two hands which can work,
and which, when highly trained and backed by scientific knowledge,
can create untold values. Stated otherwise, we must care for our
increasing population, not by increased exploitation of our natural
stores, but by providing abundant work for skilled labor.
AMERICAN FARM MUST BE FACTORY—NOT A MINE.
Our agriculture has been a process of mining. The farm must now
furnish a field for the profitable employment of skilled labor,
for the use of capital, and the application of the principles of
scientific management, becoming thereby a workshop instead of a mine.
In order to sell the labor power of our people, we must encourage the
development of all secondary industries. By “secondary industries” I
mean those industries which take raw materials that are largely the
product of crude machinery and unskilled labor, and add to them in a
large measure labor and capital values.
The agricultural implement manufacturer purchases steel and iron
at approximately one cent per pound, and by further refinement
creates implements worth eight cents to twenty cents per pound. The
automobile maker takes lumber and iron, worth from two cents to
four cents per pound, and produces a car worth from thirty cents
to one dollar per pound, while the same materials, worked up into
cash registers, typewriters, etc., would be worth from $3 to $10 per
pound, and in watches from $50 to $5,000 per pound.
CREATE VALUES FROM LABOR.
We began by cutting the maple tree into a cord of wood, worth from
three to seven dollars, and each tree furnished material for one
day’s work. This same tree—if sawed into lumber—is worth twenty
dollars and would furnish employment for one man for three or four
days. If quarter-sawed and more carefully treated, it might be worth
forty dollars and would furnish employment for more skilled and
better paid workers and for a period of from ten to twelve days. And
this same lumber, in a furniture factory would produce furniture
worth from $100 to $500 and would furnish employment directly and
indirectly equal to from six months to one year’s work for one man.
The whole range of values in this series, from the seven dollars’
worth of cord wood or $500 worth of manufactured goods, depends
upon the degree of refinement extended to identically the same raw
material through the quality and quantity of labor employed upon
it, the capital expended and the application of greater scientific
knowledge to the processes of production.
The secondary industries that we must now begin to encourage are
characterized by a wide variety of work. They have different
standards, are not easily susceptible to organization on a large
scale, and hence politically have never acted as a concerted and
effective force. The National Association of Manufacturers has been
held together largely by an exaggerated emphasis upon the struggle
against trades unionism. This ideal of strife with labor is no
longer sufficient, and many believe that much more can be gained
by co-operating with labor to build up the productive power of our
people.
SECONDARY INDUSTRIES AND CONSERVATION.
Today, the interests of the secondary manufacturer coincide closely
with the demands of the conservation movement, and with the best
interest of the Nation. The secondary manufacturer needs a permanent
supply of raw materials. It is to his interest to see that coal,
lumber, iron, electric power generated from our waterfalls, and
every other raw material of manufacture be permanently available
at reasonable prices. Where undue monopoly of the power of such
raw materials exists, the secondary manufacturer will be acting in
accordance with his own enlightened interests if he helps to restrict
and regulate by political action. Reckless exploitation, leading to
exhaustion of any natural store, threatens the very existence of his
business.
In order to produce in large quantities, the secondary manufacturer
must sell into broad markets; must use freely and extensively
the transportation systems of the country. He realizes that the
development of railroading in the United States (which surpasses that
of any other country in the world, and has knit together a population
of a hundred millions with great buying and consuming power into
one homogeneous market) is one of our great national assets. On the
basis of this broad market, quantity manufacture can be developed as
nowhere else in the world.
President WHITE—Before introducing the next speaker, I will read a
letter from Dr. Charles A. Doremus, of New York, whom we expected to
be here.
NEW YORK, September 30, 1912.
Mr. J. B. White, President of the Fourth National Conservation
Congress:
Dear Sir—Much to my regret I am prevented from attending the
sessions of the Congress, though appointed to represent, as a member
of its Committee, the American Electrochemical Society.
One of the matters detaining me is work in connection with the
American Museum of Safety, which is doing progressive work to
conserve human life. There are now twenty-two such museums and
their beneficial influence is being felt here and abroad. The
large corporations have been enlisted in the work of accident
prevention and allied topics and the recent congresses, the Eighth
International Congress of Applied Chemistry and the International
Congress of Hygiene and Demography, have awakened great public
interest in all that pertains to the preservation of health and life.
May the Congress over which you have the distinguished honor to
preside still further enlist our people to safeguard not only our
material wealth but the people themselves.
I have the honor to be,
Yours very respectfully,
CHARLES A. DOREMUS.
President WHITE—I now have the pleasure of introducing to you Dr.
J. N. Hurty, of Indianapolis, President of the American Public
Health Association, and Indiana Health Commission, who will speak on
“Conservation of the Human Race.”
Dr. HURTY—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:
High authority says we are only fifty per cent. efficient; that
we live out less than one-half the natural duration of life, that
we consume twice as much food as is needed to maintain efficient
life, that we waste as much as we use, and that one-half of all
human beings born either die before reaching maturity or fall
into the defective, delinquent or dependent classes. In these
facts we find reasons why we waste the major portion of all our
resources and call it development. In these facts we find reasons
for the existence of robber taxation and predatory business. For, a
people who waste themselves, will, of course, waste their natural
resources. Therefore, the first, the most important, the fundamental
conservation, is the conservation of human efficiency. A people
who cannot be brought to a realization of the fact that they lead
only half lives, and, who realizing, will not end, will show the
nations-to-come what fools the present mortals were.
LENGTH OF LIFE.
Length of life is a resultant of strength. “Honor thy father and thy
mother that thy days may be long in the land the Lord thy God giveth
thee.” It is an honor and it is a strength, for a nation to have a
low sickness and a low death rate with their consequent lengthened
average duration of life. In India, the average length of life is
twenty-five years, in the United States, forty, in England, forty, in
Germany, forty-three and in Sweden, forty-five. The natural duration
is one hundred years. Metchnikoff, after thirty years of study of
disease and death says, only a very few die natural deaths, most of
mankind commit suicide. That is, most people do not know how, or will
not, conserve their vitality, and thus results a greater or less
period of disability and inefficiency with premature death. Nature
does no fooling, she has her laws and they are enforced up to the
handle.
VITAL ASSETS.
Comparison of vital and physical assets as measured by earning
power, show that the vital are three to five times the physical.
The facts show that there is as great room for improvement in our
vital resources as in our lands, water, minerals and forests; and
furthermore, this improvement must come first for through human life
only is natural conservation possible. The dead past may bury the
dead, but living and strong men, not the weakly and sickly, must do
the work of Conservation.
ILLNESS.
From our vital statistics, which constitutes the bookkeeping of
humanity, we learn that fully 100,000 people in Indiana are sick at
all times, 25,000 of whom are consumptives. Not less than half of
this is preventable, and three-fourths may be prevented by strong
effort. Eighteen experts in various diseases as well as vital
statisticians, have contributed data on the ratio of preventability
of the ninety different causes of death into which mortality may be
classified. From this data according to Fisher, it is found that
fifteen years at least could be at once added to the average lifetime
by practically applying the science of preventing disease. More
than half of this additional life would come from the prevention of
tuberculosis, typhoid fever and five other diseases, the prevention
of which could be accomplished by purer air, purer water and purer
milk. Let the business men, who are in the saddle and who run our
affairs, thoroughly consider this. They surely know that disease and
premature death are drags to business. Fifteen more years of life to
each citizen means an enormous increase in the strength and happiness
of the people, with consequent betterment to business.
_Minor Ailments_ must be thoroughly considered in any steps toward
the conservation of vitality. They are far more common and farther
reaching than is generally realized. They are chiefly functional
disorders such as of intestinal canal, heart, nerves, liver, kidneys,
etc. These disorders are gateways to the more serious disorders.
Those who neglect colds, or what seems to be colds, will prepare the
tissues of the respiratory tract for pneumonia and consumption.
Benjamin Franklin, wise and practical, successful as merchant,
scientist, and statesman, said—“The having of colds is a great
drawback. I notice when I have one my efficiency is greatly
decreased. Thought, judgment and understanding are clouded.
Furthermore, I notice that colds follow excess in eating and drinking
and the much breathing of bad air. They are quite unnecessary.” The
losses due to mistakes in business and in the general conduct of life
on account of minor ailments cannot be estimated except perhaps as
time lost. A study of the matter shows that the time lost cannot be
less than four days annually to each supposedly well man. Applying
this to the wage earners of Indiana, counting one wage earner to
each five people, making 500,000 in all, and we have to pocket an
annual loss of 2,000,000 days or 5,470 years. In dollars, counting
the average wage at $500 per annum, the loss amounts to $2,735,000
annually. This is certainly a prodigious loss to suffer in Indiana
because of minor ailments, all of which can practically be avoided by
proper public and private hygiene.
Neurasthenia, so common in the United States, is one of the most
serious and insidious introductions to grave disorders, which may be
due to depraved nutrition, to needless worry, or failure to have
adequate recreation.
_Patent Medicines._ A source of drug habit, ill health, disease,
inefficiency and race poisoning, militating against business is the
horrible patent medicines. Medicines at their best, given under
skilled medical direction are very dangerous things. (Applause.)
The drug addicts, made so by a certain kind of practitioners, by
self doctoring, and the taking of patent medicines, are numbered by
hundreds of thousands. A large proportion of drunkards are started on
their way by taking tonics. It is mostly the alcohol in tonics which
produce the seeming improvement and which give temporary relief,
but which invariably make the last state worse than the first.
Alcohol, and all other drugs, are more dangerous than dynamite,
and trade in them should be restricted more severely than trade in
dynamite. (Applause.) The earth has been ransacked for drugs to cure.
Everywhere we see emblazoned advertisements of medicines which the
ad says will cure every disease from corns and ingrowing toenail to
syphilis and gonorrhea; and yet, sickness and disease grow apace with
our civilization. The world has been fine-combed from the equator
to the poles for a something with which to bring health and prolong
life; and lo, and behold, like the blue bird, these blessings are in
every household patiently waiting to be called. At present, we are
in the patent-medicine stage of ignorance, from which we must emerge
before real conservation of human life and energy can be realized.
(Applause.)
SCHOOL HYGIENE.
In conserving vitality, the child must have physical defects removed
as far as possible, then he must be brought up amidst healthful
surroundings and itself trained in all that conserves health. This
great State of Indiana has already taken steps in this direction.
The 67th General Assembly ordained that the schoolhouses hereafter
built shall be sanitary in all particulars. This means, that waste
of money and waste of child strength and happiness, shall cease in
this fair State so far as this one matter goes. The same assembly
has given permission to school authorities to institute medical
inspection of school children that they may be relieved of morbid
physical conditions which cause pain, inefficiency, illness and
early death. It was a marked forward step to grant this privilege
but it was a mistake of the Legislature in favor of loss of vitality
not to make this practical care of children compulsory. Physical
strength is the fundamental requirement for the making of children
into educated and moral citizens. There is now a world-wide movement
led by Switzerland and heathen Japan to save children and make them
strong. A Japanese physician traveling in this State said—“We have
relatively fewer short graves in our cemeteries.” The intelligence
and business sense of a community could be accurately measured by
determining its relative number of short graves. Youth is the time
to serve the Lord. We must train the body in youth as well as the
mind or the opportunity to conserve vitality is largely lost. A far
better business scheme than securing more factories would be for the
business men to turn their attention to the conservation of human
vitality. The returns would be immense, failure to score in such an
effort is impossible.
Hygiene has been permitted to extinguish cholera and yellow fever,
and by the grace of private benefaction it will soon banish hookworm
disease which now incapacitates 2,000,000 people in the South. And
may God hasten the business men to permit hygiene to banish those
twin leprosies, syphilis and gonorrhea, which are important factors
in the causation of insanity, crime, and pauperism, and which so
fearfully wreck the lives of so many innocent women and children
as well as wreck the lives of the guilty. (Applause.) Syphilis and
gonorrhea are responsible for the existence of a large proportion of
defectives of various kinds which fill our institutions. Let hygiene
drive these plagues away, and, Indiana, instead of building another
insane hospital, for another million dollars, which she must shortly
do, could donate one of the five now existent to educational use of
some kind. (Applause.) I strongly advise Indiana to listen to the
health cranks if she wishes to save health, time and money.
SAVING VITALITY.
“_Strength, Endurance and Fatigue_, are the three great elements to
be considered in conserving life. The measure of strength is the
force a muscle can exert once, the measure of endurance is the number
of times it can repeat an exertion. Fatigue is caused by fatigue
poisons, which must be removed from the body during rest, principally
during sleep.
Anything, therefore, which reduces strength and lessens endurance and
prevents removal of fatigue is inimical to vitality conservation.”
SCIENCE OF LIVING.
The science of living begins at the mouth. Barring the taking of
drugs, as a man eats and digests his foods so he is. Owing to drug
taking and errors in human feeding, disease is latent in man at all
times. Only a few escape sickness and pain and die natural deaths.
This is not as nature would have it. Josh Billings, recovering from
heart trouble caused by the excessive use of tobacco said—“Nature
made us all right, we make fools of ourselves.” Other drugs which are
of almost universal use and which affect heart, nerves or efficient
elimination are coffee, tea, spices, cocaine, morphine, chloral and
alcohol. (Applause.) All of these are drugs, and all are poisons, and
all more or less disturb the vital functions, reducing vitality and
efficiency.
Any departure from unstimulated nutrition works harm. Stimulated
nutrition is unnatural, and perforce, is opposed to strength.
Immoderate eating—feasting and gluttony—reduce vitality and induce
disease with its consequent inefficiency. A very old adage says—“Most
men dig their graves with their teeth.” The old time author of this
was striving for the conservation of human vitality. Immoderate
amounts of nitrogenous foods, exemplified in white of egg and
lean meats, cause auto-intoxication. They do this by undergoing
putrefaction in the digestive tract, thus making toxins, which in
turn being absorbed into the body, cause the following train of
ills which results in loss of vitality and efficiency. Some of the
auto-intoxication or over-eating ills, are—biliousness, coated
tongue, foul breath, clammy hands, clammy feet, dry lusterless
hair, putty complexion, dulled hearing, dulled vision, dulled
taste, dulled smell, early loss of memory, loss of continuous
thought and attention, headaches, vertigo, dyspepsia, loss of
strength, rheumatism, insomnia, fugitive pains and aches, hysteria,
nervousness, nightmare, irregular heart, shortness of breath, brittle
nails, dry harsh skin, cancer and premature old age of the doddering
and slobbering kind. (Applause.)
Until we learn and practically apply the science of living we cannot
attain over 50 or 60 per cent. efficiency and must continue to live
lives of sickness, pain and disease, and die before the natural
duration of life has one-half expired; and if this does not hinder
and delay the conservation of natural resources nothing will.
“_Over-fatigue_, is a cause of loss of vitality. The present working
day from a physiological standpoint is too long. Over-work better
expressed by the term over-fatigue, starts a vicious circle leading
to the craving of means for deadening fatigue, thus inducing drug
habits and drunkenness.”
“Experiments in reducing the length of the working day show a great
improvement in the physical and mental efficiency of laborers and
results in an increased output sufficient to pay the difference.
However, the great justification of the shorter day is found in
the interests of the race and nation, not the employer. Public
safety requires, in order to avoid railway collisions and other
accidents, the prevention of long hours; lack of sleep and undue
fatigue is quite as great as the waste from serious illness. A
typical succession of events is, first, fatigue, then “colds,” then
tuberculosis, then death. In order to prevent in the beginning this
increasing line of destructive agencies, undue fatigue must be
prevented.”
HEREDITY.
Vitality largely rests upon inherited qualities. A child born of
weak parents, those parents having received their weakness by
inheritance, will itself be weak in the same way. Idiots breed
idiots. Whatever improvement the child may enjoy, must rest upon its
inherited foundation. If a child inherits brown eyes they must stay
brown, no amount of cultivation may change their color, but inherited
weak sight may be improved to a greater or less degree. Two forces,
therefore, control vitality, namely, conditions preceding birth and
conditions during life. In other words, the foundations of vitality
are wholly inherited, and may be cultivated to the degree the
inherited foundations will permit.
A perfectly sound physical and mental inheritance is rare and is
the greatest of all assets. The highest development of a nation
will begin when the human law conforms to God’s law of development
and parenthood is denied to defectives. Prisons and asylums are now
sufficiently numerous, as it is evidence of defectiveness of the
masses to conduct our affairs so as to necessitate their increase.
Indiana now has five great insane asylums, each representing about
one million dollars, and there are enough insane in jails, poorhouses
and in homes to fill another one. Our population increased 16 per
cent. in the last decade and insanity increased 29 per cent. There is
a business problem for you.
To go along in the future as in the past, permitting, even fostering
the production of the hereditary insane, of the hereditary pauper
and criminal, of the hereditary idiot and feeble-minded, and then
building great palaces in parks to care for them, will mean we have
not the common horse-sense necessary for the proper conduct of our
affairs. (Applause.)
HYGIENE.
We must look to hygiene, the science of health, to conserve human
vitality. The term includes every necessary force to prevent disease,
to increase strength and endurance, and to prevent the production of
the unfit.
The ponderous and oppressively costly courts have been grinding for
centuries and crime increases. Punishment and fear of punishment
restrain evil doing, but does not eradicate the tendency to evil.
This and other defects we must, as far as possible breed out of the
race, and science can find a valid answer for every objection which
obstructionists can raise to this proposition. Fostering insanity,
crime, pauperism and imbecility, is not evidence of understanding and
of high ability.
The divisions of hygiene are: Federal, State, Municipal,
Institutional, School, Domiciliary and Personal.
Hygiene not only makes for greater physical strength and endurance
but it makes for greater moral strength. It is the essence of
charity, kindliness, patience and truth.
When, through hygiene, defectives, delinquents and dependents are
no longer propagated, when simplicity and frugality of living are
achieved, voluntary celibacy and voluntary childlessness will become
discreditable, and sickness, disease and premature death will
disappear before temperance and sanitized homes.
President WHITE—This admirable paper causes me to say to every one
here that they cannot afford to go away and not deposit a dollar
with the Secretary for the book of the Proceedings of this Congress.
The book of these admirable and practical addresses should be in
every home, should be in the library. I hope that every one will
leave their address, will register, and receive as soon as they are
published a copy of the Proceedings. (Applause.)
It was Louis D. Brandeis who said a year or two ago that the
railroads of this country could save a million dollars a day with
practical economy and with good system. He got that idea from and
quoted Mr. Harrington Emerson of New York City, who will now address
this audience upon “The Rescue of the Fit.”
Mr. EMERSON—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: There is a growing
clash between employer and employe. The old order is passing away
and the new order has not yet come in. The millions lost in strikes
are forever wasted. This direct waste due to supposed conflict of
interest is one of the great losses. The other is more serious. Not
one man in ten is in the place in the world best fitted for him, not
one place in ten is filled by the best man in the world for the job.
When the job is not bossed by the right man and when the man is on
the wrong job there is a waste whose magnitude is incalculable. It is
to mitigate, palliate, obviate, these two great sources of waste that
on a large scale a new plan is being put into operation. The theory
that underlies it is founded on principles, not on empiricism or on
tradition or on rule of thumb.
It is theory that has given us the best designs for steam turbines,
gas engines, dynamos, aeroplanes—it is theory that gives us this plan
of the _Employment Department_.
What is the theory?
All manufacturing costs fall under three divisions: Materials, Labor,
Equipment Charges.
Materials means all materials, whether for manufacture or operation.
Labor means all personal service or personal charges, whether direct,
indirect, supervising or managing.
Equipment charges are made up of taxes, insurance, depreciation and
interest on investment.
Although these three classes of expense are so different there are
some general economic laws which apply to all of them and it is quite
certain that what we have learned to accept as to materials, may have
some lessons applicable to personal service and to equipment charges.
When our building materials consisted of prairie sod the problem was
simple, we picked out the best sod in sight, plowed it up, hauled it
to one side and erected it into walls. When the task is to build an
automobile the handling of materials is not so simple.
In automobile plants the engineering department designs what is
wanted, then draws up specifications, precise and scientific
specifications; steel that will test under tension or torsion so many
thousand pounds, steel balls, that are so round, so hard, so even in
size, bronze, that is so resistant, copper that is so pure, etc.
The purchasing department then calls for tenders or for bids. Samples
or specimens are submitted for test and these go into the testing
laboratory where they must come up to specifications. The purchasing
agent says: How good a wire can you sell me for $0.10 a pound? What
will the price be on wire testing 200,000 pounds?
The materials having been tested and bought are put into the
storehouse under a competent storekeeper. It is his business to see
that they do not spoil, that they are not wasted or stolen. He issues
only on requisition, the requisition specifying the proper quality
and quantity. When the materials go into use they are continually
inspected during the progress of the work.
There is therefore an inspection department. Engineers have learned
that it is not the price of materials that counts but the quality.
As quality goes up quantity goes down and price goes up but not as
fast as quality. Although steel wire is dear and cast iron is cheap,
we build bridges out of steel wire. Although we can buy carbon steel
for $0.14 a pound, we pay $0.60 a pound for high speed alloy steel
because it works faster and so much more powerfully that it would
be cheap at $800 a pound if we could not get it for less.
As to complex modern materials we need therefore an engineering
department to design and specify, a testing department to test and
analyze, a purchasing department to buy at the best price and on the
best terms, an inspection department to watch results from day to
day, hour to hour; a storekeeping department to hold and to conserve,
to issue carefully and economically.
Modern personal service is more complex than modern materials. How
can we afford to omit as to personal service any of the safeguards
found necessary as to materials? These necessary safeguards we apply
through a very highly organized employment department directed and
managed by specialists of the higher class and a corps of assistants.
In the employment department all these methods so necessary as to
materials, we apply also to personal service control, whether we are
securing a factory superintendent or a shoveler of sand. First of all
an organization is outlined. It is evident that to perform certain
kinds of tasks there is only one best organization. Battleships
are a modern development, they have been slowly evolved. America
started it when the Confederate Government sheathed the Merrimac with
railroad rails and sank all the wooden ships. As the London Times
editorially said, “The Merrimac made all the navies of the world
obsolete.” Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, have helped develop
battleships, but the organization controlling every battleship in
the world, whether Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Turkish, Chilean
or American, is substantially the same. An American officer could
be transferred to a foreign navy and find himself at once. Naval
organizations the world over are interchangeable. The ordinary
manufacturing concern has no standardized organization, it has
generally grown like Topsy. Positions are ill defined and generally
worse manned. The first duty, therefore, of a modern employment
department is to outline the organization, the one best organization
for the business in hand.
Its second duty is to specify the essential and required qualities
for each position.
There are three different ways of filling positions:
1. To have on one’s hands some incubus, a king’s son or a king’s
mistress or some political henchman, and to create a position for
the incubus to fill, “duke of this” or “countess of that,” or a fat
contract on city work. In England this is called “finding a berth for
a friend”—_a berth—a place in which to fall asleep_.
2. The second way, and the more usual one, is to see a real vacancy
and to shove a friend into it, hoping he will make it a go. The man
and the job stand as good a show of fitting each other as a man would
of getting the right clothes by drawing a suit in a raffle. It was
Roosevelt who saw a vacancy in the Presidency, grabbed Mr. Taft,
shoved him into the place, and now declares he does not fit. Personal
liking is not the proper basis for a Presidential preference.
3. The third way to fill a definite vacancy is to find the man fitted
for the place, and, after test, put him into it, even as we find a
suitable wire for a bridge and put it in.
If we have a locomotive of definite design and we need an exhaust
nozzle, there is only one design of nozzle that will answer. So if
in the organization there is a position to fill, the best man for
that position must have certain qualities and not have others, not
every man, not the convenient man in ten, probably not one man in
ten thousand is the man for the place. The employment department
seeks diligently for the right man, the man who combines experience
with aptitude. If it had to choose it would prefer the man without
experience but with all the aptitudes to the man of experience
without aptitudes. The man with aptitudes can learn quickly, reliably
and fast; the man without aptitudes can never be anything but a
misfit. Therefore the employment department having secured a number
of prospects, carefully tests the most promising.
The old-fashioned plan is to ask a few questions, secure a few
recommendations, take a look at the man, and if a hunch is felt that
he will do, accept him. I know all about this plan, for I have tried
it for twenty years, and in some years it has cost me $50,000. The
plan does not work. I received the best set of recommendations I ever
saw about a sea captain, and when we entrusted him with a $140,000
steamer he deliberately wrecked her in order to make some graft out
of the repair bills.
That the man was a scoundrel was written in large type all over his
face, but in those days I could not read plain print and I was better
fitted, and that was _not at all_, to navigate the steamer than to
select a captain.
When I taught in college I got an inkling of the right way. I taught
German, and at the beginning of the year my classes were filled up
with sixty students, and at the end of the year there were only
twenty left. I worked on the theory that there was no profit to any
one in making a bluff at studying German. It was either worth while
or it was not. If worth while, learn German; if not worth while,
don’t waste time on it. So I weeded and weeded my German garden until
only those were left who could really learn. They learned to know
German as well as they knew English. The weeding process was hard
on me and hard on the misfits, hard on the good students. I gave
an immense amount of rough effort to no purpose in an absolutely
useless attempt to make silk purses out of sows’ ears. Then sows’
ears might have made good mince meat, but the carving and slashing
I gave them hurt them to no purpose. My time was taken up on rough
work until the misfits and the good students failed to receive the
specially skilled attention and help their progress required. After a
couple of years of this I tried a new plan. It was evident that any
students who did not know English, English grammar, English spelling,
English pronunciation, were not fit to study German, so I examined
all applicants as to English, but I gave those who failed a week’s
test, lest some genius should by chance be overlooked. I never found
the genius. Under this plan I started out with a class of twenty-five
instead of sixty. I gave my time to those who could profitably make
use of it, and not to those who could not, and every one of the
twenty-five learned German.
A man or woman can be tested in five minutes for fundamental
aptitudes and traits of character as easily and reliably as I
tested the prospective German pupils. It would take one too far to
go into the whole subject of character analysis. A great composer
like Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, can originate music, but there are
thousands who can learn to play it well. So with character analysis.
It requires a special and rare gift to uncover the lessons written
in the coloring, in the texture, in the shape of head, in the
expression of the face, of the body, of the hands, in the clothes, in
the personal tricks of habit, to cross-check these tests by others
as the answers to test questions, but this knowledge has been so
formulated that all can learn. So instead of trying to play bumbly
puppy by ourselves, of missing the accumulated researches that have
been going on all over the world, of repeating all the mistakes that
others have made, we do as the Japanese did when they adopted the
British navy, the German army and the American schools as models. We
are advised as to our employment department by a specialist of the
highest skill in character analysis, in all problems relating to the
handling of people. The tests are rapid but they are many and they
interlock so far as to be conclusive. A man can lie with his eyes or
with his lips or with his body, but no man is skillful enough to lie
at the same time with eyes and lips and hands and body.
After men have been tested they are employed, not before, and they
are only employed because they have the qualities that fit them for
a particular place. They may be at the time only 30 p. c. men, they
may be succeeding an 80 p. c. man, but the great fact is that the 30
p. c. man can and will become a 100 p. c. or a 110 p. c. man, while
the 80 p. c. man is perhaps in reality an overstrained 70 p. c. man.
Starting with the best of human material years are not lost gradually
collecting it. Not only are the unfit excluded, but what is very much
more important, the _fit are rescued_, they are given opportunity,
they jump at once into the places they can fill instead of waiting
for years.
What is the unnecessary cost to a business of a 30 p. c. man compared
to a 100 p. c. man?
The hourly costs of a man are: His hourly wage, the hourly machine
charge, the hourly overhead charge. These three items will easily
average $0.70 an hour in a machine shop. If the man works at full
efficiency he gives us in a year 2,700 hours of standard work in
2,700 hours of actual time at a total cost of $1,890. At 30 p. c.
efficiency, it will take 9,000 actual hours, costing $6,300 to
deliver 2,700 hours of standard work. The added expense due to
inefficiency is $4,410 for a single worker.
Efficiency does not mean strenuousness. The fluttering rooster is
strenuous, but he makes little progress; the eagle flies efficiently,
covering miles of country, yet never moving a wing. The Chinese
coolie on his river treadmill is so strenuous that he wears himself
out in a few years. As a producer of power he costs $1,300 a year for
the horse-power hour you can buy from Niagara for twenty dollars. The
chauffeur of an American automobile gliding along at forty miles an
hour, carrying six passengers, is efficient, not strenuous.
It is evident that under this modern employment plan the rate of
wages per hour ceases to be a critical question. The efficient man,
like steel wire and high-speed steel, is always worth more than he
would think of asking for his services.
The requisition calls for a man with certain qualities—it never calls
for a man at $0.20 or at $0.30 or at any other rate per hour. Fixed
rates per hour are obsolescent when one man turns out the work for
$6,300 and the other man turns it out for $1,890. For $1,890? No, he
does not. We do not ask him to; we can not secure and hold any 100
p. c. man for the wage rate in the $1,890. We pay the man more, we
gladly pay him more, we pay him as much as we must to secure him, but
he is cheap at almost any price.
The man who receives a salary of $60,000 a year is expected to profit
his company to the extent of $6,000,000 a year; the man who works
for a dollar a day is always a loss, a severe loss, and, therefore,
we try to eliminate him by the substitution of a machine. The fight
against a machine is to carry on a losing fight against the whole
current of the age. To put the worker in a position for which his
aptitudes qualify him is to double, treble his value, and everybody
is best fitted for something. A group of children were playing
automobile; one was the engine, another the chauffeur, others the
passengers. A little tot far behind was hurrying along. What are you
doing? I am playing automobile. What part are you? I am the smell.
In a watch there is not a useless piece. In a perfected organization
there is not a useless man; there cannot be an unqualified man
without endangering the whole. As I write, 20,000 mill hands are
rioting at Lawrence, Massachusetts, because somebody has blundered,
because some position had been badly filled.
The wage question is ethical. The workman is worthy of his hire,
but also man does not live by bread alone. The man scientifically
selected is 100 per cent. efficient because he likes his work, is
fitted for it and it likes him; it is no longer a drudgery, it is
a pleasure. We are rescuing the fit for the work which by nature’s
right belongs to them and under this plan there are few unfit.
In years gone by when a beef was slaughtered much of the carcass
was wasted—the horns, the bones, the hair, the hoofs, the blood,
the offal went to waste. Now nothing is wasted; everything has its
use, and the offal we return as fertilizer to the soil is of greater
perennial use than the tenderloins and sirloins which find their way
to the tables of the rich.
We have in the past treated men as if they were coal, a raw product
only fit to burn, or as the German soldiers pathetically called
themselves, in 1870, mere cannon fodder. But mere coal contains
ammonia, beautiful dyes, strange and powerful medicines, as well as
heat units.
Everybody is normally good for something, and if fitted to the right
place is worth more than he now is.
At Seattle a boy of 17 was excluded from the high school because he
could not learn their lists of English kings or American Presidents,
but that boy went out and when I met him he had grabbed the
evaporative power of the sun and was propelling a boat with it on the
waters of Puget Sound. He was fit, more fit in a mechanical way than
any other boy I ever knew.
It is to this Rescue of the Fit that I look forward for the great
uplift of American industries, the great increase in happiness and
the great elimination of strife.
It is being put to a practical test in a plant employing 200 men and
it is working.
This is my message to you.
President WHITE—There is nothing further on the program for this
afternoon, and we will therefore adjourn until 8:00 o’clock this
evening, when Dr. Wallace and Judge Lindsey will speak in Tomlinson
Hall.
SIXTH SESSION.
The Congress assembled at Tomlinson Hall, at 8:00 o’clock p. m., and
was called to order by President White.
President WHITE—The delegates, visitors and citizens of this city
have a rare treat in store tonight in the program that has been
published, and I have a rare honor in introducing the speakers. It
will be a red-letter day in my life, and I know it will be in yours.
I now want to make this audience acquainted with “Uncle Henry”
Wallace. I would be glad if everyone could know “Uncle Henry” as I
have been fortunate enough to know him. He has been an inspiration to
every young man and every farmer and all who have known him in the
State of Iowa for the past twenty-five or thirty years. He loves to
sit down in his office, or study—and I have been there to see how he
works—answering letters that the farmers from all over the country
write him, and who look to “Wallace’s Farmer” as a source of profit
and information upon every subject that affects the home. He comes
close to the home, close to the family, to the fireside, answering
all their questions and telling them just how they should do this or
that, and all in that fatherly, kindly, brotherly way, so that he is
referred to by everyone who knows him as “Uncle Henry.” He is going
to talk to us tonight upon “Human Efficiency,” and he will speak from
a very practical standpoint, for he has had experience all along the
line.
I now take pleasure in introducing to you Dr. Henry Wallace, of Des
Moines, Iowa, former President of the National Conservation Congress.
(Applause.)
Dr. WALLACE—Mr. President, and Members of the Congress: It might not
be amiss, before entering into a discussion of the subject proper, to
recall the different subjects which have from year to year engaged
the attention of the Conservation Congress, and to show how the
choice of the subject for each different Congress was the natural and
logical result of the discussion of the preceding Congress.
The first Congress was called, and the Congress itself was organized,
as a forum in which the leading men of the Nation could discuss the
problems raised by the Conservation Commission, appointed by Theodore
Roosevelt at the suggestion of Gifford Pinchot, then holding the
position of Chief Forester in the Department of Agriculture. His
position as Forester enabled him to see the terrific waste going on
in the management of our forests, and the various means by which
the government forests were passing into the hands of individuals,
subsequently to be wasted for private gain. He saw clearly that
unless our forests were conserved and managed as are the forests
of all other civilized nations, soil erosion would render future
forest growth impossible, would fill our rivers with silt, dry up the
streams in summer and convert them into raging torrents in winter,
depriving us of water for irrigation, and diminishing in value the
water power, or white coal, on which future generations must largely
depend for power and transportation.
A forum was greatly needed in which the questions raised by this
fearless idealist—to whom the Conservation of our resources for
future generations is both wife and child—could be openly and
fearlessly discussed by leaders and in the hearing of the American
people. When the First Conservation Congress was called to meet in
Seattle in 1909, naturally the main topic for discussion was the
Conservation of the forests and of the water powers, which were then
fast passing into the hands of great corporations.
By this time the public conscience was aroused. The people of the
United States began to see clearly that we dare not go on in the
future, looting and wasting our natural resources as we had done in
the past. They began to realize that the generations of the unborn
had rights in the oil, the coal and other minerals in that portion of
the public domain that we had not as yet recklessly thrown away, or
allowed to be stolen from us under forms of or in defiance of law. So
the Second Conservation Congress was called in St. Paul, in 1910, as
a forum in which the leading men of the nation could thresh out the
problem as to whether these resources to which the American people
at present held title should be administered by a Congress chosen
by the people and speaking for the people, or whether they should
be administered through an act of Congress by the several States in
which the Government property happened to be located.
The historian of the future alone will be able to measure the
beneficial results of the fierce conflict between those who would
despoil these resources for private gain and those who would conserve
them for future generations. We can, however, see some of the
results in the change in the policy of our national administration,
in the vigilant watch now maintained by the present Secretary of
the Interior; by the success which crowned the efforts of Mr.
Pinchot and others who kept constant watch over bills intended, by
means of concealed jokers, to break down the fixed policy of the
Government; and by the veto of the President of vicious bills which,
notwithstanding the utmost vigilance, were enacted by the last
Congress. This watch and guard over the heritage of the unborn could
not have been maintained successfully, had it not been for the white
light thrown upon the problem by the Second National Conservation
Congress.
I was, unexpectedly to myself, chosen President of the Conservation
Congress at the close of the St. Paul meeting; and with the consent
and advice of my executive committee, in making out the program for
the 1911 meeting in Kansas City, fixed the attention of the American
people on the necessity for the Conservation of the fertility of the
soil, and the development of a better social and family life among
the tillers of the soil.
The time had come for the American people to understand that the
rapid and regular advance in the cost of living was due mainly to the
terrific waste of the fertility of the soil, that had been going on
for more than a hundred years. It was time for the farmer to learn
that he was not in a position to throw stones at the lumberman who
had wasted our forests, or at the mine owner who is wasting one-third
of the coal in the process of mining; that he, while a sharer in the
cheapness of the products of forest and mine, had himself been mining
the fertility of the soil, stored for his benefit through countless
ages, and selling it at the bare cost of mining; and in doing so had
built up cities the world over, which must cry for bread when the
fertility of his soil became exhausted.
It is too early yet to measure the full results of this Kansas City
Congress. This should be noted, however, that, whether the result of
the discussions of this Congress or not, the people of the United
States have shown an interest in agriculture and the maintenance of
soil fertility which they had never shown before. Bankers, railroad
officials, capitalists are beginning to see that unless the farmer
receives encouragement and efficient aid, this nation will soon
cease to be a factor in supplying other nations with food, and will
gradually become a consuming instead of a producing country, so
far as the products of the soil are concerned. We are beginning
to see that unless a more satisfactory social life is established
in the open country, the increasing disparity between rural and
urban population must continue and the cost of living must go on
increasing, and with it increasing discontent and social disturbance.
My successor and his executive committee, with their wide experience
in practical affairs, saw clearly that if we are to restore fertility
to our wasted soils, if we are to do anything worth while for the
Conservation of our resources of any kind or character, there must
be an increase in the efficiency of the individual. They therefore
wisely chose the subject of “Vital Resources” as the main center
around which discussion must revolve at the present Conservation
Congress.
The subject of Vital Resources opens up a very wide field for
investigation and discussion. Various subjects in the group have been
discussed and others will be, by specialists who have given their
particular subject years of conscientious and close study. So when
only last week I was urged to make this address instead of discussing
a minor phase of the subject, there was nothing left for me but a
general discussion of the subject of Human Efficiency.
Man, after all, is the biggest thing on this planet. The farm people
are always bigger than the farm. No matter how rich by nature the
farm may be, it will lose fertility if the farmer is not big enough.
The first-class farmer will take an inferior piece of land and in
time bring it up to his own measure. If the farmer does not fit the
farm, it will in time come up to or decline to his measure. The
average production of the soil is the expression of nature’s opinion
of the fitness of the man who tills it for a term of years. The
most severe condemnation of the American farmer is the fact that,
with some of the richest soils in the world, he has so wasted its
fertility that he is crying out for commercial fertilizers; while
the “heathen Chinee” has farmed for at least forty centuries, and
has maintained his soil fertility without the use of commercial
fertilizers.
If any great business has attracted attention by its success, one
always asks: Who’s the man or men behind it? The greatness of this
nation is measured not by its soil, its mines, its forests, its
water powers, but by the efficiency of its people. This is true of
all nations. The cynical Bismark, who always cast covetous eyes
on Holland, is said once to have remarked that the way to redeem
Ireland was to transport the Dutch to the Emerald Isle and transport
the Irish to Holland; that the Dutch would make Ireland an earthly
Paradise, while the Irish would not keep up the dikes except with the
help of the Germans, who would in that case soon have a seaport.
The only way by which you can restore the wasted fertility of the
soil and the waste of our forests and develop properly our mineral
resources; the only way in which we can as a nation take the place
to which we are entitled—that of leader in the world’s trade and
commerce—is by increasing to the utmost limit human efficiency,
physical, mental and moral. These three are ineradicably linked
together, because they are integral parts of every human being. We
can not develop fine human beings physically without the development
of the intellect and the soul; nor can we develop either the
intellectual or the moral to the limit without taking care of the
body.
If we are to have the maximum of efficiency in the man, the child
must be well born, must be free from incurable diseases, mental,
moral or physical. To every generation of human beings is given by
an allwise Ruler the power to foreordain the character and quality
of the generation to come. The coming generation is as helpless in
our hands as clay in the hands of the potter. By marriage parents
decree the personality of their children. By “personality” I mean the
inherent tendencies—physical, mental and moral—which, when developed
wisely or unwisely, make or mar the character. In that little
pink lump of humanity—the pride of the father and the joy of the
mother—are bound up in various combinations the incidents, passions
and capacities of the parents. It is this which gives its awful
sacredness and tremendous possibilities to marriage.
The State by the extent to which it discourages and represses vice
and crime, by the extent to which it prevents and controls disease,
by the extent to which it encourages the marriage of the fit and
prevents the marriage of the unfit, foreordains the character of
the next generation. I know that I am approaching ground but little
trodden, in which many fear to tread, and to tread on which is by
many deemed sacrilege. But if we are to be a virile nation, strong in
body, in intellect and in morals, the truth must be told fearlessly;
and there is no more fitting place to tell it than where the people
of this Congress are making a study of our vital resources.
To put the matter with brutal frankness: The State must soon
determine whether the hardened criminal shall be allowed to take an
active part in foreordaining the character of future generations;
whether the manifest degenerate, whether that degeneracy be the
result of being badly born or of vice or crime, shall be allowed
to breed degenerates; whether those afflicted with incurable and
transmissible disease shall be allowed to transmit them to a helpless
posterity.
In order that the State may act wisely, it is time for a most
thorough and searching investigation of existing conditions, material
and moral, which lead to crime; the extent to which criminal
tendencies are transmissible—criminal tendencies, mark you, for
crime itself is not transmissible; what proportion of our crimes
are due to intemperance, and to what extent the unbalanced state
of mind which makes self-control impossible, and leads to crime, is
due to inheritance. It will no longer do to say as some do: that
intemperance, by killing off the unbalanced and weakling, rids
society of an encumbrance; nor that nameless diseases weed out of
the race those unable to maintain self-control. While all this is in
a certain sense true, it furnishes no argument for abating zeal in
repressing these crimes against humanity. That terrible saying of
Anne of Austria: “God does not pay at the end of every week, but at
last He pays,” finds striking illustration in the fate that sooner or
later befalls the intemperate and the impure.
On one subject there is no need of any investigation. We must either
adopt such measures as will insure as far as possible that the coming
generation shall be well born, or we will compel our posterity to
pay the price, as we are paying it now. We stand before the world
today convicted of having more murders, more suicides and far more
lynchings in proportion to our population, than any other civilized
nation on the face of the globe; and also with having, speaking
generally, by far the most corrupt city governments. Is it not time
for us to investigate and see why we thus stand condemned in the eyes
of the nations, and to what extent we are breeding crime, the crime
that is our disgrace? For be assured that we must in all cases pay
the price, not in cold cash alone, but in blasted lives and ruined
homes and a lower degree of human efficiency. If we are to be a great
nation, worthy of our blood inheritance and worthy of our material
resources, our children must be well-born.
If we are to secure that measure of human efficiency that will
enable us to make full use of our inheritance, whether of blood or
material resources, we should see to it that the coming generation
is not merely well born, but well fed. The farmer is wise in that
he takes special care of the young things that come on his farm. He
builds a lamb creep, that the young lamb may get feed denied its
dam. He sorts his pigs into convenient sizes, and shuts them out of
the feeding places until the feed is properly placed, and then lets
them all in at once, so that they may all have equal opportunity. He
does not allow the weanling colt to take its chance with the selfish
and unprincipled horses in the stalk field. He protects his colts
and gives them food “convenient” for them. If an unruly beast in
his stock yard tyrannizes the young and robs them of their food, he
does the sensible thing. He dehorns the unruly. He will tolerate no
oppression about his farm. In this he is wise; wise, because he knows
that if he fails to do this, the red flag of the sheriff will sooner
or later stand above his door, and the farm will be sold to some man
who will handle it more wisely.
The State has a similar responsibility for taking care of the young.
Whatever may be their endowment by nature, that is, by birth, they
need the nurture which is necessary to bring out and develop fully
the gifts of nature. The State should smite anything that stands in
the way of the proper nurture or feeding of the young. If the State
is to prosper, it must protect the weak against the encroachments of
the strong; and of all classes, the children of the State need its
protection most.
If organized capital provides so little pay for labor, that the
laboring man can not properly feed his children, then the State
should dehorn that organized oppressor, as the farmer dehorns
the unruly bull or boss cow. No profits to the individual or
the organization, even though they be members of the State, can
compensate for the robbery of the children of the State. If the State
on investigation finds that the money that should purchase food for
the young goes into the till of the publican, then the State should
smite the publican in its wrath—not the individual publican, who
perhaps may feel that he is earning his bread in the only way for
which he is fitted, but the system which makes it necessary for the
prosperity of the producer of intoxicating liquors, to corrupt so
many hundred of our youth for every thousand dollars of invested
capital. (Applause.)
If we have a system existing, whether in the State or the Nation,
which can thrive only on the debauchery of the young and on the
robbery of the child, by taking that which should go for food to
support it, then it is time that the State and the Nation should
control it to a point where it can neither seduce the young or rob
the child; and that point is suppression. We must do that or do
worse, namely, pay the price. We are in fact paying that now. The
individual who will not keep account of his expenses is in danger of
bankruptcy, no matter how great his resources; and the State which
refuses to count the cost of any institution or system which tends to
debauch morals, and corrupt the young, is on the way to destruction.
For there is no avoiding the payment of the cost, whether we keep
account or not; and that cost is not merely the dollars and cents,
but starved children, blasted lives, broken hearts, ruined homes,
increase of poverty and an increase of criminality, which is beyond
the possibility of mathematics to compute. The State can afford to
tolerate nothing whatever that stands in the way of proper nurture
of the young; nor can it safely endure anything which tends to dwarf
them physically, mentally or morally. (Applause.)
The State, however, will always succeed best by removing the causes
that lead to improper nurture, or to the formation of vicious or
criminal habits. The State can not endure poverty, grinding poverty,
among any class of its people; nor can it endure having its children
poorly housed. The slum is the enemy of the State and of every
citizen of the State. The vice and crime of the slum reach out to
the west end or the east end or the avenue, or wherever the wealthy
and prosperous congregate, thus saying to all men: We are brothers.
The poverty-stricken may well say: If you will not give us our
rights, if you grind our faces, we will not merely levy toll on your
pocketbooks, but we will infect you with our vices.
If we are to have the highest efficiency in the next generation,
the State (and by the State I mean the government, whether State
or National) must see to it that infancy is protected from the
abominations of soothing syrup, and “sleep-easy,” that usurp the
place of the catnip tea and other herbs which soothed infantile pains
in the days of our grandmothers. It is useless to expect efficiency,
if we pour into the innocent lips of unsuspecting childhood the
habit-forming drugs which benumb the brain, stifle sensibility,
and lay the foundation for incurable vices when the babe has grown
to manhood. Let us get back to the ideals of the ancient psalmist,
who, contemplating the future of the chosen people, uttered the
prayer that “our sons shall be as plants grown up in their youth,
and our daughters as cornerstones fashioned after the similitude of
a palace.” That is, a plant carefully cultivated, spreading freely,
its roots drawing sustenance from the soil beneath, its leaves
drawing sustenance from the air and sunshine, bracing itself against
the storm; the daughters the cornerstones of the home, with all the
adornment that we bestow on a palace fit for the abode of royalty.
Let us go back to this ancient ideal, if we are to be a happy people,
whose God is Jehovah.
If we are to maintain human efficiency, the State must lay a
heavy hand on the venders of impure food. After what Dr. Wiley
has told you, there is no need for me to enlarge on this cause of
inefficiency. Suffice it to say, there was a time in the memory of
some of the older men, when there was no pure food question. Our
oatmeal, our cornmeal, our flour came from our own farms. There was
no shorts in our buckwheat, no white earth in our flour. If our meats
were tainted, it was due to our own negligence. In these latter days
we have become by force of circumstances more completely “members one
of another,” drawing our food from all parts of the habitable earth;
and hence the State must protect us from imposition. If we are to
reap the benefits which come from the modern system of division of
labor, we must not quibble about the expense involved in enforcing
honesty in those who feed us.
If we are to have efficiency in the generation now entering upon the
stage, or in the one to follow, we will need to make radical changes
in our system of education. No matter what the natural endowment,
it will be comparatively inefficient unless properly developed.
Education does not consist of putting in but of drawing out. Culture
is simply the proper development of the gifts of nature. All children
are born with the capacity for doing, and doing well, some small part
of the work that needs to be done in this great world of ours. This
capacity is usually indicated by a strong preference for that kind of
work. The capacity for doing is largely a matter of inheritance, and
education is simply the development of this capacity. No education
which fails to develop what is in the child is worth having; but no
matter what may be the natural endowment, the capacity to govern in
State or Nation, or to build a road, or to plow a straight furrow,
or polish a pin, every child must have put into his possession the
tools by which he can secure that education which will fit him for
his life work. He must know how to read, that he may be in touch with
his fellow-man. He must know how to write, that he may communicate
his thoughts to other men. He must know how to reason, that he may
put this and that together and draw conclusions. These lie at the
foundation of all education.
Some education is acquired in mastering the “Three R’s,” namely,
the power to observe—to see things—to tell what is seen and to draw
conclusions; but the “Three R’s” are, however, merely the tools by
which we ourselves afterwards acquire an education. In spite of all
the money we spend on rural education (in my State from 42 to 50 per
cent. of all rural taxes), our children neither read well nor write
well nor reason well. How can they when our rural schools average
twelve pupils, most of them less than ten, and often five, three, or
only two or one pupil, and are taught mainly by persons themselves
but poorly educated, and who are teaching simply to acquire the
experience necessary to secure a position in a city school. Neither
the reading nor the writing nor the arithmetic of these schools has
any connection with the farm nor any relation to farm life, nor is
the teacher as a rule in sympathy with that life. Yet this is all the
education that 90 per cent. of the farmborn will ever receive.
Little education this for the mighty task of feeding the world at
prices that those not on farms can afford to pay. If the farm boy was
so thoroughly drilled in reading that he could read to himself with
understanding and read to others with expression, if he could express
his thoughts so clearly and fully that the dullest could understand,
if he could see things as they are, and tell accurately what he sees,
he would in time without further teaching become a leader of men.
The farmborn, however, usually fares better than the townboy in
the race of life. In growing up in the open country he learns what
books can not teach—the know-how, so far as farm operations are
concerned—and needs but to learn the reason why. The townborn, as a
rule, has no opportunity to acquire the know-how by following the
occupation of their parents; and hence much of his school life is
spent in acquiring information which, apart from its educational
value, is of no sort of use to him in after life. What the farmborn
need, if they are to be efficient in life, is an opportunity to
learn in a secondary school in the open country the reason why. What
the townborn need is secondary education which will fit them for
the work they are to do. If our farmborn are to be efficient, they
must have centralized schools taught by teachers who have selected
teaching as their life work and are paid accordingly, and thus be
able to acquire in the open country a secondary education that will
enable them to see clearly the reason why they should plow, or sow or
feed. If our townborn are to be efficient, they must have in addition
to a thorough mastery of the “Three R’s,” which is the birthright of
every child, such training as will fit them for their life work.
The misery of our system, whether in town or country, is that it
assumes that the chief end of man is to figure in some one of the
so-called “learned” professions. So the high school is keyed up to
the standard of admission to the college and university. The grade
school exists to qualify pupils for admission to the high school.
Hence the surplus of doctors without patients, at a time when
humanity is learning how to avoid needing a doctor; of lawyers when
men are fast learning to keep out of law.
In short, the end and aim of all education in the future must needs
be efficiency in the line of the chosen vocation. The great lack of
our present system is the failure to give the child a complete and
thorough mastery of the tools by which any education worth while
must be acquired: the ability to read with understanding, to express
itself, whether in speech or writing, so that all may understand; the
ability to see what is to be seen and tell it in plain English, and
to put this and that together and draw a just conclusion.
I need not say that no training for efficiency is complete that does
not involve the ethical as well as the intellectual and material.
This is a Christian nation, and the ethics of Christianity should
be taught in every school as well as in every home. We may not, and
should not teach the dogmas or doctrines of any sect or denomination.
We must forever keep separate the Church and the State; but
underlying all these creeds and denominations there is an ethical
standard which all but the criminal or would-be criminal accept; and
this should be taught, because it embraces our highest ideals of
manhood and womanhood and citizenship.
The crimes of which we are rightly ashamed are due largely to
the fact that the jealousy of the churches toward each other has
heretofore prevented the teaching of ethics to the children in our
schools. Without the practice of ethics, without the striving to
realize moral ideals, there can be no moral efficiency, and without
moral efficiency intellectual efficiency may become productive
of evil instead of good. An educated brain without an educated
conscience is a source of danger to the public welfare. It is high
time for the churches and all good people to get together and agree
on ethical standards to be taught in every school, that will put
moral as well as intellectual training in the coming generation.
I have touched merely the high places of the subject of human
efficiency. I have endeavored to say that if the generation which is
to follow us and carry on our work is to be efficient, the children
must be well born and well fed, protected from the vampires that
endeavor to suck their lifeblood, and must have an opportunity to
develop their natural capacity by an education and training—physical,
mental and moral—that will enable them to do the world’s work with
profit to themselves and their fellow-man. (Applause.)
President WHITE—In Denver, Colorado, some twelve years ago, there was
found a friend for children; there was found a judge who believed
that in the child brought before him for some breach of law, he
could see something divine, that he could see the soul, the germ of
the future man, the germ of a future life—something to redeem. He
believed he could see why Christ said, “Suffer the little children
to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of
Heaven.” He had faith in the child, and when he found it necessary,
in the way of discipline, to send them to the reform school, he
placed faith in them; he told them to go out to the reform school,
and he would be up to see how they were getting along after awhile.
He developed character from the start, and it soon became noised
around. In every paper, in every magazine, all over the world the
name of Judge Ben B. Lindsey, of Denver, Colorado, was known.
(Applause.)
I now have the pleasure to introduce to you Judge Lindsey, who will
speak on the subject “Is the Child Worth Conserving?” (Prolonged
applause.)
Judge LINDSEY—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am sure I
appreciate this very cordial and kind reception, because it shows
your appreciation, not of the speaker, but of a cause—in which I have
only had a small part—that has come close to the heart of the people
of this Nation in the last decade or more, and well it is that the
great National Conservation Congress should not overlook the welfare
of the child.
I was delighted to note in the splendid address which we have just
listened to by Dr. Wallace, that this important matter of the child,
the youth, furnished its principal theme, because without childhood
there is no manhood; without the conservation of childhood there is
nothing else to conserve.
But my friends, I am in rather a difficult position tonight. I am
reminded, indeed, of an experience I had with a boy about twelve
years ago in my court. It was before the days of the Detention Home
School. One day I was down in the jail, and they told me they had a
boy there that they thought belonged to me—that they could do nothing
with him. So I went with one of the men down the long corridor to a
cage, that would have been a disgrace to the king of the jungle, and
there in a heap on the floor was a boy. I recognized him as a boy
who had been missing from the truancy department for about a month.
It seems that he had read in a paper that some man in New York had
lost his boy—about the age of this boy—so he framed up a story and
went to the police and told them he was the missing boy. There was a
reward offered for the lost boy, and there was an argument between
the lieutenant and one of the sergeants as to who saw him first—and
in trying to straighten this out they discovered the fraud. I said
to him, “Harry, what did you mean by this?” He replied, “Judge, dey
spoiled the dandiest bum I ever thought of.”
I asked him where he had been for the last month, and he said he
had been living in a piano box. I went with him, and he showed me
the piano box, and as we came up a dog, a faithful, friendly dog,
jumped out and recognized the boy. While we stood there I heard some
boys just around the corner of the alley, talking about someone.
Some of them insisted that “he only gets full once a month,” while
some one said “he gets full once a week.” For a moment, I forgot the
law of the “gang” in regard to “snitchin’,” and I said, “Harry, who
are those boys talking about?” There had been a boy before me for
intoxication, and I wanted to find out if this was the same one. So I
said, “You slip around there and find out who it is they are talking
about, and you’ll save a lot of trouble for me—and for somebody else.”
The boy hesitated a little, torn between loyalty to the judge and
loyalty to the “gang,” but finally he went. In a little while he
came back, and looking into my face without the least change of
expression, said: “Judge, dem fellas is talkin’ about the moon; some
says it gets full once a week, and some only once a month.” Then,
after a minute, he continued, “Judge, you don’t always find out
everything you want to.”
Some time ago, I was informed by my friend, Mr. Shipp, that I was
to read a report at this Congress, but I found when I arrived that
they had me down for an entirely different subject. However, both
my report and the subject assigned me concern that very important
subject, “the child.” Many things have transpired during the last
year to give us hope and courage in the work for the child, and
after all there is one thing that marks this century of ours, makes
it distinct from all other centuries, and that is the fact that it
is the century of the child. Indeed, it seems we are to realize the
promise of holy writ, that a little child shall lead us. We are
beginning to see, through the misfortunes of the child, through
their tears and sufferings, many of the causes that are not only
responsible for the troubles of children but for the troubles of
men. For, after all, there is no child problem that isn’t a parent
problem—a problem of the home. And when we get back to the problem of
the home we are, of course, face to face with all the great social,
economic, industrial and political problems. Even the political
parties are at least beginning to understand that if they would meet
with the approval of the people they must concern themselves more
about the problems of humanity; that they must present real remedies
which promise an immediate check for the terrible waste of life, of
energy and of power, which is going on in this nation. That while
it is important to conserve our material resources—the power of our
waterfalls and the verdure of our forests—we must also conserve our
human resources. After all, these great assets of the nation are very
closely linked together. The strength and future well-being of the
race itself must depend in a large measure upon the Conservation with
which this organization has so well concerned itself during the past
decade. It is only a natural and to be expected step in the evolution
of its work that it should equally concern itself more directly with
the human beings who will not be able to profit from its work unless
their welfare is also conserved in other directions.
It has long been the opinion of specialists and social workers in
this country that the national government itself was not doing all
that it should do for the welfare of the children of the nation.
Largely because of the failure of any government agency directly
responsible for such work, the various methods of dealing with the
many-sided problems of childhood were more or less in a state of
chaos. The matter was first brought to the attention of Congress
through a bill formulated and agreed to by the various child saving
agencies of the State of Colorado, and introduced in Congress by
Hon. John F. Shafroth, the present Governor of Colorado, in 1902,
providing for a government bureau that should directly concern itself
with the welfare of children. This effort was followed several years
later by other child saving agencies in the introduction of what is
now popularly known as “A bill for the establishment of a children’s
bureau.” This bill was free from some of the objections of the
earlier bill which included governmental protection for dumb animals,
as well as a special bureau for the welfare of children. Great
impetus was given to this final effort by former President Roosevelt,
who called the White House conference on dependent children that met
in Washington City on January 25 and 26, 1909, when a resolution was
adopted recommending the enactment of the then pending measure.
The National Consumers’ League in its Tenth Annual Report presented,
perhaps, the ablest summary of all those presented concerning the
necessity for such a bureau. This summary pointed out many items of
information that ought to be valuable concerning the children of the
Nation—information that, as amazing as it may seem, was practically
impossible to be had in this Nation of ours concerning its children:
1. How many blind children are there in the United States? Where
are they? What provision for their education is made? How many of
them are receiving training for self-support? What are the causes of
their blindness? What steps are taken to prevent blindness?
2. How many mentally subnormal children are there in the United
States, including idiots, imbeciles, and children sufficiently
self-directing to profit by special classes in school? Where
are these children? What provision is made for their education?
What does it cost? How many of them are receiving training for
self-support?
3. How many fatherless children are there in the United States?
Of these, how many fathers are dead? How many are illegitimate?
How many are deserters? In cases in which the father is dead,
what killed him? It should be known how much orphanage is due to
tuberculosis, how much to industrial accidents, etc. Such knowledge
is needful for the removal of preventable causes of orphanage.
4. We know something about juvenile illiteracy once in 10 years.
The subject should be followed up every year. It is not a matter
of immigrant children, but of a permanent, sodden failure of
the Republic to educate a half million children of native
English-speaking citizens. Current details are now unattainable.
5. Experience in Chicago under the only effective law on this
subject in this country indicates that grave crimes against children
are far more common than is generally known. There is no official
source of wider information upon which other States may base
improved legislation or administration.
6. How many children are employed in manufacture? In commerce? In
the telegraph and messenger service? How many children are working
underground in mines? How many at the mine’s mouth? Where are these
children? What are the mine labor laws applicable to children? We
need a complete annual directory of State officials whose duty it is
to enforce child-labor laws. This for the purpose of stimulating to
imitation those States which have no such officials, as well as for
arousing public interest in the work of the existing officials.
7. We need current information as to juvenile courts, and they
need to be standardized. For instance, no juvenile court keeps a
record of the various occupations pursued by the child before its
appearance in court beyond, in some cases, the actual occupation at
the time of the offense committed. Certain occupations are known to
be demoralizing to children, but the statistics which would prove
this are not now kept. It is reasonable to hope that persistent,
recurrent inquiries from the Federal children’s bureau may induce
local authorities to keep their records in such form as to make them
valuable both to the children concerned and to children in parts of
the country which have no similar institutions.
8. There is no accepted standard of truancy work. In some places
truant officers report daily, in others weekly, in some monthly, in
others never. Some truant officers do no work whatever in return for
their salaries. There should be some standard of efficiency for work
of this sort, but first we need to know the facts.
9. Finally, and by far the most important, we do not know how many
children are born each year, or how many die, or why they die. We
need statistics of nativity and mortality.
The American Federation of Labor, the labor unions, and, of course,
practically all of the social workers of the Nation have united
through every means in their power to create the sentiment that has
finally resulted in a Federal children’s bureau.
This, then, is the most significant and, at the same time, the
most hopeful single item of accomplishment for the conservation
of the childhood welfare of the Nation for the past year. Next
in importance to the establishment of the bureau itself is the
appointment by the President in the person of Miss Julia T. Lathrop
as its chief. Her long and devoted service with Miss Jane Addams
at Hull House in Chicago, her well-known interest and experience
in the sociological work that has occupied so many years of her
useful life have especially equipped her for this work. While, up
to the time of the establishment of the children’s bureau, we were
rather lagging behind the European nations, the various national and
international conferences held throughout Europe during the past
year have been greatly stimulated by the example our Government
has set in establishing this special work for the Conservation of
the Nation’s best asset. It is hard, therefore, to estimate the
far-reaching influence of this wise and generous step on the part of
the National Government. It was my privilege, with others, to attend
sessions of the congressional committees and speak in behalf of the
National Children’s Bureau, and my enthusiasm is just as great as
it ever was for that important step, but I am not one of those who
have believed that when we establish the bureau we have done all
that we can do as a Nation to conserve the welfare of the children.
No doubt the bureau will accomplish much through such an educational
campaign as it may be able to conduct, and the gathering together of
very important information upon subjects that at present are left
largely to conjecture, and concerning which we shall still be left
very much in the dark. But I wish to predict that its chief service
in the end will be, as I hope it will be, to point out some of the
needed changes in social, economic and industrial fabric that must be
made if we are going to truly conserve the interests of the child.
A program of social justice, definitely proposed and persistently
carried out will in the end do much more for the welfare of the
children of the Nation than all the bureaus that we can establish.
The agitation carried on principally by social workers, juvenile
courts and probation officers, for the past ten years in behalf of
what is popularly known as “Mothers’ Pensions,” has begun to bear
fruit. As far back as 1899, a few of the States recognized the
principle that it should share with certain homes the responsibility
for the education of the child by not only providing free schools but
also by providing aid for certain needy parents of children in order
that the children could have the educational advantages afforded by
the State. The demand for an extension of this recognition of the
principle has met with response during the past two years in the
State of Missouri and the State of Illinois. While the Missouri law
was the first definite mothers’ pension law, so-called, to become
effective, it differs from the Illinois law in that it is limited to
certain large cities. A somewhat similar law in Illinois has now been
in force for a little more than a year. It is much broader in scope.
Generally speaking, these laws vest power in the juvenile courts,
after proper hearing, to direct the authorities dispensing public
revenues, to pay to the parents—generally the mother—of dependent
children a sum sufficient for the mother to care for the children in
her own home, where the conditions are such, of course, as to justify
keeping the child in its own home. It is assumed that the judge
will act with wisdom and discretion and not abuse the power vested
in him for the protection of dependent children. As a rule, this
confidence in the court is not misplaced. But I am strongly opposed
to legislation of this kind that is not carefully hedged about with
such safeguards as to avoid possible abuses under it. For it is the
abuses of such laws that furnish ammunition to its foes. This is not
an objection to the principle of the law or a criticism of those who
are entitled to so much credit for its passage. Most any kind of a
law to start with establishing the principle should be more than
welcome. The safeguards needed must largely develop in the course of
practice and experience under it, when they may be added by suitable
amendments from time to time—not an uncommon history of most all
legislation of this character.
In many States, as in Colorado, where we have on several occasions
attempted to secure legislation of this kind, we have met with
failure for several reasons. The need has not seemed to legislators
to be as acute as in States with more congested populations, in large
cities like New York and Chicago. And in many States the laws already
on the statute books have been fairly sufficient for their needs. Not
only in Colorado, but many other States, to my personal knowledge,
in exceptional or proper cases, mothers have been pensioned by the
county commissioners, or assisted under school laws to such an
extent that the lack of a more definite law upon the subject has
not been seriously felt. But any State, in which there is a city of
over 100,000 population or a considerable number of small cities of
over 25,000 population, if it would truly conserve the welfare of
its children, should not hesitate to adopt definite and effective
legislation of this character.
But signs of opposition to such legislation are by no means lacking.
It has been denounced in some quarters as paternalistic—socialistic,
and entirely beyond the province or within the power of the State.
But the time has long since passed in this country when there should
be any serious question of not only the power but the duty of the
State when it comes to the protection of its children. I say “its
children” because the State is the supreme parent—the over-parent.
From one viewpoint the State is superior to the natural parent. It
says to the parent, “If you neglect your child you forfeit your right
to its custody.” This is a just power to be wisely exercised. It is
primarily for the welfare of the child. Because of the natural ties
of love and affection that are supposed to exist between parent and
child it is assumed by the State that the best place for the child
is in its own home with its own father and mother. This is a wise
balance for this rather exceptional power of the State. The State
wisely recognizes that the home is the foundation of society, and
since it is in the interest of the State to keep the child in the
home, as one of the very best methods of preserving the home, the
first duty of the agents of the State should be to bring about that
result in every case possible. In fighting for the child the State is
only fighting for its own preservation.
Another prime duty of the State is to compel the father to support
the child and also to support the wife, not so much because it is the
wife but because it is a woman who is the mother of a child, or may
be the mother of a child. One great weakness in the nonsupport laws
of the various States and, at the same time, a danger in the mothers’
pension acts of the various States is the lack of a practical system
of operation and enforcement that will not permit the father to
shirk—that will hold him to a strict accountability to his duty to
the State, namely, to support the child. The child is the State and
the State is the child. The man or woman, therefore, who does most
for the child does most for the State. As a part of every nonsupport
law and mothers’ compensation act should be provisions for workhouses
where fathers who wilfully and without excuse refuse to perform their
duty to the child should be committed.
Failing in the last Legislature in Colorado to get any legislation
for the relief of needy mothers, our people have appealed to the
people under their rights to initiative laws, for what we term a
Mothers’ Compensation Law, rather than a Mothers’ Pension Act. We
think that the difference is more than a mere haggling over terms.
The State maintains a standing army for its protection. Soldiers
fighting its battles, or standing ready to fight its battles while
performing that function, are paid—compensated. They receive money,
food and clothing from the State. When the fight is over, when they
have retired from service, in their old age they are pensioned.
In a different capacity, but none the less important and effective,
do mothers of children serve the State. They do not face death on the
field of battle, but they go down to the gates of death and bring
back their children. The perils and hardships that soldiers endure in
times of war are more than equalled by the struggles of hundreds of
thousands of mothers fighting the enemies of the State that killing
competition and the injustices of present economic conditions have
raised up in its path. In fighting these enemies to save their
children to the State these women are more serviceable soldiers of
the State even than those sons they reared, who may have died on the
field of battle.
The term “pension,” therefore, is a misnomer. It is confusing. It
interferes with a real understanding of what this fight is all about.
It might not be a bad idea to consider pensioning mothers, as we
pension soldiers after the battle is fought, after they have gone
through the valley of the shadow, after they have slaved, and toiled
and suffered and reared their children to manhood and womanhood, to
guarantee them a peaceful, happy old age by providing a “pension.”
But while they are engaged in the service of the State, in saving the
State by saving the child, I insist, where it is necessary to enable
them to do their part in the battle, they should be paid—they should
be compensated.
I insist further that the compensation should no more be in the
interest of the mother than it should be in the interest of the
soldier, except as a means of preserving the home and the State,
except as in the interest of public morals and for the prevention of
poverty and crime—all of which is necessary to save the State.
Maternity is more than a prompting of nature. It is a patriotic duty
to the State. As in the case of the patriot who enlists for the
war, of course it should be voluntary and in accord with social and
religious custom. But a wilful evasion of so plain a duty should
be visited with the same contempt that meets the deserter from the
ranks. As the profession of the soldier is no more the business of
the individual without the part and duty of the State, neither is the
perpetuation of the race wholly the business of the individual. And
of course it is the duty of the State to see that those individuals
responsible for the race should perform their duty. There must be
laws recognizing the man as the breadwinner and the mother as the
home maker. The man must be held strictly accountable to the State
for the support of the woman he has chosen to be the mother of his
children. And this must be primarily not so much in the interest of
the woman as in the interest of the children she bears or is expected
to bear. If the man fails in his duty he should be compelled to
perform that duty where it is possible to compel him to do it. If
that is not possible, then the State itself must assume the burden.
If the man has wilfully shirked it must provide workhouses in which
he can be made to perform the duty he has voluntarily undertaken.
But, at whatever expense or hazard, the State must see that the child
is protected. This is impossible unless the mother is protected.
The State has no right to scold women for race suicide when the State
itself is responsible for race suicide. The father would have just
as much right to scold his child for stealing when the neglect of
the father was responsible for the thefts of the child. The State
has just as important a part in this problem as the individual.
The individual must do his duty, but the State must see that the
conditions are such that it is possible for the individual to perform
his part. If the struggle for bread makes maternity a tragedy instead
of a blessing, it is the duty of the State to reverse the conditions
and make maternity a blessing instead of a tragedy. (Applause.)
In conclusion, I want to utter a warning. In standing for the policy
of the State to guarantee compensation to the mothers of children,
the State becomes responsible in a measure for every child coming
into the world. The next logical step will be for the State to demand
a right to say who shall and who shall not be the fathers and mothers
of its children. It follows that the Mothers’ Compensation Act is
only a part of a new code now in process of development in which
the State shall become more and more responsible, not only for the
children who are born into the world, but for the kind of children
that are born into the world and the parentage of those children. It
is all a part of a wise system of laws the purpose of which shall be
as far as proper and possible to exclude the unfit from the rights of
parenthood.
The revival of that interesting cult of eugenics now attracting so
much attention, the demand for the teaching of sex hygiene and the
agitation of kindred subjects now going on throughout the whole
civilized world, is simply a response to the growing need and the
growing demand that the State should become the over-parent of the
race.
It is impossible in the time allowed for this discussion and the
subjects that such a report should occupy to do more than discuss
one or two of the recent activities in behalf of the Conservation
of the child life of the Nation. Much excellent work has been done
by other organizations, some of which, because of the limitations
mentioned, it may be impossible to refer to. But I must especially
commend the work of the Men and Religion Forward Movement and the
excellent report of its Boys’ Work Commission. After all, the work
for the boy is necessarily in a large measure also a work for the
girl. This report ably discusses the religious needs of the child;
the message of Christianity to childhood; the essential principles
of organized work with children in the church, the Sunday-school and
local organizations, and the relation of these organizations to the
home and the child and to social and sex hygiene.
Of similar importance is the laborious, able and excellent report on
the safeguarding of adolescent youth, prepared for the International
Sunday-school Association under the direction of Mr. Wilbur R. Crafts
and his committee of assistants.
Dr. Wallace spoke of the need of moral education, and I heartily
agree with him; but what are you going to do in the case of a bright
boy who knows more about politics than he does about Sunday-school?
I have a boy like this in my mind. He knew the ward boss, knew all
about him—his authority over the dives and all that. But I thought
he needed moral training, so he was induced to go to Sunday-school.
I saw him afterwards and asked him what he learned in Sunday-school.
“Aw,” he said, “it’s a place where all the little kids go and gives
up a penny, but they don’t git nothin’ back.” “But you learned
something, didn’t you?” I asked. “Yes,” he said, “they learned me
about the angels; they learned me they had wings like chickens, but
they didn’t learn me whether they laid eggs or not.”
I agree with Dr. Wallace that we need to change our methods. Of
course Dr. Wallace has had a different experience from mine. He has
children. I have children—a thousand of them—but they belong to other
folk.
There is no more important subject than the safeguarding of childhood
and youth against the moral perils of the modern community. Under
this head the important matter of regulating dance halls, skating
rinks, moving picture shows and various places of amusement is
becoming more and more one of the serious problems of community life.
The able reports of one or two vice commissions of the large cities,
notably Chicago and Minneapolis, have added much to the literature
and information valuable to those who are interested in conserving
and protecting the moral welfare of the nation’s youth.
Let me say here that I was in a city where they had such a vice
commission, and one of the officials told me the number of women
who had been forced into prostitution, or had been forced half-way
there. I asked him the ages of these women, and he said practically
they were all between eighteen and thirty-five, and on looking up the
statistics we found that this number of women thus forced into this
unholy life was 10 per cent. of all the women between eighteen and
thirty-five in that city. It is a frightful thing, my friends, but if
these things exist, if they are facts, we are false to our children
and false to our country if we try to blind our eyes to these facts.
It is our duty, and as Dr. Wallace has said, there is no place in
this country where these things ought to be more freely discussed
than in a Congress like this.
The child welfare exhibit, beginning with that of Chicago and
duplicated in a measure in other large cities, is one of the most
notable contributions in recent times in the great work of conserving
the welfare of childhood.
The wider use of the schools in its more careful regard for the
physical welfare of children must also be added to the hopeful signs
of the times. The terrific waste in money, energy and effort that
is going on in the cities because of the many boards controlling
such activities as schools, playgrounds, social centers, public
libraries, art galleries and public baths promises to be largely
avoided by a consolidation of these activities under the control of
one board with the schools as a great social center, to which is
added its neighborhood dance hall, public baths, public library,
public assembly hall, public playground and social center under
one single authority, such as a board of education and recreation
that promises to avoid the bickerings, difficulties, expense and
waste that is the outcome from duplicated boards. Activities that
are largely educational and concern the city’s youth, now largely
under a half-dozen boards or authorities, should be brought together
under one general authority. An amendment to the Constitution of
the State of Colorado proposing such a consolidation and the use
of the schoolhouses as polling places and for the discussion of
governmental, social and political questions during campaigns, is to
be voted on at the November election.
And now, my friends, in conclusion I want to say that one of the
prime duties of the Nation—its duty to the child—is to extend to
the women the same rights as the men, that they may go to the polls
and vote on these measures. (Applause.) This is not politics, Mr.
President, it is a plain, economic proposition, because I believe
the women of this country are awake to the needs of the children,
especially those in the centers of population, and when they are
given this right they will pass laws that are necessary to bring
about right and justice for the women and children of this Nation.
(Applause.) I would not have my position today but for the fact that
women vote in Colorado. (Laughter.) Either the bosses, the machine
or the gang would have got me long ago. Why? Because I went beyond
the court into the swamp lands, not beyond the city, but within the
city, and showed up the ghosts of poverty and crime and the relations
between a certain type of lawless big boss and vice. And when the
mother could see that the protection of her boy and her girl from
vice depended upon clean politics and righteous laws, then, my
friends, the change began to come, and it is coming in our State
as in every other State in this Nation—then began a reign of truth
and right and progress. (Applause.) And when the women of our city
understood what machine rule meant, they rose in their might, with
the ballot in their hands, and put an end to machine rule in that
city.
I remember a little boy that belonged to one of our debating clubs on
the west side, who was very much disturbed over the making of some
new laws. He came to see me, and when I asked him what he wanted,
he pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, on which was written:
“Resolved, That all kids over ten years of age shall have a right to
vote for the juvenile judge.” “And then,” said little Benny, “when
we gets that law through the bosses will never get you, and we kids
will get justice.”
But it was not necessary.
I remember we had a little fellow who was quite a fluent speaker,
and finally one of the bosses began to get alarmed at the effect
this boy’s talk was having. The boss said to him, “You have a lot of
mouth, but you have no vote.” Quick as a flash came the answer, “I
haven’t got a vote, but I would have you understand that in the State
of Colorado my mother has a vote, and my sister has a vote, and she
married a fellow and he has a vote, and they will see that he votes
right.”
And the boy’s prediction was more than verified, for when the votes
were counted the majority was on the right side, and the people who
were working to relieve poverty and the suffering of children had won
by ten thousand majority.
So I feel we must have the women with us in this struggle for the
rights of childhood in this Nation, and with that right guaranteed
they will bring about sooner than any other agency some changes for
good in this Nation. If we are to save the child we want to save the
State, for the child is the State and the State is the child. Take
care of the child and the State will take care of itself. (Great
applause.)
Miss Adeline Denny (in the audience) moved that a rising vote of
thanks be tendered Judge Lindsey, who is in favor of women as well as
children. The motion was carried and the Chautauqua salute given.
President WHITE—The Congress now stands adjourned until 9:30 o’clock
tomorrow morning.
_SEVENTH SESSION._
The Congress convened in the Murat Theater, on the morning of October
3, 1912, and was called to order by President White, at 9:45 o’clock
a. m.
President WHITE—We are a little late in gathering this morning. The
meetings last night were rather strenuous. There were meetings in two
different places, and the one I attended had seventeen or eighteen
hundred in the audience, so we know we have a large attendance. The
idea of having sectional meetings is a good one, because it enables
discussions at greater length upon special subjects that concern
different people interested. Day before yesterday, we had three
meetings going on at the same time. Then we have an illustration of
what is needed in the way of civic reform and good government over at
the State House, and none of us should miss this. It is going on all
the time. It appeals to the eye, and we can see at a glance so much
that is needed in this battle for reform.
I have some announcements to make before I call upon the first
speaker. I have a telegram from Mrs. G. H. Robertson of Jackson,
Tenn., and one from Anna Caroline Benning of Columbus, Ga. These
telegrams contain greetings, and also suggestions as to the next
meeting place of the Congress. We are glad to have suggestions as
to the next meeting place, but under the Constitution the Executive
Committee takes up this matter for consideration, and they have three
or four months to do it in.
JACKSON, TENN., October 2, 1912.
President National Conservation Congress, Claypool Hotel,
Indianapolis.
Mothers and teachers of Tennessee interested in conservation of
childhood beg the National Conservation Congress to hold its next
meeting in Knoxville. This will mean much to Tennessee. We hope you
will see that Knoxville is, all things considered, the place of all
others for you.
From President Congress of Mothers,
MRS. G. H. ROBERTSON.
COLUMBUS, GA., October 2, 1912.
Mr. J. B. White, President Fourth National Conservation Congress,
Indianapolis, Indiana.
Please greet the officers and members of the Fourth National
Conservation Congress for me and tell them that illness prevents my
attendance, and say for me the disappointment is great, for my heart
is in the work.
ANNA CAROLINE BENNING.
President WHITE—We also have a report from Col. M. H. Crump of
Bowling Green, Ky., which will now be read:
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON ESTABLISHMENT OF A NATIONAL PARK TO
INCLUDE MAMMOTH CAVE.
Immediately on notification of appointment by President J. B.
White, the committee (Dr. Henry S. Drinker, Hon. William P.
Borland, Mr. Gifford Pinchot and Col. M. H. Crump, with Dr. W. J.
McGee as Chairman) organized by correspondence and proceeded to
work through both individual and collective action. Largely at the
instance of Col. Crump, Hon. Robert Y. Thomas, Jr., a Representative
from Kentucky, introduced a bill (H. R. 1666) providing for the
establishment of a National Park to include Mammoth Cave, and this
was duly referred to the House Committee on Military Affairs. Before
this body your committee appeared at formal hearings on February 1,
February 5 and May 3. Early in February a similar bill was introduced
in the Senate by Hon. William O. Bradley and referred to the Senate
Committee on Public Lands; before this body also your committee
(through Col. Crump and the Chairman) appeared at a formal hearing
on February 6. Both before and after these hearings members of the
committee personally presented the matter before members of both
branches of the Federal Congress; Dr. Drinker by correspondence,
since he was out of the country until too late to attend the early
hearings.
Your committee have to report, with regret, that while the requisite
early steps looking toward the desired legislation were taken, the
bills have not yet been reported from the Congressional Committees
and probably will not be during the present session. Accordingly,
we recommend that this be considered a report of progress; that the
National Conservation Congress be requested through its Resolutions
Committee to once more urge on the Federal Congress the eminent
desirability of creating a National Park to include the Mammoth Cave,
and that an appropriate committee be created through the National
Conservation Congress of 1912 to continue action in the premises.
Respectfully submitted,
W. J. MCGEE, Chairman.
MALCOLM H. CRUMP.
President WHITE—This report will be turned over to the new President.
It is now my pleasure to introduce to this audience a gentleman from
the Pacific Coast who has long been an active worker in the cause of
Conservation, especially in the conservation of forests. He is well
known to all on the Pacific Coast and to every man in the Central and
Eastern States. He is President of the National Lumber Manufacturers’
Association, and he will treat the subject of Conservation from “The
Lumberman’s Viewpoint.” Major E. G. Griggs, of Tacoma, Washington.
(Applause.)
Major GRIGGS—Gentlemen, Members of the Convention: I want to voice
the sentiment of the lumbermen of the country particularly in
approving the action taken by this Congress in allowing us to have
our own conferences in reference to the interests in which we are
vitally concerned, together with the general meeting. I think that
has been one of the best features of this Congress.
The objects of the National Conservation Congress are so clearly
exploited in the Second Article of our Constitution that I believe
a repetition of them is clearly in order that we may keep them
uppermost in our minds:
“(1) To provide a forum for discussion of the resources of the United
States as the foundation for the prosperity of the people, (2) to
furnish definite information concerning the resources and their
utilization, and (3) to afford an agency through which the people of
the country may frame policies and principles affecting the wise and
practical development, conservation and utilization of the resources
to be put into effect by their representatives in State and Federal
government.”
I have attended all of these Congresses and have been wonderfully
impressed with the zeal and interest manifested in these proceedings.
The vital questions considered are touching the popular chord and its
effect is vibrating the length and breadth of the land.
Some are drawn here by one interest and some by another, but
all recognize the wisdom and need of arousing our people to a
consideration of the resources of our country and their proper
utilization. In the cauldron of our national development, mix a
little philanthropy, patriotism and politics and you can stir up the
most phlegmatic of our citizens.
To my mind, the great results we wish to secure in this Conservation
effort can only be realized by directing the attention of the
millions who do not attend these annual meetings to the importance
in our State and national life of the subject-matter we have under
consideration.
The vast majority of the American people wish to see general
prosperity and proper utilization of the resources of the country,
regardless of the political ambitions of any individual or party.
Conservation will only be realized when it takes such a strong hold
of the people that any man or set of men will sink to political
oblivion if they do not promote its cause.
Three years ago we were somewhat startled by the announcement, I
think from the originators of this movement, that the electric
companies had combined to control the water powers of the country.
Today I come from a State where a stupendous amalgamation of capital
has recently combined the hydro-electric plants of the Puget Sound
basin. Not that this is detrimental to our development, but that the
acquiring of these perpetual rights and control of natural resources
should be well considered by the people and subject forever to their
supervision.
The cupidity of capital will only be curbed by the assurance to the
long-time investor that the Government is behind the investment and
the people will not forever back the investment unless they are in on
the deal.
Our country is comparatively new and we need to encourage capital and
labor in every way to develop the latent resources, but we want to
make better trades than we have made in the past if we wish to hold
the respect of either.
The old saying that “Uncle Sam is rich enough to give us all a
farm” sounded siren-like to all, and was necessary to encourage the
settler, but there is a limit to even Uncle Sam’s patrimony—and
irrigation costs money. No doubt the State of Washington, which I
represent, has profited as much as any other by the liberal policy of
the Government, but there forest reserves have been declared and in
lieu of worthless timber tracts scrip has been issued to bona fide
settlers or original grantees, and for this same scrip some of the
choice timber lands of the country have been exchanged. I conclude
that “David Harum” is discounted in a trade.
The lumber manufacturers of the country have in recent years been
in the limelight of trust investigators, and to what purpose? If to
foster the political ambitions of some demagogue, I am sure it will
fail. There may be organizations back of labor and capital which
come under the ban of the law, but when such general conclusions
are drawn, as in the Missouri Ouster Case, that the National Lumber
Manufacturers’ Association is an unlawful combination in restraint of
trade, as President of that association I “deny the allegation and
defy the allegator.”
There is too much of loose talk in censuring the efforts of
associations generally. The very theories you as Conservationists are
advancing are uppermost in the minds of association workers. And the
greatest development in forest Conservation and fire protection has
its origin and support from these associations. We have something to
conserve and are not mere theorists. With rising values of timber and
utilization of lower grades of lumber, the product of the entire tree
will be saved.
This is where the shoe pinches. It is going to cost more money to
conserve. The low grades of lumber, slabs, and waste from a mill must
bring enough money when sold to pay for the labor expended in saving
them. Then, and then only, will they be saved.
Trees can only be reproduced on soil suitable for that purpose and
for no other. The timber crop is the process of years of growth, and
annual taxes, perpetual fire risk and the desire to use the land for
more frequent crops are the deterrent features of reforestation. We
only need to look abroad, where common lumber brings the price of
mahogany in this country, to realize that an article to be saved and
reproduced must have commercial value.
Your great centers of population in the East and Middle West are
today beginning to realize that happiness, health and long life of
the people will be your greatest commercial asset. The country is
becoming aroused to the needs of forest, lake, stream and fresh air
to build up American citizenship. We in the West, like the pioneers
who have worked their way across the American continent, do not
appreciate our own resources until we realize the vast sums being
appropriated in your dense centers of population to reinstate in a
measure the surroundings in which we revel.
Population, transportation and ability to pay are all determining
factors in our national development. It takes something more than
philanthropy to meet a payroll or pay the grocer, and too little heed
is given the trials and privations of our pioneer life in some of our
theories.
We lumbermen of the West Coast, where transportation charge alone
equals more than the original cost of our lumber to you, are
sometimes rebuffed in our efforts to conserve, where of necessity the
waste is large.
We are not slow in the West and South in developing the use of wooden
block paving, in establishing creosote plants to prolong the life of
our product, but in our recent attempts to get the consumer to use
odd and short lengths to prevent a waste in our mills of 2 per cent.
of our planing mill product, we are balked in our efforts and forced
to the burners with a lot of trimmings.
I have just read the following from an address delivered by Joseph
B. Knapp, assistant district forester in the United States Service,
which bears out my contention:
“Coast lumbermen a few years ago unitedly endeavored to introduce
the use of flooring, ceiling, finish and other planing mill products
in multiples of one foot from three feet upward. At this time the
United States Forest Service made an investigation of the waste due
to manufacturing planing mill products in multiples of two feet.
We found this waste to be over two per cent. of the material run
through planing mills in Oregon and Washington, or the equivalent
of the yearly growth of wood on approximately 30,000 acres of good
timberland. The consuming trade refused to accept odd lengths and
after a conscientious attempt on the part of lumber manufacturers,
it was found necessary to discontinue the manufacture of odd lengths
over ten feet. It is therefore seen that the useless waste in the
manufacture of lumber can not always be attributed to the lack of a
desire on the part of the lumber manufacturer to introduce economical
practices. It remains for the ultimate consumer of our timber
products to determine in what form these products shall be supplied
to him, and therefore conservative lumbering and close manufacture
are dependent as much upon the layman as upon the manufacturer.”
Our British Columbia neighbors are keenly alive to their timber
interests and their forest service is alive to the situation. Mr.
Benedict, assistant forester of British Columbia, in a recent address
stated that in British Columbia, on a very conservative estimate,
after eliminating waste land, rocky mountain slopes and peaks, they
had 65,000,000 acres capable of producing merchantable timber and
valueless for any other purpose.
“The productiveness of this land in timber will vary from 1,000
hard feet per acre per year in particularly favorable localities on
the coast to 25 or 50 board feet per acre per year on the mountains
of the interior,” he says, “but I am confident that the average
yield will amount to 100 board feet at least. This gives an annual
production of 6,500,000,000 feet.
“Allowing for a temporary overproduction of lumber brought on by
the desire of the holders of timber limits to realize on their
investment as quickly as possible, it will be seen that the stand of
mature timber will last from fifty to seventy-five years. At the end
of seventy-five years, when this mature timber is cut, the present
stand of second growth timber will have matured so that the annual
production can be maintained perpetually at 6,500,000,000 feet. All
this provided the present stand of mature timber is preserved from
destruction by fire and likewise that the second growth is able to
escape fire and grow to maturity.
“The stake then for which the forest protection force is working
is an annual crop of 6,500,000,000 feet of timber, worth to the
Government, say, $6,000,000, and to the community $100,000,000. To
win the stake fire must be kept out of the area of 100,000,000 acres,
or a block of forest 400 miles square. The problem, both on account
of the immense area, the variety of causes of fire, the absence of
means of transportation and communication, and the present sparseness
of population, is a most difficult one to solve. The safe harvesting
of the annual yield will require, besides the expenditure of large
sums of money, the good will of every citizen in the Province.
However, everything favors the satisfactory working out of the
problem.”
I quote the above to prove that we are not alone in our efforts to
conserve and provide for the future of our country.
Our associated efforts are being extended continually along the lines
of economy in manufacture, in the matter of standard grades and
sizes, inspection and insurance. Where is the commodity that can be
intelligently transported and marketed without a thorough knowledge
of both production and consumption? I now claim, and always have
claimed, that associated efforts to disseminate this information
and collectively endorse projects financially and otherwise to
promote the study of forestry and lumbering are the highest types of
Conservation of the Nation’s resources.
In the great State of Washington, which is now furnishing more lumber
than any other State in the Union, and where the lumber production
is the chief industry of the State, we are vitally concerned in our
legislative work, and concerning our Workman’s Compensation Act
I wish to bring to this particular Congress a special message. I
believe this act emphasizes the benefits of co-operative effort in
conserving human life and in protecting the breadwinner, upon whom
depends the life and happiness of so large a population.
With an industry affecting throughout the United States over 45,000
sawmills and 800,000 employes, regardless of families dependent on
them, you will agree with me that we are all vitally interested in
workmen’s compensation.
In a recent Bulletin of the National Lumber Manufacturers’
Association, Mr. Bronson wrote as follows:
“Thirteen States have adopted workmen’s compensation acts, and all
have become effective since September 1, 1910. All but one of these
laws are optional, the exception being the Washington law, which
is compulsory, and which, according to the brief experience had,
seems to be the most satisfactory both to employers and employes,
saving the employer all expense for industrial insurance, and saving
both employer and employe all court costs and giving to the employe
the full compensation provided by the law without any deduction for
lawyers or fees.
“The thirteen States which have adopted compensation acts are
California, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Washington and
Wisconsin. In all of these States the common-law defenses are in
whole or part wiped out where the employer does not come under the
compensation act.”
The law in the State of Washington has now been in operation one
year. To those of us who have operated under it, it has already
proved what its advocates claimed the most advanced piece of
legislation enacted—and we have woman’s suffrage, too.
It is surprising what an effect it has had in clearing the court
docket of damage suits and in paying to the injured at a time when
the money is needed all the award without the intervention of a third
party. With a carefully selected commission of three, responsible
to the Governor, and non-partisan in character, we have launched a
statute that, regardless of any improvements which may be determined
or defects disclosed, has improved the industrial atmosphere both for
employe and employer.
The State appropriates a fund of $150,000 to administer the act for
two years. The risks are classified and rates assessed, and quarterly
payments called for as required.
The statistical records being made and knowledge gained by the
Commission in administering this act will be invaluable and it has
already brought to the attention of loggers, lumbermen and all
manufacturers the loss of life and limb incidental to the business,
the benefits of factory inspection as a further prevention and the
fixing of responsibility as to accidents.
I secured from the Commission the attached reports, which I shall
not read in detail, but which show detailed comparisons and some
interesting figures. (See reports, A, B and C, appended to this
paper.)
Our commissioners have been called on many times to address
conventions and congresses regarding the law, and I can best state
their views by quoting from an address of Commissioner Pratt at our
recent Logging Congress, and from a statement issued by Commissioner
Wallace. Commissioner Pratt says in part:
“The Workman’s Compensation Act has been in operation now for nine
months, and those of you who are actively in business in the State of
Washington are more or less familiar with its results.
“In the first place, it is compulsory alike on the employer and
employe. The employer has to pay into the accident fund a sum of
money based upon a percentage of his payrolls, and the employe must
accept the awards of the Commission allowed for work accidents in
lieu of his right to sue at common law, subject, of course, to a
right of appeal on the amount awarded.
“All the extra hazardous industries of the State are divided into
forty-seven classes, each class with a fund of its own, and the
accidents arising in that class shall be a drain only upon that fund.
As the payments for work accidents deplete the fund in each class it
provides for monthly assessments to be made to recoup each class. The
payments out of these funds are only for work accidents, all the cost
of the administration of the law being paid out of the general taxes
of the State. For the first twenty-two months of its operation an
appropriation of $150,000 was made.
“It is unlawful for the employer to deduct any portion of the premium
paid into the accident fund out of the wages of the employe. It
provides for penalizing any establishment which from poor or careless
management is unduly hazardous by raising its rate. If an employer,
besides employing men in extra hazardous employment, employs men in
non-hazardous employment, the premium shall be paid only the payrolls
of the extra hazardous work, but the employer and the non-hazardous
employe may elect to come under the act and both shall receive the
benefits of the act.
“As each class must pay for only such accidents arising in that
class, and as assessments are made only as the funds of that class
are depleted, there are but two things that govern the cost of this
insurance: the amount of the awards and the number and seriousness of
the accidents.
“As I have said, the classes that the loggers and lumbermen are most
interested in are seven, ten and twenty-nine.
“The rate for class seven is 5 per cent.; for classes ten, 2½ per
cent., and twenty-nine is 2½ per cent. All operations in which those
present are interested in these last two classes take the same rate.
Class ten is by far the largest class we have, and as it covers
several distinct operations it has been divided into four different
subdivisions or groups.
“10.1 covers logging and logging operations of all kinds.
“10.2 covers sawmills and lumber yards, etc.
“10.3 covers shingle mills and operations connected with a shingle
plant.
“10.4 covers mast and spar manufacture, stump pulling, land clearing,
etc.
“We have had the following table compiled of comparative risks of
wood-working industries:
Workday
Av. Number Number of Number of Lost per Number of
Class of Men Time Workdays 1,000 Dismemberment
Number. Employed. Awards. Lost. Men. Awards.
7 4,120 172 5,862 1,402 17
10.1 12,801 440 14,926 1,166 35
10.2 17,770 763 14,941 841 51
10.3 5,565 221 5,766 1,036 56
10.4 381 50 1,144 3,003 5
29 3,787 156 3,368 888 24
—————— ————— —————— ————— ———
44,424 1,802 46,007 1,035 188
Deaths
Dismemberment Number per
Class Awards per of 1,000
Number. 1,000 Men. Deaths. Men.
7 4.1 7 1.69
10.1 2.7 22 1.72
10.2 2.9 7 0.39
10.3 10.1 0 0.00
10.4 13.1 1 2.60
29 6.3 0 0.00
———— —— ————
4.2 37 0.83
“This table is not as nice a one as I should have liked to show this
Congress of Loggers. It shows where the great harm is being done
in class ten and it shows which is the greater risk and what part
of the class should be charged a higher rate than the other part.
Furthermore, not only are we keeping a strict account with each
class, and division of a class, but we are keeping a strict account
with each individual operator and in the end will publish an account
of just how many accidents each firm or corporation has had, just how
much has been paid out for them in awards or pensions, for injuries
to their workingmen.
“Now, what are we going to do to prevent this loss of life and limb?
In the first place, there has been a Labor Commission since 1905 and
the mills and factories have been subject to inspection and have been
forced to put on safeguards. The loggers have steadfastly refused to
allow any inspection laws covering logging to be put on the statute
book of the State. Logging is a hazardous life at the very best and
calls for strong, dare-devil men, and men who are willing to take
chances. Danger is always present and men become so used to it that
they get careless. This, however, is no excuse for needless loss of
life and limb.
“Once more I want to urge upon the lumbermen of all classes the
necessity of more rigid inspection; to have some one about the plant
whose sole duty is to see to it that every machine is safeguarded the
best that possibly can be, and that safeguards are kept in place.
It will be money in your pockets if you want to put it on such a
mercenary level as that.
“Also I want to urge that a movement be put on foot that our colleges
and universities establish chairs of logging and safeguarding
engineering, so that our young men, just fresh from school, shall
have a better knowledge to start with on these subjects than did
their fathers. Many and many a man-killing machine is used just
because some one has not invented a better one.
“The report of the expense of the Commission shows that the total
amount expended to July 1 out of an appropriation of $150,000 was
$87,062.14, and that the proportion of expenses to the amount of
business done is 11 per cent., a showing so much below what it costs
casualty companies merely to solicit their business as to be notable.
“The president of one of the casualty companies, while I was in New
York, showed me their experience, which showed that the cost to them
for the last year was 51 per cent. of the premium. As you see, our
cost is about 11 per cent. Of course, we do not have to solicit, nor
do we have so large a force in the field for adjustment.
“The Commission, is keeping well inside of its appropriation, as the
allowable average expenses for twenty-two months would be $6,818.18,
while the actual average has been $6,620.16.
“Other details of the financial report are as follows:
Total receipts, accident fund $699,508 72
Total expense 86,062 14
———————————
Total fund $785,570 86
Cash in fund, 36 per cent. $281,993 32
Reserve fund, 20.5 per cent. 161,154 49
Claims paid, 32.5 per cent. 256,360 91
Expense, 11 per cent. 86,062 14
———— ——————————
100 per cent. $785,570 86
“We are executing the law, backed by the State of Washington, and
there is less quibble in settlements made by our Commission than
there would be by an adjustment made by a casualty company. Neither
do we have to pay any attorney’s fees, as the Attorney-General’s
office has to attend to all this part of the work for us.
“Since the first of October, there has not been a case filed in any
court in the State for damages done to any workman who came under
this act.
“This has been a great relief to our courts, and in time will be felt
in reduced taxes. The cheapening of our court costs and the removal
of all personal liability suits should work a reduction of costs to
the general taxpayer.
“One of the features of the old common-law system was the
ambulance-chasing lawyer, whom we all know. This gentleman is
practically out of business as a result of the Workman’s Compensation
Act, but is undertaking to find some activity in the industry of
appeals. Out of over 6,000 claims passed upon, only twelve appeals
have been filed, one of them from the Imperial Powder Company, to
interpret the law, one to determine the scope of the interstate
commerce law, one filed by an insane claimant, and several that are
in the process of adjustment and dissolution.
“One appealed case has been tried in court and the court sustained
the Commissioner’s finding as far as temporary total disability
was concerned, but found the claimant entitled to compensation for
permanent partial disability, remanding the case to the Commission
for additional compensation, which was promptly awarded. Had the
Commissioner been in possession of the facts, the award for
permanent partial disability would have been made without appeal.”
Commissioner Wallace makes the following pertinent statement:
“The Washington State insurance system has succeeded beyond the
best hopes of its friends and sponsors. In this act, one of the
youngest States is giving the older commonwealths another example
of a wise and progressive law. The State’s control over public
utility corporations, giving the suffrage to women, eight-hour laws
for underground miners and women wage-earners, full crew law for
railways, and other laws enacted during the past four years in the
interest of labor deserve full praise and should not be forgotten in
the triumph of our compensation act.
“The compensation act has thus ushered in an era of publicity
regarding the appalling maiming, dismembering and killing of workmen
in the mines, mills and workshops of our State. The great question
just now becomes not what we can give to pay for pain and suffering
and even death, but how can we best safeguard those who toil. This
will be real progress; compensation must ever be mere apology.
“Concerned as we have been as to how the little home flock could be
kept together when the breadwinner was stricken down in his endeavor
to make an honest living, and thinking in terms of dollars and cents
how much it will take to keep the wolf from the door during these
times of industrial disaster, we may have overlooked the fact (or was
it because we were not familiar with it?) that, according to the best
authorities who have made accident prevention a scientific study for
a number of years, 75 to 90 per cent. of the accidents that occur are
preventable.
“Our law has been widely commended and is in reality the best
compensation law in the United States today. It has been rarely
condemned, save by those who profited by the old legal system. It has
shown the great waste of human energy, manhood and womanhood—wastes
which reflect discredit upon this young and virile commonwealth—and
as these things begin to be understood by the people they will
insistently ask, what can we do, not only to preserve the mineral,
the timber, and the water-power resources of our State, but what can
we do to conserve our greatest asset—human life?”
I am confident this Congress will endorse the sentiments expressed
and I only wish to add the employer and employe, State official and
private citizen, voice the same sentiments and desire to give them
widest publicity.
REPORT A.
INDUSTRIAL INSURANCE COMMISSION OF WASHINGTON.
_Statement of Condition of Accident Fund, September 1, 1912._
================+=======================+===========+=============
| Total Amount Claims. |Estimated |
| |Reserve on | Balance
CLASS. +———————————+———————————+ Approved | in Fund.
| | | Claims. |
| Paid In. | Paid. | |
————————————————+———————————+———————————+———————————+—————————————
1 | $19,350 71| $6,400 60| | $12,950 11
2 | 17,839 53| 3,860 85| $3,481 60| 10,497 08
3 | 6,343 73| 1,653 90| | 4,689 83
4 | 1,996 85| 463 80| | 1,533 05
5 | 70,194 23| 18,207 10| 20,008 25| 31,978 88
6 | 52,990 61| 9,178 86| 2,063 95| 41,747 80
7 | 84,249 20| 28,886 99| 17,863 22| 37,498 99
8 | 30,745 73| 7,982 15| 1,180 07| 21,583 51
9 | 6,340 35| 2,173 30| | 4,167 05
10 | 266,461 72| 167,741 35| 95,777 56| 2,942 81
12 | 6,432 63| 1,642 25| | 4,790 38
13 | 16,371 87| 2,775 43| 7,574 72| 6,021 72
14 | 26,817 34| 8,120 36| 1,266 00| 19,430 98
15 | 4,275 45| 1,284 21| 754 52| 2,236 72
16 | 82,110 27| 33,794 11| 28,020 37| 20,295 79
17 | 14,800 60| 4,786 55| 2,352 55| 7,661 50
18 | 6,368 70| 4,808 75| | 1,559 95
19 | 7,098 59| 717 36| 2,903 83| 3,477 40
20 | 1,202 20| 405 00| | 797 20
21 | 8,319 89| 4,576 43| | 3,743 46
22 | 7,656 94| 2,370 60| | 5,286 34
23 | 4,152 43| 543 40| 2,805 92| 803 11
24 | 8,084 75| 5,826 45| | 2,258 30
25 | 1,489 06| 402 65| | 1,086 41
29 | 27,134 69| 16,760 72| | 10,373 97
30 | 789 83| | | 789 83
31 | 7,051 68| 1,580 73| 842 08| 4,628 87
33 | 11,289 16| 1,536 30| | 9,752 86
34 | 28,349 76| 15,404 90| 3,156 32| 9,788 54
35 | 6,216 34| 1,395 05| | 4,821 29
37 | 9,857 48| 1,828 73| 3,295 17| 4,733 58
38 | 3,812 52| 1,114 95| | 2,697 57
39 | 2,627 55| 415 49| | 2,212 06
40 | 2,149 77| 203 55| | 1,946 22
41 | 6,516 49| 1,297 80| | 5,218 69
42 | 9,885 96| 5,485 86| 3,888 34| 511 76
43 | 4,584 50| 2,494 25| | 2,090 25
44 | 1,412 96| 680 25| | 732 71
45 | 445 14| | | 445 14
46 | 463 27| 1,908 95| | 1,445 68
47 | 632.44| 39 75| | 592 69
48 | 1,000 16| 83 95| | 916 21
+———————————+———————————+———————————+—————————————
|$875,913 08|$368,833 68|$197,234 47|$309,844 93
================+===========+===========+===========+=============
================+=================+===============================
| Deaths |
| Requiring. |
CLASS. +————————+————————+ Occupation.
| | No |
|Pension.|Pension.|
————————————————+————————+————————+———————————————————————————————
1 | | 6 | Sewers.
2 | 1 | | Bridge and tower.
3 | | | Pile driving.
4 | | | House wrecking.
5 | 6 | 2 | General construction.
6 | 3 | 5 | Power line installation.
7 | 8 | 4 | Railroads.
8 | 1 | 2 | Street grading.
9 | | | Ship building.
10 | 33 | 29 | Lumbering, milling, etc.
12 | | | Dredging.
13 | 4 | | Electric systems.
14 | 1 | 1 | Street railway.
15 | 1 | | Telephone and telegraph.
16 | 11 | 6 | Coal mining.
17 | 1 | 3 | Quarries.
18 | | | Smelters.
19 | 1 | | Gas works.
20 | | | Steam boats.
21 | | | Grain elevators.
22 | | | Laundries.
23 | 2 | | Water works.
24 | | 1 | Paper mills.
25 | | | Garbage works.
29 | | | Wood working.
30 | | | Asphalt manufacturing.
31 | 1 | 1 | Cement manufacturing.
33 | | | Fish canneries.
34 | 1 | | Steel manufacturing, foundries.
35 | | 1 | Brick manufacturing.
37 | 1 | 1 | Breweries.
38 | | | Textile manufacturing.
39 | | | Food stuffs.
40 | | | Creameries.
41 | | | Printing.
42 | 1 | | Longshoring.
43 | | | Packing houses.
44 | | | Ice manufacturing.
45 | | | Theatre stage employes.
46 | 7 | 1 | Powder works.
47 | | | Creosoting works.
48 | | | Non-hazardous elective.
+————————+————————+
| 84 | 63 |
================+========+========+===============================
F. W. HINSDALE, Chief Auditor.
REPORT B.
INDUSTRIAL INSURANCE COMMISSION OF WASHINGTON.
_Statement of Expense Account for the Month of August, 1912._
Mileage—
Commissioners $50 00
Auditors 98 23
Railroad Fare—
Commissioners 20 35
Auditors 195 88
Hotel—
Commissioners 97 10
Auditors 447 90
Incidental Expenses—
Auditors 9 15
Salaries—
Commissioners 900 00
Auditors 2,260 29
Physicians 406 50
Office 2,067 06
Miscellaneous—
Stationery 256 81
Postage 322 61
Telephone 66 30
Telegraph 8 24
Office supplies 208 97
General expense 60 20
Rent 110 00
—————————
Total $7,585 59
F. W. HINSDALE, Chief Auditor.
REPORT C.
Olympia, Washington, August 31, 1912.
Industrial Insurance Commission, Olympia, Washington.
Gentlemen—Herewith statement of claims handled by this Department
during the month of August, 1912. Also, the number handled during
the period from October 1, 1911 to August 31, 1912.
_Claims Received._
Month of August. Total to Date.
Accidents reported 1,374 10,586
Files incomplete 1,471
————— —————— 9,115
Files complete 1,455
Monthly payments continued 262 1,972
Claims reopened 8 129
————— —————— 2,101
1,725 ——————
11,216
_Claims Disposed of._
Month of August. Total to Date.
Finals 1,097 5,255
Monthly 262 1,972
Fatal 36 214
Total permanent disability 2
Rejections 78 324
Suspensions 46 281
No. claims 198 1,420
Total disposed of ————— ————— 9,468
1,717
Claims in the work 1,748
——————
Total 11,216
Respectfully submitted,
J. F. GILLIES (Signed),
Claim Agent.
President WHITE—This is certainly a very important paper. I want to
say here that tomorrow, in Kansas City, Mo., a committee from the
organized labor interests, and a committee from the manufacturers
will meet to discuss a proposition to prepare a bill for presentation
to the next Missouri Legislature that shall be fair alike to employer
and employe, in regard to compensation for injuries. It has worked
well in Washington, it is humane, and it does shut off the dishonest,
shyster lawyer who means to get three-fourths or more of the award
for the injury, and gives it all to the person who is injured,
without any attorney’s fees. (Applause.)
I will take just a moment at this time to appoint the Nominating
Committee:
George E. Condra, Chairman; E. T. Allen, H. A. Barker, Mrs. Marion A.
Crocker, E. G. Griggs, Mrs. Elmer E. Kendall, Henry Wallace, and N.
P. Wheeler.
This committee has the duty of considering and nominating the
officers for the next Congress. They will have a couple of days for
the work.
At the first day’s session, there was a report on the program from
the National Congress of Mothers, which was to have been presented
by Mrs. Orville T. Bright, of Chicago. Through an unfortunate
misunderstanding, which was not the fault of Mrs. Bright, she was not
here on the first day. We are glad to have the report at this time. I
now take great pleasure in introducing Mrs. Bright. (Applause.)
Mrs. BRIGHT—The one object for the conservation of all the material
resources of a Nation is for the use, comfort and benefit of the
homes of the people.
It would be of little importance what became of forests, lands,
waters, minerals or food were there no men, women and children to use
and enjoy them.
Therefore, at the very heart of this Conservation work should be the
two departments covering homes and child life.
It has been a source of encouragement to see that men who are leaders
in many great developments of our land, have given definite place to
the study of the conservation of the home.
There is need for it if America is to be the greatest of all the
nations, for with its wonderful natural resources it can only be as
great as the quality and character of its people.
Great minds are needed to think and plan with wisdom and
unselfishness for the America that is to be, for the protection of
homes that are to shelter and nurture the men and women who a few
years hence will take our places.
The United States has its Departments of State and War and Navy. It
has not yet seen that the greatest questions it has to meet are the
protection and care of the American people and American homes.
The U. S. Department of Agriculture is educating the farmer to make
the most out of his land. It gives him information concerning the
soils, the rotation of crops, the protection against the many enemies
of plant life, the care and feeding of stock and poultry. It protects
the forests and the fisheries. All these things for the service of
man have received the guardianship of the Government.
Homes are just as important as farms, and there is just as great need
of proper consideration for their elevation and protection as there
is that of farms and stock and forests.
The protection of infant life is of more value, even in a pecuniary
way, than the protection of the cotton crop, yet three hundred
thousand babies die annually whose lives might be saved if the
United States gave the same careful, intelligent information to the
mothers as it does to the farmers.
The annual sacrifice of three hundred thousand American citizens
from preventable causes is a waste far too great not to receive
governmental consideration. Time need not be wasted on compiling
statistics. There is need for prompt and decisive action to prevent
this needless sacrifice; it means that each year the possibility
for at least one hundred thousand homes of American citizens is cut
off. That means a serious loss to this Nation and one for which
immigration can not compensate.
The wonderful advance in agriculture can be paralleled in human
culture if the same methods are used. The trains that go through the
country for agricultural demonstrations should carry instruction to
both men and women on home-making and child nurture. The list of
valuable educational pamphlets published and sent free of postage
should include instruction in child hygiene and sanitation.
There is today a need for a Home Department in the National and State
Governments that is equipped to study the home problems of America
and meet them as only can be done by thorough study and knowledge of
conditions, their causes and remedies. The sacrifice of infant life
is a small part of the waste that undermines the homes.
Juvenile crime, its causes and treatment are of more vital moment
than the boll weevil or the chestnut blight, for the possible good
citizen transformed into one who is a menace and expense to society
is a great waste.
There are countless organizations which give material and charitable
relief. There are few which give the help that will enable the
average home properly to guide and train the boys and girls who
are wayward, or will help parents to learn efficient methods of
child nurture. The home has the greatest power over human life and
human character. Too long has it been left to chance and ignorant
experiment to make it efficient in its work, stable and permanent.
The home is founded by the marriage of a man and a woman. It is a
matter of grave concern to the Nation when divorce breaks up one in
every twelve homes, and leaves the children bereft, not only of a
normal home but deprived of a true conception of what marriage and
parenthood should be. The conservation of the home requires that
serious study and work be done to change this condition in America.
It can not be done by legislation alone, though one of the greatest
needs today for the protection of the home is Federal law governing
marriage, divorce and polygamy.
It is a serious menace to the home when forty-four States may make
as many different laws as they choose on a subject which is the
foundation of the Nation’s future.
That a man may be legally married in one State, and that such
marriage is illegal in a State adjoining, that divorce is easy in
some States and difficult in others, that polygamy is permitted
to continue in some States, and that freedom to spread the cult
is allowed, have all been undermining influences in the God-given
standards of marriage, home and parenthood.
The Government has found it necessary to assume jurisdiction over
interstate commerce, railroads and express companies. It is of even
more vital importance that it should have jurisdiction over marriage,
divorce and their violations. In addition to this, there is need for
definite plain teaching of youth in regard to the true high ideal
of marriage, of parenthood, and the making of a home. This would
prevent a large proportion of the divorces. A standard should be set
in regard to the home, and boys and girls should get that as part of
their education.
Ignorance of hygiene is responsible for the drawbacks and failures
of many homes. It is inexcusable that any boy or girl should be
permitted to reach manhood and womanhood without a clear knowledge
of personal hygiene, sanitation, and food values. This knowledge is
essential to good home-making and good parenthood, and is equally
necessary for men and women.
Congestion in cities should not be permitted. In the seaport cities
many immigrants from other lands have not the means to go farther,
and if they had the means, do not know enough about the country to
place themselves where their qualifications would fit best. The cry
against immigration is one with which I can not sympathize. The
Americanizing of the immigrant should be placed in other hands than
the politician’s, who uses him en masse for a manipulated vote.
The special education of immigrant men and women would be an
important service to good home-making and the ability to train the
children to be useful citizens.
The proper distribution of immigrants by careful information as to
opportunities for work and the earning of a home is greatly needed.
The proper assimilation of our immigrant population is still in
its infancy, but is of vital moment, for they also are the future
citizens of America.
The city home of the American citizen should not be left to the
will of builders whose only thought is to build houses for sale.
Many apartments are built today without the amount of light, sun or
ventilation necessary to health. Some cities and towns are realizing
the need for regulating this.
The Conservation of the home demands that every State should have
requirements as to building homes. The problem of a comfortable home
for the family with a moderate income is a serious one today. Few
cities or towns are giving the thought necessary to make a city of
good homes for the average family at prices possible for them to pay.
The country home is equally in need of study and help. The
opportunities for social life and educational advantages equal to
those given to the city home should be supplied. That means larger
appropriations for schools, the employment of the best teachers, the
consolidated school, the use of the schools and churches as centers
of educational and social life, the making of good roads between home
and school and church and market place.
The Government Department of the Home should take all these things
into consideration. It should bring to the overworked farmer’s wife
better household facilities and more help. The greatest drawback to
country life today is the overworked wife, who can not get needed
help and who goes beyond her strength in cooking and doing housework
for farm help as well as her own family.
No one who knows of the terrible results of hook worm in the South
resulting from the unsanitary, poverty-stricken hovels, where
physical weakness had for years sapped the vitality and energy of
men, women and children, can gainsay the fact that Government study
of the causes and the remedy has done a service of inestimable value
to thousands of homes. Seven years’ life among those people proved
that many of them were in quality equal to the best American stock,
but that disease had brought upon them the unjust stigma of laziness
with resulting poverty.
The Government could study and publish the results of its
investigation, but Dr. Stiles had to get contributions from
individuals to do the educational and medical work necessary to
uproot this disease. That is not as it should be. The power to help
should go with the power to investigate, for the condition was of
much wider interest than to the individuals directly affected.
The National Congress of Mothers and Parent-Teacher Associations have
made the subject of the home, of parental education and of child
welfare its special study and work for seventeen years. It has worked
steadily to build up a united system of parent-teacher associations
in connection with every school, to bring about the co-operation of
home and school in child nurture.
It has required that these associations should be for child study
so that parents might have guidance and help in their problems. It
has instituted study courses and provided educational material for
the parents. It has headquarters in Washington and has valuable
co-operation from Government departments. It should be the Homes
Department of the National Conservation Congress because its work is
well established, covering every State and reaching to other Nations.
It is the only national organization whose membership is composed
of parents and teachers and whose educational leaders include the
greatest specialists in child nurture and child welfare in home,
school, church and state.
I would suggest to the National Conservation Congress that it make
the National Congress of Mothers and Parent-Teacher Associations the
Homes Department, because in that way it will have consecutive work
of high standard, and will bring a strength which could be secured in
no other way. Co-operation without duplication brings results.
The National Congress of Mothers offers its co-operation in every
phase of conservation for which the Conservation Congress was
organized. It also asks co-operation of the Conservation Congress in
its international work for home, parenthood and child nurture.
It invites this Congress to be always represented at its annual
conferences and at the Third International Congress on Child Welfare
in Washington, D. C., in May, 1914.
Life, health, character, all depend on the home and its efficiency.
To equip every home for efficiency in its special work is the
greatest need in Conservation.
President WHITE—That is surely a fine paper, in a holy cause.
The topic of the next section of the program is “Conservation of
Human Life.” The subject, “Saving Miners’ Lives,” will be discussed
by Dr. Joseph A. Holmes, of Washington, D. C., Director of the
National Bureau of Mines. (Applause.)
Dr. HOLMES—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: Those of you who
have endeavored, even in part, during the past month to attend the
Congresses in session in the United States, have found the time all
too short to make that possible for you to do. These Congresses have
covered all subjects. There is a feeling of unrest, a feeling that
we have not done in the past the things which we ought to have done,
and that it is high time we were trying to find out what are the best
things to do. For some two hundred years in the development of this
country we have allowed the individual very largely to take care of
himself. We started out with the government theory that each man is
entitled to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and the
individual was left to himself to accomplish the purpose he had in
view. The country developed rapidly through that system, and we built
up a great Nation, but we have in the meantime neglected the public
welfare. We are in a state of unrest today in regard to the future,
feeling that it is time we were doing what we are trying to do—look
after the question of the public welfare.
We have had, furthermore, a period of most rapid progress. When you,
Mr. President, and others of us here, go back today to the schools
where we went years ago, we hardly know the place. Buildings have
changed, new ones have been built, and the teachers of today are
different from those we were accustomed to. We see the great system
of transportation built by the railroad men of today; we see the
means of communication, some fifteen million miles of telegraph and
telephone lines, enabling the people to talk with one another. Yet
even that is not speedy enough, so we are using the wireless. And so
along all lines of industry, we have developed at a tremendous rate.
But it has been a one-sided development, and now we have come to look
particularly at the other side—the public welfare, and we are trying
to find out what is best, from the experience of all countries, so
that the American people may do the best that can be done for the
welfare of this country.
It has therefore come about, in connection with this one-sided
development, that we have lost sight of that great subject which we
have for consideration today—the conservation of human life. We have
been too busy to think about it. We have jumped on and off street
cars and railway trains; we have slipped on our waxed floors; we have
met with all sorts of serious accidents in our fast automobiles and
flying machines; yet we ask, “Why are these miners so careless as to
kill themselves, and these railroad employes?” And we are just as bad
as they are. So let us not talk about careless railway employes, or
careless miners, but stop to think what we can do to help the entire
situation. Let us ask ourselves the question, “Am I my brother’s
keeper?” and there is but one answer, and that is in the affirmative.
I want to call attention to the fact that we have in this country
two great foundations of industry. We have always considered
agriculture as the great foundation industry of the country, but
we have another—mining. The savage did not need any mines. He only
wants a limited amount of material for clothing, and a large amount
of material in the way of something to eat. He does not need the
great modern appliances which we have today. When we drew up the
Constitution of this country we did not think the mining industry
of much importance, and it was not possible to anticipate the great
complex social fabric which we have in the United States today. A man
said to me the other day that he thought if Thomas Jefferson could
see the things that we are asking of this great Federal Government,
he would not know what to do. My own judgment is that he would
advocate the doing by this Federal Government of all the things that
this great American people demand that it do today. (Applause.) The
trouble is that while we were making this tremendous progress, all of
the people were not keeping pace, and perhaps it is well that this
is true, because if there was nobody to hold back we would not only
progress too rapidly, but progress in too many one-sided ways.
We recognize, furthermore, that while agriculture has made tremendous
strides, and in large measure because of the investigations conducted
under the Federal Government, other branches of industry have made
rapid strides, but they have been forced to one-sided development in
order to keep pace. It needs, then, the great co-operating influence
of some great force like the Federal Government to help keep the
industries from becoming one-sided.
The mining industry touches us on every hand, and today in a great
hall like this, where you can find materials from every part of the
world, you will find they came from the mine, or were manufactured
through the agency of the products of the mine. We can not do
anything on a large scale today without the aid of this great mining
industry. During last March, the English people awakened to a
realization of that fact. They did not consider mining as one of the
great fundamental industries, but the stopping of the coal mines for
four weeks stopped all the industries of the British, and they came
to the conclusion that the very life of the nation was in danger by
the cessation of coal mining.
Mining and Conservation should be linked very closely together. Men
realize the fact that with agriculture, the resources increase year
by year. We increase the fertility of the soil by taking the nitrogen
from the air, and from that we get the crops, so that the wealth of
the country based on agriculture is easily predicated. The mining
industry is just the reverse. We started in this country with greater
mineral resources than we will ever have again. Furthermore, in
agriculture we have the healthiest vocation known, while mining is
the most dangerous industry in the world.
Now, this mining industry has increased so rapidly that we have not
been able to take care of many of the difficulties that have arisen,
nor do we have a realization of how rapid that increase has been.
We have increased in forty years from less than a ton to every man,
woman and child, to, in the last year, six tons. Forty years ago a
pound of iron, as compared with thirteen today for every man, woman
and child. And so it has been with the great industries—they are
increasing so much more rapidly than the population that it is hard
to tell what has become of this increase, and one of the questions
is, can this increase continue? Some of our great statesmen in
Washington who have been fighting this Conservation movement, say
it can not continue. The fact that the mining industry has nearly
doubled every ten years, they say can not continue. But no man today
would say that this country will not continue to grow, and as it
grows this great mining industry will increase also. We are just
entering upon our development. We are just beginning to export the
products of our mines, so when we ask the question whether this great
Nation will continue to grow, and this industry will increase, there
is but one answer, and that is in the affirmative. We ask another
question—are these resources inexhaustible? And there is but one
answer, and that is in the negative, because we are now beginning
to see the end of some of these resources. Shall we curtail the
development of an industry like this and not supply the needs of
the people? Our politicians ask this and expect us to answer in the
affirmative, but no conservationist answers it that way. We say, no,
the needs increase and we must meet the needs.
What can we do to perpetuate the welfare of the country? There are
but two things we can do, and they are fairly easy to do. Use more
and more efficiently all the resources, and prevent unnecessary
waste. Now, in connection with this wasteful use of our resources,
you say, after all, is there any great waste? What can we do to stop
it? Only a few years ago the State of Indiana thought its natural
gas was gone, so it passed laws forbidding the waste of natural gas;
the Supreme Court of the United States confirmed such an act in
regard to coal—after the coal was gone. One of the Supreme Judges
said that a man who owns a coal mine had a legal right to destroy it
if he wished to. But in the State of New York one of the associate
justices overruled the Supreme Justice, and in every case the Supreme
Court of the United States, as well as the Supreme Court of the
several States, have shown a desire to keep pace with the progress of
this country in interpreting the Constitution of the United States
for the permanent future welfare of the people of this country.
(Applause.) There are a good many signs of improvement, not only in
what the Federal and State Governments are doing, but in what private
individuals are doing.
Only yesterday, I went through the great plant at Gary, and I found
the United States Steel Corporation was using two million horse-power
developed from gases from its own operations, which only a few years
ago was allowed to go to waste, and that power is not only operating
all the machinery of that company, but is supplying the power for
other industries in the immediate vicinity. I found that the slag
coming from the furnaces, which in many great manufacturing sections
of the country we see piled up in great, unsightly masses, is all
being converted into cement, and that cement is being used by the
people of this country. And so we find an interesting situation—that
the steel being manufactured by that plant is likely soon to be a
by-product, and not the main product for which the plant is operated.
And so it is when we watch the great industries of this country.
Under this great spirit of Conservation individuals are meeting the
Federal Government and State more than half way, and they are finding
what is the greatest basis of permanent success—that it pays to
conserve our resources. And when that great company does any mining
for ore in the lake country, instead of burying the materials which
they cannot use today, they are laying that material to one side,
so that just as soon as it becomes useful it will be immediately
available for preparation for that purpose.
Out of five hundred million tons of coal mined last year, we wasted,
by leaving it underground, no less than two hundred million tons.
Meanwhile, if we could have exported that coal to Central or South
America and brought back from these countries raw materials which we
could use in manufacture, it would be something worth doing; but to
waste it entirely is nothing more than a discredit to this nation.
But what are we going to do about it? The coal operator cannot change
the situation, because he is doing the best he can at the price he
gets; the miner cannot change the situation, because he is doing the
best he can at the price he is paid. It is not simply a question
for chemists and engineers—it is a problem for statesmen, and the
statesman is the man who must remedy the economic conditions.
To come to the main subject of the Conservation of life, the greatest
loss of life we have in mines is in the coal mining industry. I want
to say in connection with this, that a careful study of the situation
for the past several years has led me to believe that the coal
operator in the United States is just as humane and just as anxious
to conserve the life of his men as the coal operator in any other
known country. (Applause.) Furthermore, that while it is true that
of the miners, less than half read the English language and 75 per
cent. are non-English speaking and know little or nothing about the
laws regulating the principles and purposes of a great country like
this, yet they are no more careless in mining because of that fact
than are the miners from England and Wales who come here after long
experience in mining and knowing perfectly our language and customs.
These men are up against a condition that they cannot remedy, and
while I do not say that they are doing the best they can under the
circumstances, I think they are more and more coming to do the best
they can, and I believe we will have more and more effort on the part
of both miners and operators to do what is right. We have developed
so rapidly in the past hundred years that we have not stopped to
think of human life, and we cannot expect these reforms to take place
without any effort on our part. There is recognition on the part of
both miners and operators, that I am my brother’s keeper, and it is a
most encouraging sign.
There are these two great reforms in connection with the mines of
this country—safeguarding the lives of miners and improvement of
conditions under which they labor, and the stopping of waste of our
essential resources. The Federal Government is trying to get at the
actual information, they are trying to conduct investigations in an
impartial manner, and they want to bring about a condition acceptable
to both miner and operator. We have suspicion on the part of the
operator of the miner; and suspicion on the part of the miner of the
operator; and suspicion on the part of other parties in reference to
both. What we want to do is to have a condition in this country so
that the miner and operator, co-operating with each other, can work
together and bring about these great reforms that are needed.
This general welfare clause of the Constitution, which was regarded
as an agreement with the devil, is today our great saving clause
for getting things done by the Federal Government. The Federal
Government, Mr. President, has waked up long ago to what it ought
to do for agriculture, and in the next few years it will conduct
investigations far more extensive than today—it will submit remedies
brought together from the experience of all mining countries of
the world, and it will lead in this great movement for a general
improvement of conditions. But after all, what may be done by the
Federal Government will depend upon what is done by the Federal
Congress. There is where we must do our work, to make them appreciate
the difficulties of a great industry like this, and the correctness
of this clause.
I want to say a word in behalf of these miners. As I said before,
more than half of them cannot read the English language. Under the
rules and regulations we have permitted these men to come into the
United States, and when they come it is interesting to see how they
appreciate becoming an American citizen. I talked to a Lithuanian who
had only been in this country a few months, and I said, “Are you not
very lonely?” and he said, “Yes, but I am an American.” (Applause.)
These men are here, and we have done mighty little for them. We
cannot wonder that they segregate in their rooms at night, after
working in the mines all day, and read Socialistic literature which
comes from their country. We do mighty little to encourage them to
learn the English language; we do mighty little to encourage them to
enter into the spirit of true America; we have neglected them all
too long—and then we complain that they are not American citizens. I
appeal to you as citizens of the United States and of the State of
Indiana, to see that everything that is possible is done to make good
citizens of these men. Get legislation under which they can work, and
the safety problem will take care of itself. (Continued applause.)
President WHITE—The next subject for consideration is “The Prevention
of Railroad Accidents,” by Mr. Thomas H. Johnson, consulting engineer
of the Pennsylvania Lines, West. I take pleasure in introducing Mr.
Johnson. (Applause.)
Mr. JOHNSON—In approaching this subject it will be well to get
our viewpoint adjusted to a true perspective and just proportion.
Accidents on railways which result in death or injury to persons,
are all reported to State and National officials, and when the
statistics for the year are compiled and published the total figures
are startling, and suggest that the transportation business of the
country is conducted at a fearful sacrifice of life and limb. It
should be remembered, however, that in no other line of the Nation’s
activities are similar complete statistics available.
The only data at hand to show the relation between the numbers
killed and injured on railways, and those occurring in other lines
of action, are found in a pamphlet issued by the city of Chicago,
entitled “Report of the General Superintendent of Police,” from which
the following table is taken:
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.
_Accidents Reported by the Police Department, Year 1911._
Fatal. Non-fatal. Total.
Steam Railway Accidents 187 554 741
Street and Elevated Railway Accidents 106 3,646 3,752
Accidents Caused by Teams and Vehicles 135 2,812 2,947
Accidents Caused by Falling from Windows,
Scaffolds, Porches, etc. 149 2,680 2,829
Bitten by Dogs 4 1,281 1,285
Injuries by Personal Violence 177 2,729 2,906
Overcome by Gas, Smoke or Heat 189 653 842
Scalded or Burned 81 216 297
Various Other Causes 193 1,945 2,138
————— —————— ——————
Total 1,221 16,516 17,737
From this it will be noted that of 1,221 fatal accidents in 1911,
only 187 occurred on steam railways, and of 16,516 nonfatal, only
554 are charged against them. Comparing the total accidents, it will
be seen that five times as many persons were killed and injured on
street railways as on steam railways, four times as many by teams and
vehicles, four times as many by falls from windows, scaffolds, etc.,
and again four times as many by personal violence. Even the dogs come
in for having done 73 per cent. more damage than the steam railways.
Taking the last two items together, it appears that Chicago’s vicious
dogs and more vicious men are nearly six times as destructive of life
and limb as are the railways.
While the foregoing figures are for the city of Chicago only, they
are indicative of the fact that throughout the country the number
of accidents on railways is a mere fraction of those occurring
elsewhere, and this fact has been recognized by the accident
insurance companies when they issue policies calling for double
compensation if the accident occurs while traveling in steam or
trolley cars.
If the grand total of accidents on railways appears so startling when
presented in concrete figures, what would it be if equally complete
figures could be had for the other types of accidents classified in
the Chicago report?
And now having cleared the atmosphere in that respect, we will
proceed to consider the railway accidents on their own merits.
The Interstate Commerce Commission issues a series of quarterly
bulletins of railway accidents. They also issue an annual report of
general railway statistics, in which a summary of statistics of
railway accidents was included prior to 1910, but which has since
been admitted as an unnecessary duplication. The statistics of the
annual report have been compiled on a somewhat different basis from
those of the bulletins, and the two sets of figures cannot always
be reconciled. In compiling the following tables the annual reports
prior to 1910 have been followed as being the final word of the
Commission.
It should be noted that the statistics of railway accidents are
divided into two general classes:
First. Accidents due to the movement of trains, engines or cars,
which may properly be called “transportation accidents.”
Second. Accidents not connected with train or car movements, such as
happen to shopmen, warehousemen, trackmen handling material, etc.,
such as are equally occurring in other industries, and which are more
properly classed as “industrial accidents.”
This discussion will be chiefly devoted to the first class, as being
distinctively “railway accidents.”
PROGRESS IN THE PAST.
The loss of life from railway accidents began with the day of the
opening of the first railway in England, in September, 1830, on which
occasion a prominent citizen, a member of Parliament, was knocked
down and fatally injured, sending a thrill of horror not only through
the great throng of spectators, but also throughout the civilized
world. That unfortunate accident was not due to any defect in track
or equipment, nor to any fault in the operation of the train. It was
due to the victim’s failure to appreciate the danger attending the
then new and novel mode of transportation, and inadvertently putting
himself in a position of danger. It was the forerunner and prototype
of many thousands of others which have since occurred through
carelessness and sheer recklessness of the victims, and which the
railway companies are powerless to prevent.
But as railways multiplied other accidents occurred, which were due
to defects of one kind or another in track and equipment, or to
inadequate rules governing train movements, and the duties of the
several employes. Each accident has been carefully studied as to its
cause, and, so far as possible, remedies have been applied. Thus
the immense system of transportation as it exists today has been
a gradual development from crude beginnings. The light iron rails
inadequately secured at the joints have been replaced with heavy
steel rails with effective joint fastenings. Train movements have
been safeguarded by a well-digested system of rules, uniform on all
railroads; by standard forms of train orders with all ambiguities
of language eliminated, and by block signals, interlocking and
automatic couplers, air brakes and other safety devices. Stoves and
oil lamps, with their menace of fire, have given way to steam heating
and electric lighting. The inflammable wooden cars are being replaced
with steel equipment. In fact, there has been a steady progress from
the beginning in the effort to reduce the danger to life and limb.
But accidents continue to happen, partly because the rapid growth of
traffic and the demand for greater speed are creating new conditions,
partly because materials have hidden defects and the human machine
is not infallible, and partly because discipline has been largely
subverted through the attitude of the brotherhoods of employes.
In order to show in a general way what has been accomplished,
the average figures for the five-year period from 1889 to 1893,
inclusive, have been compared with the corresponding figures for the
years 1907 to 1911, inclusive, with the following results:
Ratio of passengers carried to one killed has increased 35.5 per cent.
Ratio of employes to one killed has increased 54.7 per cent.
This shows a very decided gain in the twenty-two years covered by the
record.
The number injured cannot be compared in the same way, for the reason
that in the later years the reports include large numbers of minor
injuries of a more or less trivial nature, which were not included
in the earlier reports, but which the Interstate Commerce Commission
now requires to be reported, thus swelling the number injured out of
all proportion to the earlier reports. Under the present rules, if
a passenger lets a window sash bruise his finger, and it is brought
to the attention of any of the train crew, it must be reported, and
enters into the final statistics with as much weight as the loss of
an arm or a leg.
CAUSE AND PREVENTION.
In the Accident Bulletin for June, 1910, pages 10 and 11, there are
given detailed statistics of twenty-six “prominent train accidents”
with the causes of each. They embrace thirteen collisions and
thirteen derailments, resulting in sixty-two killed, 306 injured, and
a property loss of $261,584. The causes assigned may be grouped under
fifteen heads, as follows:
Excessive speed, 5; ran by meeting point, 2; failed to flag, 5;
disobeying orders, 1; misunderstanding orders, 1; failure to receive
orders, 1; conflicting orders, 1; signal light out and engineman
failed to stop, 1; broken rail, 2; explosion of boiler, 1; spreading
of rails, 1; washout, 1; trestle failed, 1; insufficient ballast, 1;
defective temporary junction of new and old rails, 1. Total, 26.
These fifteen assigned causes may be summarized thus:
Failure of persons, 18; failure of boiler, 1; failure of track and
structures, 7. Total, 26.
Of the seven failures of track and structures, the two cases of
“broken rails” and one “washout” may be considered unavoidable. The
remaining four cases in that group, viz., “spreading of rails,”
“trestle failed,” “insufficient ballast” and “defective temporary
junction of old and new rails” were preventable, and could have
occurred only from neglect of those charged with their care and
maintenance.
The one case of “explosion of boiler” may have been due to defective
material, or to negligence of the engineman.
We find, therefore, that in this group of accidents, twenty-two were
preventable, three unavoidable and one doubtful.
Of the unavoidable, the “washout” may be dismissed as being beyond
the control of human agencies, but the “broken rail” calls for
further consideration.
Rail failures are generally due to chemical or physical defects, not
entirely under control of the manufacturer, and not discoverable by
inspection of the finished rails. Under the present practice the
manufacture of rails is watched at the mill by the railway company’s
inspectors. Specimens from each heat or melt are tested under a
weight of 2,000 pounds falling fifteen feet to twenty feet. If the
test piece breaks the steel is regarded as too brittle, and the rails
from that heat are rejected. If it does not break, but the deflection
exceeds the prescribed limit, the steel is too soft, and those rails
are accepted as seconds, to be used only in yards and side tracks.
All test pieces which do not break under the foregoing drop test are
then broken and examined for internal defects. If defects are found,
further tests are made, and the heat rejected in whole or in part, on
the extent of unsoundness disclosed.
But herein lies a difficulty. Internal defects can only be found
by breaking the rail. A rail broken is past usefulness. Hence that
form of inspection cannot be applied to every rail; and as we can
only test a limited portion of each heat, some defective rails must
inevitably be passed and get into track. Complete statistics of all
rail failures on a large proportion of the railways of the United
States have been collected by the American Railway Engineering
Association for several years past. These reports have been collected
and classified as to the several causes, the results being printed in
the publications of the Association. They show that the rails which
fail annually are less than one eighth of one per cent. of the rails
laid. This indicates fairly successful inspection, and would be quite
satisfactory were it not that a single failure may result in such
horrible consequences.
Five years ago (1907) as the result of several conferences between
a committee of the American Railway Association and the rail
manufacturers, a systematic study of the subject was undertaken, with
a view to ascertaining the cause, and if possible, the prevention
of rail failures. This research work was placed in charge of the
Rail Committee of the American Railway Engineering Association,
who engaged the services of a competent expert, who devotes his
whole time to the work, furnishing freely of their materials and
facilities at the mills. The line of investigation includes studies
of the effects of variations in composition; in time in the bath;
in time in the ladle; in manner and rate of pouring; in size of
ingot; in rate of reduction at each pass; in temperature of the metal
when rolled; in the effect of different alloys, etc. The field of
investigation is broad and complicated. Much progress has been made,
but much remains to be done. It is hoped, however, that success will
ultimately be reached, and the rail failures in service be reduced to
the lowest possible minimum. Certainly the railway engineers and the
manufacturers are making every effort to accomplish that result.
Of late the adoption of some form of automatic stop has been
suggested, and more or less urgently advocated. But let us consider:
Referring again to the list of causes of the twenty-six accidents,
such a device would have been called into play only in one case, that
of running by a signal when the light was out. It could have had no
influence on any one of the other twenty-five cases. Furthermore,
it has been the experience the world over that emergency devices,
resting in “innocuous desuetude” for long intervals of time, usually
fail to work when the emergency arises. It may be said that it should
be some one’s duty to see that the apparatus is kept in working
order. Very true. But therein is a reversion to ultimate dependence
on the human factor with its attendant weakness and frailties.
The foregoing list of accidents embrace only a few of the more
prominent “collisions” and “derailments.” But there are other forms
of accident, as shown in the following statistical tables copied from
the Interstate Commerce Commission Annual Report for 1909:
ACCIDENTS RESULTING FROM THE MOVEMENT OF TRAINS, LOCOMOTIVES, OR CARS.
_Interstate Commerce Commission Annual Report, 1909._
=========================+====================================
| Employes.
+————————————————+———————————————————
| | Switch Tenders,
KIND OF ACCIDENT. | Trainmen. | Crossing Tenders
| | and Watchmen.
+———————+————————+—————————+—————————
|Killed.|Injured.| Killed. | Injured.
—————————————————————————+———————+————————+—————————+—————————
Coupling or uncoupling | 137 | 2,271 | 4 | 35
Collision | 205 | 1,973 | 1 | 10
Derailments | 184 | 1,186 | | 10
Parting of trains | 7 | 233 | | 2
Locomotives or cars | | | |
breaking down | 9 | 159 | | 2
Falling from trains, | 295 | 4,433 | 1 | 56
locomotives, or cars | | | |
Jumping on or off trains,| 84 | 4,135 | 6 | 64
locomotives or cars | | | |
Struck by trains, | 243 | 577 | 72 | 79
locomotives or cars | | | |
Overhead obstructions | 47 | 775 | | 6
Other causes | 133 | 13,376 | 9 | 243
+———————+————————+—————————+—————————
Total | 1,344 | 29,118 | 93 | 507
—————————————————————————+———————+————————+—————————+—————————
=========================+====================================
| Employes (Continued).
+————————————————+———————————————————
| |
KIND OF ACCIDENT. | Station Men. | Shopmen.
| |
+———————+————————+—————————+—————————
|Killed.|Injured.| Killed. | Injured.
—————————————————————————+———————+————————+—————————+—————————
Coupling or uncoupling | 2 | 2 | 1 | 17
Collision | | 1 | 1 | 23
Derailments | | 2 | 1 | 6
Parting of trains | | 1 | |
Locomotives or cars | | | |
breaking down | | | | 6
Falling from trains, | | | |
locomotives, or cars | | 30 | 2 | 65
Jumping on or off trains,| | | |
locomotives or cars | | 24 | 4 | 59
Struck by trains, | | | |
locomotives or cars | 21 | 25 | 41 | 89
Overhead obstructions | | | | 4
Other causes | 2 | 121 | 14 | 465
+———————+————————+—————————+—————————
Total | 25 | 206 | 64 | 734
—————————————————————————+———————+————————+—————————+—————————
—————————————————————————+————————————————————————————————————
| Employes (Continued).
+————————————————+———————————————————
KIND OF ACCIDENT. | Trackmen. | Telegraph
| | Employes.
+———————+————————+—————————+—————————
|Killed.|Injured.| Killed. | Injured.
—————————————————————————+———————+————————+—————————+—————————
Coupling or uncoupling | | 7 | |
Collisions | 18 | 132 | | 7
Derailments | 13 | 64 | |
Parting of trains | 1 | 2 | |
Locomotives or cars | | | |
breaking down | 2 | 10 | |
Falling from trains, | | | |
locomotives, or cars | 13 | 159 | | 7
Jumping on or off trains,| | | |
locomotives or cars | 16 | 130 | | 13
Struck by trains, | | | |
locomotives or cars | 353 | 412 | 8 | 12
Overhead obstructions | | 4 | |
Other causes | 25 | 882 | | 34
+———————+————————+—————————+—————————
Total | 441 | 1,802 | 8 | 73
—————————————————————————+———————+————————+—————————+—————————
—————————————————————————+————————————————————————————————————
| Employes (Continued).
+————————————————+———————————————————
KIND OF ACCIDENT. | Other | Total.
| Employes. |
+———————+————————+—————————+—————————
|Killed.|Injured.| Killed. | Injured.
—————————————————————————+———————+————————+—————————+—————————
Coupling or uncoupling | 11 | 50 | 155 | 2,382
Collisions | 27 | 163 | 252 | 2,309
Derailments | 10 | 117 | 208 | 1,385
Parting of trains | 1 | 12 | 9 | 250
Locomotives or cars | | | |
breaking down | 1 | 1 | 12 | 178
Falling from trains, | | | |
locomotives, or cars | 36 | 234 | 347 | 4,983
Jumping on or off trains,| | | |
locomotives or cars | 22 | 261 | 132 | 4,686
Struck by trains, | | | |
locomotives or cars | 187 | 345 | 925 | 1,539
Overhead obstructions | 5 | 20 | 52 | 809
Other causes | 83 | 1,340 | 266 | 16,461
+———————+————————+—————————+—————————
Total | 383 | 2,542 | 2,358 | 34,982
—————————————————————————+———————+————————+—————————+—————————
—————————————————————————+————————————————+———————————————————
| | Other Persons.
| Passengers. +———————————————————
KIND OF ACCIDENT. | | Trespassing.
+————————————————+———————————————————
|Killed.|Injured.| Killed. | Injured.
—————————————————————————+———————+————————+—————————+—————————
Collisions | 69 | 2,379 | 13 | 49
Derailments | 17 | 2,426 | 32 | 69
Parting of trains | | 47 | 3 | 3
Locomotives or cars | | | |
breaking down | | 2 | | 1
Falling from trains, | | | |
locomotives or cars | 37 | 425 | 413 | 732
Jumping on or off trains | | | |
locomotives or cars | 81 | 1,503 | 445 | 1,688
Struck by trains, | | | |
locomotives or cars; | | | |
At highway crossings | 2 | 3 | 112 | 211
At stations | 30 | 67 | 365 | 334
At other points along | | | |
track | 1 | 12 | 3,371 | 2,037
Other causes | 12 | 2,715 | 190 | 635
+———————+————————+—————————+—————————
Total | 249 | 9,579 | 4,944 | 5,759
=========================+=======+========+=========+=========
—————————————————————————+————————————————+———————————————————
| Other Persons.
|————————————————+———————————————————
KIND OF ACCIDENT. |Not Trespassing.| Total.
+————————————————+———————————————————
|Killed.|Injured.| Killed. | Injured.
—————————————————————————+———————+————————+—————————+—————————
Collisions | 25 | 447 | 38 | 496
Derailments | 6 | 287 | 38 | 356
Parting of trains | | 13 | 3 | 16
Locomotives or cars | | | |
breaking down | 1 | 4 | 1 | 5
Falling from trains, | | | |
locomotives or cars | 13 | 72 | 426 | 804
Jumping on or off trains | | | |
locomotives or cars | 11 | 120 | 456 | 1,808
Struck by trains, | | | |
locomotives or cars; | | | |
At highway crossings | 621 | 1,619 | 733 | 1,830
At stations | 66 | 183 | 431 | 517
At other points along | | | |
track | 79 | 143 | 3,450 | 2,180
Other causes | 47 | 1,030 | 237 | 1,665
+———————+————————+—————————+—————————
Total | 869 | 3,918 | 5,813 | 9,677
=========================+=======+========+=========+=========
Referring to the column of totals under the head of “Employes” you
will note the large number of killed and injured in coupling or
uncoupling cars; this in spite of the fact that all the equipment
is fitted with automatic couplers, intended to prevent just those
accidents.
The next two items, “Collisions” and “Derailments,” are also large,
both as to employes, passengers and others, and we have already
seen that in the former list eighteen out of twenty-six were due
to “failure of persons.” Referring again to that list it will be
further seen that sixteen of the eighteen were due to failure of the
persons in charge of the trains, which justifies us in assuming that
a similarly large proportion of these totals are due to like causes.
Please note also the large numbers, running through all these classes
of persons, opposite the items “Falling from trains, locomotives or
cars” and “Jumping on or off trains, locomotives or cars.” These may
all be charged to the carelessness of the victims.
So, also, those “Struck by trains, locomotives or cars” nearly all of
these are chargeable to the fault of the parties themselves.
“Other causes” are also prolific in casualties, but the data at
hand does not disclose the extent to which they are chargeable to
carelessness of victims or others, to preventable or to unavoidable
causes.
Your attention is also directed to the very large numbers of killed
and injured while “trespassing” on the railway property. Some of
these belong to the great army of tramps infesting the country, but
the largest part are people of the communities along the lines, who
persist in using the tracks as a public thoroughfare. In most of the
States there are laws on the statute books which are adequate to
prevent this if duly enforced, but it seems impossible to get such
enforcement. On the lines with which the writer is connected, efforts
have been made in the past to break up this practice, but without
success. Parties arrested by the railway company’s police and taken
before the local magistrate have been released without punishment or
only assessed a nominal sum to secure to the magistrate his fees. A
rigid enforcement of these laws, and similar action as to jumping on
or off locomotives and cars in motion (as is done in Europe) would
eliminate approximately one-half the total killed and one-fourth the
injured.
Here is a field in which the railways alone are helpless, but where
much can be accomplished by legal enforcement, supported by strong
popular approval. Without the latter, little aid can be expected from
the average country justice or city magistrate.
INDUSTRIAL ACCIDENTS.
The first man to publicly call attention to the need of organized
effort in this direction was Mr. R. C. Richards of the Chicago and
Northwestern Railway, in his booklet “Railway Accidents, Their Cause
and Prevention,” published in 1906. The seed thus sown has taken deep
root, for at the present time nearly every leading railway in the
country has an organized safety committee, whose duty it is to make
regular periodic inspections to see that work places and tools are in
safe condition; that yards, tracks, stations, buildings and grounds
are clean and properly lighted; that shop machinery is protected by
safeguards over gearing and other exposed moving parts, and that men
are taking proper precautions for the protection of themselves and
others. They report upon conditions which they feel can be improved,
investigate accidents with a view to preventing repetition, and
recommend improved methods of work to reduce risk of accident.
The Northwestern, after the first sixteen months, showed a decrease
of 23.7 per cent. in deaths, and 29.8 per cent. in injuries, compared
with the previous period of the same length. On the Pennsylvania
Railroad the result of the first eleven months was a decrease of 63
per cent. in the combined number of deaths and serious injuries.
These results are most gratifying, and demonstrate the usefulness of
such close inspection and watchfulness.
IN CONCLUSION.
Accidents due to washouts, and to hidden defects in material are in
the main unavoidable, though the former may sometimes be avoided
by increased care and watchfulness during and after storms, and
it is hoped that the latter may be materially reduced through the
investigations now in progress in steel making.
Accidents due to imperfectly maintained track can be avoided
by better maintenance, or by reducing speed to correspond to
the conditions of the track. Speed and track conditions are
inter-dependent factors.
Accidents due to jumping on or off trains in motion, and to
trespassing, can be and should be eliminated by a rigid enforcement
of existing laws, or the passage of new ones, if those on the statute
books are found to be inadequate. As already stated, this would save
one-half the annual deaths and a large proportion of the injured.
Substantially all of the casualties in coupling and uncoupling cars
are due to carelessness of the men themselves, and the same may be
said of most of those due to falling from or being struck by trains,
locomotives or cars. It is difficult to suggest a remedy for this, or
to formulate a course of procedure to reform the men in this respect.
Recent and prospective legislation affecting the employers’ liability
will not be conducive to increased carefulness, but will rather tend
to foster carelessness.
Train accidents due to error, negligence or incompetence should be
corrected by proper discipline. But the administration of discipline
is restrained and obstructed by the brotherhoods, whose officers
claim the right to be present at all investigations, and the
discipline ordered must meet their approval. They contest suspension
and dismissals by appeals to higher officers who have no personal
knowledge of the men, and use every means at their command, even to
threatening a strike, to prevent the order from being carried out,
often with success, all of which is subversive of discipline.
It is not a comforting thought that, when you, here assembled,
disperse to your homes, some of you may place your lives in the hands
of a man who is retained in the service through intimidation, rather
than fitness and merit.
There can be no remedy for this while unprincipled demagogues
and politicians, catering for votes, continue to appeal to class
prejudice, and while the sympathies of the people, public officials
and arbitrators seem to be arrayed against the railways.
President WHITE—We have now something else very interesting, and the
next speaker will only keep you fifteen minutes. I now take pleasure
in introducing Mr. A. B. Farquhar, of York, Pa., who will speak on
“Vital Statistics and the Conservation of Human Life a National
Concern.” He knows his subject; he knows it by experience; he has
been through it; and he has met the classes, met the conditions he
speaks of. He has a message to give you that is well worth hearing.
Mr. FARQUHAR—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: Yes, I have
been interested in this subject for perhaps seventy years of the
seventy-five years of my life. I am very much interested in the work
done in Pennsylvania. I shall refer to that, as is proper in a man
sent as a delegate to this Congress by the Governor, and I believe it
is a good example to other communities.
Vital statistics are usually assumed to cover only the number of
births and deaths occurring in a given territory within a given time,
a subject not attractive to the general reader, but this address
will be devoted more particularly to the objects for which and the
agencies by which such statistics are assembled, which is far more
important and interesting, especially as it includes the social
questions they resolve for us. “It is sometimes said figures rule the
world; but this at least is true, that they show how it is ruled.”
To this saying of a wise man may be added that they also show how
it might be or should be ruled; they best illustrate “philosophy
teaching by example,” because most precise and definite in form of
presentation. They are of most use when applied to the most important
interests of mankind, and have no higher function than in bearing
their part in safeguarding the nation’s health.
For its vital statistics the Federal Census Bureau has always
had to depend on data collected by local agencies, and of the
imperfection of those agencies, and especially the large territory
for which there were none—no attempt to keep the official record
of births and deaths, it has loudly complained. Notwithstanding
the commendable efforts that have been made throughout the country
to supply deficiencies by State legislation, so much remains yet
to be done that a census report, as late as 1907, showed less than
half the population of the country, and only a third of the States
in number, within the registration area. But the movement has been
forward, and it is gratifying to note that the most significant
step in advance was made by Pennsylvania, in a law creating a state
department of health and fixing its duties in 1905. Until then that
commonwealth was said to have “the poorest registration of any of
the Eastern States,” though its first law for the purpose had been
passed fifty-four years earlier; but “it had in 1906, the first year
of the operation of the new law, an effective registration of births
and deaths practically as complete as that of any registration State
in the country, and far superior to the majority.” The best point
about the law of 1905, and its most significant difference from that
of 1851, is that it is executed. Obedience is no longer optional,
but compulsory. Authority under it is centralized in the hands of
the Governor, Attorney-General and Commissioner of Health, and
practically for most purposes in those of the Commissioner.
The total appropriations for work under this department since 1905
have been $9,286,080. The number employed by its various divisions is
3,625. Of this number there are 1,170, nearly one-third of the total
force, who are local registrars in the vital statistics service.
With what is so large a force to occupy itself? The 1,170 registrars
receive all birth and death certificates and issue all burial permits
(to which registration is a prerequisite), and the bureau has also
charge of marriage certificates, filed with it by the clerks of
county courts. The medical inspection division establish quarantine
under direction of the county inspectors, see to placarding houses
and disinfecting them after cases of communicable disease, guard
against the sale of milk from premises where any such diseases are
found, and represent the department in co-operation with local
health boards. Supervision of the medical inspection of schools
forms also an important part of the duty of these officers, some
300,000 children having been examined during the past school year.
At the free tuberculosis dispensaries, with which the department
has provided the large centers of population, the indigent receive
free medical advice and necessary supplies. The commissioner has
supervision, by the act creating the health department, of all
systems of public water supply and of public or private sewage
disposal. Detailed plans must be filed with the department, and no
new construction can be done until the Governor, the Attorney-General
and the Commissioner have approved the plans. The biological products
division distributes, through 656 stations in all parts of the
commonwealth, free antitoxin to the poor. The stations are located as
impartially as practicable.
What has been accomplished by all this equipment, discharging all
these functions, cannot be completely told; a few figures may be
given, with a result here and there, and the rest left to estimate
of probability. For example, the statement that 6,724 patients were
admitted to the Mont Alto Sanatorium in the four years 1907–1911
certainly indicates the magnitude of the problem, and the importance
of giving it the best attention we can. It is perhaps a little
more significant that 58,004 patients have been treated in the
department’s tuberculosis dispensaries since they were organized. The
activity of the sanitary engineering division is clearly shown in
its recorded count that up to June, 1912, 40,447 private sources of
stream pollution had been abated on notice from the department. One
hundred and eleven modern sewage-disposal plants have been built or
are in process of building, 306 municipal and private sewer systems
are under construction in accordance with plans approved by the
health department. Ninety-seven modern water filtration plants have
been or soon will be constructed under State approval. It is worth
while to connect with this fact another even more gratifying: the
death rate from typhoid fever in Pennsylvania, which was, in 1906,
565 per million inhabitants, had fallen to 206 per million in 1911.
As a final instance, the death rate from diphtheria, a little over
42 per cent. in untreated cases, has been reduced in the average of
the 35,111 cases treated with antitoxin between 1905 and December,
1911, to 8.07 per cent., or less than one-fifth. Further, a certain
district having been set apart for the trial of 5,000 units, instead
of the usual 3,000, as an initial dose of diphtheria antitoxin, the
death rate in that district has now shown a reduction to 4.22 per
cent.
This story is not told for the mere satisfaction of praising
our Keystone State or its faithful and capable public officers,
though for that, too, it affords opportunity. Its function is to
point a moral, to indicate a course of treatment of the subjects
of vital statistics and public health, which, as Pennsylvania’s
experience leads me to believe, may well be applied to a wider field
than Pennsylvania. It is not by accident that the association of
statistics of births and deaths and marriages, with a State office
for the promotion of public health, has come into favor at the
same time in so many parts of the country. The force of example is
something, to be sure, as is also the circumstance that a physician
is usually at hand, when a birth or death occurs, that he is apt to
know what there is to tell about the occurrence, that he is apt to
know how to report, and that the State health office is one to which
a physician might naturally address himself. But more important than
these considerations is the value of birth and death records in the
conservation of the people’s health. From the greater or lesser
number they show the favorable or adverse effects of accompanying
conditions can be judged, and a conclusion reached as to how such
conditions should be regulated. Nor could any condition be more
important to regulate than those affecting health. The people’s
health is its most precious asset. Dr. Wiley says he “would rather be
a strong, vigorous man without a dollar than a sickly millionaire,”
and thus indicates the pecuniary value of health to an individual.
Multiplying that value by the number of the population, the amount
becomes fairly appalling.
We have a department of agriculture expending vast sums—nearly
fifty millions in the last decade—in improving the soil, improving
the growth of vegetation, improving the health of animals, and
no department to do anything to improve human health. We spend
$700,000,000 a year for past and imagined future wars, and pay no
attention to the 700,000 calculated above—a larger number dying
every year, unnecessarily from disease, than bullets have slain
since the continent was discovered. As we are reminded by Dr. Dixon,
our Pennsylvania health commissioner, we are spending millions a
year for the protection of our forests and water supply and other
natural resources, but it is no credit to our intelligence that while
guarding these material interests we allow man himself, without whom
all else is worthless, to remain unguarded.
Yet it is a mistake to say that we do and have done nothing; what
has been done is greatly to the credit of mankind, only it has not
been enough. Jenner’s discovery and his application of it has left
no excuse for smallpox anywhere. The president of the board of
health in Mexico assured me that compulsory vaccination had freed
his city of smallpox; and the Japanese health authorities, since
their enforcement of compulsory vaccination, have ceased altogether
to look upon the presence of smallpox as a source of danger. It
is no longer a scourge in the Philippines and Cuba. Similar to
the work of Lister in antiseptic surgery is that of Pasteur and
Koch in various germ-diseases, of King and Carroll and Lazier in
mosquito-transmission of infection. With the elimination of the
Stegomyia mosquito, yellow fever is no longer dreaded; Havana and
the gulf ports are as safe as anywhere; and the construction of the
Panama Canal has become possible—as, but for the discoveries by
Carroll and Lazier (or their rediscovery of Dr. King’s discovery) it
never could have been.
From the brilliant successes attained in the directions just
indicated, we seem to see that the most important thing for us is
to know; we are to find our safety in knowledge. When we know that
malaria is inoculated by the bite of the mosquito Anopheles, and
yellow fever by the mosquito Stegomyia, that typhoid fever is fed to
us, in a large proportion of cases, from the feet of the house-fly,
that the fearful bubonic plague is inoculated by the bite of a flea
infesting the rat, we have already traveled more than half way to
deliverance. We can drive off the mosquito, or, by oiling the
puddles, prevent her from hatching; we can “swat the fly,” or abate
the manure-heaps and other filth from which it draws its unblest
being; and, if we can not catch the flea, we can make war upon its
host, the rat. If, as is computed, within the last 2,000 years
2,000,000,000 people have fallen victims to the bubonic plague, it is
enough to justify wholesale enlistments in a grand rat-hunt.
Half a century ago people were afraid of night air, and closed their
windows at night. It is hard to guess how many lives might have been
saved by opening those windows. We are told that the average duration
of human life has doubled in the last 200 years. Whatever gain there
has been is due, more than anything else, to more knowledge.
The case of pure air as against contaminated air is but one way of
putting the general case of cleanness against foulness. Bad air has
the same vices that attach to dirt in other forms; one of the uses
of more knowledge is to be able to detect dirt in all forms, however
concealed or disguised; and another is to discover the best means of
sweeping it away. Our ancestors used to drink water from pools and
wells that were sinks of organic filth, to worship in churches built
over an array of corpses in all stages of putrefaction, to wear the
same suit of leather clothes, day and night, till they fell apart or
the wearer outgrew them—all because they knew no better. They had no
conception of the disgust with which such habits were to be regarded
by a more educated posterity. Now the golden rule of health is “Wash
you—make you clean!” It is not enough to make, or even to keep, the
children’s faces clean; we must look no less to the cleanness of the
lung passages, of the alimentary canal—yes, of mind and heart also.
Morally and esthetically, there is nothing in relation to which the
duty to be clean is more stringent than the reproductive function.
The source of the greatest work in all God’s creation, the human
race, ought more than all else to be pure; and the necessary
condition of our endowing the earth in coming ages with a better
human race than it now has, or has ever had, is that we provide that
coming race with the best kind of parentage. The quality of the next
generation is determined by the quality of this generation; it will
be in most respects as we make it, clean if brought forth in purity,
foul if engendered in foulness. And the truth so strikingly evident
in the moral and esthetical view is even more clear in the view we
are here taking, that of the race’s health. To sexual impurity, by
the testimony of the best physicians—the illustrious Dr. Osler for
instance—more physical degeneration is due than to any other one
cause. Dr. Prince A. Morrow, president of the Society of Sanitary and
Moral Prophylaxis, estimates the number constantly ill from syphilis
in this country—although that number has of late been considerably
reduced—as still no less than 2,000,000. The syphilitic poison is
communicated by inoculation—a contagion that has no danger for us
so long as held at a respectful distance; and the essential point
in guarding against it is to preserve that distance. Like the venom
of the rattlesnake it is best known in a knowledge of its lurking
places. It was first recognized in Europe, some time in the fifteenth
century; and it came from the Orient, not of its own initiative,
but because Europeans went after it and fetched it. Similarly now,
a man does not have it unless he goes after it. There is nothing
in the whole range of human disorders that shows more emphatically
than this, the feebleness and inadequacy of the best possible cure
as compared with prevention. Knowledge seems all that is needed for
complete prevention; any young man, having more than the resolution
and self-control of an infant or an idiot, ought to require nothing
more than an elementary acquaintance with a few facts that should be
at the command of every instructor of youth, to insure his leaving
the syphilis and gonorrhea factory permanently alone. If their
baleful function were made clearly known to those who most need to
know it, the entrance door to every such temple of moral and physical
ruin would carry to the eyes the sign that greeted those of Dante:
“All hope abandon, ye who enter here”—a prospect whose unrelieved
blackness looks even darker when contrasted with the brilliant glory
of the hope relinquished. It is a law of our human constitution that
the richest, deepest, keenest joys that life has for us are those
that come from the contrast of two sexes. Even when that contrast
is hostile, there seems to be some pleasure in it; but immeasurably
more when it is an incident of ardent attraction. Byron in one of his
earlier poems thus puts it:
“Devotion wafts the mind above,
But Heaven itself descends in love;
A feeling from the Godhead caught,
To wean from self each sordid thought;
A ray of Him who formed the whole;
A glory circling ’round the soul!”
It is too well known that the poet’s own loves, in after years,
were not always of this ideal quality; but no one ever better set
forth the exalted possibilities of the sex sentiment, to which
the continuance of life on earth is due. But the worst, we are
often reminded, is the corruption of the best, and it is another
possibility of the same sentiment that it may urge a man to blast
his whole future by incurring an incurable disease, and sadder
yet—too often to involve others, tender and innocent lives, in his
own condemnation. If more knowledge can ward off such a grisly fate,
it is surely inhuman cruelty not to supply that knowledge, however
disagreeable the duty may appear. When clearly seen as a duty it will
be no longer disagreeable.
While making this call for more knowledge of vital truths primarily
on account of the young men, since it is in the vast majority of
cases the man who tempts, the man to whom the outcast woman owes her
fall, it would be the wildest folly to stop with one-half of the
rising generation. The future of the race is too dependent on its
mothers to excuse or permit the neglect of any preparation of them
for motherhood, which health in its fullest sense may demand.
Most of the great questions of health in its widest sense, of
health as a public concern, resolve themselves into resisting the
entrance of this or that species of bacterial germs into the body.
The essential distinction between Mother Earth, that bringeth forth
flowers and fruits, and grass for our herds, and dirt or filth, the
especial opprobrium of the hygienist, is that the latter carries
germs of bacteria. Cleanness, in the hygienic sense, is freedom
from pathogenic germs; and when the doctors tell us that the marked
improvement in health conditions recently observable in Germany and
Switzerland, and pre-eminently in Sweden, is due to their exceptional
attention to cleanliness, they use the term with particular reference
to the provoking causes of preventable sickness. Not only is the
death rate from the acute diseases in those lands rapidly falling
off, but diseases of the chronic class are beginning to yield to the
inculcation of better habits among the people.
We are by no means without instances in this country, of death
rates reduced by preventive methods, as shown for young children
in our largest cities after the introduction of pasteurized
milk. Deaths have been thus spared for that peculiarly helpless
class of sufferers, to the extent of fully 50 per cent. in some
districts—in large measure through the well-directed activity of one
public-spirited New York merchant. But we have much to do in other
lines, and we have only begun to free ourselves of the typhoid fever
incubus. As late as fourteen years ago there were 11,000 cases of
that infection in the camp at Chattanooga, with 800 deaths. In the
entire Spanish war the deaths of our soldiers from diseases, it was
calculated, were thirteen times as many as from wounds in battle—the
diseases mostly, like the Chattanooga typhoid, of the preventable
kinds.
Loss of life by preventable accidents, on railways, in factories and
mines, is too closely associated with that by diseases to be here
omitted, though entitled to much fuller treatment than we can here
afford. The deathroll from this cause is still disgracefully large
in this country, far surpassing any country of Europe; but there
are signs already of diminution. For instance, one steel factory,
reporting 43 accidental deaths among 6,000 employes in 1906, showed
only 12 fatalities in a payroll of 7,000 in 1909, safeguards having
been introduced in the meantime. This instance is very good, so
far as it goes, but we need to make much more progress in the same
direction.
What we want is systematic effort, by some powerful consolidated
agency, to promote the conservation of human life. We have no need to
find fault with any of the organizations now engaged in furthering
that end, several of which are doing good work. We may gratefully
acknowledge the aid of the various medical societies, “regular” and
“irregular”—though we take the liberty of wishing that they might
fight the common enemy a little more and each other a little less.
We may also welcome the assistance of the life insurance companies,
notably the Equitable and the Metropolitan, whose managers clearly
realize how their interests are involved. Whatever lengthens the
average term of human life is a factor operating to increase their
dividends and to reduce the cost of insurance to their policyholders.
It is worth while to note, at this point, that the majority of
life insurance officers are strong advocates of the formation of a
national bureau or department of health.
Still more do we owe to the activities of State and municipal boards
of health, which do more good because they have more power. Where
properly supported they have done a great work, at obstructing the
spread of epidemics by quarantines and other methods of isolation,
at curing pollution of water supply, at instituting improved sewer
systems, at bettering the general food supply by inspection of
markets. You have just heard a condensed account of the activities
of one of our best State health departments, that of Pennsylvania.
You will infer from what that department has done in seven years what
might be done by a national bureau or department, with powers and
field of operation extending over the entire country.
The movement for a bureau or department of health, national in its
scope, has been most actively advanced in Washington by Hon. Robert
L. Owen, Senator from Oklahoma. His bills call for a department,
and he gives strong reasons for the view that such an organization
would, while that of a bureau would not, suffice for the national
governmental activities in behalf of the public health. President
Taft strongly urges a “Bureau of Public Health,” and plainly
intimates a preference for the bureau plan. The “Committee of
One Hundred on National Health,” formed by the Association for
Advancement of Science, in 1906, with Prof. Irving Fisher as its
president, originally contemplated a department whose head should
be a member of the President’s cabinet, but it has in its recent
publications adopted the alternative phrase “bureau or department,”
which course is here followed, because there is manifestly nothing to
gain by keeping up a contest on the point. The memorial prepared by
the committee of one hundred proposes for a national department of
health certain functions, as follows:
1. Administration—Including the national quarantine work, and
whatever regulation of interstate commerce might affect human health,
such as meat inspection and enforcing the food and drug act.
2. Co-operation—The work of assisting State, county and city health
agencies, after some such fashion as the National Department of
Agriculture co-operates with State agricultural colleges and
institutions.
3. Research and Investigation—The work of obtaining needed scientific
information concerning the cause and prevention of diseases that
now shorten or impair human life; this would include a study of
accidents, of poisonous manufacturing trades, of hygienic conditions
in schools, etc., just as yellow fever was studied in Cuba, as the
hookworm is now to be studied under private endowment, as the work of
the Pasteur Institute was conducted under French government support.
4. Education—The work of supplying to the country scientifically
established data on matters pertaining to health, such work as is
done by the “publication division” in most of our governmental
departments; thus rendering available for practical use the work of
research and investigation. The countries in which is found the most
rapid reduction of the death rate are just those (Sweden for example)
in which the spread of a knowledge of hygiene is widest.
Of these functions the mere statement is a most powerful argument for
the bureau or department suggested. It only remains to remove a few
misunderstandings. One objection, for example, is powerful in many
minds—that such a centralized office must necessarily be the organ
of a particular medical school, and must so give that school—the one
denominated “regular,” for example—an unfair advantage, unsuited
to a government of liberty and equality. To this it may be frankly
replied, that the primary objects of the new office being the four
just stated (administration, co-operation, investigation, education),
it would aim to collect and diffuse the greatest attainable amount
of accurate knowledge on the subject of health; and that if it found
a larger quantity of better knowledge in one school than in another,
it would be false to its trust if it did not spread that knowledge
accordingly. Personally, the writer finds it hard to believe that it
could treat a school that taught the unreality of disease, or the
surpassing value for all kinds of disorders, of drugs, of a narrow
range of characteristics, on an exact equality with schools that deal
with facts as they find them; but he heartily agrees that the citizen
ought to enjoy the liberty of choosing his own medical advisers, so
far as he does not endanger life or health by so choosing.
There are other objections to organized national work for health,
many of them from a so-called National League for Medical Freedom,
the most active workers in which have been shown to be interested in
one or another kind of proprietary medicine, backed by some “mental
healers,” and by associations of druggists who object to the “pure
food and drugs act” of 1906. Several homœpathical State societies
have repudiated that “league for freedom,” and have emphatically
attested their approval of the proposed bureau or department of
health; this, notwithstanding their well-understood grievances
against “regular” practitioners. Some of the best informed among the
osteopaths and the Christian Scientists are pronouncing similarly;
and so, if the disavowals keep on, the League of Medical Freedom may
soon be left with only those who seek freedom to dope their victims
with drugs that enslave; stupefy them—infant and adult—with opium
and thinly disguised alcohol, and generally to reverse the progress
of a century. But, since it is estimated that $75,000,000 a year are
expended by our fellow-citizens for patent medicines, it is easy
enough to see how they must regard a national department which is
to improve the sanitary conditions of the country, show people how
to care for health, stop the sale of poisonous nostrums and impure
foods, and end the career of opium under the name of “soothing
syrup.” Their profits would be gone, and of course they disapprove
and protest.
Altogether, the cause of a national bureau or department of health is
commended, both by those who favor and those who oppose it. It could
not ask better advocates than the distinguished men who heartily
favor it, on the congressional or the collegiate stage; nor more
suitable adversaries than those constituting the League for Medical
Freedom.
President WHITE—This is a most valuable paper, and it will be
printed, together with the other papers and addresses of this
convention. Every one should avail themselves of the opportunity to
subscribe for this book, which costs one dollar.
I will now introduce to you the gentleman who kindly gave his hour to
Mr. Farquhar. He is Mr. Reginald Pelham Bolton, of New York City, who
will speak to you on “The Prevention of Elevator Accidents.”
Mr. BOLTON—The preservation of human life and the protection of our
fellow-creatures from physical injury, claim prior consideration over
conservation of mere materials.
Any form of danger which results in the destruction of life, and
exhibits a tendency toward increased developments, invites our
systematic investigation. Ameliorative measures, if undertaken in
advance of the growth of an evil, are of double value. To one phase
of the subject, of the conservation of life, I desire to direct your
attention.
The increase of fatalities and injuries resulting from the extensive
use of passenger elevators has become sufficiently marked to deserve
careful attention by those who are concerned with the benefit of our
fellow-citizens. Complete statistics as to the number of accidental
occurrences in and about elevators of all classes throughout the
country are not available, but an estimate based upon such official
returns as relate to labor alone, indicate that the annual total
is now probably in excess of seven thousand, of which probably
three-fourths are of a preventable character.
From small beginnings, the roll of such accidents reported by the New
York Department of Labor, which it is conceded do not cover all such
occurrences, rose in 1909 to a total for five years of 1,600 injured
persons, of whom 198 were killed and about 298 permanently disabled.
The Wainwright-Phillips Commission of the New York State Legislature
reported in 1911 a list of injuries and deaths, in the three years
1907 to 1910, affecting 1,108 persons, of whom 106 were killed
and 241 were more or less seriously and permanently crippled. In
addition, no less than 200 persons fell down hoistways, of whom 43
were killed outright and 19 permanently injured.
These occurrences took place only on elevators in industrial
establishments, and are only those which have been officially
reported.
The Industrial Commission of the State of Wisconsin reported for the
ten months, September, 1911, to June, 1912, thirty-nine accidents
in and upon elevators, and fifteen more due to falls down elevator
shafts; all occurring in establishments of various industries.
Accidents occurring in transportation were 195, so that the relation
of elevator accidents and falls was 28 per cent. of transportation.
That such accidents are duplicated outside the limits of observation
of labor departments is indicated by an examination of the reports
of the New York county coroners, which show about one hundred deaths
annually from elevator accidents in the county of New York only.
In the year 1911, in the Borough of Manhattan, there were reported
sixty-eight fatalities in connection with elevators, about two
hundred permanent injuries, and probably about three hundred more may
be estimated as having sustained lesser injuries.
The fact that accidental occurrences in or about elevators are thus
found to be deplorably numerous and increasing is not to be taken
as a reflection upon the general security of elevator travel. Their
number is relatively small in comparison with the vast number of
persons utilizing these appliances. One express schedule elevator
handles about 700,000 persons per annum. Further, by far the
larger number of mishaps are not due to failure or fault of the
elevator itself, but occur in and about the entrances of, or in the
hoistways of such apparatus, from persons falling through unguarded
openings into elevator shafts, and of course a number are due to the
recklessness and incompetence of employes and operators.
It remains the fact, however, that a large part of these occurrences
are unnecessary, just as was found to be the case with many of
the forms of danger to life and injury to limb which attended the
operation of freight and passenger trains prior to the adoption of
certain of the safety appliances and methods which have been brought
into general use on railroads, as a result of the concentration of
public attention upon the subject, and legislative action based
thereon. Similar attention and action with the compilation of
statistics upon the subject will undoubtedly result in diminishing
the number of fatal and injurious occurrences connected with elevator
operation.
Some loss of human life and injury to the person may to some extent
be regarded as an unfortunately inevitable accompaniment of all forms
of motive apparatus, and the complex conditions of modern existence
have not only increased this liability by demands for more rapid
movement of all forms of mechanical transportation, but the vast
increase in the usage of appliances has introduced new elements of
danger.
In no class of transportation are the effects of haste and crowding
more apparent and dangerous than in the modern means of vertical
transportation, use of which is now made by all classes of people.
Liability towards accidental occurrences in elevators, therefore,
affects the whole public, and it is needless to dilate upon the
general concern in, and economic loss resulting from deaths or injury
of any member of the community. It may be conservatively estimated
that the economic value of the mere services of persons killed in and
about elevators, based upon life expectancy, and the loss of time of
those injured, would annually exceed the cost of equipment of all
passenger and freight elevators with modernized safety appliances.
There are some features connected with elevator accidents which call
for consideration and rectification. These have grown up around the
development of the appliance in a manner somewhat peculiar to it.
The elevator is a transportation apparatus which is for the most
part privately operated and owned. Unlike the railroad, it is not
regarded by the law as the apparatus of a common carrier. Unlike the
road carriage or car, it is not operated upon the public highways.
Unlike the machinery of a factory, it is not utilized exclusively by
employes.
Its development and use have been, perhaps, too restricted to require
the attention of such legislation as has been rather freely applied
to the other classes of appliances engaged in transporting human
beings.
It has therefore come about that the legal status of the elevator is
in a very indefinite condition, its public regulation is generally
local and therefore at best erratic, and the liability for the
security of its occupants is as varied as the legal practice and
rulings of different States.
The results are unfortunate to all concerned except perhaps that part
of the legal profession which concerns itself with the prosecution
of claims for injuries. Only two States, Pennsylvania and Rhode
Island, have adopted legislative provisions, of limited character,
relating to elevators. The former State provided so long ago as
1895 a requirement for automatic locking devices on all passenger
elevators, thus being the pioneer in this direction. The State of
Rhode Island by its general law, Chapter 129, requires all elevators
“to be equipped with safety appliances to prevent the starting of
the elevator car in either direction while any door opening into the
elevator is open.”
The State of Wisconsin, by its Industrial Commission law, Chapter
485, of 1911, placed in the hands of that body general power to
require safeguards “in all places of employment,” but it does not
appear that the powers of the act extend to every class of building
in which elevators may or can be employed. Other efforts have been
made to effect legislation in the same direction, but have so far
failed of enactment.
A bill was introduced in the House of Representatives December 12,
1910, by Mr. W. Bennet, requiring all elevators in the District of
Columbia to be provided with gate and car interlocking devices,
which bill did not become law. A bill was introduced in 1911 into
the Assembly of the State of New York amending the labor law in
the direction recommended by the Wainwright-Phillips Commission,
and empowering the Commissioner of Labor to require automatic
door-locking and car interlocking on all passenger elevators in
factories. Senate Bill 911 and Assembly Bill 329 of 1911 were
designed to require in general terms the use of “such safety devices
as will prevent accidents to persons getting on or off elevator cars
and from falling through open doors into the elevator shafts.”
The attention of the American Museum of Safety has been directed
for some years towards the accomplishment of some amelioration of
existing conditions, and that humane organization made a strong
effort to arouse public interest in these measures and to secure
their enactment, but without success.
The subject has received some sporadic attention by several public
associations, including the National Civic Federation, the American
Association for Labor Legislation and the New York Association for
Labor Legislation, but without effective results.
With the foregoing exceptions, the obligations of an owner of a
building, as regards the security of an elevating appliance, are
practically limited to a compliance with the then existing local
regulations to the purchase of a device commensurate with the
existing state of the art, of a design made by a reputable concern,
and to the employment of reasonable care in upkeep and operation.
No legal obligation appears to lie upon an owner to alter or modify
the appliance in conformity with greater knowledge of the art, or
to add to it greater means of security. Until some unfortunate
occurrence has taken place, an owner of property naturally feels
unwilling to embark on such expenditures. The present system of
liability insurance rather tends to such a situation, as an owner has
no inducement in the form of reduced premiums, to expend money upon
desirable safeguards. If the liability corporations should concede
a substantial reduction of premiums, in connection with appliances
dealing with a certain proportion of the risks attending elevator
operation, much could be accomplished without the aid of special
legislation.
While the law-making powers do not hesitate to direct such measures
to be taken with and upon the property of common carriers, they seem
to regard the operation of a practically public conveyance within
private property as a privileged possession and hesitate to enter the
castle of the owner and involve him in enforced expenditures upon a
privately operated appliance.
Yet an elevator, whether used for the purpose of the carriage of
goods, of tenants, of employes, or of visitors to a building, is a
common carrier earning a profit, even if indirectly, for it is as
much a source of revenue as is the machinery of a factory around
which many enforced safeguards have, by legislation, been thrown.
If, therefore, the owner of a building installs elevators for the
convenient carriage of tenants and visitors within his property, he
does so because the apparatus enhances the value of that property,
and that enhancement is largely due to the public use of the
appliance, in which use the unknowing users have some right to
legislative protection from results of ignorance or incompetence, of
neglect or parsimony.
It has taken a long time for this view of the matter to become even
partially recognized, even in the city of New York, in which the use
of elevators has multiplied beyond all conception of what seemed
probable twenty-five years ago. The number of passenger elevators
in the Borough of Manhattan alone, now exceeds nine thousand, and
these increase annually by about five hundred new machines. The
estimated number of freight elevators, none of which under present
circumstances are subject to official inspection, is not less than
ten thousand.
The regulations regarding elevators in Manhattan, commencing with
feeble beginnings, have advanced under the careful direction of the
present Superintendent of Buildings of Manhattan, Rudolph P. Miller,
C. E., into the field of interference with private control, and the
department is compiling further regulations which will go a long way
towards the protection of the public in safeguarding the elevating
apparatus they are compelled to use. The Manhattan regulations,
while in themselves excellent, are directly applicable to passenger
elevators only with such freight elevators as are within the same
shaft enclosure as a passenger elevator. They require the operator to
be of reliable and industrious habits, not less than eighteen years
of age, with at least one month’s experience in his duties.
A number of known elements of unsafe character are prohibited
and some constructive features of value are insisted upon. No
provision is, however, made for automatic interlocking of gates and
car movement, nor are projections in the shaft prohibited. Some
good, detailed regulations and suggestions have been issued by the
Wisconsin Labor Commission, but these and other State and local
regulations could be substantially increased in value, by a thorough
technical investigation and settlement.
Some improvement of deficiencies in apparatus existing prior to these
rules has been effected by requiring safeguards to be applied upon
any alteration or large repair work being sanctioned. This course has
brought about the addition of speed safety appliances in a number of
old installations where this elementary security was absent.
Later regulations will, in similar manner, require carefully
conducted tests of all machines whether new, altered or repaired.
Many minor matters of security are or will be thus provided for,
yet the limited powers of a bureau can but at best halt in dealing
with the entire problem. And when the regulations of Manhattan are
made, as they should be, the best possible, it is regrettable that in
another city or even in another borough of the same city, the same
desirable conditions will not apply.
Yet the security of an elevator requires the same measures of
attention, in one State as in another, as much in the merest hamlet
as in the great metropolis.
The use of elevators is now widespread through all States, and in
all classes of buildings, affecting the convenience and security of
all classes of persons; and calling for the establishment of well
considered and equalized regulation in every part of the country.
It speaks volumes for the sense of responsibility of our leading
manufacturers of elevators, that among all the tens of thousands of
machines turned out by such concerns as the Otis Elevator Company
and their competitors, accidents due to the physical breakage of the
machinery of elevators should be in number only what they are, when
they include the failures of machines built in days when the industry
was small and the art far less understood than it is at present.
When we reflect upon the fact that the passengers carried in
elevators in the city of New York far exceed in number those carried
on all the surface and subway lines, we may the more appreciate
the point to which I desire specially to direct your attention,
namely, the desirability in the public interest of State regulation,
and as far as possible, uniform regulation, of the security and
operation of elevators. The local regulations may be left to care
for details of installation but the State authority is necessary to
require elevators to be not only modern but progressively modernized
appliances; that no antiquated and essentially dangerous apparatus
shall be continued in use, and that necessary safeguards and properly
qualified operators shall accompany their operation.
The State may further require that in excessively tall buildings,
where the elevators constitute the only practical means of egress in
emergency, there shall be a proper sufficiency of such appliances
capable of removing the occupants within a reasonably safe period of
time.
The limitations of the carrying capacity of an elevator are now well
understood, and the safety of operatives in high loft buildings and
of tenants in loftier “tower” office buildings, demands that the
parsimony of owners and the ignorance of architects should not be
allowed to restrict the exit of occupants of such buildings. A second
elevator, in the Triangle fire disaster, would not only have saved
its capacity in human occupants, but would have averted the fatal
overcrowding of the single car which rendered it practically of no
avail.
Many loft buildings of twelve stories and some even exceeding twenty
stories are in existence in which the elevator accommodation is
utterly inadequate for the removal of occupants of upper floors
in a reasonable time, in case of emergency. The effectiveness of
exterior “fire escapes” and of crooked interior stairways, especially
for great heights, is now known to be strictly within certain
limitations, and elevators have on many occasions demonstrated their
value in the saving of life in panic and fire.
Office buildings are constructed thirty and more stories in height,
without fire escapes and with winding stairways which are useless
in emergency, and with such limited elevator capacity as would not
remove the tenants in less than thirty minutes.
A most important and desirable subject for general action is afforded
by provisions for safeguarding elevator gates and doorways. In and
about these orifices, as previously observed, a large proportion of
unnecessary accidents and fatalities occur. The unlatched door, the
open gate, the absence of inner gates, the projecting sill, and the
slippery tread, are fruitful causes of deplorable injuries and have
caused the unnecessary loss of many precious lives. The proportion
which this class of occurrence bears to the total is evidently large.
An analysis of a list of four thousand accidental occurrences shows
the following proportions:
Per cent.
Getting on or off cars 58
Falling through unguarded openings 20
Fractures and fall of cars, only 17
Mechanics making repairs in shafts, etc 4
Unexplained 1
A number of devices have been developed during recent years, which
have overcome objections to their use in the past, whereby the gates
of elevators must be securely locked and fastened before the car can
be moved. Six of such devices are approved for use in the State of
Pennsylvania. It would seem that so simple a feature eliminating the
essential danger surrounding the operation of a car moving vertically
between floors in a shaft would long ago have been demanded by every
form of authority.
With other engineers, I was at one time opposed to the use of such
appliances on the ground of their uncertainty. But the growing volume
of fatalities directly attributable to the lack of such safeguards,
together with radical improvement in their construction, now demand
the opposite conclusion.
There has been particular objection in some large cities to the
application of devices for locking the gates, on the ground that the
speed of operation on rapid schedule service would be retarded and
inconvenience and overcrowding would result. In order to satisfy
myself upon this point, I made this year a series of comparative
trials of elevators equipped with one such appliance, the Clarke
automatic safety devices, and found that no such loss of time in
service actually resulted. On the contrary, a trial of the elevators
in the Atlantic Mutual Insurance Company’s Building, 49 Wall street,
New York City, and in the Hotel Imperial, showed that the operators
made better time with the device in service, as they were compelled
to make more exact landings and thus avoided much of the time
frequently wasted in reversals of the car movement.
Under the present circumstances, therefore, it seems that the proper
time has arrived for action in this respect, and that the example
set by the States of Pennsylvania and Rhode Island may be embodied
in careful legislative requirements in other States, which would,
at some expense, it is true, to private owners, safeguard the
public from those peculiarly present dangers which have taken such
unnecessary toll of human life and limb, in the ghastly entanglement
between the gate or doorway and the moving car, or the dreadful fall
through the opened gate.
It would be very desirable, if, in the investigation of this subject,
and the preparation of legislation to deal with it, competent
technical and legal ability were employed, as the subject is of a
technical character. Some of the legislation already in existence has
been worded in so ill-considered a manner, as to give the impression
that it was phrased in order to prevent the recovery of damages by
injured persons.
The expression of your interest in this matter will tend to
strengthen the hands of those who are seeking at present, by the
limited means available, to enforce good methods of installation,
proper safeguards and proper operation. It will also aid our great
manufacturers, who lead the world in the design and construction of
these truly American appliances, in securing the proper surroundings
and proper care they are constantly urging for the appliances they
construct, and will aid humanity by averting some unnecessary wastage
of the health and lives of our fellow creatures.
Following Mr. Bolton’s paper he presented the following resolution:
Whereas, The number of accidents and fatalities attending the
operation of elevators is increasing, many of which are of a
preventable character;
Resolved, That the National Conservation Congress recommends to
the Legislatures of all States an official investigation of this
subject, and the enactment of such provisions as have been adopted
by the States of Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.
President WHITE—This is important, and if there is no objection it
will be handed to the Resolutions Committee.
Mr. FREDERICK KELSEY (Orange, N. J.)—I would like to offer this
resolution:
Whereas, Under the laws of the District of Columbia and some of the
States, fictitious and fraudulent overcapitalization of corporations
is permitted; and
Whereas, Under the operation of these promoter-made laws enormous
and widespread losses to innocent persons all over the country and
throughout the civilized world have resulted;
Resolved, That this Congress earnestly favors the amendment of these
laws and calls upon the President and the United States Congress
to enact such legislation affecting the incorporation and control
of corporations as will bring the creation and conduct of these
creatures of the State back to the moorings of common honesty.
I would like to say that, like most of the previous speakers, I
have given this subject very careful attention. I was chairman of
a committee, a civic and economic committee of our State, which
committee spent eight months in considering this subject, and I want
to say that you cannot appreciate the widespread loss, the injury,
the injustice of improper concentration of wealth that has been the
direct outgrowth of these laws in our own State and other States of
the Union.
President WHITE—The resolution will be referred to the Resolutions
Committee.
The Congress now stands adjourned until 2:30 o’clock this afternoon.
_EIGHTH SESSION._
The Congress assembled at the Coliseum, at the State Fair Grounds,
Indianapolis, on the afternoon of October 3, 1912, and was called to
order by President White.
President WHITE—This Conservation Congress was to have been addressed
today by the Governors of two of the States. I am very sorry to
announce that Governor Hadley, of Missouri, is unable to attend.
This Congress is greatly honored today. The city of Indianapolis
is greatly honored today. The State of Indiana is greatly honored,
and I personally am greatly honored. I feel honored in having the
privilege of presiding over a meeting at which our distinguished
guest is to speak.
He who causes two blades of grass to grow where only one grew before
is a public benefactor. He who with one talent helps one child,
one boy, to rise to manhood and usefulness, is a great and useful
citizen. He who is fortunate enough to possess ten talents and who is
an inspiration to thousands of the youth of the land, who has planted
in their minds and in their hopes the desire to become great and
useful in this world, to become great and good, efficient citizens—he
is the greatest of all.
He is the Governor of a great State, and has inspired the citizens of
mature age to a better government for the people and led them on to a
greater field of usefulness. We feel perfectly safe in trusting him.
To whatever position duty may call, whatever fortune may trust him
with, the people will be safe under his guidance. (Applause.)
I feel unworthy to present to this audience one who has been
the leader in so many good works, one who has been a practical
conservator of human effort, but I take pleasure in introducing to
you as the speaker of this day one who has come here to get closer in
touch with the Conservationists of the United States, to gather from
this audience an inspiration as to the great force of Conservation
which is to lead the world—the Hon. Woodrow Wilson, Governor of New
Jersey. (Great applause.)
ADDRESS BY THE HON. WOODROW WILSON, GOVERNOR OF NEW JERSEY.
Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Citizens: It is with genuine pleasure that I
find myself in this place, facing a company of men and women who are
devoting themselves to so disinterested a cause as that to which this
Congress is consecrated.
Your chairman has stated in exactly the terms of my own thought, the
errand upon which I have come. It would seem presumption upon my
part to instruct this Congress, or to attempt to instruct it in the
means of Conservation. I have come here, as he has said, to share
in the inspiration of the occasion, to gather into my own thought
an impression of the men and women who are working for these great
objects in the United States. When I was on my way out here, and was
thinking of this occasion, I prepared my talk on the conservation of
our natural resources. When I arrived at the station, I was told to
change the subject, that was not what the Congress was, this year,
devoting its particular attention to, but to the conservation of
the vital energy of the people of the United States. I had thought
that I would have to apologize to you for wandering off before I
had finished my address, into that very topic, because it seems
to me that the more broadly we view the field of obligation, the
more clearly it will appear to us that our duty is only done in
respect to the laying of the foundation, when we have conserved the
natural resources of America, for those natural resources are of no
consequence unless there is a free and virile people to use them.
We are in the midst of a political campaign, and most of the
audiences that I have faced have been political audiences. I want to
say very frankly to you, that it is a comfort to me to face another
kind, because, in a campaign, we take politics, as it were, to the
people, but on this occasion the people of the United States are
bringing to us the great forces of their thought.
A congress like this means something more vital, in some aspects,
than any of the ordered efforts of political parties; for here are
represented the men and women from every quarter of the Union, come
together to speak that great volunteer voice of America, which is the
atmosphere of politics, which creates the environment of the public
man, which is the independent conscience of a great people asserting
itself and instructing those who serve it, what their lines of best
service are.
All voluntary effort distinguishes a free people from a people that
is not free. An effort, an organization, that comes about whether the
politician wants it or not, is the kind of effort and organization
which shows that the people are ready to govern themselves and to
assert their own opinions, whether the men in the public eye now
consent to be their servants or not. (Applause.)
I have often made this boast about America, that, truly as we love
our own institutions, proud as we are of the political history of
America, if you could imagine yourself absolutely forgetting the
documents upon which our constitutional history rests, over night, in
the morning, we could make a new Constitution; we would not lose our
self-possession, we would not lose our long training in self-control;
we would not lose our instinct and genius for self-government. Strip
us of one government, and we would make a new America in which we
would shine as much as we did in the old. (Applause.) If that be not
true, then it is not America, for America consists in the independent
and originative power of the thought of the people. And so, when men
and women from every part of the country gather in a great congress
like this, to speak, not of matters of interest so much as of matters
of duty, you realize in a gathering like this the vitality of the
heart as well as of the mind of America, and men of every sort must
give heed to the utterances of gatherings of this kind.
I know that there are some persons who come to these gatherings
representing only themselves. I know that a gathering of men
interested in a special cause is a great magnet to the crank. I
know that all sorts of people, with special notions of their own,
come sometimes to exploit them; but, after all, we ought to be very
tolerant even of them, because some of the finest notions in the
world have lived for a little while very lonely in the brain of
a single man, or a single woman, and it is only by the tolerance
of preaching that they get their currency, and finally get their
imperial triumph by conquering the minds of the world, so that it is
these voluntary contributions of thought, these irresistible currents
of national life that are the most vital part of every people’s
history. That is the reason I say it is a comfort to face an audience
that I am not trying to persuade in regard to anything, but with
which I am trying to get in sympathy, in order to share the great
force which they represent.
It would be almost like assuring you that I was a thoughtful and
rational being to say that I am in profound sympathy with the whole
work of this great Congress, and that I am in particular sympathy, in
keenest sympathy with that part which affects the conservation of the
vital energy of the people of the United States. (Great applause.)
We have prided ourselves, ladies and gentlemen, upon our inventive
genius; we have prided ourselves upon the ability to devise machines
that can almost dispense with the intelligence of man. We have become
a great manufacturing people because of this genius, because of our
ability to draw together not only the tangible machinery of great
enterprises but also the intellectual machinery of great enterprises,
and we have been so proud of the mere multiplication of the resources
of the Nation, so proud of its wealth, so proud of the ingenious
methods by which we have increased its wealth, that we have been
sometimes almost in danger of forgetting what the real root of the
whole matter is.
I say, without intending to indict anybody, that it has too
often happened that men have felt themselves obliged to dismiss
superintendents who overtaxed a delicate piece of machinery, who have
not gone further and felt obliged to dismiss a superintendent who
overtaxed that most delicate of all pieces of machinery, the human
body and the human brain. (Applause.)
If you drive your men and women too hard, your machinery will
presently have to go on the scrap heap. If you sap the vital energy
of your people, then there will be no energy in any part of the
life you live, or in any enterprise that you may undertake. The
energy of your people is not merely a physical energy. I am glad
to say that the great State of New Jersey, which I have the honor
to represent, has been very forward among her sister States in
attempting to safeguard the lives and the health of those who work
in her factories, and in all the undertakings which are in danger of
impairing the health. I am glad to say that our Legislature has been
to a very considerable extent, though not so far as it ought to be,
thoughtful of the health of the children, thoughtful of the strength
of women, thoughtful of the men and women together who have to
breathe noxious gases, who are exposed to certain kinds of dust bred
in certain manufactories, which dust carries congestion and danger
to the lungs and to the whole system—we have been thoughtful of these
things, but after all, we stand in exactly the same relation to our
bodies that the nation stands to her forests and her rivers and her
mines.
I have no use for my body unless I have a free and happy soul to be
a tenant of it. We have no happy use for this continent unless we
have a free and hopeful and energetic people to use it. I know that
I have sometimes spoken of how foreigners laugh at Americans because
they boast of the size of America, as if they had made it, and we
are twitted with a pride in something that we did not create. We did
not stretch all this great body of earth and pile it into beautiful
mountains and variegate it with forests from ocean to ocean, and they
say, “Why should you be so proud of what God created? You were not
partners in the creation?”
But it seems to me that it is perfectly open for us to reply, “Any
nation is as big as the thing that it accomplishes, and we have
reason to be proud of the size of America, because we have occupied
and dominated it.” (Applause.)
But we have come to a point where occupation and domination will not
suffice to win us credit with the nations of the earth or our own
respect. It was fine to have the cohesive and orderly power to plant
commonwealths from one side of this great continent to another. It
was pretty fine, and it strikes the imagination to remember the time
when the ring of the ax in the forest and the crack of the rifle
meant not merely the falling of a tree or the death of some living
thing, but it meant the voice of the vanguard of civilization, making
spaces for homes, destroying the wild life that would endanger human
life, or destroying the life which it was necessary to destroy in
order to sustain human life; and that the mere muscle, the mere
quickness of eye, the mere indomitable physical courage of those
pioneers that crossed this continent ahead of us, was evidence of the
virility of the race, and was evidence also of its capacity to rule,
to rule and to make conquest of the things that it needed to use.
But now we have come to a point where everything has to be justified
by its spiritual consequences, and the difficult part of the task is
that which is immediately ahead of us.
Until the census of 1890, every census bureau could prepare maps
for us, on which the frontiers of settlement in America were drawn,
and until that time there had always been an interspace between the
frontier of the movement westward and the little strip of coast upon
the Pacific, which had been occupied, as it were, prematurely and out
of order.
But, in 1890, it was impossible to draw a frontier in the United
States, it was impossible to show any places where the spaces had
not, at any rate, been sparsely filled, sparsely occupied by the
populations that lived under the flag of the Union. It was about that
time, by the way, or eight years later, that we were so eager for a
frontier that we established a new frontier in the Philippines, in
order, as Mr. Kipling would say, “to satisfy the feet of our young
men.”
But the United States, ever since 1890, has been through with the
business of beginning and now has the enormously more difficult task
before it of finishing.
It is very easy, I am told, though I have never tried it, roughly to
sketch in a picture, that all the students in art schools can make
the rough sketch reasonably well, but they almost all, except those
who have passed a certain point, spoil the picture in the finishing.
All the difficulties, all the niceties of art, you have in the last
touches, not in the first, and all the difficulties and niceties of
civilization lie in the last touches, not in the first.
Anybody with courage and fortitude and resourcefulness can set up a
frontier, but we have discovered, to our cost, that not many of us
can set up a successful city government. (Applause.) Almost all the
best governed cities in the world are on the other side of the water;
almost all of the worst governed cities in the civilized world are in
America. And the thing that is most taxing our political genius is
making a decent finish, where we made such a distinguished beginning.
We show it. You can feel it under you as you traverse a city; you
can feel it in the pavements. They are provisional, most of them,
or have not been laid at all and in jolting in the streets that are
not the main thoroughfares of an American city, you feel the jolt of
unfinished America. We have not had time, or we have let the contract
to the wrong man. (Great applause.)
But, whatever be the cause, we have not completed the job in a way
that ought to be satisfactory to our pride. You know that we are
waiting for the development of an American literature, so I am told.
Now, literature can not be done with the flat hand; you can not
write an immortal sentence by taking a handful of words out of the
dictionary and scattering them over the page. They have to be wrought
together with the vital blood of the imagination, in order to speak
to any other reader except those of the day itself. And, as in all
forms of art, whether literary, or musical, or sculptural, there is
this final test: can you finish what you begin? I believe, therefore,
that the problem of this Congress is just this problem of putting the
last touches on the human enterprise which we undertook in America.
We did not undertake anything new in America in respect of our
industry. You will not find anything in the way of industry in
America which can not be matched elsewhere in the world. If the
happiness of our people and the welfare of our people does not exceed
the happiness and welfare of other people, then, as Americans, we
have failed; because we promised the world, not a new abundance of
wealth, not an unprecedented scale of physical development, but a
free and happy people. (Applause.)
That is the final pledge which we shall have to redeem, and if we do
not redeem it, then we must admit an invalidity to the title deeds of
America.
America was set up and opened her doors, in order that all mankind
might come and find what it was to release their energies in a way
that would bring them comfort and happiness and peace of mind. And
we have to see to it that they get happiness and comfort and peace
of mind; and we have to lend the effort, not only of great volunteer
associations like this, but the efforts of our State governments
and national government, to this highest of all enterprises, to see
that the people are taken care of, not taken care of in the sense
that those are taken care of who can not take care of themselves,
because the best way to teach a boy to swim is to throw him into the
water, and too much inflated apparatus around him will only prevent
his learning to swim, because the great thing is not to go to the
bottom and many of the devices by which we now learn to swim make
it unnecessary to swim, because you can stay on top just the same,
and I, for my part, do not believe that human vitality is assisted
by making it unnecessary for it to assert itself. On the contrary,
I believe that it is quickened only when it is put under such
stimulation as to feel the whip, whether of interest or of necessity,
to quicken it. But the last crux of the whole matter comes here: I
am not interested in exerting myself unless the exertion, when it is
over, brings me satisfaction.
If I have to work in such conditions that, every night, I fall into
my bed absolutely exhausted, and with the lamp of hope almost at its
last dying flicker, then I don’t care whether I get up in the morning
or not; and when I get up in the morning, I do not go blithely to my
work. I do not go to my work like a man who relishes the tasks of
life. I go there because I must go, or starve, and there is always
the goad at my stomach, the goad at my heart, because those dependent
on me will suffer if I do not go to my work and the only way I can go
to my work with satisfaction is to feel that, wherever I turn, I am
dealing with my fellow-men, with fellow-human beings. So that we must
take the heartlessness out of industry before we can put the heart
into the men who are engaged in the industry. (Applause.)
The employer has got to feel that he is dealing with flesh and blood
like his own and with his fellow-man, or else his employes will not
be in sympathy with him and will not be in sympathy with the work,
and a man who is not in sympathy with his work will not produce the
things that are worth using.
All the stories we tell to our children about work are told of such
men as Stradivarius, who lingered in the making of a violin as a
lover would linger with his lady; who hated to take his fingers from
the beloved wood which was yielding its music to his magic touch. In
all poetry and song since, Stradivarius has been to us the type of
the human genius and heart that is put into the work that is done
without attention and zest.
We point to some of the exquisitely completed work of the stone
carvers of the Middle Ages, the little hidden pieces tucked away
unseen in the great cathedrals, where the work is just as loving in
its detail and completeness as it is upon the altar itself, and we
say this is the efflorescence of the human spirit expressed in work.
The man knew that nobody, except perhaps an occasional adventurer
coming to repair that cathedral, would ever see that work, but he
wrought it for the sake of his own heart and in the sight of God. And
that, we instinctively accept as the type of the spiritual side of
work.
Now, imagine, ladies and gentlemen, imagine as merchants and
manufacturers and bankers, what would happen to the industrial
supremacy of the United States if all her workmen worked in that
spirit. Would there be goods anywhere in the world that could for
one moment match the goods made in America? Would not the American
label be the label of spiritual distinction? And how are you going
to bring that about? You are going to bring it about by such work as
this Congress is interested in and the work which will ensue, because
the things which you are discussing now are merely the passageways to
things that are better.
Just so soon as you make it a matter of conscience with your
legislatures to see to it that human life is conserved wherever
modern processes touch it, just as soon as you make it the duty of
society to release the human spirit occasionally on playgrounds, to
surround it with beauty, to give it, even in the cities, a touch of
nature, and the freedom of the open sky, just as soon as you realize
and have all of society realize that play—enjoyment—is part of the
building up of the human spirit, and that the load must sometimes
be lifted, or else it will be a breaking load, just as soon as you
realize that every time you touch the imagination of your people and
quicken their thought and encourage their hope and spread abroad
among them the sense of human fellowship and of mutual helpfulness,
you are elevating all the levels of the national life, and then you
will begin to see that your factories are doing better work, because,
sooner or later, this atmospheric influence is going to get into
every office in the United States, and men are going to see that the
best possible instruments that they can have are men whom they regard
as partners and fellow-beings. (Applause.)
I look upon a Congress like this as one of the indispensable
instruments of the public life. Law, ladies and gentlemen, does not
run before the thought of society and draw that thought after it.
Law is nothing else but the embodiment of the thought of society,
and when I see great bodies of men and women like this, running
ahead of the law, and beckoning it on to fair enterprises of every
sort, I know that I see the rising tide which is going to bring these
things in inevitably. I know that I see law in the making; I know
that I see the future forming its lines before my eyes, and that,
presently, when we come to an agreement, and wherever we come to
substantial agreement, we shall have the things that we desire. So
that, for a man in public life, an assemblage like this is the food
of his thought, if he lend his thought to what his fellow-countrymen
are desiring and planning; and all the zest of politics lies, not in
holding things where they are, but in carrying them forward along the
lines of promise, to the place where they ought to be. (Applause.)
You are our consciences, you are our mentors, you are our
schoolmasters. The men in public life have only twenty-four hours
in their day and they generally spend eight of the twenty-four in
sleeping—I must admit generally to spending nine—and in what remains
they cannot comprehend the interests of a great nation. No man that
I ever met, no group of men that I ever met, could sum up in their
own thought the interests of a varied nation. Therefore, they are
absolutely dependent upon suggestions coming from every fertile
quarter, into their consciousness. They are subject, or they ought
to be subject, daily, to instruction. A gentleman was quoting to me
today a very fine remark of Prince Bismarck’s. He was taxed with
inconsistency, with holding an opinion today that he had not held
yesterday. He said he would be ashamed of himself if he did not hold
himself at liberty, whenever he learned a new fact, to readjust his
opinions. Why, that is what learning is for. Ought any man to be
ashamed of having accepted the Darwinian theory, because he did not
hold it before Darwin demonstrated it? Ought any man to be ashamed
of having given up the Copernican idea of the universe? Ought any
man to be obliged to apologize for having yielded to the facts? If
he does not he will sooner or later be very sorry, because the facts
are our masters, and if we do not yield to them, we will presently
be their slaves. I suppose if I chose to assert the full consistency
of my independence I would say that I was at liberty to jump from
the top of this building, but just as soon as I reached the ground
nature would have said to me, “You fool, didn’t you ever hear of the
law of gravitation? Didn’t you hear of any of the things that would
happen to you if you jumped off a building of this height? Suppose
you spend a considerable period in a hospital thinking it over,” and
it would be very impressively borne in upon me what the penalties of
ignorance of the law of gravitation are. Now, it is going to be very
impressively borne in upon the public men of this country if they
ignore them what the laws of human life are. As Dr. Holmes used to
say, “The truth is no invalid. You need not be afraid; no matter how
roughly you treat her, she will survive, and if you treat her too
roughly there will be a certain reaction in your own situation which
will be the severest penalty you could carry.”
I come, therefore, to Indianapolis today to put my mind at your
service, merely to express an attitude, merely to confess a faith,
merely to declare the deep interest which must underlie all human
effort, for, when the last thing is said about human effort, ladies
and gentlemen, it lies in human sympathy. Unless the hearts of men
are bound together the policies of men will fail, because the only
thing that makes classes in a great nation is that they do not
understand that their interests are identical. (Applause.)
The only thing that embarrasses public action is that certain men
seek advantages which they can gain only at the expense of the rest
of the country, and when they have gained them those very advantages
prove the heaviest weight they have to carry, because they are then
responsible for all that happens to those upon whom they have imposed
and to those from whom they have subtracted what was their right.
So that the deepest task of all politics is to understand one
another; the deepest task of all politics is to understand everybody,
and I do not see how everybody is going to be understood unless
everybody speaks up, and the more independent spokesmen there are the
more vocal the Nation is, the more certain we shall be to work out
in peace and finally in pride the great tasks which lie ahead of us.
(Great and prolonged applause.)
_NINTH SESSION._
The Congress reconvened at 8 o’clock p. m., in the Palm Room of the
Claypool Hotel, and was called to order by President White.
President WHITE—This is the evening session of the National
Conservation Congress. I foresaw what was coming a long time ago
when we began to prepare a program. I knew there would be a large
number of ladies here, because they were getting very enthusiastic.
I knew they would want section meetings for themselves to talk over
matters of vital interest and plan how they were going to work for
Conservation in all its departments, vital, social and political.
I felt that I was not capable and I did not know of any man who was
capable of presiding over a large number of women, who sweetly and
persistently know what they want and are bound to get it. (Laughter
and applause.)
I was invited by the lady who is going to take charge of this meeting
to attend the convention of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs
at San Francisco, and right there I decided that Mrs. Moore should
preside at this Congress at some one of its meetings, and I politely
told her so at that time. I did it in justification of her rare
ability displayed upon that occasion, and, selfishly, because I knew
I was too timid to rule on points of order where there were so many
women. (Laughter.)
I take pleasure in introducing Mrs. Philip N. Moore, of St. Louis,
former President of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, and a
member of the Executive Committee of this Congress. She needs no
introduction, as you all have met her many times. I now turn the
meeting over to her good graces and good will.
Mrs. MOORE—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: During the year that
I have had the pleasure of working with the presiding officer of this
Congress, it has been his gracious courtesy during the whole time to
the woman who was on the Executive Committee that has induced me to
accept the position he has given me tonight.
Many of you will remember that four years ago, when the Governors
were called to the White House in Washington, to discuss the
natural resources of our country, the only woman’s organization
that was represented at that time was the General Federation of
Women’s Clubs, through its President. From that time to this, the
Conservation Congress has recognized this organization as being
very much interested in the conservation of the natural resources
of the country as well as in the conservation of human life through
its public health department, through its industrial and social
conditions and through its home economics, four of the strongest
departments of the General Federation. I am, therefore, very proud
tonight to accept the courtesy of the presiding officer of the
Congress.
While we are waiting slightly for the first speaker of the evening, I
have asked the next one upon the program to take her place. I am sure
it will be just as much of a pleasure to you, and I am sure it will
be a pleasure to her, to take the earlier place upon the program.
We are all very much interested, as men and women, as fathers and
mothers, in the Children’s Bureau which has been created this past
year, and we were very much interested in the possibility of a
woman being made chief of that bureau. There never was a question
in our minds but that it should be the very best person that could
be found, whether man or woman. But the fact that there was a woman
who by education, training and experience was fitted to take this
place has been a pleasure to all who are interested in that special
development. The fact that she has looked into the life of children
from birth through childhood, with work and play and home and school
as they have applied to the life of the child, will be of the
greatest benefit to us all through these future years.
I am very glad to introduce to this representative audience of the
Congress, Miss Julia Clifford Lathrop, who is Chief of the Children’s
Bureau of the United States Department of Commerce and Labor.
Miss LATHROP—Madam President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I need
not explain to a Congress interested in Conservation why the
representative of this new Bureau should be here and should wish to
speak about the Bureau itself.
When I was first honored with this appointment it was suggested
that the Bureau should be staffed with women alone, and I was asked
what I thought about it. I said I should be very much embarrassed;
that I had never known any children who had not two parents, and
that I felt that if there had been intended a division of that sort
the Lord would have communicated it long ago. I thought it would be
presumptious for me to begin, so the Children’s Bureau has on its
staff both men and women and, perhaps, I may as well begin by saying
something about that staff, and about the organization of this new
Bureau. And, first of all, perhaps I may forestall a criticism which
is likely to come before very long that we are rather dilatory and
are not accomplishing very much, by reminding you that the Bureau did
not go into operation last April, when the President approved the
bill, but only on the 23d of August, when the appropriation became
available, so that really the Bureau is just forty-one days old. It
has a staff of fifteen persons, and it has to spend for this first
year a sum aggregating about thirty thousand dollars. Its province,
as the law says, is to inquire into and report upon all matters
pertaining to the welfare of children and child life. You can see
for yourselves whether that is a big job and whether the army really
seems adequate for immediate performance of the contract.
It is, of course, enormously important that a Bureau of this kind,
undertaking a sort of work which, after all, is in some respects new,
should be composed of people who have very much at heart the welfare
of children; who have, even as much as that, the scientific training
and wisdom which is necessary if we are to make an appeal to people’s
emotions and sentiment. So the staff of the Bureau is composed of
people who have been selected from various departments of the Federal
Civil Service as having, particularly, acquirements in science, as
statisticians, and in other respects particularly fitted, as we
believe and as my superiors believe, to do the work of this growing
Bureau.
The Bureau has this great general object. Now, it is a question how
to take hold of this great task, where to begin, but the law itself
does give some hint—it enumerates certain objects which we shall
discuss in detail as time goes on.
The first of these is infant mortality and the birth rate, and after
that follows various subjects, such as juvenile courts, or the care
of children in regard to diseases and accidents which may befall
them, the regulation of their labor, legislation affecting children
and all matters pertaining to their welfare.
It is all very well for those of us who are doing all sorts of
volunteer work, as most of us are, to begin on the problem of helping
people at any point where we can take hold. We do not have to know
any great fundamental facts; to know that babies need care, and
that children ought not to go to work when they are too young, to
know that children need to go to school, need to be healthy, need
to be happy, and that they need recreation just as much as they do
education and that the two are part of the one same great sort of
development—all these things we have a right to begin on anywhere
we can. But when the Federal Government takes hold, I think it
somehow promises a sort of basis to all the rest of us, and it
seems as if it were its business to see where there was the most
fundamental point to begin its work. When we come to look at the
question of dealing with children, we are constantly faced by the
fact that we do not know how many children there are; we do not
know how many children are born and die in this country. We do know
once in ten years how many children exist at a particular moment,
and by that decennial information we know that the Bureau has to
deal with about thirty-six per cent. of the total population of
this country directly, that between thirty-five and forty per cent.
of the population of this country is under sixteen years of age,
which seems to be the age of the end of childhood, just by common
acceptation; at least, at that age in many of our States children
are permitted to become independent workmen. So you see we have a
very large number of children with whom we have the right to deal
directly, and, as I tried to show a moment ago, we think we have a
right to deal indirectly with all their parents. We think the whole
country is a good deal our province in prospect, but we cannot be
satisfied with this decennial knowledge of how many people there
are in this country. What we want is a great, democratic continuing
public edition of “Who’s Who in America.” We want to know day by day
the advent of every citizen into this country. We want, in fact, in a
phrase which is not particularly exciting, “birth registration.”
First of all, we want it because we want to know, and we want to know
for various reasons, which I think do not occur to most of us every
day. In the first place, we want to know because, unfortunately, a
great many babies come into this world under circumstances which do
not give them the best chance in the world. If the advent of a little
child could be at once communicated to doctors and nurses where
doctors and nurses are not taken for granted, it would be possible
to prevent the risk of that blindness which sometimes overtakes
newly-born children; it is possible to establish the health of the
mother and child together, so that it may have the best chance in
the world; and you all know how throughout this country, even in our
remoter counties, there is coming to be a great and splendid health
service. I think we cannot be too delighted with what the Red Cross
Society, with what many similar societies are doing in the way of
rural nursing. I think if Florence Nightingale could look out over
America now, she would think we are beginning to realize her noble
words about health and nurses.
Now, those are perhaps the most important reasons why we want to know
the advent of every child, so that we can help that little child, and
help his mother and keep her alive, because it is a very terrible
thing that out of all the children who are born into this country a
very large number—two hundred thousand, some people say, and three
hundred thousand, some people say—die before they are twelve months
old, and more, a third of them die before they have been in the
world a month. I want us to consider this for a minute, not as an
economic problem, but what it means in the old fashioned terms of
human suffering, the agony and loss of family happiness and joy, that
two hundred thousand little babies should die and leave the hearths
to which they come every single year of the world in this country.
And when we think that already, doctors tell us, we know enough so
that that waste is very largely the fault of our carelessness and
selfishness and greed, it makes us blush to think we are not all
working hard to save the lives of these children.
Now, there are great efforts already undertaken to save the lives of
these little babies, in which many of you are already engaged, and
we may well hope that such societies as this Conservation Congress
and the Congress for the Prevention of Infant Mortality will before
the next decennial census occurs have made a great difference in the
number of children who are born, only to die.
But, suppose that a child lives, is there any real sense in his
having a birth certificate, or is that just some abstract notion of
the statisticians, who get all the certificates and have punching
machines and a great many mechanical contrivances for numbering and
making computations out of figures? I think you will be surprised to
find how much human connection it has.
In the first place, as to this very Bureau for which I am venturing
to speak, we are told to find out about the diseases of children
and about the birth rate of children. How can we know about the
birth rate unless we know how many children are born and die? In
Washington, there was set up a wonderful placard on the wall to show
the birth rate in that city, and there were columns of red and green
and other colors, and you just knew, humanly speaking, that the birth
rate was fluctuating that way, and you talked with somebody and
you discovered that this birth rate was fluctuating as one set of
gentlemen or another was electing the health officer.
So now we want to have some authoritative way of truly finding out
how many children come into the world in order to know what the birth
rate is, in order to know how to study the diseases of children, and
then, when children grow a little older, we want to have a public
record of their births so that we may know when they are entitled to
go into the schools to begin on that system of care and culture for
which the public schools stand, and then beyond that, when they are
older and the time comes for their advent into the army of work to
which we hope we all belong, then we want to know that those who are
less favored are not hurried into that army unduly. How much it would
simplify the problem if we had not to trust to all sorts of chance
ways of proving a child’s birth and if we had a public record of it.
Have you ever thought that we are the only great nation which does
not know how many children are born into it, and which does not do
its children the dignity of putting their names down in a public
record? All Europe has a public registry, and why? Because it has a
standing army and wants the names of its boys for conscription. Now,
in a country of peace, aren’t we to have any victories for peace? Are
not we to recognize a child as having any dignity to be a peaceable
citizen and not either a target for a gun, or the man behind the gun?
I think you will, perhaps, be interested if I venture to tell a story
of a neighborhood in which I have lived long, an illustration of how
a birth certificate is a good thing. A little while ago, a family
came over to Hull House for some help. They were awfully poor. The
oldest girl, who was at that time the breadwinner of that family, was
out of work on account of the garment workers’ strike. There were
eight children. They had come over at the time of the earthquake
in Messina. The father had been entombed and his mind had almost
succumbed to the fearful experience. He was always thinking the walls
were coming on him and he was not in a very good frame of mind to be
a successful breadwinner. So they got into difficulties and asked
the Charities Board to help them. There was another younger girl and
they thought they had better get a work certificate for Giovanna,
but the truant officer said she looked too young and couldn’t have
it, and she was sent back to school. And then they got a little more
desperate and they tried again to have poor little Giovanna go to
work. The Charities Board, who were helping the case, thought they
had a right to dictate a little as to how they should help, and they
just wrote to the City Hall in Messina, and the City Hall in Messina
sent back a very prompt letter showing how old the children were,
and showing that the daughter who had been at work for two years
was really about fourteen years old and had been working that time
illegally, had been cheated of two years of school, where she might
have learned good English and learned American housekeeping and had a
better chance to earn more money the next two years. The other little
girl was still younger. So the people in Hull House and the people in
the Associated Charities and the factory inspector made a veritable
cordon around this helpless family and demanded they be sent back
to school. The oldest girl went back very unwillingly. She said
indignantly, “Me go back to school, me big enough to be married.” She
was very hurt and humiliated. I am not sure we did right about it.
Giovanna was confiscated and sent back to school for two years. This
family did not have a fair chance over here just because the factory
inspector and school authorities, not having any birth reports over
here for children, followed the usual system of guessing and did
not think to take advantage of what Messina, notwithstanding the
earthquake, had to offer from her very responsible records.
Has it ever occurred to you that to very many of our foreign
residents a birth certificate for a child would be an absolute asset?
In Chicago is a very prosperous and highly respected man. He came
from Germany when he was a baby of four years, with the family. His
father was never naturalized and the man himself never was challenged
in his right to vote. He grew up and attended our public schools,
and all that. He accumulated a fortune and went back, as many people
do, I suppose rather proud, to see the old country and friends who
remained there and with whom he had kept in constant communication,
a prosperous and splendid example of what America could do for a
man. He had been in Berlin for about two hours when the police were
on his track merely because he was a German citizen and must serve
in the army. He telephoned to a lawyer friend and asked him what
could happen. He said, “There is just one thing that can happen, and
that is that you get out of town.” So, two hours after he arrived at
Berlin on this triumphal journey, he left very actively, and he is
said never to have heaved a sigh of such joyful relief as when the
crossed the boundary into France. That is an example of people really
knowing where they were born and being able to prove it.
I suppose the reason we have not been more eager about our birth
rate is because we have not thought anything about it. We think a
great deal about writing the baby’s name in the family Bible and
christening it in the church we attend, but somehow we have forgotten
this larger, more fundamental thing. The advent, of every citizen of
this country ought to be on the books of the commonwealth.
There is a very good story, which belongs to your own Dr. Hurty. I do
not know whether you all know it, or whether I dare tell it, but I
will presume that this audience is largely made up of visitors, and
steal his story. In this State, Dr. Hurty is authority for saying
there was a farmer who had a ne’er-do-well son and a granddaughter,
and when the farmer came to die he wished to leave the farm to
the granddaughter, but he left the use of it to the son until the
granddaughter should arrive at the age of twenty-one. When the girl,
as she thought, was twenty-one, she claimed her inheritance, but the
other side said she was only nineteen. She went to the Bible, where
her name was written down, but the leaf was torn out, and the court
was very much perplexed. It came to be a serious legal question, and
finally a neighbor recollected that the grandfather had had a very
remarkable calf born on the same day with this little girl, and he
said he knew the farm books kept by the grandfather would record this
pedigree. So the farm books were looked up and the birth of the calf
was discovered and the birth of the girl was established. (Laughter.)
You all remember how George Bernard Shaw warns us against placing
confidence in the _deus ex machina_. He says you cannot presume on
things being some miraculous way you would like them to be, and so
we cannot presume on grandfathers always keeping herds of cattle.
(Applause.)
I am perfectly sure, as I have said before, as I had the honor of
saying over at San Francisco before the General Federation of Women’s
Clubs, that if the women of America wanted birth registration they
would get it in a twelvemonth. Now, it sounds so very remote from
putting down the baby’s name in the book.
In the State of Indiana you have a very good law, Dr. Hurty tells me,
and all that is necessary is for the women of Indiana to say that
they want the names when their children are born recorded in the
public records of Indiana. In 1910, when the last census was taken,
all that we know about the births in this country was what we learned
from eight States, the New England States, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Not your State, or mine, Illinois, was deemed worthy to be considered
at all. So far as the general government was concerned, for anything
it knew, nobody had been born in either of these States in ten years.
In the next census year, I hope very much in a great many States in
this country, perhaps in all the States in this country, we shall be
able to be recognized by the general government as having been born
and as having been born very accurately, so that we will be worthy to
be counted, as much so as if we lived in Boston and Massachusetts,
which, they are always telling us, are the most accurate State and
city.
Of course, the Bureau cares for a great many things besides the
registration of births, but I hope I have made it plain that we
should ask that we be allowed to get a method of acquiring steady,
constant and reliable means of legal proof as to the children
who enter this Nation, because it is the dignified basis for
a governmental Bureau, which I believe is destined to grow to
proportions which none of us can measure, which shall continue
long after all of us are gone. No other bureau in the world makes
so tremendous an appeal to the emotions and sentiment—a children’s
bureau, a bureau to concern itself with the life and happiness of
the children of a great nation, and the more appealing it is, the
more must it be founded upon facts which will bear the very closest
scientific scrutiny. What the Bureau will be doing years from now I
do not know. I know what it must do now. The law is very distinct
about some of the things it must do, and by implication many of the
things it cannot do. It is a bureau to gather information and to
publish it as the secretary of the department under which it exists
may direct. It can publish in any way which the secretary deems best.
There are a great many different ways of publishing facts. We are
learning to publish facts through the sort of thing you have in the
State House here and other exhibits, through the appeal to the eye.
In this way thousands of those who cannot study very carefully or
cannot read a table to save their lives may understand, and I hope it
is with some of the simpler methods of popularizing things that this
Bureau may begin to make itself useful.
The Bureau, although it is a different type from all the other work
of the government in a certain sense, after all, is not so isolated
as we might think. There is a Bureau of Labor, which has studied
much the labor of women and children. There is the Census Bureau,
of which I have spoken. There is the Bureau of Immigration and of
Education, and the Bureau in the Department of Agriculture, which has
concerned itself very much in the South with those very interesting
and productive efforts for better farming, which have begun their
activities by stimulating tomato-canning among the girls. All of
these things, part of them purely educational, part of them a matter
of direct work, are things which we shall not do over again, from
which we hope to learn very much.
There have been a good many anxieties about this Bureau, many people
have thought it was a mistake. Some people have said, “Ah, well,
you are going to center everything about children away off there
in Washington where there will be a government with a lot of very
comfortable clerks sitting about in offices and writing down figures
about children instead of doing things for children and you will
palsy local effort.” If the Bureau does that it is a failure. What
the Bureau must do is to stimulate and help local effort. It must
gather facts and try to present them so convincingly and simply that
they will be useful and stimulate many to activity.
Then there has been a great dread lest the Children’s Bureau might
interfere with parental rights, lest the Bureau might seem to
override the dignity and privacy of homes. I do not believe the
Bureau will ever do that, because I know that the people who care
most about the Bureau are people who realize that the welfare of the
child is measured by the welfare and the wisdom of its parents, and
that the way to help the child is not to take him out of the family,
but keep him in it and help the parents to help him. And the Bureau
will do its work with a fine respect for parenthood. And perhaps I
cannot better close, since this is a woman’s meeting, and we may well
be generous to the gentlemen scattered here and there, by a story of
a man, a father.
Not long ago I went to a meeting in Chicago, at which there were
many delegates from the foreign colonies in that city. It was a
representative meeting standing for about one hundred thousand
residents of that foreign town. It was really a meeting of protest
against threatened restrictions which many of us thought very
ill-advised and cruel, which were to be applied to immigration. A
man rose who belonged to a foreign colony which we are accustomed to
regard as especially dull and illiterate, and he told very simply how
that colony had come from a people who had been oppressed, the study
of its language had been forbidden, reading and writing had been
forbidden, and in a way, a certain illiteracy and dulness had been
forced upon them; and he told so simply with what ardor they came
here where there was freedom, where there were schools. I shall never
forget how simply he said, “I am a father, and, like every father, I
want my child to go higher than me.”
That was the simple but overwhelmingly eloquent expression of a man
whose English was very broken, but who, after all, spoke exactly the
great impulse which has controlled all of us since the beginning of
that wonderful seventeenth century when parents began to come over
here. And, as I heard him speak, I thought that whether it was those
who came in the cabin of the Mayflower, or those who sank in the
steerage of the Titanic, they were all moved by that same mighty
impulse, that the next generation should have a better chance than
they had.
Now, this Bureau must move forward if it is to be useful in the
same spirit in which families move forward, in which the race moves
forward, to give the next generation a better chance than this has
had. I thank you. (Applause.)
The CHAIRMAN—Those of us who heard Dr. Wiley, the other evening, give
his impressions, may be interested in giving to Miss Lathrop another
fact which will prove the value of birth registry. Dr. Wiley said
that no one across the water could marry unless he could prove that
he had been born. It would be impossible for many to marry in this
country, if that were the case here.
We have always admired the way the Daughters of the American
Revolution have taken the history of our country, have looked up the
old stamping grounds and marked them, and have taught the children
in schools the traditions of the country, to honor the makers of our
country and to make them good American citizens. But we are really
more pleased that the Daughters of the American Revolution have
recently taken up more modern things, and that they are preserving
the resources of the children. The speaker has been very much
interested in modern life, in community life for the rural life of
our country.
As a loyal Daughter, I have great pleasure in introducing to you Mrs.
Matthew T. Scott, of Washington, D. C., President General of the
Daughters of the American Revolution.
Mrs. SCOTT—Madam President, Members of the Fourth Conservation
Congress: Among the many opportunities for service, which today are
open to women in this country, there are three to which I wish to
call attention for a few moments this evening. The first is that of
the unrealized possibilities of the home life of the nation. If we
only were endowed with a larger share of that priceless attribute—the
constructive imagination—we should be able to see the untold
resources which still lie latent, waiting only to be discovered,
developed and enjoyed in the mysterious precincts of that laboratory
of the soul—that forging-room of character, that fountain-head of
those subtle forces which add temper and edge and distinction to our
ordinary human attributes—that civic and social Holy of Holies—which
we call Home.
And let us remember that the sources of our country’s permanent
prosperity and glory lie not in the form of our government, in the
wisdom of its administration, nor even in its written laws and
constitution, but deep in the intellectual and moral life of society,
and potentially in those nameless influences, radiating from the
women who give its halcyon charm to hearthstone and library and to
all the intimacies and inspirations of the home. For, after all, it
is the home—the sanctuary to which we women must hark back—the home,
with its _sanctity_, which is the palladium, the corner-stone, the
key to the arch, of all that is most precious in the life and destiny
of America.
Again, let us never forget, that to us women—the home-makers of our
land—as never before in the world’s history, is entrusted the healthy
development of the social and moral fabric of society in our country,
in the innumerable and intricate complications of this Twentieth
Century civilization. A distinguished educator has recently said:
“At the present time the world is awakening to the teachings of the
old prophets. Now, as then, the morals and ethics of a nation are
just what the wives and mothers, the home-makers of the land, make
them.”
Again, the home is also the place where the future citizens of
this nation are to be trained. The place that fosters patriotism,
obedience and love, reverence for authority, the finest elements of
character. Some day the present generation will have to hand this
country over to the sons and daughters who are being trained by
fathers and mothers of today to administer the affairs of the home,
in preparation for the larger field and wider duties of government.
It is well for youth to learn that honest toil is never hopeless or
degrading. It is well for youth to be at one with Nature and to learn
of her; to know and feel the joy there is in bountiful, glorious
Nature; to be familiar with her song—the ripple of the river on
its stones, the murmur of trees, the rhythm of the sap that rises
in them, the thunder in the hills, the stars shining in perennial
beauty, the song of the thrush, and the carol of the lark; to watch
the sun in its course and learn the dim paths of the forest.
“It is the song of infinite harmonies.”
The man, woman or child of vision responds—perhaps, all unconsciously
and inarticulately—but responds like a vibrating chord to the note of
these melodies, that should be part of the charm of the home-life of
the farm.
There can be no disputing the fact that a goodly number of American
women are wonderfully successful home-makers. But at the same
time, it must be admitted, that a large number of our household
mistresses must plead guilty to the charges of extravagance—technical
ignorance of household economy—and a considerable degree of all-round
inefficiency, both as housekeepers and as home-makers, for the terms
are not synonymous.
It is a commonplace among sociologists that in most well-to-do
American homes enough is wasted in the kitchen alone to keep a
French family in comfort. We are also wasteful of light and heat,
and, above all, of our time and energy. Our country is in dire need
of a woman who will do for the home what a distinguished inventor
and public benefactor of Philadelphia has done for the factory—that
is, introduce an “efficiency” system, which will do away with our
present waste of both money and time, and increase the quantity and
quality of the actual output—not only of creature comforts, but also
of artistic attractiveness; and of that indefinable atmosphere of
peace and restfulness, which, of all the by-products of home life,
is certainly the pearl of greatest price. The time will surely come
when both mistress and maid will prepare for their life’s work—as
home-makers—with the same care and enthusiasm that men now put
into the work of perfecting themselves in their various trades and
professions. Home-making, like piano-playing, is an art—to succeed in
which requires something more than temperament. Until the technique
has been properly mastered, temperament has little opportunity to
manifest itself to advantage.
A generation ago home-making and farming were occupations that anyone
with a mediocre intelligence and a reasonable degree of industry was
considered sufficiently equipped for. But today these two avocations
occupy a secure and increasingly important place among the learned
professions.
Agriculture, “dignified by the ages, as old well-nigh as the green
earth itself,” has become a scientific profession alluring to men
and women of brains and culture, who quickly become enthralled
by its ever-expanding and fascinating possibilities. In every
State in the Union we have magnificent agricultural colleges and
schools of domestic science, in which are being prepared for their
respective careers thousands of prospective farmers and thousands
of prospective housewives. Moreover, several bills have been pending
before Congress which provide for the widest possible dissemination
of instruction in agriculture and domestic science (including the
pure food problem) among the rural population of every county in this
Nation.
This is a glorious work. The proposed instruction in agriculture is
something which, as a farmer, I am particularly enthusiastic about.
Yet I feel that quite as important as this will be the educational
facilities in the household arts and in the highest home-making
ideals, which are to be placed within reach of every housekeeper
and every prospective housekeeper in this land. Just as agriculture
is the basis of all our material prosperity and power, so the home
is the perennial and sacred source from which emanate those potent,
ennobling and refining influences, which slowly and silently have
lifted man out of past savagery, and will yet, we trust, lift us
out of our present state of semi-civilization—with its class war,
political and business corruption and industrial brutality—on to
higher and even higher stages of moral, intellectual and social
development.
This is my idea of the relatedness of Conservation to the home. Is
there any question that this is truly Conservation—its essence—in the
minds of any member of this convention?
The second realm of opportunity which I want to point out to you
is that which spreads out before us in a bewildering splendor of
promise, in connection with the schooling of the young, as related to
the home. We are all aware that the large majority of our common and
high school teachers are women. In many of our States women vote for
members of the School Board, and if a majority of them really wanted
this right, there is no doubt that they would secure it everywhere.
In this event it would be a comparatively easy matter for them to
formulate and carry through policies of their own. Thus from the
cradle to the university the education of the children is potentially
in the hands of the women of this country.
This is a power which the priests of various religions frequently
have endeavored to obtain on the grounds that if they were allowed
to control and dominate the child’s mind during its formative
period, their influence upon its after-life would be dominant and
enduring. I wonder if we realize what almost unlimited power over
future generations is thus entrusted to our hands. Are we, as women
and mothers, exercising that power with an adequate sense of the
responsibility which it places upon our shoulders?
There are now thousands and hundreds of thousands of our sex who
are pining for something to do, which they can feel is entirely and
splendidly worth their while. How fortunate it is, that here, already
at hand, is a task which Nature, and “Man, the tyrant,” are agreed
is peculiarly adapted to our particular tastes and talents. But
what are we doing about it? Little as a sex, I fear, that is either
significant or creditable. When not merely in a few isolated cases,
but as a class, the women of America decide what they want in the way
of education for their children, if they want it badly enough, there
is no earthly power which can stand between them and their splendid
ideal goal.
But this means work, persistent, intelligent work. First of all, in
the matter of self-education, and, secondly, in that of carrying on
an aggressive campaign for the education of our own sex, and, if
possible, of the other sex as well.
I am beginning to get deeply concerned, not about the lack of
adequate opportunities for service on the part of women, but about
our failure, so far, to measure up to the incomparable opportunities
which are already ours. If there is any subject in which we, as
women, ought to be intensely and intelligently interested, it is in
this subject of education—not in the academic sense alone, but in the
broader view of character-building—upon a proper understanding and
handling of which depends the very future of civilization.
This, I take it, is truly Conservation work and when thoroughly
grasped, will as truly mark milestones of progress in our lifetime,
as those we may leave behind in material form.
The third of these brilliant avenues of possible social service,
which open before us in beautiful vistas of alluring opportunity, is
one which is involved in the purchasing power of women. As a general
thing, men are the wage-earners and women are the wage-spenders
for the home. Nearly all of the household expenditures of the
family are made by the wives and mothers of the race. It is a sad
commentary upon our business ability, and our rudimentary sense of
social solidarity, that so few of us have any realizing sense of the
potential power over the business and industrial world, which is
inherent in this our position as buyer, or spender, for the family.
I call your attention to the fact that if the women of America would
pool their purchasing power, and, resisting all the blandishments
of the “bargain counter” and the “sale”—based on sweat-shop
labor—would demand pure goods, made and sold under sanitary and
salutary conditions—more could be accomplished for the moral and
material uplift of the factory-worker and the saleswoman than by the
enactment of a volume of restrictive statute, the breaking of which
we thoughtlessly connive at, and practically become a party to, in
our mad scramble for cheapness at any cost of human degradation and
wreckage.
A superb organization, known as the “Consumers’ League,” has come
into being, for the express purpose of enabling men, as well as
women, to utilize their purchasing power in the great work of raising
the standards of the business and industrial worlds, both as to the
purity of the product offered to the public and the fairness of the
treatment accorded to employes.
Of all the splendid “movements” and “causes” which today invite
our co-operation and support, this is one of many, which seem to
me to fall naturally within our province, as wives, mothers and
home-makers. It is the principle underlying this great crusade of the
“Consumers’ League” and like organizations which appeal to us. As a
matter of fact, this is a work for the betterment of women in the
business and industrial worlds, and as a consequence improvement in
the home, which we women cannot avoid doing, without definitely and
publicly shirking our heavy economic and moral responsibilities, as
family purveyors and budget makers. Or, in other words, as domestic
chancellors of the exchequer.
Far be it from me to say that the members of our sex may not some day
decide to undertake, in addition to their other duties, the heavy
responsibilities of the voter and political worker. Perhaps it may
transpire, that upon our planet the true super-man is woman, and
that she is entirely capable of doing the man’s work as well as her
own. But, in the interim, until this fact has been satisfactorily
demonstrated, let us devote ourselves whole-heartedly to what is more
particularly woman’s work; to those delicate and difficult tasks for
which man’s clumsy fingers and prosaic processes of reasoning are
unfitted and wholly inadequate. And, above all, let us be quite sure
that we do our especial work—at least as well as he does his—before
we insist upon taking a hand in his activities and improving upon his
methods of performing his highly useful, if somewhat less exalted,
functions.
It may seem in these lines of work—somewhat unique—and hitherto
undefined as belonging to the realm of Conservation, that I am
departing a long way from the usual addresses on that subject. But
I ask your careful consideration of this subconscious knowledge of
every woman’s breast, that at least every issue and question I have
referred to has its foundation, in the broadest and deepest sense, in
the life and action which center in the home.
In the ways which I have so hastily outlined and in other, and
perhaps better ways, that may not yet have occurred to us, our great
work of Conservation is destined to continue its triumphal march
upward and on—in the name of the great principles upon which it is
founded, and in the name of patriots, living and dead, who have
labored and sacrificed to make of this, our fatherland, what, under
God, it is, has been, and ever must remain—the greatest nation on
earth. Because, beneath the ample folds of its unconquered flag,
there live more free, happy and God-fearing people than upon any
other part of the habitable globe. (Applause.)
The CHAIRMAN—I had been tempted to introduce the next speaker as a
charter member of the organization of the Daughters of the American
Revolution, but I was told by her that this would be considered
antediluvian, so that I have not any right whatever to use the
knowledge I possess. I have also been told by her friends, for I am
sorry to say that until this meeting we had not known each other,
that she is the personification of patriotism.
It gives me great pleasure to present to this audience the Honorary
Vice-President-General of the Daughters of the American Revolution,
Mrs. John R. Walker, of Kansas City, Mo.
Mrs. WALKER—Madam Chairman, and Ladies and Gentlemen: The term
Conversation has become so all embracing, from the viewpoint of
a Daughter of the American Revolution, it is as much a work of
patriotism as that of our own great organization—the one dealing with
the present and the future, the other with the past, the present and
the future. The motto of the Daughters of the American Revolution
is “Home and Country,” and so lofty is its ideal, so practical its
work, it will be felt throughout all time, as will this broad, wise
work of Conservation. The spirit of commercialism, of money worship,
about in the land, is fast sapping the resources of our great country
and begetting a selfishness that makes a willing sacrifice of the
rightful heritage of future generations. It would seem in the order
of things in this work of Conservation, that the men of our land
should give special concern to its material needs, its lands, its
waters, its mineral resources, and that the conservation of life
should appeal as nothing else to woman, the transmitter of life—Life,
a priceless boon. We protest against child labor—implore with all the
tenderness, developed through mother love, to spare the child in the
greed of money getting. Refuse the work of little hands, and little
feet, in factories, mills, and mines, and out of your abundance make
it possible for them, during the few short years of childhood, to
enjoy the freedom of the bird and the butterfly, give them a memory
of Nature’s blessed joys—God’s pure, sweet air; the wayside flower
plucked at will, the willow-shaded stream, and all that the sweet
breast of Nature offers so freely, without money and without price—to
the child of poverty. The Daughters of the American Revolution are
awakened to the realization that we, the home-makers, descendants
of the woman of the spinning wheel, hold the destiny of a nation in
our hands, that we must not only accept but consecrate ourselves to
woman’s highest mission, the crowning glory of womanhood—guiding the
young feet into right paths.
To give patriots to our country, we must rear patriots, train
Americans for America. In our great work of patriotic education our
aim is to train the youth of our land in good citizenship; teach them
to battle for good laws and social conditions, and to be courageous
in the fight, daring to do right in both the political and business
world—thus honoring his birthright. The Daughters of the American
Revolution have gathered the alien into the fold of the children
of the republic, to make of them true Americans, do for them the
best we know how; and many a lesson we can learn from them of
thrift, industry and patience under discouragement. In my own State
opportunity came to such men as Carl Schurz and Joseph Pulitzer,
poor emigrants, who became pre-eminent in our country’s history.
The privileges of the American woman go hand in hand with her
responsibilities, in her zeal for home and country; she is pointing
the way, realizing that our children have a great work before them, a
great problem to solve.
The Jewish dramatist, Zangwill, says: “To think that the same great
torch of liberty, which threw its light across all the broad seas
and lands into my little garret in Russia, is shining also for all
those other weeping millions of Europe, shining wherever men hunger,
or are oppressed, shining over the starving villages of Italy and
Ireland; over the swarming cities of Poland; over the ruined farms of
Roumania; over the shambles of Russia. What is the glory of Rome and
Jerusalem, where all races come to worship and look back, compared to
the glory of America, where all races and nations came to labor and
look forward.” America! great charity of God to the human race.
Conservation of life! As I stand before the shafts erected at
Arlington and Richmond and read to the memory of sixteen thousand
who fell in battle, to the memory of eight hundred unknown dead, my
very soul cries out against war. Eight hundred unknown dead! Can you
not see the long procession of anguished, broken-hearted mothers,
waiting and watching—watching and waiting, and hoping? Our law makers
oppose legislative measures advocating universal peace. How can they
with our Civil War yet fresh in memory, the nations of the earth yet
shuddering over the horrors of the war between Russia and Japan?
The heart sickens at the memory of the undying hatred of the human
heart; the blood thirst for blood in its brutal frenzy, sacrificing
her young men—the hope of a nation—and all for what? One more island,
perhaps, or insignificant kingdom. A war involving principle, as
our Revolutionary War, hundreds of years afterward excites the most
passionate interest and feeling; but wars for power, and possession,
the world cries out against. The time has come to sheathe the sword
and spare mankind. The vast expenditure of money for more destructive
engines of warfare, for the slaughter of men, would go so far in our
work for humanity, the helpless, the unfortunate, the struggling. War
affects not only those who bear arms, but those who stay at home; the
entire country is affected. War retards progress, paralyzes effort;
ambition cannot feed a sorrow, hands are listless and lax when the
heart is heavy. Mrs. Browning’s Italian mother wails: “Both boys
dead, one of them shot by the sea in the East, and one of them shot
in the West by the sea. Dead! both my boys. If your flag takes all
heaven, with its white, green and red, for what end is it done, if
we have not a son?”
On one occasion, a distinguished Confederate general was a guest
at our table; he had fought from the beginning to the close of the
Civil War. The little boy of the family gazed upon him with awe and
admiration. To know and be close to a great soldier, one who had
commanded armies and fought many battles, was indeed glory for a
small boy. After gazing upon him long and steadily, he startled the
assembled company by saying: “General, how many men have you killed?”
We gasped in horror, wondering what the reply would be. Quickly the
General responded, “I don’t know that I have killed any.”
We read “The Charge of the Light Brigade”; “Scots Who Ha’e Wi’
Wallace Bled,” and other stirring poems of war, and see only the
glory of it. Death by shot and shell and sabre stroke is heroic; but
the question of a little child startles us with the question of our
individual responsibility; we are brought face to face with the words
engraven on the tablets of stone, “Thou shalt not kill.”
Universal peace is no longer a dream. The peace court at The Hague
is established, and marks an epoch in international law. Let us not
cease in our efforts until the pressure of strong public sentiment
becomes so compelling, legislation will be favorable. Our country is
the beacon light; she stands for justice, for freedom, for God; she
is the messenger of the Prince of Peace, is elected to proclaim with
trumpet call, peace to all the nations of the earth and the islands
of the sea.
I cannot let this opportunity pass without asking this influential
body of men to throw the weight of its great influence in favor
of another matter taken up by the Daughters of the American
Revolution—the desecration of the flag. I was appointed by our
President-General Mrs. McLean, to speak on the subject before a
committee of the United States Senate, and, with representatives
from other patriotic societies, urged legislation upon it. It is a
matter of sentiment, but what is life without sentiment? With you men
laboring for your country’s welfare, see to it that our country’s
emblem is held sacred, shall not be used as an advertising medium
by the soulless money-maker, who cares for naught save personal
gain, who does not consider that this banner stands for this great
country—“your flag and my flag.”
“And Oh! how much it holds,
Your land and my land
Secure within its folds,
Your heart, and my heart,
Beat quicker at the sight,
Sun-kissed and wind tossed the
Red and Blue and White;
The one Flag—the Great Flag—the Flag for me and you
Glorified all else besides—the Red and White and Blue.”
Wherever we fling it to the breeze, it carries a breath of freedom
into every land and unto every people. Should we not hold it a sacred
thing? (Continued applause.)
The CHAIRMAN—For the past two years the next speaker has been
working in the General Federation as Chairman of the Department
of Conservation. We have worked so closely together, I, as her
adviser, and she doing the large work of the organization, that it
is almost like speaking of one’s own family in introducing this
speaker. I shall not try to tell of her work. We are the very best
of Conservation friends to this day—Mrs. Marion A. Crocker, of
Fitchburg, Mass.
Mrs. CROCKER—Madam Chairman, and Mr. President and Members of the
Convention: Conservation is a term so apt that it has been borrowed
and made to fit almost all lines of public work, but Conservation as
applied to that department bearing its name in the General Federation
means conservation of natural resources only, and that is a field so
vast that we have found it all that can well be handled under one
head without a chance of neglecting the very principle for which the
Conservation movement was established. And then it is always easier
to come back to simpler things. I do not mean exactly “simpler,”
but to those that touch our lives from day to day, of which we may
see the effect almost from hour to hour, and therefore it seems so
unnecessary to dwell on these things that are far away. The problem
of Conservation of natural resources is so wide and far extended that
much of it must be solved on great government plans, and that seems
to make it even more remote.
Now, we all concede that there is nothing so important as the
conservation of life, of health, education and vital force, so
closely connected with the life. We all grant that, and it is only
because the conservation of natural resources is so closely related
to these other lines that it is of any vital consequence. But,
with the other side having been so strongly emphasized, and, to my
sorrow, a few times I have noticed it even being decried in this
conference, it seems to me it has become my bounden duty to emphasize
the other side, because if we do not follow the most scientific
approved methods, the most modern discoveries of how to conserve and
propagate and renew wherever possible those resources which Nature
in her providence has given to man for his use but not abuse, the
time will come when the world will not be able to support life, and
then we shall have no need of conservation of health, strength or
vital force, because we must have the things to support life or else
everything else is useless.
Do not think I am pessimistic. I should not feel this so strongly,
but I feel that this Congress was originally established for the
conservation of natural resources, because the other side had
received so much greater recognition and it is naturally nearer to
our hearts. You do not know how much harder it is to appeal to people
for these far-away things than to those that are so near and dear to
them, and the things they can take hold of in an animate way.
I would like you to review with me just a few of the natural
resources and the result of their Conservation, or the result of a
lack of Conservation.
We will begin with the forests, because in our natural conservation
we consider that the foundation of the fundamental principle of the
conservation of natural resources. And what does the forest for us?
What is the purpose of the forest? Why must we have them? Well, the
forest makes soil in a way; that is, it makes humus matter, which
is so large a portion of the soil that it may well be termed the
soil. The forest is the only crop that grows that gives to the soil
more than it takes from the soil. It also conserves the mineral in
the soil that it takes Nature ages to produce by its slow processes
of disintegration, and at the same time prevents the filling up
of reservoirs, lakes and streams, and to that extent prevents the
pollution of the waters. The forest is a great health resort, and
why? Because it actually purifies the air. Its action is just the
reverse of animals. It gives the air what we need and takes from it
that which is detrimental to our health.
We must look a little into plant life and see what nature does that
we may fully appreciate that point. I cannot take time tonight
because of the late hour to go into the whole life of the tree, but I
will say that its principal constituent is carbon, and it takes from
the air the carbonic acid gas which is so detrimental to human beings
and to all animals. It has a way of converting it into its own life
blood in combination with the sap taken up from the roots, by the
marvelous process in the leaves, by this little understood substance
called chlorophyll, that has the power of converting this poisonous
substance for us into the life of the tree, and then taking so much
from it and giving it to the soil. That is a most important factor
which is so often overlooked.
Then the forest is valuable as a wind shield for crops. And for the
wood supply. Wood is demanded in all the industries or the arts, for
almost all things we use.
These are the fundamental things the forest does for us. Are we not
working for conservation of strength and health and human life when
we are working for the forest?
While the General Federation takes up many phases of water
Conservation, perhaps I may just say that we have irrigation,
drainage, waterways, the deep canals for transportation, we have
water power, which is the coming thing. This is something to be
conserved, and which conserves our coal, which conserves the purity
of our atmosphere by not having all the gases turned into it by the
burning of the coal.
All these things it does for us.
And then the very last and most vital is the pure continuous supply
of water, which all human beings and which all animals demand. It
is, next to the air we breathe, the most important factor in animal
existence. Are we not working for health, for strength and for life
when we are working for this pure plentiful water supply, and does
not that come pretty near working directly for conservation of human
life? Have you anything you can bring forward that touches much more
nearly the health, life, strength of human beings, the child, than
this same conservation of water, which is a natural resource?
The soil is indirectly our staff of life. From it does not come our
bread? Must not this seed fall into the ground, spring from the earth
and be protected until it reaches maturity, and we have food? Many
other instances might I bring forward had I time.
Then the animal kingdom is much more nearly related to human
existence than we would think at the outset; but when we come to look
more deeply into it we find this close relationship.
I so often come up against the saying, “Oh, I am so much interested
in human life. I have no time, no thought, no desire to give to the
animal kingdom. It is all right enough for you sentimentalists, but I
am not interested.” Yes, but even from a selfish point of view, if we
do not care at all for any suffering, or anything which may come to
the animal kingdom beside ourselves, it is of economic value to us.
I will choose but one example of the animal kingdom, and that is the
birds, because it is said that all vegetation from the earth would
cease if the birds existed no longer. It is very interesting to know
that Longfellow appreciated this economic value of insectivorous
birds long before there was any movement on foot for bird protection,
and I wish you would all read the poem, the last of the Wayside Inn
stories.
This very conservation of bird life is one of the things that is the
great new problem of conservation of natural resources, and one in
which you women take a hand and have the real control. I know you
have heard so much about that I am not going to give you statistics
as to what the birds do for agriculture. I am going to ask you a
personal favor: that this fall when you choose your fall millinery,
will you not think of your Chairman of your Conservation Department
of the General Federation, and I beg you choose some other decoration
for your hats. This is not sentiment. It is pure economics. You
have no idea what you do when you wear these feathers, until you
think really deeply into it, and I am not speaking of the egret,
of the paradise feather, wholly, but of the less choice feathers.
There is only one exception to this rule, and that is the wearing
of the ostrich plume. That is a legitimate business and one to be
encouraged. There is no reason why we should not use ostrich plumes
if so we deem it best, but in regard to everything else in the way
of feathers, let us turn over a new leaf for the fall. Will you
not spread this gospel, not only to yourselves, but all the other
women need to be asked to do the same thing? There are so many other
articles, all the jets, the laces and ribbons. Will you not consider
those things, even leaving out the sentiment?
I might cite for you many examples where conservation of natural
resources works for the betterment of the human race, but I have just
brought up a few of the most important.
Now, I want to say just a few words about the way to go to work to
do some of these things. I will not go into the larger fields of
forestry, or even into shade trees, except to emphasize the fact that
while the shade tree is a very important one, and especially in the
cities, we must never lose sight of the larger fact that after all it
is not forestry, it does not stand for that, and that our arbor day,
where we plant the one tree, should extend far beyond that. But I
think one of our primary ways of working is to begin with the school,
perhaps begin with the normal school. Many of the States have made
great progress in that. I really have not the record of Indiana in
that regard. I may be carrying coals to Newcastle to bring up this
subject in Indiana. My own State, Massachusetts, stands very high in
this line. Still I know there are many States that need this message.
There is a great work to be done with the children, in making the
school garden, and then the home garden; to teach the children to
know what the soil is made of and how it should be treated, to make
them love the growing flower and to make them respect the property
of others. There we are laying the foundation of things for the next
generation.
I know perhaps of no better book on the subject than that fine book
for children, “The Land We Live In.” I sent a copy into each State
of the United States last year, with a request to each of my State
chairmen that she do all she could to introduce that work into the
libraries of her State, and the schools, feeling sure that if every
child could read that book or hear it read, he would have a different
idea of the natural resources and the need of natural Conservation.
Some of the States have hundreds and thousands of copies of this
book, and I am sure it is doing a great propaganda work.
I am going to tell you a little story of how I became interested in
these things. It was before I was out of school myself, although
pretty nearly so. It was when the welfare work began of taking the
children out in the country from the slums in the north end. I was
personally acquainted with one of the teachers, who was among the
first to take the children out in the fresh air to breathe and see
the grass and flowers and trees that they had never seen before.
One little boy, after he had looked around in amazement—it was in
the fall of the year—saw the bright red apples on the trees, and he
looked up and said, “Apples on trees, by God!”
It is overwhelming, isn’t it? I don’t wonder that you gasp at it.
But look a little more deeply into it and see the pity of it. That
child had been born and bred in the slums of the north end of Boston
and actually had never seen apples on trees. He had seen apples in
barrels. How did that poor child know that they did not grow in
barrels? No, it had never occurred to him. They did not teach, in
those days, the principles of horticulture in the schools. Was it not
pathetic? Doesn’t that teach a lesson? That has come home to me many
and many a time. I actually believe that was the foundation of my
interest in Conservation. I think I was born with a love of the soil.
And the story of the boy added to that, made me feel that I must know
something about nature, about the fundamental principles, about the
other side of life, the vegetable kingdom that supports the human
life. Those two things combined taught me a lesson that I never,
never could forget, and I wish you would think them over.
I will say to you this one message, while you are working for this
thing of prime importance, the conservation of life, for which this
Congress has stood at this fall meeting, do not forget that the
conservation of life itself must be built on the solid foundation of
conservation of natural resources, or it will be a house built upon
the sands that will be washed away. It will not be lasting. I thank
you. (Great applause.)
President WHITE—I want to have read into the record of this evening’s
proceedings, by title only, a paper which was intended to have been
read by Mrs. Elmer Black, of the International Peace Congress. She
was expecting to be here and was on the program originally, but
we learned that she could not get back from Europe in time to be
present. She sent on her contribution in the way of a paper. It will
be published in the Proceedings. The title is “War is the Policy of
Waste—Peace the Policy of Conservation.” (For Mrs. Black’s paper, see
Supplementary Proceedings.)
President WHITE—I wish to say further that your very gallant
Sergeant-at-Arms, Col. John I. Martin, wants to address the ladies
for just three minutes.
Col. MARTIN—Madam President, Ladies and Gentlemen: For the very
cordial manner in which you have carried out the suggestion made by
our popular, esteemed and whole-souled President of the National
Conservation Congress, the Hon. J. B. White, that I briefly address
this association, and for your kind invitation, I return my most
profound thanks.
Nowhere in this wide and extended country can there be found a
grander association of noble, unselfish women, planning, acting,
counseling upon the great subject of conservation of human life than
this organization under whose auspices we are all assembled this
evening. Nowhere can there be found an institution more efficient
for good, more blessed in all its labors of love and humanity, more
universal in its application to the advancement of love and sympathy,
stimulating education, encouraging enlightenment and scientific
and humane development and morality, than an institution of the
character of this band of noble women, engaged in such a magnificent
undertaking as your association promulgates. Fully appreciating the
fact that as the world grows better and people become more educated
and more honest in their endeavors to espouse the cause of the weak
against the strong, and the right against the wrong, then such
organizations as the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the National Conservation
Congress will be heralded as the very acme of perfection along
the lines of the contemplated work in which you are now engaged.
(Applause.)
In all ages of the world chivalry has yielded to feminine beauty,
patriotism, loyalty and devotion, and I am sure that our popular
President, Captain White, his efficient officers and all the members
of the National Conservation Congress are at all times ready to
listen to advice and counsel from the fair sex, and to surrender
with wise discretion to all her laudable undertakings. (Applause.)
Wherever cheeks have turned pale with waiting, weeping and watching,
there was woman’s presence to cheer, to comfort and to save, and
in her garden of the sun heaven’s brightest rose is yet to bloom,
and when it comes it will be the bright-hued mission of a heavenly
charity. The poets have sung no truer rhyme than that inscribed by
one of your own number:
“Woman, not she with trait’rous lips her Savior stung,
Not she denied him with unholy tongue,
She, when Apostles shrunk, did dangers brave,
Last at the cross, and earliest at the grave.”
God Almighty, in his crowning work of creation, gave woman to man,
made weakness her strength, modesty her citadel, truth, gentleness
and love her attributes, and the heart of man her throne. (Applause.)
The CHAIRMAN—The meeting will stand adjourned.
_TENTH SESSION._
The Congress convened in the Murat Theater, on the morning of October
4, 1912. It was called to order by President White.
President WHITE—We will put things through on the ten-minute plan
this morning, so as to give every one a chance who has a place on the
program. Today we have reports from the committees, and elect our
officers. We can then get ready for another Congress, for we are all
going into the field, we are going to work for Conservation, and the
whole country is going to take it up. We will give them the text,
and the press will take it up, the politicians will take it up, and
we will each be a committee of one to go forth through the country
and make this Conservation idea a potent force that will change and
correct legislation for the benefit of all the people. (Applause.)
Mr. A. B. Farquhar, who was to speak this morning, spoke yesterday,
and therefore his address, for which a great many expected to be
present, will be printed and you will have an opportunity to read it.
Every one should subscribe for as many copies of the Proceedings as
he can afford, for distribution among friends. It is without doubt
going to prove to be the greatest book on conservation of human life
that has ever been written. These papers are scholarly, and they are
true, and the truth will prevail if we can only get people to read
and to think. We want to give you all an opportunity to subscribe
for this publication, which will be published as soon as possible,
and will only cost one dollar, and those who pay this dollar will be
entitled to membership in this organization next year, so that if
your Mayor, or your Governor, or your civic body does not reappoint
you, you are sure of membership next year, because you have paid in
your dollar and subscribed for the book.
Dr. Livingston Farrand, of New York, will now speak to us on “The
Problem of Tuberculosis.”
Dr. FARRAND—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: The problem of
tuberculosis in the United States is simple in its outlines. Stated
in their lowest terms, the figures which describe it are sufficiently
impressive and appalling. Increasing experience and added knowledge
serve only to confirm earlier estimates and to emphasize the
seriousness of the situation which confronts us. The vital statistics
of our country are notoriously faulty and incomplete, but the lesson
they teach must arrest the attention of every thinking citizen.
According to the census of 1910, treating the non-registration area
on the same basis as that from which mortality reports were recorded,
there were 150,000 deaths from tuberculosis in that year. This is, of
course, an under statement by many thousands. Rigidly conservative
estimates agree that the mortality from tuberculosis in this country
is at least 200,000 each year and very probably considerably more.
Let us for the moment, however, deal with the demonstrable facts and
not enter the field of estimate.
The real problem is not the number of deaths from tuberculosis,
but the number of living cases of the disease. In calculating this
different methods have been employed. For many years, the ratio
of three living cases to each death was used as an index of the
situation in any community. It was quickly realized by those familiar
with the situation that this proportion was far too low, but with
our almost total lack of registration, figures to demonstrate the
discrepancy were not available. With the improvement in recording
the facts of disease in certain typical centers of population, it
became certain, however, that a ratio of five to one was not only
conservative but below the truth.
More recently records of great value have been obtained which confirm
the convictions of experts and allow still sharper definition of the
problem.
It has remained for the city of Cleveland to work out during the past
two years a system of tuberculosis registration and administration
which is undoubtedly the most complete in the country for a community
of its size and complexity. Without going into details of method,
notification, and registration have been brought to such a point in
Cleveland that of all the deaths from tuberculosis now occurring
approximately ninety per cent. have been previously recorded and
under observation by the Department of Health, before death is
reported. This is an achievement for a city of its population of
extraordinary significance. There are in round numbers something over
700 deaths a year from pulmonary tuberculosis in that city of 600,000
inhabitants. There are in register and under observation at this time
approximately 4,600 cases of tuberculosis. Allowing for the ten per
cent. in the mortality not reported before the death, it is obvious
that the number of living cases is over seven times the number of
deaths and with slight allowance for the very large number of active
cases in any community which have not yet come to diagnosis, we can
demonstrate in that city a ratio of eight living cases for each death.
It is singularly fortunate that this demonstration has taken place in
a community of sufficient size to include the problems in some degree
of all our larger cities and to be regarded as reasonably typical
of the situation throughout the country. It has also been shown
that except for certain centers, where the problem of congestion is
extraordinarily prominent, the rural situation in the United States
does not differ appreciably from that obtaining in all cities and
towns so far as the presence of tuberculosis is concerned. I have
no hesitation, therefore, in asserting that we must from this time
on raise our figures and use a ratio of at least eight to one in
calculating the prevalence of tuberculosis on a basis of the recorded
deaths from that disease.
Apply these figures to the country. The Bureau of the Census
indicates 150,000 deaths a year. On this basis we have 1,200,000
living cases of tuberculosis. Let us not forget, however, that
150,000 recorded deaths is far below the actual number, for it is
easy to show in most of our communities that many deaths properly to
be assigned to tuberculosis are reported under other terms, and the
area of the United States from which no statistics are forthcoming
includes precisely those States where the mortality is high and the
prevalence of tuberculosis demonstrably widespread. We are still
absolutely certain that the mortality from this disease is at least
200,000 each year, and the number of living active cases more than a
million and a half.
Such, numerically speaking, is our problem. What are the efforts for
its solution?
Since the discovery of the bacillus as the cause of this disease
in 1882, an organized campaign has gradually been developed. The
inferences from the discovery of the cause were perfectly inevitable
and indicated the lines of operation. It became entirely clear that
tuberculosis, being due to a specific germ, was infectious, and it
was equally clear that the bacillus and its life history being known,
the disease was theoretically preventable. Here, too, the outlines
of the campaign are simple, even though the details of operation are
varied and the end in view baffling to attain.
It was inevitable that the first sporadic efforts based upon slight
experience should have been more or less random, and that years
of trial and proving should precede the establishment of definite
method. Some degree of order is, however, emerging, and we are
witnessing an increasing clearness of purpose and definition of
attack in the preventive movement against tuberculosis which is now
sweeping over the country and the civilized world.
While recognizing the unfortunate complexity of the social conditions
whose maladjustment is perhaps the chief underlying factor in the
problem, while recognizing fully the obligation to lend all possible
aid to the betterment of those conditions, the administration of
the campaign against tuberculosis has still conceived its specific
task to be a direct attack on the sources of infection; this,
because experience has indicated such procedure to be the best
and most feasible means of prevention. As the logical conclusions
of laboratory discovery and clinical experience began to express
themselves in organized movement, it was recognized that the
preliminary task in prevention was one of education; an education
which should impress upon the public mind not only the fundamental
facts that tuberculosis is infectious and preventable and the methods
of its infection and prevention, but an education that should bring
about an improved knowledge of public and private hygiene, and
particularly an education which should create a public sentiment
which could appreciate conditions and would support and even demand
those measures which expert advice and experience might indicate as
necessary. This educational propaganda, now so familiar, has been in
the United States the particular province of private organization.
The union of professional and lay effort in this latter day crusade
has been one of the most inspiring of social phenomena and has
already resulted in accomplishments of imposing dimensions.
With our political organization such as it is, this enlightened
public sentiment is an absolute essential if the responsibility
for the situation is to be an official one, and not left for the
suggestive and stimulating but less final and efficient efforts of
private philanthropy.
The insistence upon official responsibility has been made an
essential point in our American campaign and toward its intelligent
acceptance by public authorities all efforts are directed. As may
well be appreciated, the attainment of this desired end is slow, even
though ultimately inevitable.
In planning the campaign, an ideal program was not difficult to lay
down. It included as fundamental:
1. The education of which I have spoken, not only as it applies to
tuberculosis but as contributing to the solution of that problem of
misery which is, after all, the chief problem of the day and which
reduces in the last instance largely to terms of good or ill health.
2. Enactment or enforcement of protective laws of which the basis
was that notification and registration agreed upon as preliminary to
official knowledge and control of the situation.
3. Adequate institutional provision for all classes of cases; the
sanatorium for the curable; the hospital for the advanced and
hopeless, and dispensaries for early diagnosis and as centers for
that all-important field of action, education and treatment in the
homes of the poor.
The developments of the years have not served appreciably to modify
the main features of this program. Emphasis has shifted from time to
time and will continue so to shift, but the fundamentals remain more
firmly established than ever.
In developing the movement in this country, the most effective
means of stimulating action in our various communities has been
the voluntary association for the prevention of tuberculosis. In
organizing these societies the local community has been recognized as
the essential centers of action. The effort has been made, therefore,
to obtain in every community of considerable size an organization
embracing elements both medical and lay which shall charge itself
with the task of securing adequate official treatment of the
tuberculosis problem as it there presents itself.
In many of our commonwealths such organizations can best be brought
about through the action of a State society, whose special function
becomes one of organization and of securing desired legislation. In
other cases the initiative is local in origin. Where State societies
exist, these act as co-ordinating agents for the affiliated local
societies, and the National Association for the Study and Prevention
of Tuberculosis acts as a clearing house for them all.
It will be seen at once that such organization is but preliminary,
and would be entirely futile, did it not result in preventive
measures of a definite sort. There is, however, no other index
equally valuable of the vigor and growth of this movement in the
United States. Speaking from the national point of view, the
organized campaign in this country has been in existence exactly
seven years. In 1905 there were in the entire country but twenty-one
of these societies, while at the present time there are no less than
660, working in co-operation and presenting a united front to the
enemy. There is no considerable area that does not contain some such
center of intelligent action.
The carrying out of the program outlined a moment ago is the special
function of the organized movement. In the development of this
program it is historically interesting that it was institutional
provision for tuberculosis that first obtained support. It was the
sanatorium for the cure of curable cases with its peculiar appeal
which first engaged attention. From our present point of view, it was
perhaps not the logical beginning, but it was certainly the obvious
and perhaps the most fortunate point of attack. The sanatorium
with its promise of restoring to a wage-earning capacity those
unfortunates who formerly had been regarded as doomed to a speedy and
inevitable death, was peculiarly fitted to arrest public attention
and to engage public support.
As the movement for sanatorium establishment developed momentum,
attention turned to the need of special dispensaries as logical
centers of preventive work. Time will not permit even an outline
of this phase of the problem. Suffice it to say that with the
first general survey of the movement in the United States, six
years ago, there were in the country but eighteen dispensaries
exclusively devoted to tuberculosis. There are today more than 400
such foundations and their number is increasing at a rapid rate.
All those who deal hand to hand with the problem become impressed
at once with the fact that tuberculosis is pre-eminently a disease
of social life, of living and working conditions. In the absence of
adequate institutional facilities it is unavoidable that the problem
should be attacked in the homes and workshops of the people, and
with such weapons as may be at hand or which can be devised. With
early diagnosis and careful instructive nursing supervision, much
can be done even in the distressing conditions which characterize
the crowded and poorer quarters of our great cities. The center
of activity in this field is everywhere the dispensary, and the
elaboration of its function to include supervision in the homes of
indigent patients has been one of the most interesting and important
of recent developments.
The third and possibly the most important aspect of institutional
provision was the last to be taken up with energy. Every survey
of our equipment during recent years has served to emphasize the
shocking lack in our facilities for the care of advanced cases of
tuberculosis. It has become increasingly evident that as centers
of infection the consumptive in the advanced stages presented the
most serious problem. Equipped as we were, with a healthily growing
movement along educational, sanatorium and dispensary lines, the
time seemed ripe for a vigorous attack on this point of weakness.
The result has been that during the last four years there has been
a concentration of energy in this direction and a notable advance
has been made. Without pausing to specify various kinds and degrees
of hospitals and sanatoria for the treatment of tuberculosis in the
United States, it is encouraging to note that we now have over 500 in
the country, as compared with 111 seven years ago. The number of beds
contained in these institutions is approximately 30,000, a number
small when compared with the need, but encouraging when compared with
the situation but a few years since.
The third feature of the program already mentioned, that of
legislation, is less susceptible of numerical expression, but
it is in many ways the most fundamental and most significant of
advancing intelligence. The principle of compulsory notification
and registration has been insisted upon from the outset, and it
has now come to be fairly generally accepted in all parts of the
country. With few exceptions the more important States provide for
registration by enactment either of the Legislature or of the State
health authorities. In most of our larger cities local regulations
are also on the statute books. Unfortunately the enforcement of
these regulations is far behind their expression, but the situation
is rapidly improving, and the example of such cities as New York
in initiating the principle, and of Cleveland in demonstrating its
possibilities, is of inestimable value.
In dealing with the question of public hospital establishment, the
best adapted political unit has caused much embarrassment where
a given community is not large enough to support an independent
institution. Federal provision is agreed upon as being out of the
question. The State as such is in most instances regarded as having
the same limitations to a lesser degree as the national government.
It is fairly generally accepted that where the municipality is of
sufficient size it should accept responsibility for its problem. In
those sections where communities of lesser population are the rule,
the county is now in the focus of attention.
Little difficulty has been encountered in procuring the necessary
legislation for local and county institutional provision. We have
now reached the point where the possibility of mandatory State
legislation is being considered with care and some favor. In this
connection one should note the recent passage by the Legislature
of the State of New Jersey of a law which undoubtedly represents
the most advanced legislation in the United States and probably in
the world. Without going into details, the law in question provides
for the establishment of special tuberculosis hospitals in all the
counties of the State, for the payment by the State of a certain
sum ($3.00 per week per patient) toward the maintenance of such
hospitals, for the compulsory segregation in such hospitals of
dangerous and incorrigible cases of the disease, and for the general
supervision of these provisions by the State Board of Health, though
the primary responsibility is placed upon the local health officer.
This legislation is of the highest interest, not only in its promise
of results, but as an enactment into law of principles formulated
as necessary by expert experience even though in advance of public
appreciation.
Reaching into every field of social activity as this campaign
must do, it is inevitable that new phases of importance should
successively make their appearance and demand attention. I should
say that perhaps the most striking is the essential importance of
the child in the tuberculosis problem. With improved methods of
diagnosis and wider facilities for examination, there has been shown
a prevalence of tuberculosis in children of school age that is most
alarming. It is a conservative statement that there are today in
the public schools of the United States 100,000 children who will
die of tuberculosis before they reach the age of eighteen if the
present rate of mortality be continued. A very recent estimate
presented by the United States Bureau of Education states that at
least 15,000,000 children now in attendance in the schools of the
United States are in need of a physician’s attention, and that of
this number 1,000,000 have or have had tuberculosis. It has become
clear that if our educational campaign in the interest of preventive
medicine and public health is to achieve success, the attention must
be concentrated upon the coming generation rather than upon those who
have already passed their years of plasticity.
We see, then, on every hand the tendency to attack the problem in
the schools, and this not only by the establishment of provision
for open air teaching and the improvement of the undernourished and
the predisposed, but upon insistence of regular and intelligent
instruction as to the prevention of disease.
Such in its general outlines is the plan by which we are working.
With such a situation and with such a campaign what then is
the outlook? I have little sympathy with the enthusiasm which
deals in specific predictions or which assigns a date for the
practical achievement of theoretical possibilities. It is perhaps
inevitable that an impatient public should demand results before
definite results can be forthcoming. There is, on the other hand,
a corresponding obligation for conservatism in expression when
indicating probable or even possible results. A drop in the mortality
curve of a slowly developing and slowly progressive disease such as
tuberculosis, is not a matter of months but a matter of years. It is
unjustifiable to expect results from the specific campaign against
tuberculosis in an observable diminution of mortality for some years
to come. I believe, however, that we have reached a point where our
equipment is such as adequately to test our basis of operations and
to warrant an optimism as to the future if our reasoning and method
be correct.
Believing as we do, that the soundness of the procedure is certain,
it would seem reasonable to expect a response in the mortality tables
within five years, and that ten years should afford indisputable
proof.
There is, of course, no doubt that tuberculosis is diminishing and
has been diminishing for a generation. This decrease is not to
be assigned to the specific warfare against the disease, but is
doubtless correlated with other factors. It is uncertain whether we
are to assign as its cause the general improvement in public hygiene
or whether there may be perhaps an acquisition of immunity gradually
extending through the civilized world. In my own judgment this
decrease in the prevalence of tuberculosis is associated with the
improvement in hygienic conditions which has been so marked during
the last fifty years. I believe we are justified in expecting an
acceleration in this diminution as a result of the specific measures
now being adopted not only here but in Europe. While we cannot
interpret them with confidence, there are already appearing certain
figures of possible significance. It should not be forgotten that the
first result of all concentrated activity and interest is a greater
accuracy in mortality and morbidity statistics, and that an actual
decrease in tuberculosis might appear in official reports as an
apparent increase in the disease.
Taking all these factors into account and viewing the situation
candidly and with all the precautions possible, I do not hesitate to
assert that optimism as to the future is justified, and that the end
of the present decade will witness the beginning of another drop in
the mortality curve comparable to that which was seen in the closing
years of the last century. (Applause.)
President WHITE—Dr. W. C. Mendenhall, of the United States Geological
Survey, at Washington, was expected to be here this morning to speak
upon the subject of “Water as a Natural Resource.” He is unable to be
present, and Mr. Jacob P. Dunn, Secretary of the Indiana Historical
Society, will now have ten minutes to discuss “The Conservation of
Navigable Streams.”
(For Mr. Dunn’s paper see Supplementary Proceedings.)
President WHITE—The subject of the next address is “Social,
Industrial and Civic Progress.” It is to be a review of fifty years
of what has been done in labor economics, by one who has given a
great deal of study to the subject, Mr. Ralph M. Easley, of New
York City, Chairman of the Executive Council of the National Civic
Federation.
Mr. EASLEY—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: In view of the fact
that the work of the Committee on Civics was not outlined at the time
it was organized, and as it was the desire of the national officers
of the Conservation Congress that its work should not duplicate
nor overlap the work of other organizations, the mapping out of a
practical program for the committee was deferred until this meeting
of the Congress.
Recognizing this situation, the officers of the Congress suggested
that, as Chairman of the Committee on Civics, I should briefly review
the progress that has been made by others in this country along
industrial, social and civic lines. This seemed to me wise because
at a gathering of this kind, which has discussed conditions that
call for improvements, it might be helpful to note what progress our
country has already made along these lines. To look back adown the
slopes we have so painfully and undauntedly climbed in advancing to
our present plane of material and moral welfare, far from inspiring
us with a smug complacency, should heighten our resolves and give
renewed energy and freshness of spirit.
Another reason for accepting the suggestion is that I had just read
in an English newspaper a sweeping and vitrolic criticism of our
social and civic conditions. Our unkind critic spoke of us as a
people so utterly bound up in the worship of the “almighty dollar”
that we had lost whatever social vision might have illumined the
minds of our fathers. To all sense of social righteousness we were as
a people pitiably indifferent. In mill, factory and mine our working
people slaved; in tenement and farmhouse our poor lived, little if
any better than the poorest of Europe’s poor; our sick and otherwise
helpless were scarcely given a thought. Politically we were rotten to
the core, statesmanship and graft going hand in hand.
That, in short, ours was a dog-eat-dog civilization, and that the
only direction in which light might be seen breaking was in the “fact
that making headway among the wisest and most far-seeing Americans
was the conviction that American institutions were a failure!”
The editorial concluded with the statement that if any one considered
that view a biased one, all such skeptical readers need do was to
acquaint themselves with the writings and speeches of American
sociologists and magazine writers or to converse with any of that
“dwindling proportion” of our well-informed citizens to whom human
values are not a mere academic phrase or an abstraction.
It is unnecessary to point out that our English critic might have
used his columns to better advantage if he had differentiated between
the sociologists and magazine writers who seek our country’s good and
those who seek only its destruction—a very important differentiation
to make at this time.
In fact, our critic may be a Socialist, who is only passing along
to England the general cry of the pessimists of this country,
that “whatever is, is wrong”; and that there is a great unrest in
the industrial world which will, sooner or later, burst out in
volcanic force and engulf us in a terrible cataclysm—all of which is
unspeakable rot.
I think I am in a position through the organization with which
I am connected (composed as it is of the representatives of the
great labor, agricultural, manufacturing, banking, commercial,
educational and professional organizations) to know something about
this “great unrest” upon which the Socialists and other radical
writers and speakers declaim so much, and I can assure you that the
only unrest in the industrial and social fields that I can discern
is that wholesome, normal unrest which comes through the education
of the people, and therefore a better understanding of their rights
as workers and the translation of that knowledge through the labor
unions and other social and economic organizations into concrete
demands for better living conditions.
But let us take a birdseye view of the situation and see whether we
are advancing or going backward. I think you will agree with me that
the following bare outline of a few of the important achievements
and the work now being done by organizations and movements of
public-spirited citizens is inspiring and encouraging.
Let us start with the industrial gains.
The American Federation of Labor and the railway brotherhoods have
in the past twenty-five years secured better wages and working
conditions for millions of wage-earners and the eight-hour day for
hundreds of thousands, and they have developed a system of collective
bargaining and methods of conciliation and arbitration that are
reducing the number of industrial disturbances. To get a clear idea
of what this means in terms of progress, let us consider that while
in the past six months 500,000 coal miners and their employers have
made contracts covering wages, hours and conditions of employment
for a term of four years; all the railroads east of Chicago are
arbitrating their differences with their thousands and thousands of
engineers, trainmen, conductors and so on; the hundreds of thousands
of carpenters, bricklayers, painters, plasterers and others of the
thirty-five crafts involved in the building industry have made
contracts with associations of builders all over the land from Maine
to California; while the publishers of the great daily newspapers
throughout the United States have made a five-year contract with
their printers, pressmen, stereotypers, etc.; and the street railway
employes in many great cities and many others of the 135 crafts
belonging to the American Federation of Labor have made satisfactory
contracts with their employers—I say, let us consider that while
this is what is going on today in this country, we shall not have to
go very far back into history to find the time when it was a penal
offense for a man to join a labor organization, or for workers to ask
collectively for an increase in wages, and to find that, while we are
now legislating in the interest of the employe for a minimum wage,
at that time the effort of legislation was for a maximum wage in the
interest of the employer.
In the meantime, the State factory legislation has revolutionized
the methods of sanitation in the workshops of the country and is
safeguarding better and better the lives and limbs of the workers.
Employers are making increased provision for the welfare of their
employes through sanitary and safe work places, opportunities for
recreation and education, model homes rented or sold, and relief
funds for sickness, accident and death benefits, as well as old age
pensions, all affecting millions of railroad, factory, mine and
department store workers.
The National Child Labor Committee has led a campaign that in ten
years has secured wholesome legislation in practically every State
in the Union, reducing hours of labor, prohibiting children under
fourteen years of age from working in factories, mines and mills, and
preventing night work for women and children in many places.
The tenement house reform movement in New York alone, where the
problems are greatest, has made seventy-five per cent. improvement
in fifteen years; and as an example of the growing recognition
of big business of its social responsibility, it may be pointed
out that when the Supreme Court upset the Tenement House Law, and
by a decision wiped out all that had been accomplished in twelve
years through the tenement house agitation, the allied real estate
interests in New York joined with the tenement house reformers in
securing the passage of a State law and a city ordinance correcting
the defects.
Amazing in magnitude and usefulness are the health organizations,
public and private, devoted to securing more efficient methods of
sanitation and the prevention of disease, recent statistics in New
York City showing as a result of such work that the mortality rate
has decreased fifty per cent. in fifty years.
There are various national and local organizations devoted to the
protection and education of the millions of immigrants from all parts
of the world who have landed on these shores in the past ten years,
and whose assimilation and adaptation to American standards and
conditions have constituted one of the problems of the age.
There are thousands of non-sectarian hospitals and institutions for
the scientific care of dependents, defectives and delinquents.
Splendid work is being done by the great charity organization
movement which is teaching independence and thrift through its
penny provident societies, and which has organized some of the most
important preventive and remedial agencies.
The National Federation of Remedial Loan Societies covers
twenty-eight cities, where societies lend money to the poor at
reasonable rates to protect them from the loan sharks, the New York
organization alone having a fund of millions for this purpose. A
rapidly increasing number of large employers have changed their
attitude towards their employes, in that they now aid instead of
discharging those who incur debt—the latter policy having played
directly into the hands of the loan sharks.
The National Association for the Promotion of Industrial Education
has brought the manufacturers’ associations and the labor
organizations into harmonious support of the measure providing a
federal appropriation of $5,000,000 for industrial education of the
young workers in towns and cities, whether in factories, stores or
offices, and including domestic science for the girls. The measure
also provides an equal amount for the sons and daughters of the
farmers.
The tremendous program of constructive work undertaken by the United
States Bureau of Labor and the Bureau of Mines in the interest of
the workingmen and by the Department of Agriculture for the farmers
should alone silence our English scoffer. The recent establishment of
the Children’s Bureau is an achievement of which humanitarians may
well be proud.
The public school system and other free educational institutions
enable the children in this country today to receive twelve times
as much schooling as their grandparents—a tremendous factor in our
advancement of itself and one that readily accounts for much of the
unrest without which no progress could come.
The universities, especially the State institutions, have in the past
ten years enlarged the scope of their work to such an extent that
many of them can be classed as leaders in what are termed the “uplift
movements” of the day. A complete catalogue of the public work done
by the University of Wisconsin alone would be a revelation.
The Playground and Recreation Society of America and other recreation
movements are assisting in the development of children’s playgrounds
in parks and schools and are bringing health and good cheer to
congested centers.
The Association for Labor Legislation is working jointly with the
American Medical Association to safeguard wage-earners against
occupational diseases.
The American Bankers’ Association is organizing a movement to help
the farmers of the country develop idle land in the effort to
decrease the cost of living.
One of the most encouraging signs to those who are alarmed over the
high cost of living, and that is about all of us, is the recognition
by the farmers, State agricultural colleges and railroads, of the
necessity of introducing up-to-date methods for raising and marketing
grain, live stock, fruit, dairy produce, etc. Only last week I read
the announcement of a convention called in Kansas, where three
thousand delegates will meet to consider this very question of
improving the methods of farming. These delegates will represent not
only farmers but also the bankers, merchants, wage-earners and all
divisions of society.
It would take a volume to describe even in outline the great social
and economic reforms being promoted by Mr. Andrew Carnegie, Mrs.
Edward H. Harriman, Mrs. Russell Sage and Mr. John D. Rockefeller,
whose $60,000,000 gift covers the promotion and development of the
high school system in the Southern States and the promotion of
higher education throughout the United States, while his Sanitary
Commission has discovered and is eradicating the hookworm disease
in the South. The Carnegie Institute of Washington, with an
endowment of $22,000,000, was founded to encourage in the broadest
and most liberal manner investigation, research and discovery, and
the application of knowledge to the improvement of mankind, while
the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, with its
$15,000,000 endowment, provides retiring pensions for the teachers
of universities, colleges and technical schools. The Russell Sage
Foundation, endowed by Mrs. Sage with $10,000,000, has, for its
purpose the improvement of social and living conditions in the United
States of America.
There are the tremendous achievements through the institutional work
of the churches of all denominations. Three-fourths of the efforts
in the live churches of today are devoted to material welfare, as is
evidenced by the especial care of the orphan, the sick and the poor
on the part of the Catholic Church; the great Hebrew philanthropic
and educational agencies; and such single illustrations as the
social work outlined in the handbooks just issued by Trinity and St.
George’s parishes in New York—the former being a revelation to those
who believed that the millions of Trinity Church were being used only
for commercial profits.
The Young Men’s Christian Association, with its tremendous energy and
enthusiasm, while organized primarily to promote the spiritual growth
of young men, has lately, under its “physical and social well-being”
clause, gone into the field of industrial betterment with conspicuous
success.
The Men and Religion Forward Movement and the Federation of Churches,
representing many million members of Protestant denominations, have
recently adopted broad programs of industrial and social reform.
There are the movement to suppress the social evil, known as the
Federation of Sex Hygiene; the Anti-Tuberculosis Society, with its
wonderfully comprehensive and successful efforts in fighting the
great white plague; the Red Cross Society which, in addition to
relieving distress in great disasters, has fostered with marked
success annual competitive drills of “first-aid” crews from the
mines; the Boy Scouts of America, inculcating patriotism and good
citizenship; the National Consumers’ League; the New York Museum
of Safety and Sanitation; the Prison Labor Reform Association, and
hundreds of other organizations and movements devoted to human
betterment too numerous even to mention by title.
And last, but not least, there is the educational work being
done by the National Civic Federation through its Departments
on Conciliation, Compensation for Injured Workmen, Industrial
Welfare, Pure Food and Drugs, Reform in Legal Procedure, Regulation
of Interstate and Municipal Utilities, Regulation of Industrial
Corporations and Uniform State Legislation.
As much of the work of the various departments of the National Civic
Federation called for uniform State legislation, a special department
was organized to co-operate with the Commissioners on Uniform State
Laws.
The importance of uniformity to all business and commercial
institutions is clearly recognized, when we consider that our larger
corporations—such as the railroads, telegraph, insurance, banking
and trust companies and, in fact, so far as taxation is concerned,
all manufacturing concerns whose plants are in different States—are
subject to forty-eight masters, each with a mind quite different from
that of the others. The “interminable” law’s delay, the clashing
of the States upon the question of regulation of corporations and
combinations, the diversity of State laws on ordinary commercial
matters, such as warehouse receipts, bills of lading and negotiable
notes, the urgent need for a uniform bill on compensation for
industrial accidents, all give emphasis to the need for uniformity.
But even this chaotic legislative situation shows encouraging signs
of clearing up.
So much for progress along industrial and social lines; but we have
made and are making just as great progress in this country along
other lines that affect the general welfare of the people. And also
our ethical standards and our aspirations are conspicuously higher.
For instance:
Within the past twenty years there has been a most remarkable gain
in the popular concept of the relation of industrial, railway and
municipal utility corporations to the public. The large corporations
called trusts have been taught even in the past five years that
they must recognize certain “rules of the game” that give their
competitors a chance, and what is wholesome about this from the
ethical standpoint is that they now admit the justice of these
changed conditions.
The abolition of rebates and free passes and the placing of railroad,
telegraph, telephone and express companies absolutely under the
regulatory power of the Interstate Commerce Commission are so
far-reaching that the benefits to the people are impossible to
measure. From federal regulation of railroads, it was only a step to
State regulation of street railway, gas and electric light companies.
The idea that railways or big corporations are masters of the people
has been dissipated.
Today, through insistent demand of the people for publicity, it can
be said that the big business of the country is being done behind
glass doors. The improved methods of doing business adopted by banks,
trust companies and insurance companies during the past five years
would alone justify this statement.
In practically five years, thanks to the great educational work
of the National Conservation Congress, there has been a complete
transformation of the public mind in the matter of proper control of
our natural resources, such as our public lands, timber and water
power. It was not many years ago, when I was living in the West, that
it was considered a smart thing to “grab off” all public land that
one could get hold of. This was generally accomplished by taking
land in the name of your mother and father and all your children,
past, present and future, and it was not bad form even to use your
neighbor’s name in taking up claims. I found my own name had been
used in three or four different counties by some of my ambitious
neighbors.
Politically speaking, we have progressed from the state where our
elections were great public scandals and where primary elections were
“free-for-alls,” with no legal status whatever, to a day when, thanks
to the Australian ballot law, ballot-box stuffing is practically
unknown and primaries are generally so conducted that the voters
control.
Campaign contributions that were largely responsible for corruption
in politics and legislation are now by law made public to the world.
The initiative, referendum and direct primary have been adopted in
some form in two-thirds of the States and in over two hundred cities
the commission form of government, often with a recall attachment,
has been adopted. These measures, whether they prove to be practical
reforms or not—and there are many who doubt that—undeniably
testify to the paramount power of those agitating for a so-called
“progressive program,” they all being opposed by what are termed the
“reactionaries.”
The civil service, from being a thing detested by nearly everybody
twenty years ago, is so popular today that political parties are
vying with each other to see which can include the largest number
of civil employes. The President has just ordered the 35,000
fourth-class post-masters be taken from under the political brokerage
offices of the Congressmen and placed under the civil service law.
The government of cities, which has been the burning shame of this
country, as it was in the early days of every other country, is
slowly but surely becoming more decent and effective. The work of
the National Municipal League, the hundreds of local municipal
reform associations, and the National Bureau of Municipal Research
with its local bureaus, furnish abundant evidence of the truth of
this statement. The Bureau of Municipal Research is not only making
an exhaustive and painstaking analysis of administrative methods
in many large cities, and installing more up-to-date and efficient
systems, but it also has prevailed upon the Federal Government to
have a similar investigation made in its various departments. It
has, in addition, organized a training school to meet the demand for
municipal experts.
The administration of justice and the influence of wealth upon the
decisions of the courts have been revolutionized in the past ten
years. It used to be charged that the criminal courts convicted only
the poor and released the rich, whereas today the penitentiary that
has not a half dozen or more bankers or rich malefactors within its
walls is the exception. There is no man or corporation so powerful
today as to be immune from attack by the government when violating
the law.
The American Bar Association and the National Civic Federation are
jointly working to bring about a reform in legal procedure which will
wipe out unnecessary delays and cost in litigation, thereby opening
the courts more freely to the wage-earner.
Five years ago there was no such thing as a Pure Food and Drug
Law. Today there is a federal act which has been made the basis of
legislation in thirty-five States, and in another five years it is
likely to be practically impossible for misbranders or adulterators
of food and drugs to live outside of our penal institutions.
The rural free delivery, the postal savings bank and the parcel post
are all great advances from which the farmers largely benefit.
The building and loan associations and savings banks, unknown in
early days, are great aids to wage-earners.
In other words, reform is writ large over all sections of the country
and all classes of society. There are:
Over two thousand boards of trade and chambers of commerce, at least
half of whose efforts are directed towards municipal and industrial
reforms, and the other half to commercial reforms;
Thousands of church societies and committees aiding in the
improvement of industrial, social and political conditions in their
respective localities;
Thousands of women’s clubs, representing over two million of the
brightest and most energetic women of our nation, devoted to securing
civic improvement, factory legislation and reforms in public schools,
to spreading information upon social hygiene and domestic science
and working for the protection of women and the redemption of
unfortunate ones;
Thirty thousand labor organizations, whose purpose is not only
to secure better working conditions, better wages and a shorter
workday for wage-earners, but also to lift them to a higher plane of
citizenship, and
Millions of farmers who, through granges, alliances and institutes,
are working not only to improve the home life on the farm, but to
educate their children in the use of better and more scientific
methods of production.
Pretty fair, is it not, for a people whom our English critics and our
American Socialists say are bereft, or almost so, of a social sense?
And it must also be kept in mind that this resumé does not refer to
progress in science, invention and the arts, nor is attention called
to the fact that never before in the history of this country were the
basic conditions better than they are now, despite the fact that a
national political campaign is supposed to be on.
But while the progress made has been so tremendous that we do not
realize it, on none of these lines is it contended that anything near
the ideal has been reached. There are yet very many black places
and perplexing problems demanding attention on the part of those
who love their fellow-men. But the same courage, intelligence and
humanitarianism that have accomplished so much will not now falter,
but will press forward.
Many in this audience may conclude that I am unduly optimistic and
that I am able only to see the good, but I can assure you that I know
something as well about the ills of society; for instance, I could
cite from the records of the Welfare Department of the National Civic
Federation alone a catalogue of industrial horrors showing where
greedy and thoughtless, if not unfeeling and criminal, employers
are grossly and outrageously mistreating the wage-earners in their
employ, paying them atrociously low wages, working them excessively
long hours and giving no consideration to the comforts or decencies
that a humane employer would furnish. But also from that same record
I could show that all such evils are being met by other employers,
justifying the belief that, through education and proper agitation,
the remaining sore spots can be removed. Last year one great
corporation alone spent five millions of dollars in betterment work,
including a gradual shortening of the working time in its plans for
improving conditions, and several large corporations, operating night
and day, have gone from two twelve-hour shifts to three eight-hour
shifts without decrease of pay.
As a concrete and striking example of the power of agitation and
education, there can be no better illustration than the present
widespread sentiment in favor of legal enactments requiring
compensation to injured wage-earners in lieu of the old employers’
liability system. Through the work of the National Civic Federation
and co-operating bodies, this complete reversal of policy has been
brought about in four years, fourteen States having already passed
workmen’s compensation laws. The legislation, both Federal and State,
which is now being secured, makes the industry bear the burden, while
before the wage-earner took all the chances, did all the suffering
and, if, after long-drawn-out litigation, he finally got anything in
the way of damages, he had to give up fifty per cent. of it to the
“ambulance chaser.”
I am happy to state that a movement is now on foot to make a
painstaking inquiry into the progress made during the past fifty
years in the directions indicated, with a view not only to
discovering the good, but also to ascertaining what social and
economic ills remain to be eradicated, and to propose, as far as
possible, practical remedies therefor.
It is believed that a movement which will recognize the good and
sincerely seek to remedy the wrong would be more effective in
accomplishing reform than one designed only to tear down and destroy.
It were well, and with this suggestion I conclude, if at all future
gatherings of this great organization some such counting of the
milestones passed were to be made a feature. There is good reason for
this. There are among our ninety millions of people many who, strange
as it may seem, interpret such occasions as this as diagnostic of a
body-social sick nigh unto death as the result of neglect. They do
not know—and the fault is not wholly theirs—that the patient, far
from being in extremis, is in better condition than ever before, that
what to them is a death chamber consultation is merely an evidence
of periodical stock taking in terms of social health and welfare.
(Applause.)
President WHITE—This is certainly a truthful resumé. It is well for
us all sometimes to stop and “count our blessings.” (Applause.)
We will now listen to Dr. Burton J. Ashley, of Morgan Park, Illinois.
His subject is “Disposition of Sewage,” a very interesting aspect of
Conservation.
Dr. ASHLEY—The universal aim of every one is to succeed. Success in
anything depends, it is aptly said, on one’s ability, reliability,
endurance, and action—four personal requisites, the absence of any
one of which means failure. Ability and reliability are personal
qualities, while endurance and action, two of these four requisites,
are physical endowments dependable on one’s health. Accepting these
statements as correct, then half of our successes is dependable on
personal health and one-half on personal quality.
If man’s successes are equally as dependable on health as on his
mental or acquired qualities or abilities, then we must draw but
one conclusion, viz., that as much attention should be given to the
maintenance of a healthy body as to the use and maintenance of our
mental and moral capabilities.
Healthfulness depends in part on cleanliness, the state or quality
of being clean. Health is natural. Disease is unnatural and is the
result of some known or unknown transgression of natural laws. Dirt
and disease have always been good friends. Disease is always most
flourishing when it has dirt and filth for company; and to be dirty
or filthy is to transgress nature’s efforts at keeping the body well.
Water and food are essential to life. Consume them and the liquid
waste produce is sewage filth. To man the foulest and most repulsive
dirt or filth is that of his own daily making, and well that it
is, for it contains the most poisonous substances that exist and
civilized humanity everywhere is increasingly directing its efforts
to accomplish its destruction in the most sanitary and economical way
possible. Modern methods employed by cities or lesser municipalities
to disposal of their liquid filth is that of establishing systems of
underground drains called sewers, into which such liquid filth is
discharged.
The first well designed sewerage system to be adopted in the United
States was built in Chicago about the year 1855.
The modern water-closet was not evolved until early in the last
century, and in consequence of which evolution water carriage as a
means of conveying sewage away logically followed its introduction.
Former designs of sewerage provided for drains that would accommodate
both the storm waters as well as the sewage. This method is commonly
known as the “Combined System,” but when the employment of this
character of sewage disposal created nuisances, the demand arose for
the abatement of said nuisances, and it was then that civilization
faced sewage purification in some form as a remedy. Storm waters
are only dirty waters and not, strictly speaking, polluted waters,
for merely dirty water will not create an offensive nuisance and
requires no purification, while polluted water does. So the “separate
system” of sewers was then evolved, namely, where one system conveys
the storm waters and a separate system the sanitary sewage, for,
inasmuch as only sanitary sewage needs purifying, therefore works of
smaller capacity are needed than would be required were the large and
unsteady volume of storm waters to be also subjected to the purifying
process.
Many experiments have been made and varying forms of sewage purifying
plants have been built during the last half century, and out of the
many failures there have been evolved a few processes of purification
which have proven fairly successful, but from an economic standpoint
as well as from a physical one much yet has to be gained.
The broad irrigation of land with raw or crude sewage has been tried
out and its limitations discovered. Although physically successful
when properly administered, this form of disposal has been found to
be expensive. Existing costly land values are usually exceedingly
against the adoption of this form of disposal. The Broad Irrigation
Plant of Berlin, Germany, with her 43,000 acres of land, is a notable
example of the continuance of this form of disposal, but while this
scheme has through its years of usefulness sometimes shown profits
and sometimes deficits, the profits have never been large enough to
pay the interest and sinking fund charges on the capital expended on
the purchase of farms.
The method of purification now in general use is what is broadly
called the biological method, wherein nature’s own mysterious forces,
viz., putrefaction and nitrification, are encouraged usually by first
impounding the sewage and then nitrifying the impounded liquid in a
filter bed, so called.
This form of sewage purification is found to require a minimum amount
of manipulation or labor as compared with some of the other forms.
The plea for sewage disposal is that it enhances life by preventing
disease. The United States Conservation Commission reported that
eighty-five per cent. of typhoid and malaria are preventable.
The sewage disposal problem is by no means an easy one, for every
case being a law unto itself is sure to present a greater or less
number of physical conditions that may not be found in any other
case. Sewages differ in their composition as people differ. Some
sewages are easily controlled and gotten rid of, while other sewages
are stubborn to almost refusing to be subdued. The sanitary engineer
in arriving at determination is obliged to previously dig deep and
acquaint himself with existing conditions before he can safely
conclude upon designs or measures or means that will bring successful
results. The sanitary engineer’s practice is therefore much like that
of a physician who considers symptoms before offering a diagnosis or
prescribing a remedy.
Contrivances that have worked successfully in England have often
proven to be failures in the United States. The character and
composition of sewage abroad differs widely from the composition of
our greatly diluted sewage here. Latitude, quantity of contained
manufacturing wastes, character of water supply and numerous other
components all combine to make the art of sewage disposal a problem.
For instance, when the water supply is what is commonly termed “hard”
undue collection of scum or mat is almost sure to form in biological
tanks, and this is only one of the innumerable vexatious enigmas
that confront the engineer or biologist. Pioneer practitioners have
frequently undertaken the solution of sewage disposal questions when
not qualified for such duty, largely in answer to the urgent request
of an impecunious public with the usual disappointing results. But
the value and possibilities of health Conservation have now been
brought to that degree of successful accomplishment where the demand
for specialists in the advancement of this modern art has become
enhanced, and the advisability of employing specialists when the
nature of the work is of such vital importance as is sewage disposal
needs no argument.
Mr. Winslow has told us that a badly constructed or badly operated
system is worse than none at all, for it creates a sense of false
security and it also breeds a sense of distrust.
The first city to go about the establishment of sewage disposal in a
thoroughly exhaustive way was Columbus, Ohio. Its example was shortly
followed by the cities of Baltimore and Philadelphia. Very elaborate
and exhaustive experiments are now being made by the city of Chicago
at an experimental plant costing $60,000, which experiments have
already covered a period of over two years, so that when a report
shall be forthcoming the character of disposal best suited to that
city will be a known factor and such steps as will be taken will be
along lines of certainty.
The whole civilized world is or should be deeply indebted to the
far-reaching experiments that have been conducted since the year
1887 at Lawrence, Mass., by the Massachusetts State Board of Health.
The annual reports of the findings have become classic both at home
and abroad. Nor would we forget to mention particularly the fifth
report of the English Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal, which,
after making exhaustive observation covering a period of four years
of the operation of twenty-seven sewage disposal plants in actual
daily operation, gave information, the value of which to the sanitary
expert and indirectly to the civilized world at large, may not be
determined.
At this stage of sanitary advancement our common people should not
be further excused for the density of their ignorance regarding the
value of preventive medicine as exemplified in clean premises and
person and the adopting of respectable sanitary conveniences.
Want of knowledge along lines of modern sanitary advancement is to a
very large extent due to the inertness of legislatures in enacting
laws to meet the modern sanitary needs. The passing and enforcing of
such laws would surely force our ignorance on this subject out of us
and place us on a higher hygienic plane, such as has been established
by the excellent enactments in a few of our States.
Standing out pre-eminently in this respect are the laws relating to
the public health in Massachusetts, with New York following as a
close second. One of the most important laws which is the foundation
of others in Massachusetts is a provision for the acquirement
of land by cities and towns for the purification of sewage. All
through the Massachusetts code are to be found an abundance of
preventive measures, as well as curative—abatement of nuisances, of
offensive trades; establishing water supply and sewage disposal.
Then follows a long list of subjects spell as lying-in hospitals,
dangerous diseases, spitting, drinking cups, protection of infants,
vaccination, quarantine, public school inspection, diseases of
domestic animals, hydrophobia, cemeteries, cremating of dead bodies,
burials, bakeries, supervision of plumbing, pollution of streams,
food and drugs, milk, registry of births, marriages and deaths—not
one of which but has its peculiar relation to the producing of
sewage, and indirectly with sewage disposal.
As a contrast with the Massachusetts code let me refer to the
sanitary laws, or want of them, in the State of Illinois. According
to a copy of the public health laws issued for the information of
local health authorities and others of this State, there occurs,
for instance, but two sections covering the establishing of sewers.
Rules and regulations are in evidence for isolating, quarantining,
disinfecting and coping with various infectious diseases after they
come into existence, but not a statutory provision is to be found
establishing sewage disposal, nor for preventing the pollution
of streams and lakes. The State Board of Health in this State is
well-nigh powerless in taking initiative steps, particularly with
regard to sewage disposal and stream pollution. It is high time State
legislatures betook themselves to looking more into the all important
art of sanitation and its far-reaching results and at once enact laws
that will meet the advanced requirements of our daily living, and
give such attention to the conservation of health and to the physical
welfare of our homes as it in some cases has given to the welfare
of the barn, the pigsty and their occupants. Had I the time I could
refer to some very astonishing facts that might cause the blush of
negligence to come to the faces of our Hoosier legislators.
Ohio has recently enacted a code of plumbing and drainage laws,
containing provisions supposed to cover scientific sewage disposal.
This code provides for and encourages contrivances that have been
most soundly condemned by leading sanitarians both in this country
and abroad for a century past.
It was Eugene Field who said:
“It seems to me I’d like to go
Where bells don’t ring or whistles blow
Nor clocks don’t strike nor gongs don’t sound,
And I’d have stillness all around,
Not real stillness, but just the trees
Low whispering of the hum of bees.”
What this tender poet wrote several years ago is increasingly being
enacted today by the exodus of the prosperous captains of industry,
of commerce and of the professions from their narrow city confines
in unneighborly city neighborhoods to well appointed habitations
in the outlying suburbs, or in his comfortable summer home up in
the mountains or alongside the beautiful waters of some inland
lake. These prosperous friends, though removing to the country, are
unwilling to yield up any of the comforts and conveniences afforded
by municipal service. Sewers usually unavailable in these more or
less remote locations causes sewage disposal to become at once one of
their most vexatious problems, so here comes a new demand for special
skill in aiding our country gentlemen in establishing a satisfactory
sanitary service that will tend to his comfort and respectability
and prevent a menace to life and health. So all along the line
the requirements for the sanitary uplift of home surroundings is
widening, and the requirements in the daily living is enhancing,
for modern sanitary methods of which sewage disposal is the most
important are found to be most effective and therefore more necessary
in the conservation of man’s most valuable asset—health. (Applause.)
President WHITE—While waiting for committee reports, we will hear
from a gentleman from San Francisco, who asks a little time. I will
introduce to you Mr. J. P. Baumgartner.
Mr. BAUMGARTNER—I just want to say to you that San Francisco will
be in the field at the proper time with an invitation to this
Congress to meet in that city in 1915—the year of the Panama-Pacific
International Exposition. The State of California has raised twenty
million dollars for this Exposition. There will be a million-dollar
convention auditorium on the Exposition grounds, and we feel there
are many reasons why it would be particularly fitting for this
Congress to meet in that city that year. I do not want to press this
matter unduly at this time, but I felt I had a duty to perform to
tell you that we want you to come to San Francisco in 1915, and that
we will extend to you a royal welcome. I thank you. (Applause.)
President WHITE—There is a committee to report at this time. The
Chairman of the Executive Committee, Mr. E. L. Worsham, will report
on some amendments to the Constitution.
Chairman WORSHAM—Mr. President and Members of the Congress: The
Executive Committee makes the following recommendations for changes
in the Constitution of the National Conservation Congress:
That the following be added as Section 3, Article III:
“After a call of the Executive Committee by the Chairman, and after
all members of the committee have been notified of the meeting in
sufficient time to be present, three members shall constitute a
quorum for the transaction of business.”
That Article IV, Section 1, be amended as follows:
“Section 1. The officers of the Congress shall consist of a
President, to be elected by the Congress; a Vice-President, to be
elected by the Congress; a Vice-President from each State, to be
chosen by the respective State delegations; one from the National
Conservation Association and one from the National Association of
Conservation Commissioners; an Executive Secretary, a Recording
Secretary, and a Treasurer, to be elected by the Congress.”
That in Article V, Section 1, the words “during each regular annual
session” be stricken out.
That Article V of the Constitution be amended to read as follows:
“Section 4. The President shall appoint a Finance Committee of five,
three from the members of the Executive Committee and two from the
Advisory Board, whose duty it shall be to plan ways and means of
increasing the revenue of the Congress, and to prepare a budget
of expenditures. The Chairman shall be a member of the Executive
Committee.
“Section 5. The Executive Committee shall appoint in consultation
with the Vice-President from the State, a State Secretary whose
duty shall be to work with the State organizations for the especial
interests of the Congress. Such Secretary shall report progress to
the Executive Committee.”
That the remaining sections of Article V be renumbered accordingly.
That Section 2 be added to Article VII, to read as follows:
“The membership in the National Conservation Congress shall be as
follows:
“Individual membership, one dollar a year, entitling the member
to a copy of the Proceedings and an invitation to the next year’s
Congress, without further appointment from any organization.
“Individual permanent, or life membership, twenty-five dollars,
entitling the member to a certificate of membership and a copy of the
Proceedings and invitations to all succeeding annual Congresses.
“Individual supporting membership, one hundred dollars, or more,
entitling the member to a certificate of membership, a copy of the
Proceedings, and an invitation to all succeeding Congresses.
“Organization membership, twenty-five dollars, entitling its
delegates to the Proceedings and an invitation to the organization to
appoint delegates to the next Congress.
“Organization supporting membership, one hundred dollars or more,
entitling the organization to appoint one delegate from each State,
each of whom shall receive a copy of the Proceedings.”
Mr. WORSHAM—We are proposing some radical changes regarding the
membership of the Congress. Heretofore, the personnel of the Congress
has varied from year to year, and we have had no way of keeping in
touch with delegates who attend. We think it is necessary to place
the Congress on a good financial basis, and also to keep in touch
with the people who attend from year to year, and we have, therefore,
recommended these changes. I move the adoption of this report.
The motion was seconded, put, and declared carried.
President WHITE—I will now call for the report of the Nominating
Committee, which will be presented by the Chairman, Prof. George E.
Condra.
Professor CONDRA—Your committee has been working very diligently,
canvassing the situation. We have looked over the field, reviewed
the work of various persons connected with Conservation, noted their
efficiency. We have looked into the future, we have thought of the
fitness of certain individuals for the work, and therefore report as
follows:
For President, a man who can take up the work where Captain White
leaves off—Mr. Charles Lathrop Pack, of Cleveland, Ohio. (Great
applause.)
For Executive Secretary, one who has been with the work since its
beginning, and has accomplished so much—Mr. Thomas R. Shipp, of
Indianapolis. (Applause.)
For Recording Secretary, one who has also been valuable in the work,
and has been associated with Mr. Pack and with Captain White—Mr.
James C. Gipe, of Indianapolis. (Applause.)
For Treasurer, the man whom the Executive Committee at an earlier
Congress gave an earnest invitation to take up this work, that it
might be taken care of in a manner befitting this Congress—Mr. D.
Austin Latchaw, of Kansas City. (Applause.)
The one who has been nominated for second place, Vice-President,
we named because of fitness to serve all phases of the work of
Conservation, but especially the conservation of life and the home.
Not chosen because she is such a womanly woman; not especially
because she has done splendid work for us here, but chosen because
she is a great leader and we want her for the work. A person known to
most of you—Mrs. Philip N. Moore, of St. Louis. (Applause.)
I do not name the Vice-Presidents of the States, for reasons given
in the report of the Executive Committee. I take great pleasure in
moving the adoption of this report.
The motion was seconded by Mr. A. B. Farquhar, put, and declared
carried.
President WHITE—I now wish to present to you your next President, Mr.
Charles Lathrop Pack. (Applause.)
It is with great pleasure that I present to you the President of the
next Congress. He is one who is thoroughly in love with Conservation.
He is one of those who first studied Conservation. He spent years in
its study, and he is, I know, the first American who ever received
a fee for scientific forestry advice. He was paid one thousand
dollars by the President of the Missouri Pacific Road for his
expert opinion. When Mr. Pack returned from Germany, where he had
been studying forestry for some time, he was sent for by Jay Gould,
who asked him for his expert opinion on some forestry matters. Next
morning Mr. Pack found in his box at the hotel a check for $1,000.
This was the earliest record of such a fee being paid in the United
States. So, if he was appreciated to this extent by a great railroad
president then, we surely can trust him now. We are proud to have him
as our President, and we feel he will be a great help to Conservation
in the ensuing year. Mr. Charles Lathrop Pack, your new President,
will now take the chair. (Applause.)
President PACK—Ladies and Gentlemen: You have a great work before
you, not only for the ensuing year, but for all years. The
Conservation movement is not one for today, but for all time, and
it matters very little the name or the names of the workers in the
cause. It matters that you, and every one of you, should have your
hearts right and do the right work. Conservation makes for the best
use of all resources, and is dead against their abuse. It is your
duty and my duty not only to come to these Congresses and confer and
talk, but when you go home to be a true advocate of the cause and to
be against everything that is opposed to it. (Applause.) Conservation
is for men and women, and for one I thank God we have the women with
us. (Applause.)
I do not intend to make a speech; I am not a speech-maker. You have
plenty of orators. But with your help during the next year, I will
try to do my part, and I ask every one of you to go to your homes and
come back to the next Conservation Congress with three delegates in
place of one. I thank you. (Applause.)
Before we go any farther, I ask you to rise and join me in giving
three cheers for that great Conservationist, Captain White.
Three rousing cheers were given, led by Mr. Pack.
Mr. WHITE—Ladies and Gentlemen, Delegates to the Congress, Mr.
President: This is glory enough for me. I feel paid for the work I
have done in the past year in having the appreciation of such a good
class of people. (Applause.)
President PACK—The next speaker on the program is Mr. George M.
Lehman, representing the Mayor of Pittsburgh, who will speak to us on
“The Investigations of the Flood Commission of Pittsburgh.”
Mr. LEHMAN—Mr. Chairman and Delegates of the Fourth National
Conservation Congress: It has been the custom in this country to
build dams and locks on lower reaches of rivers, for navigation; to
build regulating works for forming and maintaining channel depth,
etc., and to dredge deposits caused by erosion.
Our country has received large benefit from this process,
particularly in certain sections. It would have thrived, however, to
a far greater extent and much suffering, involving general living and
business conditions, would have been avoided and a better foundation
provided for future generations, if, in addition to the above-named
developments, attention had been promptly and thoroughly given to
the control and conservation of flood water. We have been woefully
thoughtless and backward in bringing about a comprehensive treatment
of this matter which is of such great national importance.
HISTORICAL AND GENERAL OUTLINE OF WORK.
Pittsburgh having been seriously troubled by destructive floods
for over a century, attention was finally directed toward means
of alleviation and in 1908 the Chamber of Commerce organized
a commission consisting of business men, engineers and other
professional men, to ascertain the character and extent of flood
damage and make investigations of methods for relief. Later, an
enlargement of the commission was made by the addition of city and
county officials and representatives of manufacturing and various
business concerns affected by floods. The expense of carrying on
the work has been borne by public-spirited citizens, including
the interests affected by the floods, and by county and city
contributions. To this date about $137,000 has been expended.
The work has involved detailed surveys and soundings, within the city
limits, of the Ohio, Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, and a survey
of the areas of overflow. The topography was fully developed, and
streets, lines of transportation, buildings, etc., located. Extensive
topographic surveys were made along the principal tributaries of the
Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers for the purpose of determining the
possibility of constructing storage reservoirs.
In connection with complete contour maps, diagrams, profiles, etc.,
made from the above work, studies have been made of the cost and
effectiveness of a flood wall, in connection with dredging, in
deepening, widening and straightening of the river channel at the
city, and the cost and effectiveness of regulating the stream flow
by storage reservoirs, located throughout the drainage basins.
In addition to the collection of a vast amount of general data,
including precipitation, taken from the records of the United States
Weather Bureau, the work involved many special studies, among which
were forest conditions, geology and stream-flow. For the stream-flow
studies, gauging stations were established by the Flood Commission
and also a number in co-operation with the Water Supply Commission of
Pennsylvania. In the forest studies, the co-operation of the United
States Forest Service and of the Forestry Department of Pennsylvania
were secured. Valuable stream-flow data have been provided by the
United States Geological Survey.
At the beginning of the investigations the matter was treated as
of local concern only, but as the work progressed the broad aspect
of the problem and its national scope were realized, as it became
evident that Pittsburgh’s floods had a direct bearing upon the flood
troubles of other communities. Further study disclosed the fact that
inseparable from the flood problem was the question of navigation,
sanitation, water supply and water power, and that the valleys of the
Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio Rivers could be benefited wherever
conditions are favorable for the construction of storage reservoirs.
On many of the principal tributaries of the Ohio below Pittsburgh,
the topography is favorable for storage reservoirs upon a large
scale, and floods could be prevented throughout the Ohio valley by
extending the plans of the Flood Commission.
An exhaustive report, consisting mostly of original data, has been
published by the Commission, as the result of nearly four years
of painstaking work. It is said that this report forms the most
comprehensive treatment of a subject of this kind that has ever been
carried out. The report contains over 900 pages, including numerous
maps and diagrams, and a large number of illustrations, showing flood
damage, reservoir sites, forest conditions, etc.
FLOOD DAMAGE.
Pittsburgh, which has a population of 533,905, and about twice as
much with the contemplated greater city, is located at the head of
the Ohio River and at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela
Rivers. The combined drainage area, above the city, amounts to 18,920
square miles. Of the two rivers, 150 miles, directly connecting with
the city, have been slackwatered. About 14,000 miles of navigable
waterway lies below the city. The National Government, in a few
years’ time, will have the entire 967 miles of the Ohio River
improved.
The tonnage of Pittsburgh, incoming and outgoing, amounted in 1910
to 167,000,000 tons, of which 11,000,000 tons consisted of river
traffic. The above total tonnage, which has doubled in the last six
years, is twice as great as the combined tonnage of New York, London,
Hamburg and Marseilles.
As is frequently the case in communities situated upon the inland
rivers of this country, the most important commercial and industrial
parts of Pittsburgh are located upon the low lying areas bordering
the water. The need of free access to water and of rail and water
transportation naturally brings about such development. In fact, on
account of the topography, rail communication can in many cases be
satisfactorily established only along the stream. Such a condition,
however, frequently causes great suffering and interruption to
business, involving not only the districts in direct touch with the
river, but the whole community.
During the progress of the investigations, it became evident that
unless some adequate method of flood relief could be devised and
carried out, the larger portion of the flood affected areas could
never be properly developed, and the capital invested therein would
continue to suffer. The general needs of building operations and of
city improvements will of necessity keep pace with the advance of
population; and the flood damages, which in their effect involve the
home conditions and business life of the entire city and surrounding
communities, will become correspondingly greater.
In ascertaining the extent of flood damage to the city, a careful
investigation was made of three floods which occurred within a period
of about twelve months, from March 15, 1907, to March 20, 1908. In
the conduct of this work it was noted that while those coming in
direct contact with the floods are alert to the seriousness of the
situation during the flood, the matter is, however, after a time
almost forgotten; the disposition in most cases apparently being to
take the troubles as they come rather than to do anything in the way
of even attempting to devise means of relief.
The classification under which this work was done, and the monetary
amount of direct losses within the city by the three floods may be
given as follows:
Damage to buildings, equipment and machinery $782,400
Damage to materials 1,698,900
Loss to employer by suspension of business 1,974,200
Loss to employee due to shut-down 1,308,300
Expense of cleaning up 547,400
Charities dispensed and funds for prevention of disease 27,800
Fires uncontrolled through inaccessibility or lack of
water pressure 175,000
——————————
Total $6,514,000
It was found that the loss ranges as follows: For the flood of 27.3
feet, $414,700; 30.7 feet, $839,800; 35.5 feet, $5,259,500.
The area comprising the larger part of the mercantile, industrial
and railroad interests amounts to about 3,000 acres, 1,540 of which
was covered by water during the great flood of 1907, which had a
height of 35.5 feet, or 13.5 feet above the danger line. This flood
remained sixty-five hours above the danger line of 22 feet. About
fifteen miles of river front land are occupied with industrial works
of various kinds. The assessed value of real estate as affected by
the 1907 flood amounts to about $160,000,000, and a careful estimate
shows that this property is nearly $50,000,000 lower in value than
it would be if protected from floods. Using the results obtained for
the above floods and the flood records for the past twenty years it
is estimated that the direct loss to the city has amounted in that
period to about $17,000,000, over $12,000,000 of which occurred in
the ten years preceding January, 1911.
Based on the assumption that in the next two ten-year periods
there will be no increase in number or height of floods over those
occurring in the ten years just preceding January, 1911, it is
estimated, if protective measures are not provided, that the flood
losses at Pittsburgh in the next twenty years will amount to about
$25,000,000. As records show, however, that floods are increasing
in frequency and height, it is estimated that the losses in the
next twenty years will amount to about $40,000,000, or nearly twice
as much as it will cost to carry out the flood prevention measures
recommended by the Commission.
The Commission did not have resources for securing the amount of
damage at the many important points along the rivers, above and
below Pittsburgh, but at Wheeling, W. Va., it was ascertained, for
instance, that about $1,000,000 was lost during the flood of 1907.
Authorities consider that the total loss along the Ohio Valley for
the two floods of 1907 amounted to more than $100,000,000. This is
indicative of the vast losses occurring annually all over the country.
In addition to many miles of street car tracks, streets and alleys,
about 435 acres of railroad and industrial yards were covered, in
addition to 17 miles of main railroad, by the big flood of 1907.
At high stages many manufacturing plants must close down. The
following is quoted from a report of the American Iron and Steel
Association: “Damage to the iron and steel industry unprecedented. At
beginning of March, 1907, flood there were forty-four blast furnaces
in Allegheny County in blast, and of these thirty-eight had to be
banked for an average of two days. Work at most of the sixty-five or
seventy rolling mills and steel works was suspended.” Many of the
open-hearth furnaces were badly damaged and some of them practically
ruined.
FLOOD PROTECTION.
Regarding methods of local treatment, studies and estimates of
cost were made of the following: A wall of about twenty-five miles
in length to be built in the city along the river fronts; also
for deepening, widening and straightening of the river channel by
dredging.
The wall, high in places above the river streets, would prevent
overflow by confining the floods to the channel. Dredging and
removal of obstacles in the channel, bank encroachments, etc., as
can now be accomplished, would have comparatively slight effect in
reducing flood heights and these means were, therefore, not broadly
recommended. Furthermore, these forms of treatment would be of local
flood benefit only and communities above and below Pittsburgh would
continue to suffer in various ways.
A wall of limited height, however, is really desirable, at least
along certain parts of the river. While reservoir control would
result in reclaiming considerable areas of land, a wall would provide
means for adding to the amount and greatly improve the appearance
and usefulness of the banks. The handling of cargoes, to and from
river boats would be greatly facilitated by means of modern devices.
Sheds could be constructed along the wall and close to the boats
which would lie alongside. Such arrangement would make feasible the
bringing directly of river and rail transportation with the great
advantage of through rates and routes, a condition which is now
lacking at practically all points on American rivers.
FLOOD PREVENTION.
In the treatment of the flood problem, prevention, by the use of
storage reservoirs, for the purpose of holding back the damaging
part of the flood water, is the rational and comprehensive method,
as it goes to the source of the trouble, and extends its benefits
throughout the entire river valleys, not only in the form of flood
relief, but by improvement of the low-water flow, due to the release
of the impounded flood waters during the dry season.
Forest cover is beneficial to some extent in retarding the run-off
and in improvement of low-water flow, and the attitude of the Flood
Commission is to support such National and State legislation as
will tend to preserve and increase the present forest cover. The
Commission, however, recommends the use of the storage reservoir
system, supplemented by other means where necessary, for the reason
that such a system could be speedily brought about. The use of
storage reservoirs for flood control is not a new idea in this
country and this method is now successfully employed in European
countries.
The exhaustive surveys and studies for flood prevention disclosed
the fact that forty-three reservoir sites are available in the
Allegheny and Monongahela drainage basins above Pittsburgh, and
that while not needed for present purposes additional sites are
feasible. The forty-three projects would have a total capacity of
80,500,000,000 cubic feet, would cost $34,000,000, and would control
about sixty-two per cent. of the total drainage area above the
city. After a careful analysis it was found that a less number of
reservoirs was practically as effective, under proper manipulation,
and a selection was made of the most favorable ones, seventeen in
number. These would have a total capacity of 59,500,000,000 cubic
feet, would cost $21,700,000, or about $364 per million cubic feet of
storage capacity, and would control fifty-four per cent. of the total
drainage area.
As a basis, eleven of the principal floods, occurring within recent
years, were exhaustively studied and it was found that the seventeen
selected reservoir projects would reduce all of them, with one
exception, to below danger line. Investigation showed that a low wall
built at comparatively small cost along a few parts of the low-lying
river fronts could be used in combination with the seventeen
reservoirs to prevent overflow by the highest known floods. This
combination was therefore recommended, the total cost being estimated
at $22,350,000.
Some of the benefits to be derived by preventative methods and stream
regulation and development, may be summarized as follows:
1. Reducing or doing away with floods and flood damages and their
constant menace, thereby encouraging and making possible for present
and future generations full development of affected areas.
2. (a) Improving of navigation, by permanently increased stream-flow
in slackwatered rivers, where dry weather flow is frequently
inadequate to furnish desired draft, thus providing uninterrupted
transportation not only for present business but for future demands.
(If the reservoirs were brought up to maximum capacity, that is,
above flood control requirements, the low-water flow of the Ohio, at
Wheeling, ninety miles below Pittsburgh, would be nearly six times
the present minimum, giving an increase in stage of 3.7 feet. One of
the largest floods would have been reduced over thirteen feet.)
(b) Making possible slack water on certain rivers, worthy of
attention, but now unimproved largely on account of absolute lack of
sufficient water.
(c) Reducing velocity of current, due to lowering of high stages,
thereby making safer the maneuvering of river craft; reducing
wide fluctuations in water levels, particularly at river ports,
facilitating thereby the handling of cargoes and increasing
clearance under bridges. (Under a certain bridge at Pittsburgh,
investigations show that during the past fifty-three years there
has been an average of fifty-seven days when the ordinary steamboat
could not pass. Had the proposed system of reservoirs been in
operation the water would have been lowered so that there would have
been an average of only three days.)
(d) By having the great fluctuations reduced, the erosion of the
banks along the bottom lands and at other places would naturally be
considerably lessened.
3. Improving sanitary conditions and increasing the quality and
quantity of the supply for municipal and industrial purposes. High
stages leave deposits on banks, becoming a nuisance to health; and
low stages are frequently unable to properly carry away polluted
water stagnating in slack water or natural pools.
4. Developing water power, which is feasible under favorable
conditions in connection with reservoir systems for flood prevention.
I would call attention to the fact that this brief review upon stream
regulation goes far enough to show that so far as damage from floods
is concerned alone, the matter is not only of local but of great
National concern, affecting as it does railroads and manufacturing
interests which supply the Nation. What is true of Pittsburgh is
also true of many other river localities, and it is therefore urged
that the question be looked at in a progressive manner and that
suitable State and National legislation be enacted at the earliest
possible moment to provide not only for full navigation requirements,
but in addition for flood damage and the combination of needs as
outlined in the report of the Flood Commission. It is hoped that this
Congress will lend its powerful co-operation in bringing about the
accomplishment of this great movement which is so necessary to the
public welfare. (Applause.)
President PACK—I am sure we are all indebted for this paper, and
to Mr. Lehman for coming from Pittsburgh to present this valuable
subject.
If there is nothing more before the Congress at this time we will
adjourn until 2:00 o’clock.
_ELEVENTH SESSION._
The Congress was called to order by Mr. J. B. White, in the Murat
Theater, Indianapolis, at 2:30 o’clock p. m.
Chairman WHITE—It is long past the time for our meeting, but we have
not had the last word from Governor Hadley. He wired me night before
last of an accident, and that his physician said it would not do for
him to come yesterday. Last night we had another telegram, saying he
was afraid he could not come, and that we had better not depend on
him. I also received a letter. Then I wired him again, but have no
reply, so it is barely possible that he will be here in time to speak
to us this afternoon. The committee has gone down to meet the 2:50
train. In his letter, he says:
“I want to thank you again for your kindness in giving me such a
prominent place upon your program, and were it not for the fact that
I know your meeting will be a complete success with Governor Wilson
alone, it would be an added regret—my inability to be present.”
I know many of you came expecting to hear Governor Hadley, and he
certainly will give us a splendid address if he comes. He appointed
a commission in the State of Missouri, of which I have the honor of
being a member, and we have had meetings at the Governor’s mansion,
and we are trying to induce the Legislature of Missouri to pass
a good law in favor of Conservation of all natural resources. I
cannot report as to our progress as I would like, so I will not say
anything about what we have done. We know what we are trying to do.
The newly elected President is not here, and he insists that I take
his place until he comes. We will now listen to “The Story of the
Soil,” from one who has given it great thought and attention. He has
brought about good results that will be of benefit to the farmer and
to every one who lives in the country, and therefore of benefit to
all the citizens of our common country. I have pleasure in presenting
Mr. H. H. Gross, President of the National Soil Fertility League, who
will speak on “The Story of the Soil.” (Applause.)
Mr. GROSS—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am here representing
what we think is one of the most distinguished organizations of this
country—one devoted to a specific and definite purpose, and that is
to secure the application upon our farms of the best methods of farm
practices.
In our self-sufficiency we are sometimes disposed to pooh-pooh
science. I have heard farmers say, “What do I care about science? I
know how to farm. I am a practical farmer.” When I hear a man talk
about being a practical farmer, or a practical shoemaker or anything
else, I begin to question his knowledge of the art. Reduced to its
last analysis, science is simply applied common sense. In other
words, to find out the best way of doing anything and then doing it
that way.
Scientific farming will increase the output per man, per plow, per
mule, per acre, and at the same time it will build up the fertility
of the soil. Unscientific methods will wear it out. Millions upon
millions of acres of land have been wasted by practical farmers in
unscientific farming, by abuse and misuse until the land fails to
yield enough to pay the labor of cultivating them. There are millions
of acres east of Albany that are not worth today one-fourth as much
as they were one hundred years ago.
The soil is our greatest natural asset. It is God’s best gift to man
outside of Him who came to save us. It is our duty to conserve this
gift as a priceless heritage. In a higher sense the man in whose name
the title stands is not the real owner of the land; it is his to use
during his lifetime and to pass it on to his successor. It is his
paramount duty to turn it over to those that follow him as useful as
when he received it. The land is not his except to use, it is not his
to abuse. The fertile fields were placed here by God Almighty for the
use of humanity for all time and no one has the right to rob the soil
of its power to produce and thereby imperil or destroy the birthright
of succeeding generations.
Let us look at Europe. They produce two or three times as much as
we do upon the same area, notwithstanding their lands have been a
thousand years longer under the plow than our own. There must be a
reason, and it is that Europe, because of its large population, has
been compelled to adopt intensive farming or go hungry. With us it
has been different up to the present time. A few years ago, some of
we older men can remember the time, when the United States invited
everybody to come in and possess the land. An old song says, “Uncle
Sam is rich enough to give us all a farm.” Since then our population
has increased faster than the farming industry. We are now consuming
ninety per cent. of our wheat and ninety-eight per cent. of our corn.
The population is rapidly overtaking production. In fifty years our
population will be doubled. What shall we do about it? I say to
you this, we must do better farming or the people will go hungry.
A thousand years or so ago Japan and India were at the parting of
the ways—about where we stand today. Japan chose the better part
and conserved the fertility of her soil and by intensive scientific
culture she has fed her people and has demonstrated that a very
small patch of ground indeed is sufficient to support an individual.
This has been shown in this country—that one or two acres, properly
handled, will take care of a small family. Japan acted wisely and
is rich and prosperous today. India neglected her duties and her
opportunity and today there are millions starving there on account of
the lack of foresight of those people who lived thousands of years
ago. Shall we follow Japan or India? There can be but one answer. The
intelligence of the American people, the spirit of the age demands
that we go forward to attain the highest and best and it is our duty
to help to this end.
Denmark, a generation or two ago, was in poverty and distress,
its people were crowding into the cities. The government saw
something must be done to improve conditions. It wisely decided that
agriculture must be encouraged, so it commenced to teach agriculture
in the schools. It had its agricultural colleges strengthened, it
sent men out among the people as traveling schoolmasters, visiting
one community after another. Agriculture was taught in the schools.
This helped some, but did not solve the problem. Finally they
adopted the plan which we propose to follow, of sending a trained
farm demonstrator into every community and stay there, study local
conditions, meet the farmers right on the soil, and help them to
understand and apply the best methods and get the best results for
the time and effort expended. In two generations it brought Denmark
from poverty to thrift, and today it is the finest agricultural
country in the world. This comes about from carrying the knowledge to
the farm home in the personality of the farm demonstrator who helps
the farmer apply the best methods in practice.
Wherever the plan has been tried it has succeeded. It is the one plan
that has made good, and in my judgment it is the only one that ever
will. Now, then, what are we going to do about it? The most important
question that has been discussed on this platform during this
Congress is the one under discussion now. It is vital, it touches
every human interest. The question is, shall we build up our soil and
insure the food supply for coming generations, or shall we not? It is
a tremendously important question and one pressing for answer.
I am glad to say this to you, that the National Soil Fertility League
determined upon a plan, and so far we have had greater success in
carrying it forward than we had any reason to expect. Its plan has
the approval of nearly every agricultural authority in the land.
It awakened a tremendous amount of interest. It shows many people
were thinking in a general way that something ought to be done and
were ready to rally to the support of any definite proposition that
commended itself to their judgment. The National Soil Fertility
League, together with the agricultural college men, drafted what is
known as the Lever bill, the object of which is to provide for the
co-operation of the Federal Government and the several States in
carrying forward this farm demonstration plan. Under this bill the
Federal Government makes an annual appropriation to every State of
$10,000 a year, irrespective of condition; then it makes further
appropriations conditioned upon the States furnishing an equal sum
beginning with $300,000 and increasing to $3,000,000 in ten years.
Except for the $10,000 all the appropriations are prorated among the
States on the basis of rural population. Indiana under this plan
would get $10,000 right off the reel from the fixed appropriation;
it would get $9,400 from the conditional appropriation provided
Indiana should furnish an equal sum. So Indiana would get from the
Federal Government the first year a total of $19,400. This would go
to Purdue University. Next year it would be increased to $28,800 and
would go on up to $104,000 from the general government to the State
College of Agriculture. In order to get this money Indiana would have
to raise $94,000, so that the State would have when the maximum was
reached approximately $200,000 to expend for carrying to the farmers
of Indiana the existing methods of agriculture and carrying to the
farmer’s wife the best they can give her. What a wonderful help this
would be.
There are three great needs in the open country. One is better
schools. The country schools of today are not worthy of their name.
They fail to meet the requirements of the day and generation. The
next important need is good roads, and the third is scientific
agriculture. Bringing these improvements about will revolutionize
conditions. It will raise agriculture to the first place and the
highest place in the estimation of the people. It will be the
strongest possible magnet to hold the girl and the boy to the farm
home. It will make agriculture more pleasant, more profitable and in
every way a more desirable vocation.
When I was a boy and went away to school, I entered a class of boys
and we were lined up before the principal and each was asked his
name and his father’s business; one would answer his father was a
banker, another a merchant, another a doctor, a manufacturer, and so
on. When it came to me, I said a farmer. The boys all laughed and I
was obliged to take it. I licked two or three of them afterward to
get my standing on the campus.
We used to think that anybody could run a farm. A story is told of a
man who had three sons. One was very smart, one was exceedingly good
and one was simple-minded. The father said: “Tom is smart as chain
lightning; I am going to make a lawyer of Tom. William is about the
best boy I ever knew; you can’t get him to go wrong; I am going to
make a preacher of him. But Jack don’t seem to know much of anything,
and I will make a farmer of Jack.” (Laughter.)
Let me say to you with all possible emphasis that it takes as much
ability to run a farm well as it does to run a bank or a factory, and
much more than it does to run for office. (Laughter.)
When the Lever bill was introduced in Congress, it passed the
committee and was placed on the calendar and was buried there. The
question was to get that bill on the floor for a vote. Upon inquiry I
found there was only one way to do it in order to get quick action,
and that was to get a petition signed by a majority of the members,
asking that the bill be taken from its position on the calendar and
placed at the head of the list as unfinished business. Mr. Lever
secured the required signatures and the bill was thus advanced to the
position of unfinished business. The leaders of both parties rallied
to its support and the bill finally passed the House by unanimous
vote. It is now before the Senate and we want your help to get it
enacted into law before the holiday season arrives.
The mind can hardly grasp the benefits that will flow from this
legislation. Let me tell you a little of what scientific farming
means. Dr. Hopkins, of the University of Illinois, and one of the
world’s authorities, just told me that they raised on an average
ninety bushels of corn to the acre, covering a period of six years,
and twenty-three bushels of wheat, average for six years. The Ohio
experiment station on wheat for twenty years showed an average of
about thirty-five bushels, while the average for the whole country
was less than fifteen bushels. Denmark raises forty bushels average,
many fields returning sixty and seventy-five bushels to the acre. We
must do better farming.
During the ten years from 1900 to 1910 our population increased
twenty-one per cent., our meat supplying animals decreased more than
twenty-five per cent. We have an unparalleled high cost of living,
due to the fact that population is pressing hard upon production. In
short, we have too few producers and too many consumers. Increased
production is not the only thing necessary. It is quite as important
that the farm production shall reach the ultimate consumer from
the farm at less than the present cost. Our marketing system is
cumbersome, unwieldy, wasteful and burdensome. (Applause.) The woman
who orders her supplies over the telephone pays more money and gets
less than the one who goes to market. I had the honor of speaking
before the National Federation of Women’s Clubs at San Francisco
on the first day of July. It was the greatest and most intelligent
audience I ever faced. They were very enthusiastic and were quick
to grasp the points as they were made. This great organization
affiliated itself with the National Soil Fertility League, and when
they did so we felt it brought to us the greatest assistance that
could possibly come. I know of no organization of wider influence
than the Women’s Clubs of America. I have heard it said, if you want
to get anything done to get a woman after it. (Applause.)
We must re-direct our agriculture; we must raise our meat upon the
farms. The ranges are gone. The silo, alfalfa and scientific methods
make it possible for the farmer to carry at least twice as much stock
upon his farm as he thinks he can carry. In the silo the feed is kept
practically green and juicy. You get forty per cent. more out of your
corn by putting it through the silo than by handling it in the old
way. There is no reason why the cost of producing meat may not be
reduced practically one-half. The farmer has given and is giving too
much thought to how much he can get for what he raises. It is equally
important that he raise more. If he wants 2,400 bushels of corn, it
is better to raise it on forty acres with a yield of sixty bushels
than to raise it on sixty acres with a yield of forty bushels.
Our plan is to bring home to the farmer the best method that has been
determined by the agricultural college and experiment station. We
want to get the best results from year to year and at the same time
build up the soil. This can be done and this is scientific farming.
This is what the whole world needs. The colleges of agriculture and
experiment stations have gathered a vast fund of knowledge, and if
this were put into practical operation it would double the yield of
our farms within a few years and give us a large surplus for export
and bring money into the country. We would get richer and richer
as the years go by. We would largely supply the world with food.
Our position in the councils of nations would be paramount. When
it comes to the question of peace or war, the country that has the
money and the bread basket is ten times more potent than the nation
that only has back of it battleships and armies. (Applause.) So I
wish to emphasize that the success of this country rests primarily
upon the scientific farming of our fields. Let us remember that no
country ever became great and remained so that could not furnish its
people with an ample food supply at a moderate cost. To that end we
are securing legislation that will put the plan in operation. The
Lever measure is a simple one, it creates no new administrative
machinery; it simply carries to the farmer and puts to work the
information and knowledge that the States and Federal Government have
been gathering for fifty years. This whole matter may be likened to a
great irrigating system. The United States Department of Agriculture
is a dam, it has been gathering and has stored up the knowledge—the
water. The colleges of agriculture are the main channels for reaching
the various parts of the country; but so long as the water is back
of the dam it is doing no good; so long as it remains in the main
channels it is accomplishing nothing. What is needed is to get the
water to the grass roots, or, in other words, our purpose is to get
the information to the actual farmer—the man behind the plow.
Fifty years ago Horace Greeley said, “Go West, young man, and grow
up with the country.” If he were here today he would say go South
and East, for that is the land of opportunity. In my judgment this
Congress ought to meet next year somewhere in the South. That part of
the land is entitled to recognition, and you will get a welcome such
as you never had before.
In conclusion, I wish to urge that you give us every possible
support. We need it. It will help you and it will help us. Let us all
work together for reviving agriculture. (Applause.)
(A woman in the audience): “Is it true that Congress is investigating
this silo business and under the pure food law is it to be condemned?
Also, what must we do in Indiana to cultivate alfalfa?”
Mr. GROSS—I have not heard anything about the Federal Government
condemning silo, and I do not expect to. Inoculate your soil for
alfalfa. You had better take this matter up with your people at
Purdue. Ask them what to do. They will send you all the information
necessary. They will examine into conditions and tell you just what
to do. The most valuable crop today, outside of wheat and corn, is
alfalfa. (Applause.)
Chairman WHITE—I have been handed a communication, and I wish to say
for the benefit of the gentleman who sent it to the chair that it
will be referred to the Executive Committee, which takes up matters
of this kind. This is the communication:
“You are requested to make a motion that this organization take steps
toward publishing a monthly, or quarterly, magazine, to be known
as the National Conservation Magazine. If the society is unable to
finance it, there is little doubt that the Carnegie Institute or the
Sage Foundation would back it.”
Chairman WHITE—I will now introduce a gentleman who will tell you
“The Story of the Air,” Prof. Willis L. Moore, of Washington, Chief
of the United States Weather Bureau. (Applause.)
Mr. MOORE—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I have been trying to
reason out why the management put me at the end of the program, and
I have concluded that they had an idea that along about this time in
the proceedings they would need to have some one take the platform
that had supervision over atmospheric air of abnormal temperature.
Now, why should one wish to conserve the atmosphere? I shall try to
show you that that is one of the assets of this continent, and, I am
afraid, almost the only one, that cannot be monopolized. (Applause.)
And you will be surprised, and probably doubt my statement when I
say that, with all due respect to the matter of conservation of
our wonderful mineral deposits, the controlling of the flow of
our streams, the preservation of our great forests—all of them
important—we have in the atmosphere one of our greatest assets, if
not the greatest asset of our continent. Humboldt has said that “Man
is a product of soil and climate. He is brother to the trees, the
rock and the animals.” All true, but still I would slightly modify
that and say that man is largely a product of climate. For it is the
action of rainfall, flood and temperature changes that makes soil.
I shall try to show you that it is climatic conditions that produce
this wonderful, this powerful, this resourceful composite man called
the American.
I am to speak on “The Story of the Air,” but before I elucidate any
further, let me give you a little picture of this wonderful ocean, on
the bottom of which you live.
In the turbulent stratum in which we live we have vortices in the
atmosphere which cause weather. Weather is the result of the motions
of air; it is the result of the dynamic heating and cooling of
ascending and descending currents of air. If it were not for these
vortices cooling the air and heating it, you would have precisely the
same temperature on any day of one year as you would have on the same
day in another year. You would not have one first day of June warmer
than the first day of July, or the first day of December colder than
the first day of January.
To demonstrate my first proposition that we have a great asset in
the climate of the United States, I call your attention to some of
the conditions in Europe. Their great mountain ranges trend east and
west; ours trend north and south. Cyclonic storms originate largely
from conflict of equatorial and polar currents coming together.
The currents of air come together in the lower stratum. In Europe
the great mountain ranges prevent that conflict; but not so here,
with our mountain ranges running north and south. Here is the great
meteorological theater of the world, the region of conflict. What is
the result? A people powerful physically and resourceful mentally.
An actual air is pure and invigorating.
Now, I just have a thought that may not be germane, but it is upon
my mind. I remember some years ago I wrote a report that dealt with
the relations of forests and floods. Although from the inception of
this movement I have been heart and soul with the people back of it,
still because I do not agree with some of my friends on forestry, on
the effect of forests on the flow of streams, I was classified as an
enemy of the cause. I wish to say that it is a mistake to bring a
fallacious reasoning to any good doctrine. I believe it is a positive
injury to attempt to sustain truth by falsehood. I do not mean that
anybody is wilfully untruthful—no, simply mistaken. There are so many
reasons why we should conserve and protect, why we should use wisely
our great forest areas, that there is no need to bring to the support
of that great project anything like a reason that can be successfully
attacked and refuted. I am satisfied, and as time goes on and other
investigators come along and go over my data, I am thoroughly well
convinced that the forests do not exert a great controlling influence
over floods. I am satisfied that the percentage of floods has not
increased for the past forty years. When we remove one vegetable
covering like the forests, if we go on and plant wheat, or corn, or
grass, we simply exchange one form of vegetable covering for another.
If we cut the forests away and leave them, they will at once begin
the process of reforestation, and within a few weeks the ground is
shaded. If you grub out the roots and stumps and plow, you change one
form of vegetable covering for another, and the history of the United
States, as well as of the world, does not bear out the statement
that the floods have increased with the disappearing of the forests;
nor has it been shown that any part of the world has been materially
changed in its climatic conditions as a result of civilization or the
coming of man. But that is no reason why the forests should not be
protected and a wise use made of them.
Let us get down to facts. Just so long as the Gulf of Mexico lies
down there on the south, and the great Atlantic remains on the east,
just so long rainfall in the United States will be as voluminous on
the great cereal plains as it was when the first white man set foot
on the continent, and in its movement back to the sea the permeable,
cultivated soil of the unforested acres will doubtless as well
conserve and restrict its flow as the forests. We have over-estimated
the effect of the little scratchings upon the earth’s surface by
the activities of man. The coming civilization of the great West
is immaterial in causing an increase in rainfall. When you stop to
consider the enormous volume of the atmosphere above the surface,
whose vaporous contents must be materially changed and the thermal
conditions altered before you can detract from the rainfall, you
will realize how absurd are some popular theories. I do not agree.
I radically differ from some of my contemporaries in the Department
of Agriculture—but people may differ and still be friends. They may
differ in regard to the details of a great movement and still not be
inimical to its best interests. The man who differs and brings forth
the truth is the best friend of the movement, because nothing can
stand long that is not predicated on truth.
I am glad to see that in this movement your managers have brought
together so many independent lines of human activity. This great
movement is only at its inception. I predict that this Conservation
Congress will be one of the most potent factors in the Nation for the
developing and awakening of the people. You are willing now to have a
free forum, to have free discussion by those of differing opinions.
And at this time, Mr. President, when there is such great conflict
among the forces that make for civilization, we must not only protect
ourselves morally and mentally, we must with equal earnestness
attempt to conserve and protect the human individual. He is the
greatest asset we can have, after all. (Applause.)
A fair wage scale and reasonable hours of labor have done as much
to elevate the American citizen and furnish the ties that bind him
to home and State as have all the libraries and universities in the
land, and I say this without any disparagement of these magnificent
institutions for public good. But if you stop to think for a moment,
the library can only be used by those who have a reasonable leisure
to enjoy it; colleges have closed doors for those who do not receive
something more than a living wage. The welfare of this Nation depends
not on the accumulation of great wealth in the future; not upon the
palaces on Fifth avenue or the villas at Newport. It depends upon
the cultivation—upon the high average intelligence and prosperity
of those who actually do the Nation’s work, whether they labor with
brains or with brawn. (Applause.) And right here let me say to you
people who are considering these great problems, that we want brawn
developed by working hours that shall not warp and distort the image
of God; and we want technical and scientific teaching that shall
be as free to the sons and daughters of those who work as to these
who have their way paid to college. (Applause.) We must lift from
the bottom in any great movement; no movement gets very far that is
worked from the top down.
So I am glad to see this movement bringing into its counsels those
who are affiliated with the great labor movements of organized labor.
My sympathies go out to the man who works with his hands, as well as
to the man who works with his brain. I thank you. (Applause.)
Chairman WHITE—Professor Moore stated he did not know why he was put
down at the last end of the program. Perhaps it is not necessary to
remind him that there is an old saying that the best of the wine
is reserved for the last of the feast. (Applause.) But where all is
good, and where all is best, as has been the case with the program of
this Fourth National Conservation Congress, there can be no choice.
And again I am going to remind this audience that this Congress is
going to prepare a book containing every bit of the proceedings
of this meeting, and it will be one of the best publications of
proceedings that has been presented by any congress in the land, and
I want to impress upon you, delegates and visitors alike, to leave a
dollar for a copy of these proceedings.
While we are waiting for a final word from Governor Hadley, I
will call upon Mr. Walter H. Page, Chairman of the Committee on
Resolutions, who will present the report of that committee, which I
hope will be enthusiastically adopted.
Mr. Page read the resolutions (which will be found in full at the
beginning of this volume), and moved their adoption.
The motion was seconded, put and carried.
Mr. JOHN B. HAMMOND (Des Moines, Iowa)—I have a resolution to
present. It was referred to the Resolutions Committee, but somehow it
was lost in the shuffle.
Mr. PAGE—It was referred to one of the sub-committees, and,
presumably, was not accepted by the sub-committee. It was not
reported to the full committee.
Chairman WHITE—If there is no objection, it may be presented to this
body.
Mr. HAMMOND—
Whereas, The protection of womanhood and childhood is the heart and
center of the Conservation of “Vital Resources;” and, whereas, forty
states of the Union have prohibited the maintenance of houses of
prostitution, the market places of the white slave traffic and the
centers for the dissemination of the most dangerous and revolting
diseases; and, whereas, the city administrations of many of the
larger cities, in defiance of state law, have set apart districts
where the crime of prostitution is tolerated and protected;
Therefore, be it resolved that we condemn such policy of segregation
by city officials as contrary to sound public policy and
indefensible in morals, and recommend the absolute suppression of
the social evil in all its phases.
I move the adoption of the resolution, Mr. Chairman.
The motion was seconded, put, and carried.
Chairman WHITE—We will pass to the next order—the presentation of
invitations from the cities desiring the next Congress. This is
the usual way. These invitations are not acted upon, because the
Executive Committee will take three or four months to consider
everything and compare the different cities, looking to the welfare
of the next Congress. Mr. Don Carlos Ellis, of Knoxville, Tenn., I
believe has something to say.
Mr. ELLIS—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: There is to be held
in the city of Knoxville, in September and October of next year,
the National Conservation Exposition. Its purpose and nature are
precisely parallel with those of this Congress—for the promotion of
the development, wise use and conservation of all of the natural
resources of this Nation. The Exposition is of national scope, but
is to have special reference to the Southern States. There are to be
buildings set aside for each one of the five divisions of our natural
resources—forests, minerals, soils, waters and vital resources. In
these buildings are to be shown, by example, as this Congress has
shown by precept, the various results accomplished by Conservation
by the Federal Government, the State governments and by private
individuals, and the possibilities of Conservation in the future.
The Exposition originated in Washington last February, when a number
of the leading spirits of Conservation met in that city and there
was formed an Advisory Board composed of the gentlemen whose names I
desire to read to you:
Gifford Pinchot, President National Conservation Association,
Chairman; Don Carlos Ellis, in charge Educational Co-operation,
United States Forest Service, Secretary; Philander P. Claxton,
United States Commissioner of Education; Miss Julia C. Lathrop,
Chief of the Children’s Bureau, United States Department of Commerce
and Labor; Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, Director of the Bureau of Foods,
Sanitation, and Health, of Good Housekeeping Magazine; W. J. McGee,
Soil Water Expert, United States Department of Agriculture; Senator
Duncan U. Fletcher of Florida, President Southern Commercial
Congress; Logan W. Page, Director United States Office of Public
Roads; Bradford Knapp, in charge Farmers Co-operative Demonstration
Work, United States Department of Agriculture; Jos. A. Holmes,
Director United Bureau of Mines; Representative Joseph E. Ransdell
of Louisiana, President National Rivers and Harbors Congress;
Senator Luke Lea of Tennessee; Charles S. Barrett, President
Farmers’ Educational and Co-operative Union.
These various members of the Advisory Board are to represent, in
the formation of plans for the Exposition, the various departments
of Conservation in which they are acknowledged leaders. They have
instructed me, as Secretary of this Advisory Board, to read to the
delegates the following letters:
September 23, 1912.
To the Delegates of the Fourth National Conservation Congress,
Indianapolis, Indiana:
We, the undersigned members of the Advisory Board of the National
Conservation Exposition, take this means of laying before you
an outline of the plans and purposes of the Exposition and of
respectfully recommending the adoption of the resolutions which
will be introduced at this Congress endorsing the National
Conservation Exposition.
This Exposition is to be held at Knoxville, Tennessee, in September
and October of 1913. It is an outgrowth of the Appalachian
Exposition, which has been held at Knoxville for the past two
years. Knoxville was chosen as the location of the National
Conservation Exposition because the Southern States are in great
need of education concerning the proper handling of their great
natural wealth; because Knoxville, while in the South, is readily
accessible to the entire East; because the State in which it lies is
in the transition zone between North and South and has more States
bordering upon it than any other State in the Nation, and all the
bordering States are southern; because the city is in the center
of the region where the National Government is establishing new
National Forests and carrying on other lines of work in Conservation
to a greater extent than in any other region; and because of the
city’s preparedness in being willing to turn over to the National
Conservation Exposition Company the excellent buildings and grounds
which had been acquired for the Appalachian Exposition Company
and to raise sufficient additional capital besides. A bill has
been introduced in Congress providing for a government building
and exhibit at the Exposition, and the Committee to which it was
referred has given assurances of a favorable report for a quarter of
a million dollars.
The purpose of the Appalachian Exposition was to aid in the
development of the Southern Appalachian Region. The new Exposition
is a national, not a local project. Its work is to promote the
preservation and development of the different forms of natural
wealth of the entire country. Its special field, however, is to
be the Southern States. The Exposition comes at a time when these
States are in the midst of a great awakening. It is to be devoted
in an especial manner to assist in this awakening and in directing
the course of this awakening toward genuine, permanent progress and
highest efficiency. The purposes are parallel with the magnificent
undertakings of the National Conservation Congress. The means only
are different. To every part of the Nation the Congress is sending
its message. The Exposition invites the people of the Nation to view
the tangible results and possibilities of Conservation on display.
All fields of the Conservation work will be represented, forests,
waters, lands, minerals, fish and game, and human efficiency
including health, child welfare, education, home economics, good
roads, and country life improvement. The Exposition is to be held at
a time when special efforts are to be made by such agencies as the
southern railroads and the Southern Commercial Congress to direct
the tide of passenger traffic through the South. During the same
period the city of Mobile, Alabama, is to entertain the Fifth Annual
Convention of the Southern Commercial Congress and to hold its
celebration of the opening of the Panama Canal, and plans are being
made to direct southern travelers of those two months through both
Mobile and Knoxville.
Expositions of the past have been commemorative and historical.
They have celebrated and glorified past achievements. The field
of the new Exposition is the future. It is to tell the progress
which we are to make in the coming years, which we are to enjoy
ourselves and to hand down to our children. It will be prophetic of
the development which is to come and of the permanent enrichment of
the country and its people. In the words of the late and beloved
Dr. W. J. McGee, “The change thus wrought in the exposition idea
is fundamental; the old exposition looked backward, the new looks
forward; the old exposition was solely material, the new is
essentially moral; the old was a proud boast of achievement, the
new a signpost to progress and an assurance of perpetuity. The
expositions of the past were as songs of achievement at the end
of a good day’s work, the new may well be as living and tangible
promises of a still more glorious tomorrow foreordained by the wise
action of today.”
GIFFORD PINCHOT, Chairman.
JOSEPH A. HOLMES.
PHILANDER P. CLAXTON.
JULIA C. LATHROP.
CHARLES S. BARRETT.
DUNCAN U. FLETCHER.
HARVEY W. WILEY.
BRADFORD KNAPP.
LUKE LEA.
JOSEPH E. RANSDELL.
MRS. ABEL.
DON CARLOS ELLIS, Secretary.
Mr. Chairman, Knoxville has empowered me to invite to that city,
to the Exposition, the fifth meeting of the National Conservation
Congress. The National Conservation Congress belongs to the whole
Nation, and the Nation is proud of it. For the past four years, since
its birth, it has held its meetings in the North and Northwest. The
South needs the Congress, particularly at this time, when it is in
a phase of its great industrial awakening, and it earnestly urges
that the Congress come within its bounds next year. If it should
come South next year, there is certainly no more fitting place for
its sessions than in that city which has done so much by its own
energies and industries for Conservation as has Knoxville. It will be
centering in Knoxville in that year and at that time all the forces
working for Conservation throughout the United States. Knoxville is
a smaller city than others in the South where the Congress might be
held, but it is a city of between seventy and eighty thousand people.
It has five excellent hotels. Two main railroads run through, and it
has shown its ability to handle large crowds of people by the way it
has taken care of the Appalachian Exposition for two years, with an
average of twelve thousand visitors a day.
The Exposition is moving along parallel lines with the Congress, and
it is in a way an offspring of the efforts of this Congress. It has
taken up the ideas that have been promulgated by this Congress, and
is going to apply them by showing at Knoxville the tangible, visible
results of Conservation. The people in that section of country are in
great need of instruction along these lines.
The plant already established for this other exposition is valued at
between one-half and one million dollars. Already several buildings
have been erected, and all this has been turned over to the new
Exposition as a foundation.
I have letters with me from the various commercial bodies of the
city, and this has been also heartily endorsed by the Governor of the
State.
In conclusion, I wish to offer a resolution made by the Advisory
Board:
Whereas, It is the sense of the Fourth National Conservation
Congress, assembled at Indianapolis, Indiana, October 1 to 4, 1912,
that the National Conservation Exposition, to be held at Knoxville,
Tennessee, in September and October, 1913, will be a strong factor
in the advancement of the Conservation and wise use of the national
resources of this Nation, and particularly of the Southern States;
and
Whereas, It is, further, the sense of this Congress that education
in the care of natural resources is particularly needed in the
Southern States, where the resources are of great value and their
development in a period of a great awakening, but their Conservation
at a low ebb; therefore, be it
Resolved, That the National Conservation Congress hereby signifies
its gratification that the National Conservation Exposition is to
take place, and its earnest hope that all persons and institutions
interested in the Conversation of any of our natural resources will
give to the Exposition their cordial support and co-operation.
I move the adoption of this resolution.
Hon. R. M. AUSTIN, Congressman from Tennessee—I wish to second
this as a citizen of that progressive city, and I wish to join in
the invitation extended by Mr. Ellis, not only to the delegates to
this National Conservation Congress, but also to the citizens of
this great capital city of Indiana. I hope this invitation will be
accepted and this resolution just read will be passed. We will be
happy to see you all when you come to sunny Tennessee, away up in
the mountains, and this little city of ours of about eighty thousand
people, which nestles at the foot of the Great Smoky Mountain. We
will show you the richest mineral and timber section in all the
Union. There are ten counties in this Congressional District. Five
have coal, six iron, six marble, five zinc, two copper, and the
largest amount of hardwood timber now existing on the American
continent. It is an ideal location, not only for a Conservation
Exposition, but an ideal place for a meeting of this great and useful
organization, the National Conservation Congress of America, and we
hope you will all come.
Mr. Chairman, we do not intend to open the doors of the Exposition
until we know that Captain White, of Kansas City, answers “Present.”
(Applause.)
I wish, while I am on my feet, to commend the very excellent report
from the Committee on Resolutions submitted by the able editor of
“The World’s Work,” Mr. Page, and to say that so long as I am a
representative in Congress I shall, by my influence, do all that
I can to carry out the principles set forth in these resolutions.
(Applause.)
The motion on Mr. Ellis’ resolution was put and carried.
Mr. A. M. LOOMIS (New York)—I wish, very briefly, to read the action
of the New York State delegation, adopted possibly before this matter
of the Knoxville Exposition had become known.
The New York delegation at this, the Fourth National Conservation
Congress, wishes to go on record in favor of asking the delegates
to this great body to hold the next annual meeting in the East,—to
be more explicit, in New York State. There is an urgent reason why
the work of the Congress at a point nearer the great centers of
the business and wealth of the country, and in the section of the
more crowded population would have wider effectiveness, and greater
force along lines of practical understanding of its work, and needed
legislation in favor of the great reforms for which it stands.
One point in New York State stands out in particular as the ideal
place for this Congress to gather, namely Chautauqua, the home
of the great Chautauqua Institution, on the shores of beautiful
Chautauqua Lake. At this point, in a little city in the woods,
are ample accommodations both for meeting places, exhibits, and
housing for a gathering of five thousand people. The Assembly houses
more than double that number for ten weeks each summer and has an
auditorium hardly excelled in America, seating more than eight
thousand people, as well as many other halls and buildings for
meeting places and exhibits.
This institution stands for all that the highest aims of this
Congress point to, in education, morality, and direction of human
effort. Its reputation is world wide, and its home offers an ideal
meeting place for the Conservationists, ideal in that for which
the two institutions stand, and ideal in location, accommodations,
railroad facilities and the economy with which a great meeting of
this kind could be conducted there.
The New York delegation unites in inviting the Congress to choose
Chautauqua, New York, as the place of its next meeting.
Chairman WHITE—The chair, in behalf of the delegates, wishes to thank
the representatives from New York who have invited us to Chautauqua,
as well as the representatives from Tennessee for inviting us to
Knoxville. This subject will be referred to the Executive Committee,
who will, in their wisdom, consider it all as it may relate to the
best success of our cause.
Is there anything more to be presented at this convention? If not,
the chair will state that the Fourth National Conservation Congress
is now about to pass into history. Tomorrow will be the beginning
of a new Congress—the Fifth Annual Congress, with the new President
and new officers in some respects—but with a great many of the old
ones, too—and we hope that all who are here will be present at the
next Congress, the Fifth National Conservation Congress, wherever it
may be held. And in the meantime the work will go on. It will begin
tomorrow and continue throughout the year. Everywhere any delegate
has influence, the cause will be heard and will be advanced.
The Chair wishes to thank this Congress and its delegates for the
kind consideration given him while he has been presiding, and for
the support he has received from every one. We now stand adjourned,
subject to the call of the Executive Committee. (Applause.)
SUPPLEMENTARY PROCEEDINGS.
_FORESTRY SECTION._
Delegates specially interested in Forestry held section meetings in
the Turkish Room of the Claypool Hotel throughout the sessions of
the Fourth National Conservation Congress. The Standing Committee on
Forestry consisted of Prof. Henry S. Graves, Chairman; J. B. White,
Major E. G. Griggs, George K. Smith, William Irvine and E. T. Allen.
Chairman Graves, being unavoidably absent, delegated Mr. Allen to
arrange meeting facilities and represent him in an effort to further
the progress of forestry at the Congress.
The first session of the Forestry Section was held on the evening of
October 1, with about twenty-five foresters and lumbermen present.
(At later sessions the attendance increased to forty.)
Mr. Allen, acting as Chairman, announced that Professor Graves had
suggested that such preliminary meeting be called to determine,
first, if a section meeting on Forestry should be conducted, and if
so, the lines it should follow. Mr. Allen suggested the probable
advantage of formulating plans for more systematic forestry work at
future Congresses, and of utilizing the opportunity thus afforded
to exchange experiences and ideas on legislation, forest protection
and educational work. The meeting concurred in this suggestion and
determined to hold a series of meetings on Forestry at this Congress.
_Second Session—10 a. m., October 2._
Mr. E. T. Allen called the meeting to order, and Mr. D. Page Simons,
of California, was chosen secretary. The chair then presented a
tentative program for ensuing sessions covering publicity work,
co-operation in forest protection, needed forest legislation, and
organization for future Congresses. He described the educational work
conducted by the Western Forestry and Conservation Association, and
read a communication from Professor Graves, United States Forester,
emphasizing the need of a propaganda for more adequate and uniform
State forest legislation.
Mr. T. B. Wyman, of Michigan, representing the Northern Forest
Protective Association, then described the co-operative effort by
Michigan lumbermen covering a territory of seven and one-half million
acres. He told how they had been enabled to maintain a patrol service
and that their association had made a careful study of fire causes.
In the campaign of public education, he said, they had utilized
modern advertising methods.
Major E. G. Griggs, of Washington, President of the National Lumber
Manufacturers’ Association, pointed out the necessity of united
effort in a campaign of education which would bring about a better
understanding, on the part of the public, of all phases of forest
industry. He emphasized the need of continuous effort throughout
the year, and said that he believed there should be some national
frame-work or organization which would unite the foresters and
lumbermen for such continuous and concerted action. Major Griggs also
praised the work of the United States Forest Service.
Mr. Charles Lathrop Pack, of New Jersey, concurred in Major Griggs’
suggestion and said that he believed the Conservation Congress,
meeting annually, illustrated the need of a Committee on Forestry,
which would be active throughout the year. He said that he believed
that other features of the Congress had been much better advertised
and organized and that he hoped that before another year the work of
the Forestry Committee, particularly, would be on a systematic basis
with the necessary funds to carry forward its work.
Chairman Allen pointed out the need of local publicity as was
illustrated by the difficulties experienced in obtaining adequate
State legislation.
Mr. I. C. Williams, of Pennsylvania, Deputy State Forest
Commissioner, said that taxation and not fire protection was the
big forestry problem in Pennsylvania. He said that a campaign of
publicity for a yield tax measure had been unsuccessful owing to a
lack of organization among the friends of the measure to back up the
publicity.
Dr. Henry S. Drinker, of Pennsylvania, President of Lehigh
University, reported the distribution of a million circulars on
forest protection, modeled on those issued by the Western Forestry
and Conservation Association. He also endorsed the yield tax
principle.
Mr. E. A. Sterling, of Pennsylvania, emphasized the importance of
conducting a systematic campaign of publicity which would bring out
definite facts. Competent committees, he said, should be in charge of
such work so that the publicity would be in effective form and carry
weight.
Hon. John M. Woods, Mayor of Somerville, Mass., suggested the
danger of relying too much on education and not enough on practical
politics. In his judgment, forest legislation could best be furthered
by interesting the Governor and the Legislature.
Mr. Henry E. Hardtner, of Louisiana, told of the forest laws of that
State and of his effort to secure reforestation.
Prof. F. W. Rane, State Forester of Massachusetts, said that results
are a question of enterprising organization and that more system and
effective committee work will bring better results.
Col. W. R. Brown, representing the New Hampshire Forestry
Commission, said that he believed the American Forestry Association
offered facilities for the work under discussion and that means for
utilizing them could be devised.
Mr. F. A. Elliott, State Forester of Oregon, then outlined western
problems which he showed were peculiarly difficult because of a
lack of forest appreciation in a new country. He testified to the
efficiency of advertising propaganda to reduce fire carelessness.
Mr. Hugh P. Baker, of New York, said that the Empire State went on
the principle that people had to be shown and that, therefore, they
were making a feature of demonstration forests and of assisting
individual owners.
Mr. P. S. Ridsdale, of Washington, D. C., Secretary of the American
Forestry Association, then told of the educational policy of that
organization, and said that its magazine was devoting special
attention to all practical matters of interest to lumbermen.
After some further discussion along the line of desirable committee
action the Chair was instructed, by motion, duly seconded and
carried, to appoint two committees, each of which he should be ex
officio chairman, as follows: A committee of five on permanent
organization, and one of three to represent the Forestry Section in
a conference with the American Forestry Association and the officers
of the Fifth National Conservation Congress. It was also agreed to
appoint a Committee on Resolutions. These committees were appointed,
as follows:
Co-operation with Other Agencies—E. T. Allen, chairman; H. S. Graves,
and J. B. White.
Permanent Organization—E. T. Allen, Chairman; F. A. Elliott, Don
Carlos Ellis, T. B. Wyman, and F. W. Rane.
Resolutions—Dr. Henry S. Drinker, chairman; F. W. Besley, D. P.
Simons, P. S. Ridsdale, and H. E. Hardtner.
_Third Session—2:40 p. m., October 2._
Co-operative Forest Protection was announced for the topic for
discussion.
Mr. Hardtner told of the success of the Louisiana lumber associations
in securing legislation.
Mr. Wyman told of the co-operative patrol of the Northern Forest
Protective Association, in Michigan, and described briefly their
methods and the fire fighting equipment.
Mr. Brown explained the methods of the New Hampshire Timberland
Owners’ Association. There are four district chiefs, each in charge
of a patrol system. They utilize all modern devices, such as
telephones, lookouts, tool depots, etc. They have reduced the fire
damage one-half at a cost of seven-tenths of one per cent. of the
values protected. Mr. Brown urged that the adjoining States should
co-operate along boundaries.
Mr. Elliott told of the progress being made in Oregon under their new
law providing for syndicate co-operative patrol maintained jointly by
the Federal and State governments, the counties and lumbermen.
Mr. N. P. Wheeler told of the fight against forest fires by
Pennsylvania lumbermen.
Mr. D. P. Simons described the organization of the Washington Forest
Fire Association, which maintains over a hundred patrolmen and
protects nearly five million acres. This association also has been
very successful in publicity and legislative work.
The report of the Committee on Resolutions was then presented,
discussed by sections and adopted. (See resolutions of Fourth
National Conservation Congress—Forests.)
_Fourth Session—8:25 p. m., October 3._
Chairman Allen reported that the Committee on Resolutions of the
Conservation Congress, of which he was Secretary, had endorsed the
resolutions presented by the Forestry Section.
Chairman Allen then read the following report from the Section
Committee on Permanent Organization:
Your committee believes that the consensus of opinion of the
lumbermen and foresters assembled at the invitation of the forestry
committee of the Fourth National Conservation Congress is about as
follows:
1. That the Congress has not so far included satisfactory facilities
for securing for forest matters the attention they deserve at such a
meeting.
2. That the facilities to be desired should provide for two main
activities:
(a) The general discussion of forest Conservation needed to bring
its importance properly before the public.
(b) The meeting for mutual help, in practical constructive detailed
work of the men actually engaged in organized forest work.
3. That unless there is early assurance of such facilities hereafter,
the Congress’ support from forest interests is in danger.
4. That private, state and federal forest interests are anxious to
support the Congress and in turn to receive all benefit to be derived
from it.
5. That what is clearly needed is a greater recognition of forestry
upon its general program and arrangement for sectional forest work
outside the general meeting, both to be carefully planned in advance
so as to be practical, effective and without lost time.
6. That probably similar steps should be taken to provide for other
branches of Conservation work, so that all may unite in perpetuating
the usefulness of the Congress.
7. That the duty of your committee is to bring about the things
outlined above, or at least to suggest some means of doing so.
After careful consideration of what these seven points involve,
your committee feels that the very fact that inadequacy in the past
has prevented as wide an attendance as desirable, prevents us from
conferring at this time as fully with all agencies involved as would
be sure to get the best result, and that in particular we are at
a great disadvantage in being unable to confer with the executive
officers of the 1913 Congress not yet chosen.
For these reasons we recommend as our very best judgment that this
meeting correct us as far as may be necessary in stating its beliefs
and desires and then leave working out the detail until we can
offer the executive officials of the next Congress the courtesy of
consulting with them, with the understanding, however, that there
shall be no negligence or unnecessary delay and that long before the
next Congress all these matters shall be arranged in detail and given
the necessary publicity.
Your committee consequently recommends further either that it be
given instructions to act as suggested, or that it be discharged
and the duties outlined be added to those of the committee of three
already appointed to discuss similar questions. We believe that a
faithful attempt to work the matter out in this way will be more
satisfactory than trying to settle matters at this session. There is
ample time if we do not waste it, and less danger of error.
The report was adopted, following the suggestion that the Committee
on Permanent Organization be discharged and its duties imposed upon
the permanent co-operative committee, including E. T. Allen, Prof. H.
S. Graves and J. B. White.
Mr. Allen, being called out to assist in revising the resolutions
of the general Congress, asked Mr. Sterling to take the chair, and
suggested the reading of a paper sent by Chief Forester Graves,
outlining the policy of the Forest Service.
Mr. Graves’ paper (appearing elsewhere in the proceedings of the
Congress) was animatedly discussed, the meeting without dissenting
voice approving the Forest Service policy and deploring any attempt
to restrict its operation. Short talks urging its support by all
forest interests, State and private, including the Conservation
Congress, were made by Z. D. Scott, Minnesota; F. A. Elliott and
H. D. Langille, Oregon, and W. H. Shippen, Georgia. A resolution
was passed emphasizing the meeting’s endorsement of the resolutions
commending the Forest Service then before the general Congress (and
adopted the following day).
Mr. Langille spoke particularly against the turning over of the
National forests to State control and Mr. Shippen of the necessity of
Federal control of interstate watersheds.
A discussion of State legislation followed. Mr. Scott described the
effort of Minnesota under its new law. Leonard Bronson, Washington,
outlined the trend of attempted tax reform, dwelling particularly
upon the yield tax system proposed by Professor Fairchild of
Yale University, and urged concerted, harmonious effort by all
forest States. Dr. Drinker and Mr. Wheeler reviewed the proposed
Pennsylvania law for a nominal land tax and a yield tax from which
counties are to be reimbursed for taxes lost during growing period.
Upon motion of Mr. I. C. Williams, Pennsylvania, the meeting went on
record as considering tax reform to promote reforestation and better
forest management, the most important problem and the one most in
need of study and legislation of any before the forest interests of
the United States today.
The Forestry Section of the Fourth National Conservation Congress
then adjourned, leaving plans for more effective work in 1913 in the
hands of the committee of three previously mentioned.
REGISTER FORESTRY SECTION MEETING.
E. T. Allen, Western Forestry and Conservation Association,
Portland, Oregon.
Wm. G. Atwood, Chief Engineer L. E. & W. R. R. Representing American
Railway Engineers’ Association, Indianapolis, Ind.
Hugh P. Baker, New York State College of Forestry, Syracuse, N. Y.
W. E. Barns, Missouri Forest Service, St. Louis, Mo.
F. W. Besley, State Forester, Baltimore, Md.
F. H. Billard, Forester, New Hampshire Timberland Owners
Association, Berlin, N. H.
Leonard Bronson, Manager National Lumber Manufacturers’ Association,
Chicago, Ill.
W. R. Brown, President New Hampshire Forestry Commission, New
Hampshire Timberland Owners’ Association, Berlin, N. H.
L. S. Case, Weyerhaeuser & Company, St. Paul, Minn.
W. C. Darms, Wisconsin Forest Commission, Wisconsin.
Chas. C. Deam, Secretary Indiana Board of Forestry, Indianapolis,
Ind.
Henry S. Drinker, Lehigh University, South Bethlehem, Pa.
F. A. Elliott, State Forester, Salem, Oregon.
E. G. Griggs, West Coast Lumber Manufacturers’ Association, National
Lumber Manufacturers’ Association, Tacoma, Wash.
N. H. Guthrie, Indiana State Forestry Association, Franklin, Ind.
Henry E. Hardtner, Louisiana Forestry Association, Urania, La.
John W. Kellough, Ohio State Forestry Association, Mt. Sterling,
Ohio.
H. D. Langille, Oregon Conservation Association, Portland, Oregon.
William R. Lazenby, Ohio State Forestry Association, Columbus, Ohio.
Henry Nelson Loud, Au Sable, Mich.
Frank E. Mace, Forest Commissioner, Augusta, Me.
Mrs. Joan E. Moore, Indiana State Forestry Association, Kokomo, Ind.
John Oxenford, Indianapolis, Ind.
Charles Lathrop Pack, President Fifth National Conservation
Congress, 305 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, Ohio.
F. W. Rane, State Forester, Boston, Mass.
P. S. Ridsdale, Secretary American Forestry Association, Washington,
D. C.
Z. D. Scott, State Forestry Board, Duluth, Minn.
W. H. Shippen, Hardwood Manufacturers Association, Ellijay, Georgia.
D. P. Simons, Western Forestry and Conservation Association, Los
Gatos, Cal.
Geo. K. Smith, Secretary Yellow Pine Manufacturers’ Association,
National Lumber Manufacturers’ Association, St. Louis, Mo.
E. A. Sterling, Forest and Timber Engineer, Philadelphia, Pa.
R. D. Swales, Union Lumber Company, Fort Bragg, Cal.
F. L. Throm, Forester, Wheeler & Desenburg, Endeavor, Pa.
William P. Wharton, Groton, Mass.
N. P. Wheeler, Pennsylvania Conservation Association, Endeavor, Pa.
I. C. Williams, Pennsylvania Department of Forestry, Harrisburg, Pa.
E. B. Williamson, State Foresters Office, Bluffton, Ind.
John M. Woods, Somerville, Mass.
R. C. Young, American Railway Engineers’ Association, Chief Engineer
Munsing R. R., Marquette, Mich.
THE PRESENT SITUATION OF FORESTRY.
Prof. HENRY S. GRAVES, United States Forester.
A review of the work of forestry in this country during the past year
shows that in many directions there has been substantial progress
and positive achievement. On the other hand, the continued organized
attacks on the National Forest system, and the efforts to break it
down or cripple it, present a situation of real danger which the
country should realize and vigorously meet. We have before us a task
of constructive activity in practical work, extending and building
on foundations already laid; we have also the task of preventing a
destructive attack upon National forestry.
During the past few years public interest in forestry has been
rapidly changing from a mere inquiry in regard to its purpose to a
vigorous demand for practical results. This more intelligent public
sentiment is now finding its expression in a growing appreciation
of the need of better forest laws, greater State appropriations for
fire control, and increasing interest in forest protection by private
timberland owners. It often happens that public attention is caught
only by the most striking new departments and developments, such as
a change in public policy or important legislation, while but little
is known of the steady advance in applied forestry. The past year
has been signalized not so much by new undertakings as by marked
accomplishment in the effective carrying out of work previously
inaugurated.
PROGRESS IN NATIONAL FORESTRY.
Every year shows increased efficiency in the administration of the
national forests. The most conspicuous advance has been in organized
fire protection. The disastrous year of 1910 taught many lessons.
While that disaster could not have been avoided in the absence of
better transportation and communication facilities and without a
larger patrol force than the Forest Service could put into the field,
it nevertheless showed how, even under the present conditions, the
work of protection could be made more effective. Full use was made of
the experience gained in that year, and during the past two seasons
the loss by fire has been kept down to a comparatively small amount
through the efficient system now in force. The problem, however, of
fire protection on the national forests is far from being solved.
There still remain to be built some 80,000 miles of trails, 45,000
miles of telephone lines, many miles of roads, many lookout stations,
and other improvements, before even the primary system of control
will have been established. The funds at the disposal of the Forest
Service are still inadequate to employ the patrolmen needed to meet
more than ordinary emergency. There is even yet danger, therefore,
that in the case of a great drought like that of 1910 some fires
might gain the mastery and a similar disaster follow.
An account of the progress of the work of the Forest Service in
the administration of the national forests would be an enumeration
of the different activities in which the work is going on with
constantly growing effectiveness. Many of the local difficulties of
administration are rapidly disappearing. This is due to the steadily
closer co-ordination of the interests of the Government with those
of the people living in and using the forests. More and more these
people are coming to appreciate that their interests and those of the
national forests are one. With a better understanding of the aims and
methods of the Forest Service, local difficulties are disappearing
and local support of the service is largely replacing opposition.
Those who are aiming to destroy the national forest system are not
the settlers and others who use the forests, but rather men who seek
for their own advantage special privileges to which they are not
entitled, and who wish to acquire for little or nothing valuable
resources for speculation and personal gain.
During the past year the Weeks law, authorizing the purchase of lands
on navigable streams, has been put into effect, and the Government
has already entered into contracts for the purchase of 230,000 acres
in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, and about 72,000 acres in the
White Mountains. These lands are being secured on the most desirable
areas, and it has been possible to obtain them for reasonable prices.
A special feature of the Weeks law is the co-operation between
the Government and the States in fire protection on watersheds of
navigable streams. The law provides $200,000, until expended, for
such co-operation; but this money can be used only in States which
have already inaugurated a system of fire protection under public
direction. During the year 1911 there were eleven States which
qualified under this law, receiving in the aggregate about $40,000.
During the current year sums varying from $1,500 to $10,000 have been
allotted to the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut,
New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Oregon, and
Washington. There is still sufficient money left from the original
appropriation for substantial co-operation during another year. It
has been the aim of the Forest Service to spread the money over three
years in order that there may be a full demonstration of what can be
accomplished, and at what cost. It will then be possible to present
to Congress a satisfactory basis upon which to consider whether
Federal aid to the States should be continued.
The most urgent need of the national forest work is more ample
provision of the funds necessary for adequate protection of the
forests against fire. It is especially urgent that the work of
constructing roads, trails, telephone lines, and other improvements
needed for fire protection be extended much more rapidly than at
present.
PROGRESS IN STATE FORESTRY.
A very great obligation rests upon the State governments in working
out the problem of forestry. Organized fire protection under State
direction, the establishment of a reasonable system of taxation of
growing timber, honest and conservative management of State forest
laws, education of woodland owners to better methods of forestry,
and such practical regulation of handling private forests as may be
required for the protection of the public, are problems which require
the immediate action of all States.
While no State is as yet accomplishing all that it should, a number
of them are making very rapid progress, and are giving as liberal
money support as perhaps could be expected under the present
conditions. The feature of State forestry which stands out most
strongly is that a number of States have gone beyond merely passing
forest laws, and have begun to provide the funds necessary to achieve
practical results. At last it is beginning to be recognized that the
prevention of fire is the fundamental necessity, and that this can be
accomplished only through an organized public service. In order to
make laws effective there must be adequate machinery to carry them
out. The fundamental principle of fire protection is preparation. A
forest region must be watched for fires, both to prevent their being
started and to reach quickly and put out such as from one cause or
another may get under way. The new State legislation recognizes
this need, and already there has been inaugurated a measure of
watchfulness in the season of greatest danger, through patrol or
lookouts under State direction. During 1911, which was a banner year
in the enactment of State legislation, laws related chiefly to fire
protection were passed by Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota,
New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin; while
Colorado created the office of State Forester. Since the beginning
of 1912 Maryland and New York have amended their forest laws, and
Kentucky has passed its first complete law.
It is exceedingly gratifying that substantial progress is now being
made in the South. Unfortunately, however, none of the Southern
States except Maryland has hitherto been able to qualify to receive
Federal aid and fire protection under the Weeks law. It is hoped that
during the coming year progress will be made in those Southern States
in which practically nothing has yet been done.
One of the matters to which the Conservation Congress and all other
educational agencies should devote their efforts is to bring about
the protection of private lands from fire and the extension to them
of forestry methods. While some may say that this is a matter for
which the owner is personally responsible, the fact remains that
private owners will ordinarily not work out the forestry problem on
their lands without the participation of the public in the form of
public regulations, co-operation and assistance. This is recognized
in some States, but others are doing nothing whatever in this field,
and a good many which have made a small beginning are abundantly
able to do vastly more than at present. It has usually happened that
the securing of good forest laws and the establishment of a State
Forest Service has been brought about by the efforts of a small
group of interested men, and frequently through the efforts of a
single individual who has been able to arouse the interest of the
people in his State. Enough States in different parts of the country
have initiated State forestry to make it comparatively easy for a
State contemplating new legislation to benefit by what has been done
elsewhere. All that is really required in the extension of State
forestry is to find the man or men in each State who will take the
leadership and follow up the matter until the Legislature acts. It
would seem that in the heavily timbered States the lumbermen are the
men who should be most vitally interested in the conservation of our
forests. In some States timberland owners have participated very
actively in bringing about State forestry, as for example, in Maine,
New Hampshire, Minnesota, and some of the far Northwest States. In
other instances the timberland owners have been indifferent and in
some instances proper State forestry has failed on account of the
attitude of the very men who should be foremost in promoting proper
legislation. We need in each State not so much advice from the
outside as a few patriotic citizens in whom the public has confidence
and who will devote time and real effort to this public task. If
the men can be found to do this preliminary work they will have no
difficulty in securing competent assistance from other States and
from the National Government.
THE ATTACK UPON FORESTRY.
At the same time that forestry has been making steady progress in
constructive work and in public esteem, hostility to the national
forest policy on the part of those who would substitute private for
public control of these resources has become more determined under
a new form. The early attacks upon this policy openly sought its
overthrow. They came to nothing because the country was emphatically
for the forests. At the present time those who attack the national
forest policy commonly profess allegiance to the Conservation
principle even while attempting to break it down. There is great
danger that the public may not understand what is involved in
measures whose purpose and inevitable effects do not appear on their
face. Two such measures are the proposal to require the elimination
from the forests of all lands capable of cultivation, on the plea
that this will increase settlement, and the proposal to turn all the
forests over to the States in which they lie, on the plea that this
will increase their benefits to the people of these States. In both
cases quite the contrary is true.
An amendment which was attached to the Agricultural Appropriation
Bill last June, and which passed the Senate but was rejected by the
House, would have required, had it become law, the opening to private
acquisition under the homestead laws of all lands “fit and suitable
for agriculture” within national forests, irrespective of their
value for other purposes or of their importance for public use. The
result would have been not to facilitate but to block agricultural
development. It would also have been to transfer to powerful private
interests timberlands, water power sites, and other areas, possession
of which would tend to private monopoly of resources now under public
control.
This measure is not called for in order that agricultural development
of lands in national forests may take place. The Forest Service
has consistently favored and sought to bring about agricultural
settlement of all national forest lands which can be put to their
highest usefulness by farming. It urged and obtained, seven years
ago, the law which now permits the opening of such land. Under that
law about one and a half million acres have been listed for entry by
over twelve thousand settlers; and more will be listed as it becomes
possible to list the land without defeating the very purpose of the
law.
To open land certain because of its superior value for timber,
water-power development, or other purposes to be absorbed by
speculators or powerful interests would not only defeat the purpose
of the existing law but also constitute a breach of public trust
and a betrayal of the fundamental principles of Conservation. That
principle has often been misrepresented as a policy of present
non-use for the sake of future generations. Its true purpose
is two-fold: to prevent monopoly of public resources, and to
secure their greatest use, both present and future, by scientific
development. The national forests are administered with a view to
securing, first, use of present resources; second, permanency of such
resources; and third, greater and more valuable resources for the
future.
Experience has amply proved that the elimination, under pressure,
of national forest lands locally considered or alleged to be
of agricultural value but in point of fact more valuable for
other purposes has led to their early acquisition by timberland
speculators, great lumber interests, water-power companies, livestock
companies, and others who desire the lands for other ends than
agriculture. In 1901 705,000 acres of heavily timbered land were
thus eliminated from the Olympic National Forest. Ten years later
only a little over one per cent of this land was under cultivation,
while three-fourths of it was held for its timber, mainly in large
holdings. Other examples might be multiplied. With a mandatory law
the pressure for opening land sought under cover of the claim of
agricultural value would be well-nigh irresistible in many cases.
Local agitation and political influence would in the end break down
all effort to maintain public control. Such piecemeal attack on the
forests would be made without any opportunity for the public to
know what was going on. In the end the dismemberment of the national
forests would be effected.
The only safety for the maintenance of the policy which now receives
and has long received the overwhelming support of public sentiment
lies in a correct knowledge by the public of the actual situation
with regard to agricultural lands in national forests. It must
be made plain that all but an entirely insignificant part of the
national forests is not susceptible of profitable cultivation. The
forests occupy the most rugged and mountainous parts of the West.
Topography, soil, and climate combine to make them natural forest
lands, not potential farm lands. The areas which form an exception
to this condition are not over four per cent. of the total; and such
areas are now being sought out by the Forest Service and will, under
the existing law, be made available for homestead entry as fast as
they can be opened without defeating the purpose of the law itself.
It is necessary that the country should understand the manner in
which bona fide settlement is being brought about in the national
forests, and also the motive of those who are trying to break down
the system of forest Conservation under the guise of promoting
settlement.
There has been during the past two or three years a steadily growing
movement to turn over the national forests to the individual States.
During the past session of Congress a rider to the Agricultural
Appropriation Bill was offered in the Senate, providing for the grant
of the national forests to the several States, together with all
other public lands, including “all coal, mineral, timber, grazing,
agricultural and other lands, and all water and power rights and
claims, and all rights upon lands of any character whatsoever.”
While the amendment was ruled out on a point of order, it received a
surprisingly large amount of support.
The proposition so far as the national forests are concerned is to
turn over to the individual States property owned by the Nation
covering a net area of over one hundred and sixty million acres.
This property has an actual measurable value of at least two billion
dollars, while from the standpoint of its indirect value to the
public no estimate on a money basis could possibly be made. These
are public resources which should be handled in the interests of the
public. Moreover, the problems involved are such that they should
definitely remain in the hands of the National rather than be turned
over to the State governments. The property belongs to the Nation as
a whole, and every citizen has an interest in it. The Government has
already made enormous grants to the individual States, but always to
further specific objects of national importance. There should not be
a moment’s consideration of the proposal to turn the forests over to
the States unless it can be clearly shown that the interests both of
the States and of the Nation are consistent with such action. In the
case of the national forests, public interests both of the Nation and
of the States require their continued retention and management by the
National Government.
The scope of this paper does not permit a full discussion of this
problem. It must suffice to mention a few cogent reasons for
government ownership:
1. The property is now owned by the Nation, and should be
administered from the standpoint of national as well as of local
needs.
2. The problem of protection from fire and of timber production on
the national forests is one of national scope and can be properly
handled only by the Government; its solution is a national duty.
3. The problem of water control is no less a national duty. Nearly
all of the national forests lie on headwaters of navigable rivers or
interstate streams. The Government is now purchasing lands in the
East on headwaters of navigable rivers because of the disastrous
results to the public which are following abuse under private
ownership. It certainly should not part with title to the same class
of lands which it now owns in the West. Every interstate stream
presents problems which can be properly handled only through the
Federal Government. The Government cannot permit the citizens of one
State to be damaged by the action or failure to act of citizens of
another State. It is of vital importance for this reason alone that
property at the headwaters of interstate streams be retained under
Government administration.
4. Not only are the interests of the individual States and
communities now fully protected, but in many ways far more is being
done for local communities than would be possible under State
ownership. In the long run, as the timber and other resources are
brought into use with improving markets, the States will receive from
the twenty-five per cent. of the gross receipts now allowed them
and the additional ten per cent. appropriated for road improvements
a larger amount than would come in from local taxes under private
ownership.
5. The States are not as well prepared, financially or otherwise,
to handle the national forests as is the Federal Government. If the
forests were owned by the States and handled in the real interests
of the public, there would be substantially the same system of
administration as today, at a greater aggregate cost for supervision
by a considerable number of independent State staffs of technical
men. The financial burden would be far too great for the individual
States to assume. The result would be either poor administration and
lack of protection, or a sacrifice of the public interests in order
to secure revenue to meet the financial needs.
6. The successful application of forestry demands a stable
administrative policy for long periods. This can be secured far
better under National than under State control.
7. A much higher standard of constructive and technical efficiency is
possible under National than under State administration. The value of
the forests to the public depends directly on the skill with which
scientific knowledge is applied to the task of developing their
highest productiveness. Both in ability to carry on the research work
required for practical ends and in ability to command professional
services of the first order the Government possesses a striking
advantage.
8. As largely undeveloped property the forests need heavy investments
of capital for their improvement. Their full productiveness can be
secured in no other way. The Government is now investing yearly in
the forests a considerable part of the appropriation made for them.
Even if the States did not seek to make them sources of immediate
revenue at whatever sacrifice of their future possibilities, they
would be reluctant to expend much for their development.
9. The States both lack the civil service system and standards of the
National Government and are exposed to greater danger of being swayed
by private interests. In the hands of spoilsmen demoralization would
quickly succeed the present high standards of the Forest Service,
while the intimate relation of the forests to the welfare of great
numbers of individuals would tend to make their administrative
control a highly coveted political prize. At the same time the value
of their resources would certainly arouse a cupidity which would be
exceedingly difficult to control. Scandalous maladministration might
easily follow. The Federal Government is better watched farther
removed from local influence, more stable, and better equipped with a
non-political system and machinery.
The underlying purpose of the proposed transfer of the national
forests to the States is really not to substitute State for Federal
control, but rather to substitute individual for public control. Its
most earnest advocates are the very interests which wish to secure
such control. The object of the whole states rights movement as it
affects the national forests is to transfer to private owners for
speculative or monopolistic purposes public resources of enormous
value. Retention of these resources under public ownership is
needed to protect the people from abuses which are every day being
demonstrated on lands over which the public has already lost control.
The proposition is one which the people as a whole would repudiate
in an instant if they understood what is proposed. The only danger
lies in the fact that some legislation adverse to the national
forest system may be passed when the public as a whole is ignorant
that it is planned or does not understand the meaning. Vigilance in
the defense of its interests and intelligence in the perception of
the true character of masked attacks upon those interests are of
fundamental necessity if the public is to protect itself.
_FOOD SECTION._
The Food Section of the National Conservation Congress met in the
Palm Room of the Claypool Hotel on the afternoon of October 1st. Dr.
H. W. Wiley, late Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry, as Chairman,
discussed the cold storage industry and pointed out that cold storage
is a great blessing to the country, in that goods are placed in cold
storage that they may be more evenly distributed throughout the year.
He showed that there is still room for the investigation of the
principles of storage and improvement of the industry. The condition
of food entering cold storage is most important.
Frank A. Horne, Chairman of the Commission of Legislation of the
American Association of Refrigeration, said there has been a
remarkable reversal of public opinion in the last three or four years
regarding the place cold storage and refrigerating has occupied with
regard to the high cost of living.
He declared the cold storage business has been unjustly assailed, and
that a series of investigations and hearings had demonstrated beyond
doubt that the popular notion and sensational newspaper attacks were
entirely unfounded and erroneous. He said these investigations showed
that the cold storage warehousemen performed a useful public function
in conserving perishable foods, preventing deterioration and waste by
means of a scientific method by which the great surplus production
could be wholesomely preserved for later consumption.
Before cold storage came into use a period of flush production meant
a glut in the market, and large quantities of spoiled and utterly
wasted foods. With cold storage at hand the contrary conditions
prevail.
At the general discussion on the subject afterward, Dr. Wiley said
the attacks made on the cold storage business five years ago were
justified by conditions. He said as a result of an investigation of
the business, the cold storage men themselves have joined with the
Government to improve conditions.
Charles H. Utley, President of the Quincy Market, Cold Storage and
Warehouse Company, Boston, said there would be no occasion for cold
storage or the use of any other means for preserving food if human
food was not to a greater or less extent perishable. If it were not
perishable it would be the practice of every individual to conserve
a sufficient amount of food as might be required. No better means of
preventing waste of food is known at the present time than by the use
of cold storage, and the use accomplishes most desirable results,
advantageous to both consumer and producer, by the conservation of
food, which is just as desirable as the conservation of our natural
resources.
Dr. William A. Evans of Chicago, discussed the capacity of milk for
doing harm even when it looks, tastes and smells right. He said milk
is a great carrier of disease germs, and that for this reason it
should be produced close to the point of distribution. The nearer
the baby gets to the cow the more natural it is. Certified milk is
all right when it is really certified by a noninterested person, but
properly pasteurized milk is probably the safest for babies.
Dr. H. E. Barnard, Food and Drug Commissioner of Indiana, referred to
the fact that Indiana was the first State to pass a cold storage law.
He introduced resolutions pertaining to the conservation of food,
which were unanimously adopted. The resolution follows:
Whereas, The Conservation of the food products of our country is of
the greatest importance to our people, in order that they may have
available the maximum supplies of wholesome food; and
Whereas, The subject is deserving of serious consideration, so that
production may be encouraged and waste decreased; and
Whereas, The important function of the process of refrigeration is
enlarging and diversifying the supply of perishable foodstuffs, as
applied in the preparation, transportation and distribution of these
goods, thereby giving consumers a larger and more wholesome supply,
preventing deterioration and waste, is recognized as being desirable
and necessary; therefore, be it
Resolved, That any legislation or administration restrictions or
regulations that may be required to properly control the business
and protect the public health should be uniform in the several
states of the Nation, and be it further
Resolved, That the Congress recommends that the succeeding food
committee of the National Conservation Congress be specially charged
with the duty of studying the questions involved in the production,
collection, sanitary preparation, transportation, preservation
and marketing of perishable foods, and to report its findings to
the succeeding Congress to the end that such report may be made
the basis of measures to better conserve the perishable foods of
the people, to improve the quality of such foods, increase their
production, and to promote such relations between the producer,
handler and consumer as will bring about a more nearly uniform price
through each year.
FOOD CONSERVATION BY COLD STORAGE.
By F. G. URNER, Editor, New York Produce Review.
The conservation of food may be considered from two points of
view—first, the safeguarding and preservation of the food currently
produced; second, the maintenance of those elements of fertility
upon which continuous production depends, and the improvement of
methods of production to the end that maximum yield may be realized
from the labor and material expended. Both considerations are of the
utmost importance in the present conditions of changing relation
between the domestic supply of food and the needs of nonproducers. In
both progress toward higher ideals is dependent upon an increase of
knowledge, and worthy of such educational forces as can be brought
to bear by a wise government. In both directions the United States
Government, through the Department of Agriculture and otherwise,
is endeavoring, by investigation, study and the dissemination of
ascertained fact, to foster progress for the common good.
In the United States the development of food production to keep
pace with the needs of a population increasing at a rate beyond
all precedent, has been crude and wasteful. Beginning with virgin
soils the stores of primitive fertility have been drawn upon with
little regard for their steady depletion. Methods of careful and
conservative agriculture that have been forced upon older communities
have been largely ignored until comparatively recent years, when an
appreciation of the near approach of the inevitable results of waste
has turned forceful educational efforts toward a reformation—efforts
which, however, have been handicapped by the necessity of overcoming
the prejudice of ignorance and long established habit of carelessness.
Considered broadly, the question of conservation of food is
far-reaching and extends to innumerable details. It is the purpose
in this paper to discuss simply some of the general principles
underlying the subject from the first mentioned viewpoint—the
safeguarding and preservation of the food produced—particularly in
respect to preservation by cold storage.
It is hardly necessary to enlarge upon the general requirement of
food preservation. In northern latitudes, where months of production
are, in respect to a large part of the food supply, followed by
months of nonproduction, this necessity is evident not only to
maintain a satisfactory variety of food but to secure a sufficient
quantity. In the United States differences of climatic conditions,
although giving an almost continuous production of certain vegetable
foods, do not serve to furnish an uninterrupted supply of fresh
products of many staple kinds, nor are they sufficient to remove the
necessity for utilizing the productive power of the colder regions
far beyond the consumptive needs during the comparatively brief
seasons of harvest. The practice of food storage from the season
of natural production through the season of nonproduction is, of
course, to some extent, as old as life itself; but the methods of
preservation have shared in the improvements that have characterized
a modern civilization. And the development of these advanced methods
has brought into the question of food preservation new problems, some
of which it is the purpose in this paper to discuss.
Methods of food preservation may be broadly divided into two
classes—first, those which accomplish their purpose by changing
the physical condition of the food, as by drying, or cooking and
hermetical sealing; and second, those which preserve the articles
in such manner that, when used, they shall be practically in their
original condition. The latter methods depend for their effectiveness
upon the provision of such environment as will check or retard the
forces of deterioration or decay, and it is in the ability to provide
such conditions by an artificial control of temperature and humidity
that the preservation of food in apparently unchanged physical
condition has been greatly extended.
So long as food products were chiefly preserved from the seasons of
production, or maximum production, to the season of nonproduction
by the use of somewhat primitive means, and largely by producers
themselves, or by methods familiar to the household, the food so
held was accepted by the people as a matter of course and recognized
necessity. Canned and dried foods were, and are, used with general
satisfaction as such; and such staple fruits and vegetables as could
be carried in their original condition through the winter months
were consumed with a general knowledge of their age, but with a full
appreciation of the necessity for such holding and of the comparative
excellence of the held goods. Butter and eggs also, when held by
producers themselves, even by primitive and inefficient means, were
accepted by consumers in seasons of natural scarcity with resignation
as to their comparatively poor quality under a general knowledge that
nothing better could be expected at prices within common reach.
These conditions remain unchanged today in respect to those forms of
preserved food whose character is evident either because of their
change of form or because of a popular knowledge that the articles,
though indistinguishable from fresh products, must have been held
from a crop harvested long ago. But the development of preservation
by effective artificial control of temperature has brought some new
elements into the situation.
Cold storage has enlarged the number of food products preservable in
their original condition and created a new industry; it has largely
removed the function of this class of food preservation from the
scattered individual producers to large central establishments and
thrown the business of accumulating and conserving surplus more fully
into the hands of tradesmen. It has permitted the preservation of
flesh foods in a raw state which were never before so preservable;
and it has so improved the quality of stored products whose current
production never ceases entirely that in many cases the held goods
cannot be distinguished from the fresh production.
These facts have led to a popular apprehension that cold storage,
being utilized largely by nonproducers and necessarily upon a
speculative basis, is made a tool for extortion or unjust profits;
also that deception is practiced, in respect to foods whose
production never ceases entirely, by the substitution of stored food
for fresh; and exaggerated statements as to the length of time foods
are held in storage have brought in question their wholesomeness and
created a popular prejudice.
It is important to know the facts in these particulars so that
the true function of cold storage in the preservation of food may
be understood, especially because legislative restriction of the
industry has been effected in some States and is under consideration
in others, as well as in the Federal Congress, in the enactment of
which mistaken views have resulted and may further result in public
injury.
COLD STORAGE ECONOMICS.
It is a self-evident proposition that, in respect to foods the
production of which is seasonal, the ability to preserve a part of
the yield to the period of nonproduction lessens waste and permits a
material increase of production, thus increasing the available food
supply. It is also evident that, supposing all the food produced to
be marketed and consumed, an increase in the supply of food tends to
a lowering of its average price. Apart from inevitable variations
due to climatic conditions the production of particular foods
increases or diminishes according to the relative profit realized
from that production; and it is evident that a profit sufficient
to induce production can be realized upon a much greater output if
the period during which consumption is possible can be extended. A
maximum production of any food can be realized only when the period
of its availability for consumption is constant; and it follows
that the maximum production of foods whose yield or greatest yield
is seasonal, can be realized only by preservation of a part of the
production for use during the season of natural dearth or deficiency
which ends only with the beginning of the following period of maximum
production.
Upon these simple truths rests the economic utility of cold storage
preservation. Practically its benefits in the conservation of food,
and in the encouragement of maximum production, are to be gained
only through the opportunity for profit, and while the business of
carrying foods from seasons of abundance to natural scarcity is open
to all it is naturally conducted chiefly by the tradesmen who are
permanently engaged in food distribution, and who are most familiar
with trade conditions and the varying relations of supply and demand.
An important fact bearing upon the practical use of cold storage
preservation as a feature of the distributing business is that no
profit can be expected by holding products beyond the succeeding
period of maximum production, when prices naturally fall to the
lowest point. The variations in selling prices at that period are
never sufficient to cover the cost of carriage of goods from a
previous season and the lessened value of long stored products in
comparison with fresh. There are occasional market conditions which
have induced the holding of perishable foods in cold storage beyond
twelve months in the effort to lessen a loss, but they are rare and
exceptional, so much so that a legal restriction of the period of
permissible holding to twelve months would have very little effect
upon the inducement to utilize cold storage from a commercial
standpoint. But so far as the purely economic interests of consumers
are concerned it would appear that no restriction of the period of
permissible holding of food in cold storage is either necessary
or desirable. The inducement to hold is profit, and profit can be
realized only by selling into final consumption. And when goods can
be carried to a later date and sold at a higher price it is evidence
that the relative scarcity which results in that higher price would
have been more stringent had the goods not been so carried. In
respect to the time of selling stored foods, therefore, the interests
of consumers (as a whole) and of owners of the food, would seem to be
identical; for it is the increased public need which results in the
higher price, and profit, considering storage operations as a whole,
depends upon a correct judgment as to that need.
There seems, therefore, no means by which tradesmen dealing in raw
foods can utilize cold storage preservation for their own benefit
at the cost of a public injury, but that, on the contrary, the
profitableness of holding surplus depends upon the performance of a
public service.
The ideal function of cold storage preservation is to carry just such
amount of surplus from the time of greatest yield as can be consumed
during the later period of relative scarcity at just sufficient
advance in value as will cover the cost of carriage and afford a
maximum satisfactory profit for the conduct of the business and the
necessary investment of capital. But it is impossible that this
ideal can be uniformly realized. Even if the operations of storage
accumulation and withdrawal for market were uniformly governed in
the light of the fullest possible knowledge and with the best of
judgment, it would be impossible always to determine the quantity to
be stored and the normal price thereof so that later deficiency at
corresponding prices would be exactly offset. For the extent of later
shortage can never be certainly known and the extent of demand at any
particular prices is variable and uncertain. As a matter of fact,
these operations of storage accumulation and later output, being
carried on by thousands of individual and independent dealers, in the
dim light of imperfect knowledge, even as to important statistical
facts that might be known, can never result in ideal effects.
Sometimes the quantity of certain foods stored at the prices paid
proves to be excessive and a part of the surplus, toward the approach
of the next flush season, has to be thrown upon the markets at heavy
losses; sometimes the quantity put away is insufficient to offset
the later scarcity and a part of the surplus, carried late, realizes
for larger profits than normal. But these conditions are, to a large
extent, inevitable, and while they show that the ideal function of
cold storage preservation can not always be realized, they do not
materially lessen its value. When a series of years is considered it
will be found that the average profits are comparatively small in
relation to the risks and the investment involved. And even when,
during the flush season of accumulation, prices are sustained above
the normal level by an amount of accumulation that later proves
excessive, consumers get the surplus later at correspondingly lower
prices. The reverse is also true, that when the quantity held is
deficient, leading to relatively high prices in a part of the season
of natural scarcity, a greater previous accumulation, sufficient to
prevent so much advance, would have resulted in higher prices during
the previous flush season.
The view that the economic effect of cold storage is to increase
production and to lower the yearly average price of food whose
production is variable is evidenced by such statistics as are
available. In the manufacture of butter, for instance, the months
of greatest production are from May to August, inclusive, and the
months of usual deficiency are from November to March. In the
New York market the average price of creamery butter from May to
August during the period from 1880 to 1892, before cold storage
preservation was generally used, was 21.9 cents. During the same
months in the period from 1902 to 1911, when cold storage facilities
were largely available, the average price was 23.4 cents. But while
this comparison shows an average advance of one 1½ cents during the
four months of normal accumulation of surplus the effect upon prices
during the normal season of shortage was very apparent; for in the
months November to March in the period 1880 to 1892 the average
wholesale price was 34.3 cents, while during the same months in the
period from 1902 to 1911 the average for fine fresh creamery was only
28.9 cents, and the average for fine storage creamery 26.7 cents.
THE QUALITY OF COLD STORED FOODS.
The quality of all perishable food products varies according to
the methods of their production and the care taken of them during
transit from producer to consumer. The more perishable foods, being
produced in a very wide territory by a vast number of producers, and
usually transported over long distances, are found in distributing
markets to be of extremely irregular quality and condition. Usually
qualities are best in the seasons of maximum production, and while
goods put into cold storage are also of irregular quality most of
those intended for long holding are selected, handled and packed
with especial care. The effect upon perishable foods of holding in
cold storage is various. It is less in respect to those carried
hard frozen, as meat, fish, poultry and butter, and upon durable
vegetables and fruit, as potatoes and apples, than upon animal
products that cannot be frozen, as eggs in the shell. Yet in all
perishable foods commonly carried in cold storage, quality, as
judged by popular standards, is preservable up to the limit of usual
commercial necessity, in a highly satisfactory degree. The more
durable fruits and vegetables, carried in properly corrected and
controlled atmospheric conditions, after months of holding, are often
indistinguishable in point of quality, from those marketed soon after
their harvest. Butter carried frozen for months loses very little of
its original flavor and character. Poultry, also, if of fine quality
and condition when frozen, may be so held for a long period without
noticeable deterioration. Eggs in cold storage gradually lose the
peculiar freshness of a new laid quality, but under proper conditions
they remain sound, sweet and acceptable when carried at about 30
degrees temperature for at least nine or ten months. Scientific
investigation conducted by the research laboratories of the United
States Department of Agriculture has given no evidence of any effect
of an unwholesome character upon the quality of perishable foods held
in cold storage up to the limit of usual commercial practice when the
products were sound and wholesome when stored.
The cold storage of surplus and the sale thereof in the markets adds
not at all to the irregularity in quality of our food supply. On the
contrary, the average quality of the supply is improved, for, without
the facility of refrigeration, freshly marketed products would
inevitably be poorer; they are now often poorer than similar goods
of much greater age properly carried in cold storage. Furthermore,
the length of time perishable foods are carried in cold storage is,
within reasonable limits, no criterion of their quality. Perfect
products, properly refrigerated for months, may be, and often are,
superior in all the elements of quality to imperfect goods, freshly
marketed or held only a short time. Again, because of the very widely
spread sources of our food supply, the necessity for collection at
innumerable points and transportation over long distances it is
hard to say what goods are “fresh.” Even when collected at interior
points, transported to distant markets and put into consumption with
usual promptness perishable products are often two to four weeks in
the transit from producer to consumer, and often under more or less
unfavorable environments.
Under these circumstances it is seriously to be doubted that there
is any real ethical foundation for the recent demand that, in the
sale of perishable foods, there must be a stated distinction between
so-called “fresh” and stored products, or for the feeling that
consumers asking for broiling chickens in the winter, for instance,
are deceived if furnished with acceptable goods frozen six months
before. And this doubt is intensified, no matter how scrupulous we
may be in standing for truth and fair dealing, when it is considered
how difficult will be the enforcement of laws compelling such
distinction in commodities of irregular quality and condition whose
age and previous environment cannot be known by examination, and in
respect to which a comparison of quality is often in favor of the
older goods.
The writer’s conclusion from the foregoing considerations, based upon
a long and disinterested observation of the practical use of cold
storage preservation, is that artificial refrigeration furnishes
the most important of all modern factors in the conservation of
perishable foods, leading to an increase in their production, and
to a consequent lowering of average prices. Also that governmental
attention to the industry would be more usefully directed toward
providing for continuous and frequent statistical information of
the rate of food accumulation and output, to the end that operators
may be guided by the largest possible knowledge, rather than toward
any undue restriction of the industry or the imposition of costly
and difficult requirements which, though seemingly designed to
prevent deception, are, upon analysis, found to be unnecessary and
impractical.
_NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CONSERVATION COMMISSIONERS._
This Association, consisting of Conservation commissioners and other
persons connected with various departments of State development, held
two sessions during the Conservation Congress. Several important
subjects were considered, but most of the time was given to a
discussion of the work done by certain departments connected with
public service.
The first session considered State Surveys, their work and
co-operation. As a result of this meeting an agreement was reached as
to the order or sequence of the surveys, the object being to secure
for the States the largest returns from each survey. The sequence of
the surveys and the leading points to be emphasized, as decided by
the commissioners, are as follows: (1) topography, (2) structure, (3)
drainage, (4) ground water, (5) local climate, (6) soil, (7) plant
and animal life, (8) social and industrial conditions. This order is
thought to be most helpful so far as the surveys are concerned. It is
also the natural order. It was plainly shown that several States have
wasted time and money in taking up the various surveys in a way that
does not develop these relationships. For instance, some States have
started industrial and agricultural surveys before they have mapped
the geology, topography and water resources. Such an order does not
bring the best results. Furthermore, it is wasteful.
Several prominent directors of State surveys took part in the
discussions of this session, among them being Dr. George W. Field,
Dr. A. H. Purdue, Dr. F. W. DeWolf, Professor Kay, Dr. C. E. Bessey,
Dr. C. H. Gordon, Dr. Frank W. Rane, Prof. George A. Loveland and
Hon. J. E. Beal. Among the other speakers were Hon. George Coupland,
Mr. Ellis, W. E. Barns, Henry A. Barker, H. E. Hardtner and Dr. H. H.
Waite. Dr. David White, of the United States Geological Survey, gave
valuable suggestions.
At the second session of the commissioners, the forest laws of
Louisiana were discussed by Hon. H. E. Hardtner, ex-Chairman
of the Louisiana Conservation Commission. Following this was a
general discussion of forest laws and forest management. Hon. W.
E. Barns, of the Missouri Conservation Commission, gave a talk on
the improvements of lumbering in the South. Prof. Earl O. Fippin
of the Agricultural College of Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y.,
read a paper; subject, “The Soil Survey as a Means of Agricultural
Improvement.” This paper was followed by discussion, in which the
value of the soil surveys as it relates to State development, was
brought out with considerable detail.
The officers elected for the ensuing year were: President, Dr. G. E.
Condra, Lincoln, Neb.; Vice-President, Dr. George W. Field, Sharon,
Mass.; Secretary, Henry A. Barker, Providence, R. I.
_ACCIDENT PREVENTION SECTION._
On October 2, 3:30 o’clock, the section on “Accident Prevention” held
a large and enthusiastic meeting in the Auditorium of the German
House. The presiding officer was Mr. M. W. Mix, of Mishawaka, Ind.,
President of the Manufacturers’ Bureau of Indiana. At this meeting
the following resolution was adopted:
Resolved, That we appreciate the efforts now being made by
manufacturers of machinery for use in industrial plants to so far
safeguard their machines as to minimize the danger of personal
injury to workers; and that as manufacturers and individuals
interested in accident prevention we recognize the difficulty,
and in some cases even impossibility, on the part of purchasers
of individual machines to properly attach safeguards; and realize
that the original manufacturers of the machines by reason of their
wide experience and efficient engineers, are better able to develop
and provide proper safeguards for all machinery; and that it is
the sense of this meeting that any efforts along this line are
highly commendable and will be appreciated by all interested in the
Conservation of human life.
Resolved, further; That a copy of this resolution be sent by the
President to every machine manufacturer with a request for his
co-operation.
_CONSERVATION OF WATERS._
Report of the Standing Committee on Waters. W. C. MENDENHALL,
Washington, D. C., Acting Chairman.
To the public the Conservation movement seemed to rise suddenly in
the last few months of 1908 and the early part of the year 1909, but
what the people of the United States was really witnessing then was
not so much the origin of a movement as its organization. Through
a generation before that time Government bureaus, individuals, and
associations here and there had been methodically assembling facts,
and those who were familiar with these facts had been reaching
conclusions that were oftentimes disturbing in their tenor. These
individuals and groups were brought together, their conclusions were
given publicity of a most effective type, and what had been scattered
and disorganized recognition of a vital problem was given solidarity
and nation-wide recognition by the acts of President Roosevelt and
Gifford Pinchot in organizing the National Conservation Commission
and calling the Conference of Governors. The Forest Service, the
Reclamation Service, and the Geological Survey had locked up in their
archives the results of decades of research by their representatives,
and these results supplied the facts which were the stimulus and the
basis for the Conservation movement. Since that first great meeting,
the Conservation Congress, giving official expression to the movement
and formulating its doctrines and its platform, has served as a
medium for the exchange of ideas among those who are engaged in one
or the other of its manifold activities, for the subject-matter of
Conservation is as comprehensive as the materials with which humanity
deals. Furthermore, the term itself has been impressed upon the
public mind. It has passed out of the category of a cult for the few,
and has been taken up by statesmen and politicians, scientists and
divines, commercial organizations, manufacturing associations, and
has even invaded the realm of diplomacy. This proves merely that the
seeds were well sown by those who were sponsors for the movement.
Their work, the task of focusing public attention upon a theretofore
neglected but vital series of problems, was superlatively well done.
Years have passed since that time. It is appropriate that we review
the results of those years as it was appropriate in 1908 to make
our first inventory of the primary subject-matter of Conservation,
namely, our natural resources. The period of initiation, difficult
but well performed, is past. There remains a task that will never be
finished—the equally difficult and the infinitely slower process of
applying the principles of Conservation to our every-day activities.
Such an application must be practical, reasonable, and gradual so
that modes of life and industrial habits in which change is to be
affected can be given time and opportunity to adjust to that change.
How well have we, the workers in the ranks for these principles,
performed our task? In what fashion has the movement been carried on?
What real and creative steps have been taken in the public interest
to reserve for future generations without unnecessary suppression of
opportunity for the individual in the present or denial of his needs,
that share in our natural wealth which should be so reserved?
I shall confine myself to a brief and casual review of that phase of
the Conservation movement which deals with the one resource—water.
Even in dealing with this one item in the subject-matter of
Conservation, I shall have to leave aside for treatment by others,
and indeed by other organizations than this, that phase of the
problem of the waters which deals primarily with transportation and
its allied problems of river improvement and waterway construction.
There still remains a broad field, for water is the universal
resource. Doctor McGee has estimated that the ultimate control of
population in the United States will be exerted by the limitations
in its water supply. We cannot say that this limit in population,
even though it be placed at from five hundred to one thousand
million people, is one that does not concern this generation, for
we feel very keenly now in our arid and semi-arid sections the
handicap which lack of water places upon our growth. Irrigation
and dry-farming methods are attempts to overcome this handicap and
forces us to realize that the ultimate growth predicted by Dr. McGee
can be reached only through the most careful husbanding of the most
universal and important gift of nature—water.
Because the human body, like all other organic structures, is largely
water and because all of its nutritive and renewing processes are
exercised by the function of water as the solvent of other foods, it
has a primary value to man superior to that of any other substance.
Its secondary value, scarcely less important than the primary and
closely related to it in character, is as an aid in the production of
nearly all things which man uses. In the humid regions, the supply
is sufficient naturally so that the necessity of water is ordinarily
given no more thought than the necessity for air, although without
either we should instantly perish. Man’s use of water in crop
production, hence, is automatic and unconscious in the eastern United
States, but in western part, and especially in the arid districts, he
at once becomes conscious of its importance because plans and crops
fail without it. He establishes engineering works and conducts it
to the land in order that food may be grown upon the land. Here, in
the pioneer stages of settlement, comes the first great waste. Water
was and too frequently still is carelessly used in irrigation. An
equivalent of twenty or twenty-five feet in depth has been applied
annually to the land where four or five feet is ample. The excess is
sheer waste and in its application the land is ruined. Canals are
often carelessly constructed and half of their carrying capacity
leaks out before the tract to be irrigated is reached.
As settlement increases and demand becomes more intense, these
conditions are improved. Their improvement in our own arid West
and Southwest began under the pressure of necessity before the
Conservation movement was given a name, but that improvement
nonetheless represented the application of Conservation principles
and the movement centered attention upon this and similar wastes,
made men more generally conscious of them, and stimulated preventive
measures. This stimulus, acting upon the public mind, aided many
of the Government bureaus that for years had been combating such
waste. The Department of Agriculture has a Bureau of Irrigation
Investigations, which has systematically studied irrigation methods
in the West and Southwest and has published many valuable reports
calling attention to the losses of water in irrigation and suggesting
methods for its prevention. The Geological Survey in its series of
water-supply papers has repeatedly warned communities of the injuries
and economic waste resulting from bad management of water supplies.
The Reclamation Service, represented in its foundation a branch of
Conservation, established and made a practical working idea. Since
its foundation it has systematically continued the great work begun
by the passage of its organic act in 1902, and is reclaiming, by
careful and economic methods, millions of otherwise waste acres in
the public land States. It has reached the point where the building
of impounding reservoirs and of the canals by which the impounded
water is conducted to the lands has been brought to practical
completion on many of the projects so that its task is transformed
into one of inducing settlement, of inculcating principles of
economic irrigation practice in the minds of the farmers; of
increasing the duty of water and therefore its usefulness, to the
maximum; and of reclaiming through the establishment of drainage
systems, lands which have been ruined by over-irrigation under the
old systems absorbed by the reclamation projects. This movement is a
part of, has aided, and has in turn been aided by the propaganda. It
is practical Conservation of a high type.
I should like to diverge here for a moment to a collateral phase of
Conservation activity which indirectly bears upon reclamation by
irrigation. Our coal land laws provide for the sale of those parts of
the public domain underlain by coal deposits at prices of not less
than $10 or $20 per acre. Prior to 1906, this law was interpreted
as evaluating coal lands on the basis of the thickness, quality and
depths of individual beds, and basing sale prices upon these values.
Through the fruition of this policy, coal lands are no longer sold
at the minimum legal price unless they have minimum values. If coals
are of sufficiently good quality and exist in sufficient thickness,
they may now be sold at $40, $50, $100, $200, or even $500 per acre.
A recent sale in the Rock Springs district, Wyoming, of one section
of land at prices ranging from $370 to $410 per acre, netted the
Government one quarter of a million dollars more than would have
been received under the old policy of sales at minimum prices. This
increment of a quarter million goes, like all other receipts from
sales of public lands, into the reclamation fund and is there used
in the application of water to the arid lands in the West. The
Conservation phase of the present coal land policies is thus closely
related to the question of waters and their use. The valuation of
this natural resource and the sale at valuation prices was one
of the collateral movements which stimulated and led to public
recognition of the need of Conservation. It is a thoroughly practical
application of Conservation principles and is an excellent example of
governmental activity in this direction.
In one of the arid valleys of southern California in which irrigated
lands bring prices of from $500 to $3,000 per acre and in which the
limit to the number of acres to which such values are affixed depends
wholly upon the quantity of water available, there has of course
been earnest study of every possible means by which this quantity
could be increased or made to serve a larger acreage. Here, in 1909,
an interesting, practical step in Conservation was taken. Prior
to that period water users in this valley who derive an important
part of their supply from underground resources which, because of
excessive drafts, were becoming depleted, had adopted the unique
device of spreading flood waters which would otherwise escape to the
sea and be lost, over the rough alluvial lands at the base of the
mountain slopes in order that they might there sink and replenish
the underground resources. The lands best adapted to this purpose
had remained public lands because of their rough and uncultivable
character, although adjacent to them were privately owned lands
worth many hundreds of dollars per acre. In 1909 a law was passed by
which these public lands were set aside for use in the distribution
of these flood waters. They are now, and will remain, a permanent
public reserve devoted to the conservation of water supplies and
the increase of the quantity available for irrigation in a region
in which water for this purpose has perhaps a higher value than in
any other part of the United States. Here again is an example of
practical Conservation work accomplished through the co-operation of
private and governmental agencies.
The passage of the so-called Weeks bill in 1911 likewise marks a
great advance in the direction of Conservation legislation. This is
the bill which provides for the creation of an Appalachian forest
reserve by the purchase of privately owned lands in the Appalachian
Mountains. Its administration is in the hands of a commission whose
active agents are the Forest Service and the Geological Survey, and
one of the features of the bill is the clause which provides that the
Geological Survey must affirm that the purchase of the lands will
favorably affect the navigability of the streams on whose headwaters
they lie, before the purchase can be made. Thus the conservation
of waters is involved as well as that of the forests and of lands
through the prevention of erosion. Those of you who for years
advocated such a bill and assisted in its final enactment will agree
with me, I believe, in the statement that its passage would not have
been possible without the preliminary education of public opinion
accomplished by the great pioneer advocates of the Conservation
principles.
There is and will continue to be need for revision of the laws
under which the administrative officers of the Government work to
the end that these officers may administer our public resources
more economically, more effectively, with less waste and therefore
more thoroughly in the public interest. The enactment of laws does
not anticipate the need for their enactment. There must always
be widespread recognition of that need before public opinion
crystallizes into statute. For, after all, the enactment of a law
is nothing more nor less than the recognition on the part of our
lawmakers of a public necessity which you and I as citizens force
upon their attention. Until new laws can be secured, the task of the
administrative officer is to administer with the greatest efficiency
possible those laws that do exist. Under the stimulus of an active
public opinion an interpretation may be given old laws which will
enable them to fit the newer and changed conditions, for no enactment
is absolutely rigid in its terms. An example of this adaptation of a
law long upon our statute books to the passing of pioneer conditions
in the West and the substitution for them of those changed conditions
that result from augmented population, is that of the coal land law
to which your attention has been called. The statute has not been
altered since its passage in 1873, but coal lands are being sold
under it now at prices which are based upon real values instead of at
the lowest possible price under the law, as was true prior to 1906.
Under the stimulus of the changed character of public opinion, which
has resulted from Conservation agitation, all of our public land laws
are being carefully scrutinized to determine whether they do not
admit of an interpretation and of an administration that is more in
consonance with Conservation principles than the interpretation and
administration of the past. Among the statutes thus scrutinized is
the Carey Act, a law only less vital to the West than the Reclamation
Act. In general it provides that public lands may be transferred by
the Federal Government to the State in which they lie if that State
will enter into a contract for their irrigation, by the terms of
which they will eventually be delivered to bona fide homesteaders
in tracts of suitable size. Undoubtedly, there have been instances
in the past of careless administration of this law. The Federal
Government has considered that its responsibility to the settler
had ceased when the lands were turned over to the State in trust
to him. The State, in turn, has considered that its responsibility
ceased when the contract with the irrigating company was signed,
and this company has been left free to deal with its actual and
prospective settlers in a fashion that was intended too frequently
to bring profits to a promoting company rather than water upon arid
lands. It has thus happened that settlers, depending upon the State
and through the State upon the Federal Government for protection of
their interests, have found when the time came to apply for patents
to their lands that although they had paid to a company large sums
for water supplies, the water was not delivered, the land could not
be reclaimed as the law required, and they were therefore unable to
secure patent to it; but the irrigating or promoting company to which
their funds had gone had disappeared and was inaccessible under the
law. The genuine farmer, who at the sacrifice of hard-earned funds
and years of labor was intended to be the beneficiary of this law,
became instead its victim. This condition is believed to be past.
The Federal Government and many of the States are now exhibiting
a keen recognition of their responsibilities and of scrutinizing
with the utmost care the water supply of each proposed project, the
practicability of the engineering features of that project, and
the financial standing and responsibility of its backers. A recent
interesting example of this changed attitude occurred in one of
the Western States, which in the past has administered this law
carelessly, but I am glad to record is now exhibiting due care in
meeting its responsibilities. In this case, literature issued by the
promoters came to the attention of the Department of the Interior.
In this literature statements were made to prospective buyers as to
the available water supply and as to the acreage to which it would be
applied that were known from the departmental records to be highly
misleading. The attention of the Governor of the State was called to
this condition of affairs by an emphatic letter from the Secretary
of the Interior. The State in turn called upon the promoting company
for an explanation. The representatives of the company hastened to
Washington for a hearing. As a result of that hearing, the acreage
segregated in the project was promptly reduced, the company was
forced to agree to cease its sale of water rights to private lands
until the rights of the Government lands to which it was inviting
settlers were satisfied, and thus the situation so full of menace to
prospective settlers was promptly corrected. Other examples of this
type of action which represents closer, more careful administration
of old laws might be multiplied. Each of them marks a step in the
application of the principles for which the Conservation Congress
stands.
If the first use of water by man is in the direct sustenance of
life and its second is for the production of food supplies through
irrigation, perhaps its third most important use is the development
of power for all of those manifold purposes tending toward the
amelioration of life and the increase of its comforts, for which
power may be used. Cities are lighted; street cars are moved; ores
are smelted; manufacturing plants are supplied with their motive
power; homes are heated; and water is pumped for irrigation by the
use of hydro-electric power. No question has been the subject of
more bitter controversy than that of the control of this tremendous
resource. It has been energetically sought on the one hand by those
who seek opportunities for profit and desire that no control be
exercised over those opportunities by the power of the State. On
the other hand, public opinion, working largely through its State
and Federal representatives, has demanded that this resource whose
magnitude can be but rudely estimated, and whose future value but
guessed at, be so controlled that communities depending upon it shall
not be unduly taxed for the purpose of piling up private profits.
Here again, both public opinion and Federal officers have repeatedly
urged the enactment of new laws which will make possible the exercise
of reasonable control in the public interests and at the same time
properly safeguard capital which must be invested in order that the
resources now wasted may develop and become useful. Bills have been
introduced and debated in Congress; conferences have been held with
representatives of the public and of capital, but the plans thus far
considered have brought no fruition in amended legislation, although
some excellent bills are under consideration and it is believed will
soon become law. Here again, the task of the administrative officer
is to so interpret and apply the laws now upon our statute books,
pending the enactment of others more satisfactory, that development
may continue and the rights of the public of this generation and
the next be at the same time duly safeguarded. Here also there has
been progress in the interpretation of law. The responsibility for
the administration of the laws for the development of water powers
in the national forests lies in the Forest Service where it is
admirably exercised in the public interest. The law which provides
for the development of powers on the public domain, whether within or
without the reserves, is a permissory law, one that authorizes the
department having jurisdiction to permit the development of these
water powers under general regulations to be fixed by the Secretary.
After a thorough study of the situation, the Forest Service on
December 28, 1910, issued certain regulations providing for the
development of powers under this permissory law, the permit being
by the terms of the law itself subject to cancellation at any time
and the regulations under it providing for moderate charges upon the
developing company. With these regulations in force in the national
forests, and no similar procedure provided for on the public lands
outside the forests which are under the jurisdiction of the Interior
Department, applicants for the privilege of developing water powers
which lay in part within and in part without the forest reserves
found themselves under two jurisdictions without any provision for
uniform procedure. The problem as to the precise amount of control
that could be exercised on the Interior Department lands under the
act of 1901 has not been solved until recently; but as a result
of this final solution, there were approved by Secretary Fisher
on the 24th of August, 1912, regulations controlling the issue of
permits for power development outside of the national forests that
are in substantial accord with those heretofore in force within the
forests. These regulations provide for the exercise of the authority
of the Secretary in a definite, uniform, and systematic manner
that much more fully safeguards the rights of the public than the
policy heretofore pursued in relation to public water powers. The
situation, therefore, seems to be as well safeguarded as it can be
under the present statutes, at least so far as hydro-electric powers
on other than navigable streams are concerned, and this end has
been accomplished not by new legislation, which we all recognize
as badly needed, but by a proper interpretation and acceptance of
responsibility under old legislation.
An incidental phase of the effort to administer a law which provides
for no definite tenure of lands having power values has been the
constantly repeated attempt of interests desiring to acquire valuable
water powers to secure them under the irrigation laws, those laws
having great advantage from the commercial viewpoint of providing for
a grant instead of a revocable permit. Application after application
has been filed with the Department of the Interior in which it is
stated solemnly that the rights of way are desired for purposes of
irrigation, when it is perfectly obvious to the engineering advisers
of the Secretary that the power value is the dominant value and that
if the waters are used for irrigation at all, it will be merely in
order to effect a technical compliance with the law under which
they are acquired. Refusal to approve rights of way of this type
have been followed by appeals and by emphatic protests on the part
of the applicants. These protests take various forms. Among them
are attempts to influence public opinion through various congresses
similar to this Congress, and other attempts to secure the enactment
of special legislation which will grant to the applicant that which
he is unable to secure through the administrative officers. In a
particularly interesting case of this type recently acted upon by
the Department of the Interior, the acting Secretary expressed the
present policy of the department in these emphatic terms, which I am
sure will appeal to every member of this Congress. He said:
I consider it the imperative duty of every supervisory officer of
the Government upon whom any duty devolves to conserve the paramount
interests of the people, to protect these natural power sites from
exploitation under any law which successfully invoked would turn
them over to private interests charged with a perpetual easement
against the United States.
One other type of administrative action in connection with the
conservation of water resources has recently been inaugurated which
may well be brought to the attention of this Congress. This is a new
exercise by the President of the power of withdrawal conferred upon
him by the so-called withdrawal act, approved June 25, 1910, and
amended August 24, 1912. By this action those lands in arid States
upon which small water supplies essential to the control of the
adjoining range are situated are withheld from entry. Those of you
who are acquainted with the range industry of Wyoming, Utah, Arizona,
and New Mexico realize that the use and control of the ranges are
exercised not so much through the ownership of the range lands
themselves as through the ownership of small tracts which include
the springs and other watering places that alone make the ranges
accessible and of value. Literal war has been waged between rival
stock interests in parts of the West over the control of springs.
Large interests have frequently forced their rivals to abandon the
range in a particular area by acquiring through the application of
scrip or by a real or pretended exercise of homestead rights the
lands on which the springs that alone give value to the range are
located. Laws have from time to time been considered which will
provide properly for the disposition of those remaining parts of the
public domain that are chiefly valuable for grazing purposes. It is
recognized that the homestead and desert land laws are inappropriate
for the acquisition of range lands in that they do not provide for a
sufficient acreage to make the stock industry possible. If the time
shall come when such a law is placed upon the statute books, and at
that time all of the water supplies adjacent to the ranges shall have
been acquired by private interests, the Government will be unable
to dispose of its range lands even under a favorable law except to
those who already control the water supplies which are the key to the
situation. Recognizing this important condition and desiring likewise
to provide for fair play between rival stock men on the remaining
public lands, the President, upon the recommendation of the Secretary
of the Interior, has inaugurated the policy of withholding from entry
lands upon which these desert watering places exist, and in pursuance
of this policy the first desert water hole withdrawal was made in
March, 1912.
It will be realized from this brief review that the process of
translating the Conservation doctrines into action is well under
way. Before and since the First Conservation Congress met, Federal
bureaus have advocated practical measures for the proper use of our
natural resources, water among them. With the enlightenment of public
opinion dating from the organization of the National Commission and
the meeting of the Governors the work has been greatly facilitated.
It is advancing now not only through the medium of the unorganized
effort of individuals, associations, and isolated bureaus and
divisions in the public service, but by the organized efforts of
an enthusiastic body of supporters. Laws embodying its principles
have passed, proposed laws inimical to those principles have been
defeated, old laws have been re-examined and reinterpreted to accord
more fully with Conservation doctrines in the public interests. Party
platforms are no longer complete without a Conservation plank and
indeed it may almost be said that a new party has been founded upon
the Conservation idea. On the whole the country and this Congress
have ample ground for optimism in considering the great advance that
has been made.
_WILD LIFE PROTECTION._
Report of Standing Committee, Dr. W. T. HORNADAY, New York City,
Chairman.
The Committee on Wild Life Protection wishes to call the attention
of the Congress to the enormous losses that are being inflicted upon
the farming and fruit-growing interests of the United States through
the destruction of insect-eating birds. While the main facts of the
situation are known to many persons, the mass of the people of the
United States are sound asleep on this subject. The 5,000,000 men
and boys who are slaughtering our birds are levying tribute on every
American pocketbook. An immense number of birds of great economic
value are being slaughtered annually, and many of our most useful and
valuable bird species are on the toboggan slide toward extermination.
The destruction of our insect-eating birds means a great increase
in the armies of destructive insects, a great decrease in our
agricultural products, and a great loss to consumers and to farmers.
The value of the birds destroyed as “game” and for “food” is declared
to be not equal to one-thousandth of the value they would save to the
national wealth, if permitted to live.
The committee will distribute a campaign circular containing a table
of figures showing the annual losses to the people of the United
States by insect pests. Those figures were taken from an official
report published in the “Yearbook of the Department of Agriculture.”
The farmers who grow cereal crops lose about $200,000,000 per annum.
The fruit-growers lose $27,000,000 per annum. Hay loses $53,000,000;
cotton, $60,000,000; and truck crops, $53,000,000.
The committee’s circular gives the cost of certain insects per
species to the people of the United States. For example, the codling
moth and curculio apple pests cost the American people $8,250,000
a year for spraying operations, and $12,000,000 per year in annual
shrinkage in the apple crop. The chinch bug wheat pest sometimes
costs $20,000,000 per year, and the cotton boll weevil the same
amount. The tree insect pests damage trees and timber to a total of
$100,000,000 a year.
Your committee contends that the American people _do not realize_
that scores of species of the birds that sportsmen and pot-hunters
are regularly allowed to shoot for sport are of _immense value_
to agriculture. How many men are there out of every thousand who
know that at least thirty species of shore birds feed upon noxious
insects, and are immensely valuable to our agricultural industries?
The gunners who shoot legally are destroying 154 species of birds
that legally are classed as game birds, even in the North.
Very few Americans out of every thousand know the _immense value_ of
our song birds, swallows, woodpeckers, blackbirds, quail, doves and
nighthawks in destroying countless millions of noxious insects.
THE LOGICAL CONCLUSION.
In view of the decrease already accomplished in the general volume
of the bird life of America, in view of the enormous losses annually
inflicted upon the people of this country by the ravages of insects,
and in view of the destruction of wild life that now is furiously
proceeding throughout all America, the McLean bill, now before
Congress, to provide Federal protection for all migratory birds,
becomes the most important wild life measure that ever came before
the Congress of the United States in any form. In view of the annual
losses to the wealth of this country that will continue so long as
the McLean bill fails to pass, it is impossible for any one to put
forth one good reason, unless it be on purely technical grounds,
against that measure. By the inexorable logic of the situation, any
man who opposes the enactment of a law for the Federal protection
of migratory birds becomes by that opposition an enemy to the
public welfare. The bills introduced in Congress by Representatives
Weeks and Anthony have dragged long enough. They provided for
the protection of migratory _game_ birds, only. Now it is time
to strengthen their proposition, as Senator McLean has done, by
providing also for the protection of all the migratory insectivorous
birds.
Unless the people of America wish to shut their eyes to their own
interests, and pay out millions of dollars annually in the form of
increased cost of living, they should arouse from their lethargy and
put up to Congress such a demand for the passage of the McLean bill
that it will be enacted into law at the next session of Congress. It
is Senate Bill No. 6497, and on the Senate calendar it is No. 606.
We can not afford to wait until 1914 or 1915; and Congress has full
power to act next winter.
How many people in the North know that the negroes and poor whites of
the South annually slaughter millions of valuable insect-eating birds
for food? Around Avery Island, Louisiana, during the robin season (in
January when the berries are ripe), Mr. E. A. McIlhenny says that
during ten days or two weeks, at least 10,000 robins are each day
slaughtered for the pot. “Every negro man and boy who can raise a gun
is after them!”
There are seven States in which the robin is regularly and legally
being killed as game! They are Louisiana, Mississippi, Maryland,
North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and Florida.
There are five States that expressly permit the killing of blackbirds
as “game”: Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, District of
Columbia, Pennsylvania.
Cranes are killed and eaten in Colorado, Nevada, Nebraska, North
Dakota and Oklahoma.
In twenty-six States doves are regularly killed as game—much to the
loss of the farmers.
The bobwhite quail is a great destroyer of the seeds of noxious
weeds. In our fauna he has no equal. And yet this fact is ignored.
Throughout the North and most of the South that species is
mercilessly shot, and as a result it is fast _becoming extinct_. In
New York State it will soon be as extinct as the mastodon, unless
given a ten-year close season at once. Its value as a plentiful game
bird is gone.
The shore birds are _fast_ becoming exterminated by sportsmen and
pot-hunters who kill them for food, “according to law.” The Eskimo
curlew is totally extinct, and other species are fast going over the
same road. Nothing in this world will save this group of birds except
_a law for the Federal protection of migratory birds_, such as the
McLean bill, now before Congress. The way the whole group of shore
birds is being exterminated is nothing less than a crime. And yet,
at least thirty members of this group are of a great value to all of
us, because of the great numbers of crop-destroying insects that they
annually consume.
THE DUTY OF THE HOUR.
The _only way_ in which all these valuable migratory birds can be
saved to us is through the strong arm of the National Government, and
a Federal law for the protection of _all_ migratory birds! Protection
of game birds alone will not answer. Too many other birds are being
killed for food, especially in the South.
The Wild Life Protection Committee urges all delegates to take home
with them the burden that rests on every good citizen regarding the
enactment into law of a satisfactory measure for the preservation of
the insect-eating birds. If any opposition should arise on account
of the feature of the bill which covers the ducks, geese and swans,
and other migratory wild fowl, the committee is quite willing that
those birds should be stricken out of the bill entirely, in order
that the protection of the crop-saving birds may be secured. It is
believed that no sensible person can possibly raise any objection
to the protection of the insectivorous birds by the passage of the
McLean or Weeks bill, in case the water fowl are left out. It is,
however, regarded as extremely necessary that the shore birds should
be included because of their immense value to agriculture.
In concluding, the committee urges all delegates to take this matter
up with your members of Congress, and urge them to vote for, and work
for, whatever bill may finally be agreed upon as best calculated
to protect the insectivorous birds, and be free from objections
regarding its constitutionality. A number of able lawyers have
decided that it will be wholly within the spirit and letter of the
Constitution of the United States for the Federal Government to
protect all insectivorous birds through a law of Congress.
_VITAL RESOURCES OF THE NATION._
Dr. HENRY STURGIS DRINKER, President of Lehigh University, a Delegate
from the State of Pennsylvania, from Lehigh University, and from the
American Forestry Association.
What subject is there to which the constant attention of
Conservationists, of patriotic men and women, could be better devoted
than to the care of the vital resources of the nation—the care of
the lives of all our people, not of a selected few, the teaching
and the impressing of the lessons of steady life, of sobriety, of
continence, and of due rest and recuperation from the wear and tear
of our American life. Surely we have good reason to be proud of the
intelligence and activity of our people, formed as they are of the
intermingling of many peoples, with a resulting product as a nation
that is markedly free from in-breeding and its usually unsatisfactory
outcome.
I think it was Mr. Lieber, in the course of his gracious and cordial
opening address of welcome to the Congress, who referred to our
duty to endeavor to alleviate the condition of the sweat-shop and
mine workers, but is there not another and equally great duty of
which we are habitually more neglectful? What is our duty, the duty
of society, to those self-sacrificing, altruistic men, devoted to
public service, men such as Dr. Wallace, Mr. White, Mr. Farquhar,
who devote themselves to and ably lead great movements like this
Congress for the betterment of conditions among our people—men who
are not only captains of industry, but generals in the army of public
service, and leaders and exemplars in the pursuit of public duty?
What should we, as a body, say to them and to others like them (for,
thank God, America owns a great army of good men like them), who
uphold the good cause of public service? They become in leading these
great movements, in a measure, the custodians of the public welfare,
but—“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes”? Who shall watch these very
guards, and see that they conserve the intelligence, patriotism and
energy, that goes out from them to public welfare, that it may not be
prematurely exhausted? Surely we should take measures to have them
feel how the Nation values them as a public asset, and how they owe
it to their country as well as to their homes to heed and to preach
to others the wise words of dear old Mark Twain, who (writing from
Naples in 1867) sent us these words, pregnant with the lesson of the
higher Conservation:
“We walked up and down one of the most popular streets for some
time, enjoying other people’s comfort, and wishing we could export
some of it to our restless, driving, vitality-consuming marts
at home. Just in this one matter lies the main charm of life in
Europe—comfort. In America, we hurry—which is well; but when the
day’s work is done, we go on thinking of losses and gains, we plan
for the morrow, we even carry our business cares to bed with us, and
toss and worry over them when we ought to be restoring our racked
bodies and brains with sleep. We burn up our energies with these
excitements, and either die early, or drop into a mean and lean old
age, at a time of life which they call a man’s prime in Europe. When
an acre of ground has produced long and well, we let it lie fallow
and rest for a season; we take no man clear across the continent
in the same coach he started in—the coach is stabled somewhere on
the plains and its heated machinery allowed to cool for a few days;
when a razor has seen long service and refuses to hold an edge, the
barber lays it aside for a few weeks, and the edge comes back of
its own accord. We bestow thoughtful care upon inanimate objects,
but none upon ourselves. What a robust people, what a nation of
thinkers we might be, if we would only lay ourselves on the shelf
occasionally and renew our edges.”
As the official call for this Congress stated, we have in previous
meetings dealt with four great subjects—our forests, waters, lands,
and minerals, but in taking for its theme this year the subject of
“Vital Resources,” the Congress is studying the very life of the
Nation, is seeking to benefit our people not only by the conservation
of our material natural resources, but to do good to them by bringing
home the duty of life Conservation in our whole Nation; and what
greater task can patriotic men and women devote themselves to than
this, and what words can epitomize the sentiment underlying this
service better than those in Sophocles’ “Oedipus,” where it is said:
“Methinks, no work so grand
Hath man yet compassed, as with all he can
Of chance or power, to help his fellow-man.”
_CONSERVATION OF THE SOIL._
Hon. JAMES J. HILL, of St. Paul, Minn.
Just as all industry depends upon the production and increase of the
fruits of the earth, so all other forms of Conservation must be held
subordinate to the preservation of the productivity of the soil. To
preserve and defend the public health, to see that human beings are
brought into the world and kept there under favoring conditions, and
to lengthen their term of life will but add to the total of human
misery unless they are well fed and housed and clothed. For this, as
for the material of all their varied activities, they must come back
in the last analysis to the soil. Earth is the mother not only of
mankind but of all human industry.
In the years during which the necessity of this most imperative form
of Conservation has been the subject of my thought and the theme
of most of my public utterances, much has been accomplished. The
interest of the public is awake. It is not necessary any longer to
urge a Conservation movement, but rather to direct the energy already
enlisted in its behalf into wise channels. While the farmer is still
subject to some unfavorable legislative discrimination, we know that
his prosperity must be made a first object before prosperity can
visit others. The progress of the farm is put first in many schemes
of public improvement where, a few years ago, it would have been
mentioned perfunctorily if at all.
Education in agriculture has made much progress. The number of
institutions teaching agriculture increased more than sixty per
cent. in nineteen months. They had ten per cent. more students in
agriculture in 1910 than in 1909, and more than eight times as many
students taking the teachers’ course in agriculture. Colleges and
high schools give place to some form of agricultural instruction; and
the necessity of fostering soil Conservation is recognized today as
never before.
What we need to do at once belongs rather to the practical than to
the theoretical side of Conservation. There is little reason to doubt
that the farmer of the future should be a highly intelligent man,
commanding from his acres crops that are far beyond those of today
in their abundance. But the present generation may and should do far
better for itself, in its own time, while it is also preparing the
way for the more careful and productive agriculture which should
follow.
I use intentionally the words “careful” and “productive” instead
of the word “scientific,” as applied to soil treatment and crop
raising, because they express the simple and easy processes within
the reach of men of the present generation as well as the new;
because they avoid a misleading implication that attaches to the word
“scientific.” It is true that the best methods of soil treatment
and crop growing are scientific; but they require only that form of
popular science which is within the comprehension and use of every
farmer.
The essentials of soil Conservation have been known for centuries.
They were practiced in Babylonia, just as irrigation was resorted to
there on a splendid scale. They have been the property of the Chinese
for four thousand years, and maintained there a dense population
in spite of croppings so frequent and severe that it would seem
impossible for any soil to stand such treatment without exhaustion.
The latest bulletin of the best agricultural institution is scarcely
more instructive or helpful than a study of the “forty centuries
of agriculture” included in the experience of these skilled and
laborious people of the Orient.
The soil is a living thing, and must receive the treatment due to all
organic and vital beings from which we expect service or tribute. The
first requisite is that the individual man learn with what manner
of soil he is dealing. There is now an agricultural college or
experiment station within the reach of every farmer in the country.
Some are and all should be equipped for a scientific analysis of all
soils submitted to them. From this the cultivator may learn the first
two things indispensable to any intelligent conduct of his industry:
First, to what crops his land is best adapted; second, what elements
of fertility have been drawn from it so lavishly that they need to be
restored. This information having been given by competent authority,
every farmer may do all the rest for himself.
There is no secret and no mystery about the processes involved.
If farmers will rotate their crops, fertilize plentifully and
intelligently, keep live stock to diversify their industry, refresh
the land and utilize waste products, and cultivate thoroughly and
frequently, the problem of soil Conservation is solved. The earth
has been kept as productive for thousands of years as it was when it
produced its first crop of cultivated cereals wherever these few and
simple conditions have been observed. If seed is carefully selected,
after a test for germination, and the practices mentioned are
followed, there is no reason why the yield per acre of the principal
crops of the United States should not equal those of England, Germany
or many other countries which produce twice as much as we do with far
inferior natural advantages.
Dr. Knapp, of the Department of Agriculture, said: “It has been found
that the best seed bed added 100 per cent. to the average crop on
similar lands, with an average preparation; planting the best seed
made a gain of 50 per cent.; and shallow, frequent cultivation was
equal to another 50 per cent., making a total gain of 200 per cent.,
or a crop three times the average. With better teams and implements,
this crop is made at less cost per acre.” A bulletin of the Bureau
of Plant Industry, at Washington, says: “It is possible within a
few years to double the average production of corn per acre in the
United States, and to accomplish it without any increase in work or
expense.” It declares that twice twenty-six bushels, which is about
what we now get, is a fair crop where these conditions are observed,
three times twenty-six bushels a good crop and four times twenty-six
bushels frequently produced. A similar increase in other farm growths
is just as possible.
In a high sense this is conservation of the soil, because it shows
the way to make one acre do the work of two or three or four. It
is conservation of the soil in a still better sense, because the
land, when so intelligently and considerately treated, instead of
“wearing out,” not only maintains its productive power indefinitely
but actually increases in fertility and value. These are facts which
all history attests. They are facts which the most recent scientific
research supports. The work before the promoters of the Conservation
movement today is one not of discovery but of education. It is to
assist in bringing home the truth to the minds and embodying it in
the daily practice of the present farm population of the United
States.
This tremendous task can be accomplished only by local demonstration
and the force of practical example. Small model farms should be
operated, preferably consisting of a few acres selected from ordinary
neighborhood farms and treated intelligently, in every State, county
and township. We have made a beginning of this work in the Northwest;
and the results, though not yet completely enough ascertained for
tabulation until the tale of threshing and marketing is ended, are
as amazing as they are encouraging. Some of the States are providing
for traveling instructors and supervisors in agriculture, following
the policy successfully adopted in the most enlightened countries of
Europe, thus raising the level of agricultural practice and educating
the millions who are beyond the reach of the institutions where
formal instruction is given to the young. It is imperative that we
reach the older people, and the large percentage of the children
of the farm who never get beyond the district school, if we are in
earnest in the work we have undertaken.
To this practical side of soil Conservation this Congress should
give its hearty approval. It should urge upon the people of every
community the adoption of the demonstration tract and the local
instructor, with as much earnestness as it has championed the saving
of forests and the reclamation of arid lands. Ten per cent. of the
money now expended in formal instruction in the institutions where
agriculture is taught, or supposed to be taught, would put every
farmer in touch with the man who could and should help him in the
treatment of his land as readily and surely as the doctor helps his
family when they are sick. It would be more than repaid every year in
the value of the crop increase. It would be repaid over again in the
healing of sick soils, the renovation of old lands, the preservation
undiminished in every acre of our arable area of those elements of
fertility without which plant life languishes, and the wilderness
and the desert in a few generations sweep away the traces of man’s
unworthy occupation. It is well worth the hearty and undivided
support of public-spirited men. For without just such Conservation
the time will come when our country will be unable to support its
own people; the diminishing percentage of its population engaged in
tilling the land will still further decline; and it will scarcely be
worth while to consider how best human life may be prolonged and made
sturdier and wholesomer physically by vital Conservation, because it
will lack the sustenance that it can not longer draw in sufficient
quantity and quality from nature’s withered breasts.
_WAR, THE POLICY OF WASTE—PEACE, THE POLICY OF CONSERVATION._
Mrs. ELMER BLACK, New York City.
In advancing some arguments bearing on that broad assertion permit
me at the outset to express my satisfaction that the questions this
Congress has set itself to consider have come to be recognized as
among the most urgent of all the world’s humanitarian problems. For
the peace movement and the Conservation movement are as closely
interrelated as, in the pacifist view, the interests of the entire
human race are mutual and not antagonistic. The advance of your
program is the advance of ours; both are essential to the progress of
mankind.
I do not suppose any one will cavil at my plea that when we talk of
natural resources we must not merely include inanimate things—timber,
minerals, lands, oil and waters—but the brain and sinews of the
people as well.
An observant traveler in the United States, asked recently what
he considered the greatest asset of the American nation, replied:
“The American nation itself, with its self-reliance, ingenuity, the
blended genius resulting from race fusion, and the boundless belief
in its ability to reach any goal it sets out to attain.” With that
contention in mind, I would at once emphasize the fact that neither
the material resources of the world nor these higher resources of
human equipment can be utilized or developed to their full complement
till the profligate policy of international strife is purged from the
activities of mankind.
I venture to assert that no war can be waged today that can be
justified ethically or economically. With the bringing together of
the civilizations of the world, the development ever closer of the
bonds of communication, and the institution of the International
Court of Arbitration, the last excuse of the war makers has
disappeared. No nation today need go to war if the cause it advocates
is just. When the plea of “questions of national honor” is advanced
it will usually be found that the case behind the plea is so faulty
as to entail risk if presented to the judgment of an impartial
tribunal, or that there is the secret reason of a desire for
aggression in order that some other nation may be robbed of territory.
But assuming for the sake of argument that this latter case can be
justified on the ground of imperial advancement and the “survival of
the fittest”—a conclusion I do not in reality concede—I still contend
that war is a ghastly blunder, inevitably inflicting such loss to the
treasuries alike of victor and vanquished that both are laden with
debts so great that generations yet unborn are foredoomed to carry an
unnatural charge.
It requires no casuist to demonstrate that such a policy is
detrimental to human progress and diametrically opposed to
thrifty administration. If we think for a moment of what might be
accomplished if the war expenditures of nations were devoted to the
proper development of the world’s bountiful stores of wealth, the
advancement of health and science and the promotion of communal
betterment, the imagination reels at the vista of progress that is
opened up.
Let us take a few comparisons. The Panama Canal, uniting two
oceans and bringing into closer contact the peoples of East and
West, is being constructed at a cost of $400,000,000. Against that
accomplishment set down the blood and treasure poured out in reckless
waste in the Crimean, South African and the Russo-Japanese wars. On
the one hand we have a constructive policy in which the nation’s toil
and money is conserved and invested so as to operate at compound
interest for the benefit not only of American citizens but also of
the whole human race. On the other hand, there is a destructive and
prodigal policy that has disappointed in after days even those most
closely concerned with the crimson fruits of victory.
Speaking of the Crimean War, Lord Salisbury, the late Premier of
England, said in his cynical way, “We put our money on the wrong
horse.”
The South African War cost no less than $1,331,655,000 and added no
less than $795,880,000 to the national debt of England. The flower
of British manhood perished on the veldt that the Dutchmen of the
Transvaal might be forever relegated to the strata of the subjugated.
Yet today, a few short years after that deadly struggle, South Africa
is united; the Dutch are enjoying self-government, and, in fact, are
politically in the ascendant over their nominal rulers.
Russia lost her entire fleet, wrecked her army and set the forces of
internal discontent seething once more within her boundaries. Japan,
the nominal victor, so poured forth her wealth that even her amazing
vitality is shackled by the bonds of financial stringency. Today
both are suffering from the gigantic, blundering conflict—and in the
end are compelled peacefully to agree to recognize their respective
interests in Northern Asia.
England’s naval expenditure amounts to nearly $250,000,000 a year,
and every ten years great costly Dreadnoughts are thrown on the scrap
heap—a total waste. Now England has spent on irrigation in India
$150,000,000, and I would ask your attention to the fact that this
expenditure has not only brought health and prosperity to hundreds of
thousands, reduced the dangers of famine and made the desert blossom
as the rose, but there is a profit on the capital invested of six and
three-quarters per cent.
Taking that as a specimen of contrasts, one is amazed at the
mental spectacle of the immense strides that could be made in the
world’s prosperity if the expenditure on war and preparations for
war was devoted to the Conservation and development of natural
resources. The armed peace in Europe in thirty-seven years has cost
$150,000,000,000. Yet there are resources waiting to be developed for
the benefit of the struggling millions who are crushed beneath the
iron heel of Mars; there are reeking human rookeries in the cities
of Europe that are a menace to the human race; there are schemes for
waterways that would open up wealth practically untapped, to the end
that productive machinery might be set in motion for the continual
benefit of nations yet to come.
When a Dreadnought fires a single shot from its big guns as much
money is dispersed into the air as would pay a workman’s wages for
three years or secure a clever student’s college course for a full
twelve months. For every cruiser scrapped in naval frenzy a fully
staffed scientific laboratory could be run for years in conflict
against man’s mortal enemies, the disease bearing bacilli. For
years the inventive faculties of the world have been turned to the
production of implements of death and destruction. In a saner age of
Conservation and peace this concentrated genius will be focused on
the preservation of life, the clothing of the desert with verdure,
the elimination of space, the improvement of communications, the
harnessing of natural forces to the service of man that even today
are seen but as through a glass, darkly.
The world is spending every year eight billion dollars on militarism.
The expenditure of that ocean of treasure leads nowhere but to the
slippery slope of bankruptcy. It creates nothing by which future
generations will benefit or of which any but the superficial can be
proud. It robs the treasury of the busy bees of commerce and industry
and withdraws from active participation in constructive affairs
seventeen million men, the strongest and best types, whose brain and
muscle should be used for the advancement of their kind. Women, in
consequence, as in Germany, have often to undertake work for which
nature did not equip them, and so a double wrong is wrought upon the
human race.
If the interest only on the money spent on militarism were used on
education, 32,000,000 more students would be accommodated at college
every year; or the housing problem of every land could be solved as
if by a magic wand, to the immeasurable conservation of human health
and vigor.
During the South African War the “Investors’ Review” of London said:
“In one short eighteen months the war party now sitting on our
necks has dissipated more money than the working class managed to
accumulate out of their wages during the whole sixty-four years of
the reign of Queen Victoria.”
Chancellor Lloyd-George, as recently as the last budget, said in the
House of Commons that the money spent on building Dreadnoughts in
England in one year would add a dollar a week to the income of every
workingman’s family in Europe.
The United States, though not yet in the same parlous plight as the
European nations, is heading in that direction, and devotes the
enormous proportion of seventy per cent. of its national expenditure
to preparations for war. That is to say, every year we waste more
than would construct an epoch-making Panama Canal.
Were it possible immediately to reconstruct the scheme of things
so that reason ruled, there would be no need to cry aloud for the
development of the barren lands of our continent. Waterways would be
extended, irrigation works would carry the life-giving fluid to arid
areas that need but that to release their dormant fertility, herbage
and fruit would spring from regions now productive of only scrub and
cacti, and the reforestation of natural timber land would cause the
birth of new resources formerly despoiled by the ignorance and greed
of man.
But, some may say, surely these shipyards, barracks, Dreadnoughts,
and war equipment circulate money and employ millions of men. That, I
contend, is a common fallacy a little thought will dissipate. Money
being but the tool used in the purchase of labor or the product of
labor, is in itself of no account. But the building of a Dreadnought
to fire away the product of labor in thin air is to bring all that
has gone to prepare for that achievement to nought. The chain of
production is broken; henceforth mankind is so much the worse off
for that loss of money, labor and its products. But in the true
conservation of resources, the labor and its products employed in
peaceful and constructive enterprises achieve benefits that flow on
continuously in an ever-widening stream, till the entire humanity is
made to feel the blending of each man’s labor in the commonweal.
Brain, sinew, time, energy and material resources are being thrown
into the melting pot of war, yet but for that very war the evolution
of the human race would be eons further on.
Every time a war scare sends the exchanges of the world’s capitals
into panic, deadly injury is done to the commerce of the entire
globe. Ruin has not to wait for the actual outbreak of hostilities.
The wolf of war has but to bare his fangs in menace to cause a
premonitory slump to spread devastation through the ranks of the
investors. Yet instead of meeting, as the delegates of this Congress
are meeting, to debate the best methods of insuring national and
international thrift, in statesmanlike preparation for the future
needs of the human race, many powerful minds are spending their
time devising nightmares with which to scare humanity into ruinous
expenditure.
I venture to predict that in the future it will be found that the
chief instrument of Conservation has been established already in the
arbitration court at The Hague, and generations yet to come will say
of its founders, “They builded better than they knew.”
Meanwhile the omens are favorable for the causes of peace and
Conservation. The object lessons are there for all the world to see.
I have mentioned the Panama Canal in the Western Hemisphere as an
instance of constructive Conservation. The Eastern Hemisphere also
has its encouragement. Right in the reputed cradle of the human race
some of the world’s most brilliant engineers are executing works that
will unchain rivers and cleave through mountains to the end that on
Mesopotamia’s broad lands the Garden of Eden shall be re-established.
I rejoice to know that this movement towards Conservation nowhere has
attained greater volume than in our own land; for with our advantages
it seems to me that we are specially equipped for the ennobling task
of removing obstacles from the path along which our race must tread
in the accomplishment of its high destiny.
_THE CONSERVATION OF NAVIGABLE STREAMS._
Mr. JACOB P. DUNN, Indianapolis.
The objects of the conservation of natural resources divide naturally
into two classes. The first relates to the development of lands in
private ownership, such as the encouragement of forestation and
renewing the fertility of the soil, in which the interest of the
State is the indirect one of increasing the supply, or cheapening
the cost of products that are of material benefit to the entire
community. The second relates to the preservation and utilization
of public property, such as forest lands and mineral resources, in
which the State has the direct interest of securing special revenues,
whereby the burdens of taxation may be reduced, and of promoting the
public welfare by furnishing facilities for commerce and industry. To
this second class belongs the conservation of navigable streams, and
this subject has already been brought prominently before the public
by the discussion of proposals for improvement of the navigation
of the Mississippi River and its tributaries. But this Mississippi
project has a vastly greater significance than the general public has
fully considered; for it means that hundreds of streams that are now
navigated only in a small way, or not navigated at all, will later be
made navigable in a practical and useful way.
Moreover, this subject is of special importance to the great region
formerly included in the territory northwest of the Ohio River,
including the present States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and
Wisconsin, because the Ordinance of 1787, by which that territory was
created, expressly provided that: “The navigable waters leading into
the Mississippi and St. Lawrence, and the carrying places between
the same, shall be common highways, and forever free, as well to the
inhabitants of the said territory as to the citizens of the United
States, and those of any other States that may be admitted into the
confederacy, without any tax, duty, or impost therefor.”
These words show that the word “navigable” was not then used in its
present common acceptation. When we speak of a navigable stream we
commonly mean one that can be navigated by steamboats, but there were
no steamboats in 1787, and all of the commercial navigation of this
region at that time was by means of canoes and the small vessels
known as bateaux and pirogues. That this navigation was what was
intended is conclusively shown by the reservation of “the carrying
places,” i. e., the stretches of watershed between the headwaters of
the streams of the two drainage systems over which both the boats and
their loads were transported bodily. This meaning has usually been
adhered to by the courts (2 Mich. 219; 19 Oregon, 375; 33 W. Virginia
13; 20 Barbour, N. Y., 9; 14 Ky., 521; 87 Wis. 134), and the general
rule is that any stream that will carry commerce, even by floating
logs, is a navigable stream. (51 Illinois, 266; 42 Wis. 203.)
The United States Government followed out this theory consistently.
By the act of Congress of 1796, for the survey and sale of the public
lands of this region, it was expressly declared that “all navigable
streams within the territory to be disposed of by virtue of this act
shall be deemed to be and remain public highways.” As such their beds
were always excluded from the lands surveyed and sold. The government
surveyors did not include any of the larger streams in their surveys,
but “meandered” them, and when the land was sold, it was sold in
fractional sections, running to the meander lines. The beds of the
streams and the land bordering them was thus reserved as public
property, and when the several States were formed and admitted to the
Union, the title was transferred to them from the general government.
It is of course to be remembered that Congress has ultimate power
over navigable streams, but it is well established law that a State
has plenary power over navigable streams that are entirely within its
borders, at least until Congress acts.
The acceptance of this provision as to navigable streams was made
a prerequisite to the admission of Indiana to the Union by the
enabling act of 1816. It was formerly accepted by ordinance of the
constitutional convention of Indiana in 1816. And yet Indiana stands
today in the unique position of being the only State in the Northwest
in which the public rights thus established have been nullified,
or at least clouded, by an absurd decision of the Supreme Court of
the State, made in 1876. (54 Ind. 471.) Inasmuch as this case deals
with White River in Marion County, and as this stream at this point
furnishes a typical illustration of the whole subject, I will call
your attention to it in detail.
Prior to this decision, every department of the government of Indiana
fully recognized the binding force of this compact with the United
States, and accepted as conclusive the United States surveys in the
determination of what streams were navigable under that compact.
The bed of White River in Marion County was not included in these
surveys, and it was never sold by the United States or by the State.
The Legislature of Indiana always recognized this rule, and always
applied it to “White River in Marion County.” The act of January 17,
1820, declared White River navigable as high as “the Delaware towns,”
meaning presumably to Muncie, and made it and the other streams named
“public highways,” making it a penal offense to obstruct “any stream
declared navigable by this act,” except only that mill-dams might
be erected under certain conditions, by persons who had “purchased
from the United States the bed of any stream by this act declared
navigable.” This law was never repealed, but was modified by the act
of February 10, 1831, which declared White River navigable as high as
Yorktown in Delaware County. This last law is notable as recognizing
that a stream need not be navigable at all seasons, for it prohibited
any obstruction that would “injure or impede the navigation of any
stream, reserved by the ordinance of Congress of 1787 as a public
highway, at a stage of water when it would otherwise be navigable.”
Indianapolis was located on this stream because it was navigable
for the water-craft then in use. The Legislature of 1825, on
petition from the people of Indianapolis, made Alexander Ralston a
commissioner to survey the stream, and report on the probable expense
of keeping it free from obstruction. He made the survey that summer,
and reported the distance from Sample’s Mills, in Randolph County,
to Indianapolis, 130 miles; from here to the forks, 285 miles; from
there to the Wabash, 40 miles, and that for this distance of 455
miles the stream could be made navigable for three months in the year
by an expenditure of $1,500. He found two falls or rapids, one of
eighteen inches, eight miles above Martinsville, and one of nine feet
in about one hundred yards, ten miles above the forks.
On this report, the Legislature on January 21, 1826, passed a law
to improve the navigation of White River as high as Sample’s Mills,
in Randolph County, directing that all persons liable for road work
living within two miles of the stream, in the counties bordering on
the stream, be called out to improve the stream as a highway. This
law was made general by the act of May 31, 1852, which empowered
county boards to declare streams navigable, and to work them as
highways; and this act is still continued in force by the act of
April 15, 1905. (Burns’ Stats., Sec. 7672.)
The act of January 28, 1828, appropriated $1,000 for improving the
navigation of White River as high as Anderson, in Madison County.
The act of January 23, 1829, “relative to navigable streams declared
highways by the ordinance of Congress of 1787,” prohibited any
obstruction of any stream or river “which is navigable, and the
bed or channel of which has not been surveyed or sold as land by
the United States.” So the law of 1852 made it a penal offense to
obstruct “any navigable stream, the bed or channel whereof may not
have been surveyed or sold by the United States.” (Rev. Stats. 1852,
Vol. 2, p. 432.) This is continued in force, in the same language, by
the act of April 15, 1905. (Burns’ Stat., Sec. 2650.)
The executive department never questioned the correctness of this
rule, and some of the Governors took a great deal of interest in
the matter. After the general introduction of steamboat navigation,
Governor Noble was ambitious to add that to the ordinary commerce by
flatboats and keel boats, and in 1828 he offered a reward of $200
to the first captain who would bring a steamboat to this point,
and also to sell his cargo free of charge. In pursuance of this a
small steamboat from Cincinnati was actually brought up the river
to Indianapolis in 1831. The early courts also recognized the rule
that the survey and sale of the bed of a stream was the conclusive
test of its navigability, under the law. (3 Blackf. 193.) The State
asserted actual ownership of the bed of the stream in this county,
and for years maintained an agent at the Washington street crossing
to sell sand and gravel from it on the State’s account.
In the face of all this, when the question came before the
Supreme Court, in 1876, the court, by Judge Perkins, without any
real examination of the law or the facts, said: “The court knows
judicially, as a matter of fact, that White River, in Marion County,
is neither a navigated nor a navigable stream”; and as to the bed not
being surveyed or sold he said: “The idea that the power was given
to a surveyor, or his deputy, upon casual observation, to determine
the question of the navigability of rivers, and thereby conclude
vast public and private rights, is an absurdity.” On this assumption
he proceeded to wipe the “vast public rights” out of existence. A
little examination would have shown him that the surveys were not
irresponsible acts of the surveyors, but official acts in pursuance
of law, under the direction of superior officers, and confirmed and
ratified not only by those superiors, but by the United States and
the State of Indiana. (54 Ind. 471.)
The court abandoned the reasoning of this case two years later, when
it held that the Wabash River, in Warren County, was “a navigable
stream, the bed of which has neither been surveyed nor sold.” (64
Ind. 162.) But it cited the decision of 1876 as authoritative in
another case in 1900 (155 Ind. 477), and this again without any
examination of the law or the facts. It is worthy of note that the
United States Government has uniformly declined to recognize this
decision as law, and as late as 1899 refused to be bound by it.
(Indianapolis News, November 7, 1899.)
Fortunately, opportunity has arisen for a reconsideration of this
question in a case arising in the Kankakee swamp lands (State vs.
Tuesbury Land Co., Starke Circuit Court). In the northern end of
Indiana, particularly near the Kankakee River, there was a large
amount of swamp land which was not included in the United States
surveys nor sold by the United States. This was transferred to the
State many years ago, and part of it was reclaimed and sold by the
State. In 1891 reclamation was entered on a large scale by removing
the ledge of rock at Momence, Illinois, which dammed the Kankakee,
and caused most of those swamps. As soon as these lands were drained,
adjacent owners set up claims to the thread of the stream as riparian
owners, and a judgment was obtained in the Starke Circuit Court
upholding such claims. If valid this means that the great expense to
which the State has gone in reclaiming the lands is money thrown away.
As soon as he learned of it, Governor Marshall, who is very practical
in his statesmanship, directed the Attorney-General to take steps to
secure a reversal of the judgment or appeal it, and a new trial has
been secured in the case, which is to be heard shortly. The Kankakee
is one of the most noted of the streams referred to in the Ordinance
of 1787 as “navigable waters,” which are reserved forever as “public
highways,” and there should be no riparian rights in it.
There is certainly good reason to expect a reversal of the Indiana
decision, if not by our Supreme Court, by the Supreme Court of the
United States, for two special reasons: (1) The question of the
navigability of a stream is not primarily a judicial question, but
one of public policy to be determined by the legislative department,
and both Congress and our State Legislature have consistent records
for the navigability of these streams. (2) In this case the
navigability is a matter of solemn compact between the State and the
United States; and as the constitutions of both prohibit any law
impairing the obligation of a contract, it is hardly to be assumed
that the courts would undertake to annul a contract of this character.
Unquestionably White River, like most of the other streams of
Indiana, is not as practically navigable today as it was eighty years
ago, and for two very simple reasons. First, at that time the only
timber that got into the river was trees on the bank that were thrown
in by the banks caving, and these were usually held to the banks
by their roots. But after settlement began every freshet carried
quantities of logs, rails and boards down the river, to form drifts;
and these in turn caused the formation of sand and gravel bars.
Second, when the land was cleared and cultivated, the ground washed
much more readily than it did before, and much greater quantities of
sand and gravel were carried into the river to form bars. These bars
constitute the chief obstruction to practical navigation now.
But by a change in recent conditions of life, these bars furnish
the means for making the river practically navigable. Within the
last two decades there has grown up a special demand for this sand
and gravel; and especially has this demand been increased by the
call for good roads; for washed gravel is one of the best materials
available for road-making, and by these streams, nature has
distributed it very widely over the State. This demand has developed
the industry of removing sand and gravel from the river beds by means
of suction pumps, and since 1897, when it began, this industry has
reached proportions that are not generally known to the public. At
Indianapolis there have been six steam pumps working for several
years. They are mounted on scow boats, fifty to sixty-five feet in
length, and twenty to twenty-five feet in width, and by centrifugal
suction power, draw up a mixture of sand, gravel and water through
eight-inch pipes. The pipe entrance is screened to prevent the
entrance of stones over four or five inches in diameter, in order to
avoid clogging the pipe.
These six pumps take out 180,000 cubic yards of sand and gravel in
a year, at a cost of 20 to 25 cents a cubic yard. The material is
separated by passing over screens into two grades of sand and two of
gravel, and is sold at a good profit for street improvement, roofing,
asphalt mixture, concrete, mortar and locomotive sand. Formerly Lake
Michigan sand was shipped here in considerable quantities, but now
the demand is fully met by this local industry. The pumps take out
the material for a depth of about fifteen feet, and in the course of
their work they have made about three miles of Indianapolis river
front practically navigable for any kind of river craft. The boats
can easily be run to any point on the river and used for removing
bars at any place. At present the proprietors of the boats are paying
the adjacent landowners for the privilege of taking out material that
rightfully belongs to the State, and of which the public ought to
have the benefit.
The practical situation is this: Indiana has an almost inexhaustible
supply of the best and cheapest road material known, which rightfully
belongs to the State. By using this material it will make actually
navigable hundreds of miles of waterways that are now of no use in
commerce. It is quite common for the unthinking to joke about the
absurdity of making small streams navigable, but there is nothing
absurd about it. Over half a century ago Indiana constructed 453
miles of canal, at an average cost of $15,000 a mile, which has since
been practically abandoned, not as is generally supposed, because of
the competition of rail roads, but because it was high line canal,
and was built up, in part, instead of being dug out, and without
proper precaution for making it water-tight. The State was not alone
in its experience. There are in the United States over 1,950 miles of
abandoned high-line canal, that cost over $44,000,000. But there are
also plenty of low-line canals in practical and profitable operation.
The mistake that was made in Indiana was in not utilizing the natural
water-courses. At an expense of less than $15,000 per mile, White
River can easily be made navigable for steamboats from Indianapolis
to its mouth, where there is actual steamboat navigation now. The
fall in the river is only 269 feet in the 285 miles, or less than a
foot to the mile. The tested flow of White River at this point is
over 1,000 cubic feet per second. With not to exceed half a dozen
dams, and the principal bars pumped out and put into roads, the
thing is accomplished. Not only is there nothing impracticable about
it, but it is as certain to be done, in the not distant future, as
it is that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. The advantages of
water communication with the great coal and building stone region of
the State, as well as direct connection with the Wabash, Ohio and
Mississippi Rivers, is too obvious for discussion. With our Supreme
Court decisions put on a rational and just basis, there is nothing to
prevent a speedy accomplishment of the work.
_REPORT FROM THE NATIONAL FERTILIZER ASSOCIATION._
Presented by Mr. JOHN D. TOLL, Secretary of the Educational Bureau
of the National Fertilizer Association, and Mr. CHARLES S. RAUH, of
Indianapolis, Official Delegates to the Fourth National Conservation
Congress.
In the last analysis man must have food. The law of supply and demand
becomes operative the minute that a nation is born. Scarcity of food
produces abnormal prices. As scarcity increases, the prices become
almost prohibitive. The attention of every citizen of this country
has been called to the rapid increase in the cost of food products
during the last decade. This increase has been due to several causes,
among which we may note the following: (1) Increase of population has
exceeded the increase in production of foodstuffs; (2) scarcity of
new lands to be developed to meet the needs of a growing population;
(3) decrease in productivity of some of the formerly productive soils
of this country.
Other causes have undoubtedly contributed to this situation, but the
one pertinent to the present discussion is that of decreasing soil
fertility as it is related to the production of crops. The production
of crops depends (1) upon the fertility of the soil; (2) climatic
conditions; (3) quality of seed used; and (4) the culture and care
given to the crop. Three of these governing factors are under the
control of the farmer. Therefore, inasmuch as they are under his
control, so also is the supply of food under his control to an equal
degree.
According to the latest available statistics, out of 1,755,132,800
acres in the United States, there are 383,891,682 acres of improved
land. A considerable amount of this land is being used for the
production of crops of various kinds. These crops in 1911 totaled the
enormous production of $5,504,000,000.
The plant food consisting of nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash
which these crops take from the soil is not all returned to the land,
and, as a result, we have a yearly drain upon the fertility account
of our soils.
The loss of all three essential elements of plant food is being
partly met by the wise Conservation and use of barn manure.
The loss of nitrogen in this depletion is also being partly met by
the growing of legumes which have the power of taking nitrogen from
the air and fixing it in the soil where it is available as plant food.
If any one of these elements is lacking, crop production suffers
a decrease in quantity and a deterioration in quality, to wit: If
phosphoric acid is the lacking element in soil, the production of ear
corn may be large in quantity but the ears are soft and immature,
consequently are inferior for stock food or for human food. In the
same way a scarcity of phosphoric acid decreases the yield of wheat
and causes an inferiority in its quality.
The lack of nitrogen and potash has equally disastrous effects on
the production of the crop. It is, therefore, not only a supply of
plant food that is necessary, but the balancing of it in order that
our soil may produce a maximum crop of best quality. The fertilizer
industry is an industry engaged entirely in the supply of these
plant food elements. It is, therefore, a direct contributor to the
maintenance of the human race, in that it deals in the elements of
plant food.
Not only since its inception in 1840 has this industry contributed
to the supply of plant food, which in the end means human food, but
it has noted the wasteful methods of agriculture being practiced,
unconsciously frequent, in many parts of this country, and it has put
forth continuous efforts along the lines of educating the American
farmer to grow larger yields of better crops, to maintain and
increase the fertility of the soil, and increase the average yield
per acre.
The fertilizer industry has, through its national association, within
the past two years established several movements, the great purpose
of which is to assist in the dissemination of knowledge of modern
methods of agriculture.
Another line of effort wherein the fertilizer industry has been a
direct contributor to the conservation of vital resources is in its
great manufacturing plants. To produce the phosphoric acid which is
supplied in fertilizers, the industry obtains the barren phosphatic
rock from Tennessee, Carolinas, Florida, etc., grinds this material
and treats it chemically so as to make the phosphoric acid available.
By this means, it supplies to the great crop producing States of
this country the element of plant food, which, to a large extent,
determines the maturity and quality of crop production.
The industry also takes the waste material of the packing houses,
such as bone, offal, blood, etc., dries and grinds it and produces
an ingredient of fertilizers which was formerly thrown away. This
packing house material supplies nitrogen and phosphoric acid.
Furthermore, the garbage of the cities and towns of this country is
collected and reduced to the form of fertilizer ingredient, where it
formerly was burned or otherwise destroyed.
Not only is all this done, but the former waste products of the
cotton and tobacco industry are similarly reduced to a form of plant
food to be mixed with other materials and returned to the soil.
Still further, besides gathering up the waste and otherwise barren
products of the country, the industry has developed processes whereby
the gases from gas and coke manufacture are collected and reduced
to sulphate of ammonia in which form it constitutes one of the
nitrogenous ingredients in fertilizers. This ammonia sulphate is used
as an ingredient in fertilizers supplying nitrogen.
Of late years the industry has gone even further than this, in that
a process has been discovered whereby the nitrogen of the air is
harnessed, and the product reduced to such forms that it supplies
available nitrogen for plant food.
In assembling and preparing these essential elements of plant food,
the industry, as we have pointed out, not only prepares material to
return to the soil to supply the elements which have been taken out
of it, but it actually provides in deficient soils elements in which
they may be deficient, and by so doing makes more productive lands
which, on account of their balanced plant food, could not produce
paying results before being treated.
The State of Georgia in 1911 spent over twenty million dollars
for fertilizers, with the result that they raised more and better
cotton than was ever raised in this State before. The State of Maine
in the same year used 150,000 tons of fertilizers on their potato
fields, with the result that their good potato growers produced from
two to four hundred bushels of potatoes per acre. The total State
productions exceed 25,000,000 bushels.
The fertilizer industry, we believe, occupies a most prominent part
in the problem of producing sustenance for future generations and in
conserving the vital resources of the world, inasmuch as it is making
a close study of and doing a wonderful work in devising means whereby
practically all of the former waste materials of this country may be
reduced to available plant food and returned to the soil from which
they were taken.
Summarizing, the fertilizer industry, as we have pointed out, is an
important factor in the maintenance of the human race, of this and
other continents, in that (1) it supplies plant food to balance up
the plant food in the soil and to make up the deficiencies which have
occurred as a result of continuous cropping; (2) assists in educating
the farmers to conserve the fertility of their soils by employing
scientific methods of farming; (3) it makes use of waste products of
other industries which have formerly been destroyed, and returns them
to the soil in the form of food for future crops.
The fertilizer industry, therefore, must be recognized as one of the
greatest agencies of conservation of vital resources.
_DR. W J McGEE: AN APPRECIATION OF HIS SERVICES FOR CONSERVATION._
MR. W. C. MENDENHALL, Washington, D. C.
Dr. W J McGee had mastered and advocated the fundamental principles
of Conservation long before the majority of those now most active in
the movement had come to appreciate the real meaning of the word. He
was one of the founders of this movement, was at all times one of
the most stimulating thinkers in its councils, and in him Mr. Pinchot
found one of his most loyal supporters and friends. Doctor McGee was
the personification of strength and steadfastness in the pioneer
period of Conservation, when the meaning of the word was unknown
to the multitude, and when the mere suggestion that our natural
resources are not inexhaustible but may be depleted to the vanishing
point by wasteful use was regarded as a wild heresy. During the
preceding sessions of this Congress he was its accepted authority on
problems involving that most widespread and universally distributed
of our natural resources—water. He has dealt with this resource from
the points of view of transportation, of irrigation, and of power,
and from the standpoint of biology in which it is recognized as
fundamental in all life.
Doctor McGee’s mind was of the type of the intellectual pioneer,
intensely individual and original. He was masterful in the alignment
of facts and stimulating in the recognition and boldness of his
expression of the generalizations and far-reaching conclusions to
which his marshalled facts pointed. Like most men of brilliant
imagination, he was at times impatient of the slow processes of
research, or let us say rather that his impatience was with that
timidity in reaching conclusions so often displayed by those engaged
in research, rather than with the process itself. He believed that
the scientist’s practical rule of life should be the acceptance, as
a basis of action, of the conclusions indicated by such facts as are
known, even though those conclusions may not at present be definitely
established.
Doctor McGee’s death at the Cosmos Club on September 4, 1912,
removed from the domain of science and from the forum of public
discussion one of its leading personalities. His career embraced an
unusually wide range of activities and in each of these he attained
distinction. As a geologist he was one of the group assembled by
Major Powell during the formative period of the United States
Geological Survey, a group which made American geology classic and
its leaders world-leaders in their science. In this field McGee’s
name is associated with the names of Powell, Dutton, Gilbert, Holmes,
Emmons, and Hague. Later, with the establishment of the Bureau of
Ethnology, into which he followed Major Powell, he became a pioneer
in ethnological research, although retaining continually his interest
in geologic and geographic problems. At the time of his death and for
a few years prior thereto he was the erosion and hydrologic expert
of the Department of Agriculture, his immediate connection with that
department being through the Bureau of Soils. His last years are
distinguished by a number of papers on the subject of Conservation,
in which he was so vitally interested; these articles are broad in
their scope, thoroughly original and stimulating in their expression,
and point out fearlessly some dangers of present practice and suggest
methods of remedy. But a few days before his death he completed the
correction of the galley proofs of the last of his papers, faithful
to his work and to his duty even while descending into the Valley of
the Shadow.
This very brief sketch would not be complete without expressed
recognition of the fact that Doctor McGee’s attitude in the face of
death was in accordance with the best traditions of the science to
which his life had been devoted and was as admirable and as deeply
stirring and stimulating as any act of his career. For a year or
more he had recognized the fact that he was afflicted with cancer
and that his days were numbered. He faced this fact calmly and
prepared patiently for the inevitable by carefully completing all
work on hand and by disposing by will of his body and his brain to
his friend and fellow scientist, Dr. Spitska, to be used in the way
most likely to be beneficial to humanity. So long as his faculties
remained undimmed, he maintained the same keen interest in scientific
questions and current affairs that had marked his career at its
height. Those of his friends who visited him during the last few
weeks of his life heard not a single complaint nor an expression of
regret, but found themselves chatting easily with an old and honored
friend who gave no indication of the fact that he knew definitely
that his career was soon to be stayed by the hand of Death. Thus,
rising superior to the weakened, pain-racked body, he met with
philosophic calm and sublime courage the final inevitable test. It is
not given to man to do more than this.
_REPORTS OF STANDING COMMITTEES._
All the standing committees were represented at the Fourth National
Conservation Congress and made reports. Members of these committees
also addressed the Congress.
Forests: See paper by Prof. Henry S. Graves, Chairman, page 318; also
addresses of Mr. E. T. Allen and Major E. G. Griggs, pages 312 and
183, respectively.
Lands: Prof. L. H. Bailey, being unavoidably prevented from attending
the Congress, the report of the Lands Committee was presented by
Dr. George E. Condra, page 123. See also address of Mr. Charles S.
Barrett, page 132.
Waters: Owing to the death of Dr. W J McGee, Chairman, the report of
this committee was submitted by Dr. W. C. Mendenhall. See page 335.
Minerals: See address of Dr. Joseph A. Holmes, Chairman, page 200.
Vital Resources: See address of Mr. A. B. Farquhar, page 214.
Food: See address of Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, Chairman, page 75. Also see
paper by Mr. F. G. Urner, page 327.
Homes: See address of Mrs. Matthew T. Scott, President-General,
Daughters of the American Revolution, page 250. Also report by
Mrs. Orville T. Bright, of Chicago, Vice-President of the National
Congress of Mothers, page 196.
Child Life: See address and report of the Hon. Ben B. Lindsey,
Chairman, page 170.
Education: See report of Dr. C. E. Bessey, Chairman, page 66; see
also address of Prof. E. T. Fairchild, page 134.
Civics: See address of Mr. Ralph M. Easley, Chairman, page 272.
National Parks: The report of this committee was submitted in
writing, signed by Dr. W J McGee, Chairman, and Col. Malcolm H.
Crump. See page 182.
General (including Wild Life): Dr. W. T. Hornaday, Chairman,
presented the report of this committee. See page 344. Dr. T. Gilbert
Pearson gave an address on “Bird Slaughter and the Cost of Living.”
See page 72.
_INDEX._
Accidents, Due to trespassing on railroads, 212
Elevator, Statistics of, 229
Industrial, 212
Prevention of elevator, Address by R. P. BOLTON, 223–230
Prevention of railroad, Address by T. H. JOHNSON, 205
Railroad statistics on, 205
Railway, Preventable, 220
prevention section, 335
prevention section, Resolution adopted, 335
ADDAMS, Miss JANE, Reference to, 174
Adjournment of Congress, 311
ALLEN, E. T., Chairman Forestry Section, 312
Member Nominating Committee, 196
Member Committee on Credentials, 111
Address by, 61–66
American Farmer, 133
American Federation of Labor, Reference to, 174
AUSTIN, Hon. R. M., Remarks by, 310
ASHLEY, Dr. BURTON J., Address by, 281–286
BAILEY, Prof. L. H., Chairman Committee on Lands and Agriculture, 10
BARKER, H. A., Member Nominating Committee, 196
BARNARD, H. E., Resolution by, 327
BARRETT, CHARLES S., Address by, 132–134
BAUMGARTNER, J. P., Remarks by, 286
BESSEY, Dr. C. E., Chairman Committee on Education, 10
Report by, 66–71
Bird life, Conservation of, 280
Birds, Federal protection of migratory, Address by Dr. W. T.
HORNADAY, 72, 73
Protection of, 19
Slaughter and the cost of living, Address by Dr. T. GILBERT
PEARSON, 72
Birth and death certificates, Reference to, 215
registration, 18, 235
registration in Indiana, 247
registration in Europe, 245
BLACK, Mrs. ELMER, Paper by, 352
BLUE, Surgeon-General, Reference to, 111
Board of Managers, 9
BOLTON, REGINALD PELHAM, Address by, 223–230
BRANDEIS, LOUIS D., Reference to, 154
BRIGHT, Mrs. ORVILLE T., Address by, 196–200
Bureau of Mines, Reference to, 108
of Public Health, Reference to, 221
Child, The, 171
Duty of Nation to, 180
labor, 19
laws, Reference to, 112
life, Committee on, 10
Problem of the, 172
welfare exhibit, 179
International congress on, Reference to, 200
Childhood, Rights of, 181
Children, Attendance of, in schools of U. S., 270
Duty of State toward, 176
Legislation for protection of dependent, 175
Protection of dependent, 175
Safeguarding the morals of, 179
Welfare of, 172
Children’s Bureau, Address by Miss JULIA CLIFFORD LATHROP, 242–249
Importance of, 242
Object of, 242
Reference to, 108
Reference to, 174
Work of, 248
Civics, Committee on, 10
Civil service, 278
Climate as an asset, 303
Coal, Amount mined, 203
State production of, 48, 49
Waste of, 203
COFER, Dr. L. E., Address by, 111–112
Cold storage, 329
Attacks on, 326
economics, 330
Food conservation by, Address by F. G. URNER, 327–334
Function of, 331
Committee of one hundred, Reference to, 107
on Resolutions, Chairman of, 111
Compensation act in Washington State, 188
CONDRA, Dr. GEORGE E., Address by, 48
Member of Nominating Committee, 196
Report of, 123–130
Conservation of bird life, 260
of business, 60
of business, Reference to, 123
Commission, Reference to, by President WHITE, 39
Reference to, 108
Commissions, 56
of the child, 178
Congress, Development of, 161, 162
Field of, Reference by President WHITE, 38
Homes department of, 199
Objects of, 183
Origin of, 161
department, General Federation of Women’s Clubs, Work of, 258
of food, Address by F. G. URNER, 327–334
in relation to the home, 252
of the human race, Address by Dr. JOHN N. HURTY, 148–154
of land and the man, Address by Mrs. HAVILAND H. LUND, 131–132
of life, 256
of man, Address by Dr. H. W. WILEY, 75–91
of man on the land, Address by CHARLES S. BARRETT, 132
and mining, 202
of navigable streams, Address on, 357–362
organization, 55
in States, 55, 56
Progress in, 60
redefined, Address of E. T. ALLEN, 61–66
Results of lack of, 259
and secondary industries, 147
of the soil, Paper by Hon. JAMES J. HILL, 349–352
of waters, Report by W. C. MENDENHALL, Chairman Committee on
Waters,
335–344
work in General Federation of Women’s Clubs, 259
Constitution, 13
Amendment to, 286
Changes in, 286, 287
Consumers’ League, Reference to, 253, 254
Corporations, Overcapitalization of, 231
Cost of living, 162
Country life, 22
Credentials, Committee on, 111
CROCKER, Mrs. MARION A., Address by, 258–262
Member Nominating Committee, 196
CRUMP, M. H., Report by, 182, 183
Daughters of the American Revolution, Reference to, 249
Reference to, 253
Death, Loss through, 109
Means of avoiding, 81
registration, 18
Unnecessary, 109
DENNY, Miss ADELINE, Motion by, 181
Department of Labor, Reference to, 108
Diseases of children, 244
Communicable, 84
Heredity of, 86
Immunity from, 84
Most active, 79, 80, 81
Occupational, 143
Prevention of introduction of contagious and infectious, 114
Prevention of the spread of, 117
of unknown genesis, 83
DOREMUS, CHARLES A., Letter from, 147
DOWLING, Dr. OSCAR, Address by, 139–144
DRINKER, Dr. HENRY STURGIS, Address by, 347–349
Drugs, Supervision of, 87
DUNN, JACOB P., Address by, 357–362
EASLEY, RALPH M., Address by, 272–281
Chairman Committee on Civics, 10
Education, Committee on, 10
of immigrants, 198
A plea for more equal educational opportunities, Address by
Professor E. T. FAIRCHILD, 134–139
In relation to Conservation, 59
Report of standing committees on, 66–71
Value of, 167, 168
Work in the community, 67
Work through legislation, 70
Work in the schools, 68
Efficiency, Human, Address by HARRINGTON EMERSON, 154–160
Elevator accidents, Legislation governing, 226
ELLIS, DON CARLOS, Presentation of Knoxville invitation by, 307–310
Resolution by, 310
EMERSON, HARRINGTON, Address by, 154–160
Employer, The duty of, Address by Dr. E. A. RUMELY, 144–147
Employment department, 154
Responsibility of, 237
EVANS, Dr. WILLIAM A., Speaker, 61
Executive Committee, 9
Adoption of report by, 288
Report by, 286
Exhibit, 22
Factory legislation, 274
FAIRBANKS, Hon. CHARLES WARREN, Address of welcome by, 24
FAIRCHILD, Professor E. T., Address by, 134–139
Farmers’ Union, President of, CHARLES S. BARRETT, 132
Farming, Scientific, 297
FARQUHAR, A. B., Address by, 214–223
Motion by, 288
FARRAND, Dr. LIVINGSTON, Address by, 264–271
Federal Forest Service, Reference to, by E. T. ALLEN, 63
Fish, Protection of, 19
FISHER, Professor IRVING, Address by, 103–111
Flood Damage, 291
Investigation of Pittsburgh Flood Commission, Address by
GEORGE M. LEHMAN, 289–296
prevention, 294
protection, 293
Food, Committee on, 10
preservation, Methods of, 328
production, Development of, 328
preservation, Requirement of, 328
products, Relative values of, 143
Section on, 326
Foods, Quality of cold storage, 332
Forest fires, 21
State appropriations for prevention of, 21
resources, Situation in States, 52, 53, 54
service, Commendation of, 20
Appropriations for, 20
Forestry, Attack upon, 321
Committee on, 10
Committee on Co-operation, 314
Committee on Permanent Organization, 314
Committee on Resolutions, 31
Education in, 313
policy, 323
Present situation in, Address by Prof. H. S. GRAVES, 318–325
Progress in State, 320
Reasons for government ownership, 324, 325
Report of Committee on Permanent Organization, 315, 316
Report of Committee on Resolutions, 315
section, 312
Organization of, 312
Register, 317
Forests, 20
and floods, 304
Address by E. T. ALLEN, 61–66
Protection by the States, 21
FOSTER, VOLNEY T., Member Committee on Credentials, 111
Game, Protection of, 19
General (including domesticated animals and wild life), Committee
on, 10
Federation of Women’s Clubs, Reference to, 240, 241
GIPE, J. C., Nomination of, for Recording Secretary, 288
Recording Secretary, 9
Recording Secretary, 1913, 11
GRAVES, HENRY S., Address by, 318–325
Chairman Committee on Forestry, 1913, 11
Chairman Committee on Forests, 10
Discussion of paper by, 316
Greetings to Congress, 182
GRIGGS, Major E. G., Address by, 183–195
Member Nominating Committee, 196
GROSS, H. H., Address by, 297–302
Habit-forming Drugs, 110
HADLEY, Governor of Missouri, Reference to, 231
Hon. HERBERT S., Governor of Missouri, Reference to, 296
HAMMOND, JOHN B., Adoption of Resolution by, 306
Health, Public Health, Reference to, 111
Powers of National Government Relating to, 112
Control, Authority in, Address by Dr. L. E. COFER, 111–112
Education in, 82
Federal Public Health Service, Activities of, 114
of Industrial Workers, 18
National Board of, Reference to, 113
of the People, 18
Public and Hygiene, Address by Dr. OSCAR DOWLING, 139–144
Work, Municipal, Reference to, 98, 99, 100
National, Reference to, 97
State, Reference to, 98
Heredity, 152
Hereditary Defects, 18
HILL, Rev. H. G., Invocation, 91
Hon. James J., Paper by, 349–352
HOLMES, Dr. JOSEPH A., Address by, 200–205
Chairman, Committee on Minerals, 10
Reference to, 38
Home, The, address by Mrs. MATTHEW T. SCOTT, 250–254
Conservation of the, 197
Making, 251
The Country, 199
Training in the, 250
Homes, Committee on, 10
HOPKINS, CYRIL G., reference to, 300
HORNADAY, Dr. W. T., address by, 72
Chairman, General Committee (including Domesticated Animals
and Wild Life), 10
Report of, as Chairman, Committee on Wild Life Protection, 344–347
Hospitals, Establishment of Public, 269
Human Efficiency, Address by Dr. HENRY WALLACE, 161–170
Reference to, 94
by President WHITE, 33
Life, Conservation of, 201
address by A. B. FARQUHAR, 214–223
Discussion of, by Dr. WILLIAM A. EVANS, 61
as a National Asset, Address by E. E. RITTENHOUSE, 92–102
HURTY, Dr. JOHN N., Address by, 148–154
Reference to, 246
Hygiene, Divisions of, 153
Essentially Preventive, 144
Need of Education in, 198
in Relation to Public Health, Address by Dr. OSCAR DOWLING,
139–144
in Its Relation to Health, 140
School, 150
Illness, 149
Immigrants, Proper Distribution of, 198
Indiana, Conservation Work in, 29
Health Work in, 29, 30
State Forestry Association, 29
State Board of Forestry, 29
Indianapolis, Welcome on Behalf of, 31
Industry, American, 236
Industrial Insurance, Reports of Washington Conservation Commission,
193, 194, 195
Infant Life, Protection of, 196
Mortality, Prevention of, 244
Initiative, Referendum and Direct Primary, 278
Insect Ravages, 19
Insurance, Working Man’s, 143
International Sunday School Association, Reference to, 178
Invitation to Congress from San Francisco, 286
from Knoxville, 182
Invitations from Cities Desiring Congress, 306
Iron Ore, State Production of, 50, 51
Irrigation, 51
“Is the Child Worth Conserving?” Address by Judge BEN B. LINDSEY,
170–181
JOHNSON, THOMAS H., Address by, 205–214
JONES, Col. W. A. FLEMING, 111
KELSEY, FREDERICK, Remarks by, 231
KENDALL, Mrs. ELMER E., Member, Nominating Committee, 196
KNAPP, JOSEPH P., Reference to, 186
Knoxville, Invitation from, 307–310
Labor, Values from, 146
Wage Scale and Hours, 305
Land, Drainage Schemes, 125
Dry Land Deals, 126
Effects of Land Frauds, 129
Eucalyptus Promotion, 125
Frauds, or Get-Rich-Quick Schemes, Address by Dr. GEORGE E.
CONDRA, 123–130
Fruit Land Promotion, 124
Irrigation Schemes, 124
Mineral Land Promotion, 124
Misrepresentation and Overvaluation of, 127
Oil and Gas Promotion, 124
Promoters’ Methods, 128
Schemes, 126
and Soil, Distribution of, 52
Lands, 19
and Agriculture, Committee on, 10
Report of Committee on, 123–130
Classification of, 20
Leasing of, 20
Withdrawal of Public, 20
LATCHAW, D. A., Nomination of, for Treasurer, 288
Treasurer, 1912, 9
1913, 11
LATHROP, Miss JULIA CLIFFORD, Address by, 242–249
Laws, Sumptuary, 89
LEHMAN, GEORGE M., Address by, 289–296
LIEBER, RICHARD, Address of Welcome by, 31
Chairman, Board of Managers, 1912, 9
Life, Average Human, 103
Duration of, in Sweden, 104
Lever Bill, Reference to, 300
Life Insurance Companies, Reference to, 101, 108
Life, Length of, 148
Loss of, in Mines, 204
Prolongation of, 90
Table of Expectation of, 77
waste, 94, 95, 96
LINDSEY, Judge BEN B., 170–181
Chairman, Committee on Child Life, 10
Living, Science of, 151
Logging, Hazards of, 190
LOOMIS, A. M., New York, Remarks by, 311
Lumber Manufacturers, Reference to, 185
“Lumberman’s Viewpoint, The,” Address by Major E. G. GRIGGS, 183–195
Lumbermen, Reference to, by E. T. ALLEN, 65
Support of Forestry by, 21
LUND, Mrs. HAVILAND H., Address by, 130–132
MCGEE, Dr. W J, 22
An Appreciation of, by W. C. MENDENHALL, 365–367
Chairman, Committee on National Parks, 10
Resolution on, 22
Mammoth Cave, Establishment of, as a National Park, 182, 183
MARTIN, Col. JOHN I., Sergeant-at-Arms, 23
Motion by, 91
Remarks by, 262, 263
Medicine, Patent, 150
Proprietary, 88
Men and Religion Forward Movement, Reference to, 178, 276
MENDENHALL, W. C., Report as Chairman, Committee on Waters, 335–344
MILLER, WINFIELD, Address of Welcome by, 33
Mine Legislation, 205
Minerals, 21
Committee on, 10
Long-time Leases of, 21
Waste of, 22
Mining, 22
Conditions, Improvement of, 204
as a Great Foundation of Industry, 201
Industry, 201, 202
Development of, 202
Loss of Life In, 22
MIX, Dr. M. W., Chairman Accident Prevention Section, 335
MOORE, Mrs. PHILIP N., Nomination of, for Vice-President, 288
Remarks by, 241
Vice-President, 1913, 11
Professor WILLIS N., Address by, 302–305
Mortality Statistics, 78
Mothers’ Compensation Law, 176
Pensions, 174
Municipal Government, 279
National Association of Conservation Commissioners, Election of
Officers, 335
Meeting of, 334, 335
of Manufacturers, Reference to, 146
Child Labor Committee, Reference to, 274
Civic Federation, Work of, 277
Congress of Mothers, Reference to, 196
Consumers’ League, Reference to, 172, 173
Conservation Association, Reference to, 56
Congress, Amendment to Constitution, 286, 287
Membership in, 287
Reference to, 56
Vice-President of, 286
Magazine, Suggestion of a, 302
Department of Health, Reference to, 108
Fertilizer Association, Report from, 363–365
League for Medical Freedom, Reference to, 222
Lumber Manufacturers’ Association, Reference to, 185, 187
Parks (including Mammoth Cave, Ky., and Adjacent Lands),
Committee on, 10
National Soil Fertility League, 299
Natural Gas, State Production of, 49, 50
Waste of, 22
Resources, Proper Utilization of, 184
Navigable Streams, Conservation of, 357–362
Nominating Committee, Adoption of Report of, 288
Appointment of, 195
Report by, 288
Officers, Appreciation of the Work of, 23
and Committees, 1912, 9
1913, 11
PACK, CHARLES LATHROP, Nomination of, for President, 288
Presentation of, as President, 288
President, 1913, 11
Remarks by, 289
PAGE, WALTER H., Chairman, Committee on Resolutions, 111
Report as Chairman of Committee on Resolutions, 306
Panama Canal, Reference to, 28, 106
Parent-Teacher Associations, Reference to, 199
PEARSON, Dr. T. GILBERT, Illustrated Address by, 71
Petroleum, State Production of, 49, 50
PHILPUTT, Rev. Dr. ALLAN B., Invocation by, 74
PINCHOT, GIFFORD, Message from, 74
Reference to, by Dr. WILEY, 75
Political Platforms, 110
Population, Increase in, 300
Public Health Movement, Address by Prof. IRVING FISHER, 103–111
Service, Organization of, 119, 120
Service, Activities of, 121, 122
State Laws Concerning, 284
Utility Corporations, in Their Relation to the Public, 277
Pure Food and Drugs, 279
Pittsburgh Flood Commission, Outline of Work, 290
Race Suicide, 96, 177
Railroad Accidents, Cause and Prevention of, 208
Statistics on, 211
Study of, 207
Railway Accidents, 206, 207
Classes of, 207
RAUH, CHARLES S., Report by, 363–365
Reception by Officers and Board of Managers, 73
Reforestation, 21
Refrigeration of Food Stuffs, 19
Reports of Washington Compensation Commission, 188
Rescue of the Fit, Address by HARRINGTON EMERSON, 154–160
Research, Scientific, 118
Resolution by R. P. BOLTON, 231
by FREDERICK KELSEY, 231
Resolutions, 18
Resources, Human, 140
RITTENHOUSE, E. E., Address by, 92, 102
RUMELY, Dr. EDWARD A., Address by, 144–147
Rural Schools, 22
Pupils in, 137
Sanitation in Pennsylvania, 216
Enforcement of, 119
of Foreign Commerce, 115
Sanitary Treaties, 116
Information, Collection of, 117
“Saving Miners’ Lives,” Address by Dr. JOSEPH A. HOLMES, 200–205
SCOTT, Mrs. MATTHEW T., Address by, 250–254
Chairman, Committee on Homes, 10
President-General, D. A. R., Introduction of, 249
Schools, Country, Needs of, 299
Growth in, 135
Rural, Reference to, 136
School Supervision, 138
Taxes, 137
Sewage Disposal, 19
Experiments in, 284
Disposition of, Address by Dr. BURTON J. ASHLEY, 281–286
SHIPP, THOMAS R., Executive Secretary, 1912, 9
1913, 11
Nomination and Election of, for Executive Secretary, 288
Social Evil, The, 277
Industry and Civic Progress, Address by RALPH M. EASLEY, 272–281
Soil Fertility, 162
in Europe, 297, 298
as National Asset, 297
Soil, The Story of the, Address by H. H. GROSS, 297–302
States, What They Are Doing, Dr. GEORGE E. CONDRA, 48
Standing Committees, 1912, 10
Report of, 367–368
STIMSON, Hon. HENRY L., Secretary of War, Address by, 41
Stimulants, Dangers of, 89
STORMS, Rev. Dr. A. B., Invocation by, 47
“Story of the Air,” Address by Prof. WILLIS N. MOORE, 302–305
Supplementary Proceedings, 312
Surveys, Climate, 58
Ground Water, 58
Social and Industrial Conditions, 58
Native Life, 58
Soils, 58
Structural, 58
Surface Water and Drainage, 58
Topographical, 57
Value of, 57, 58, 59
TAFT, President, Message from, 41
Personal Representative of, 41
TEAL, J. N., Chairman, Committee on Waters, 10
Tenement House Reform, 274
Timber Crop, 185
TOLL, JOHN D., Report by, 363–365
Training of Americans, 255
Tuberculosis Campaign, Outline of, 267
Deaths from, 264
Problem of, Address by Dr. LIVINGSTON FARRAND, 264–271
Registration, 265
of the Social Conditions, 266
Survey, 268
Typhoid Fever, 220
United States Steel Corporation, Reference to, 203
URNER, F. G., Address by, 327–334
Vice Commissions, 179
Vice-Presidents, 9
Vital Energy, 234
Resources, 10
Committee on, 10
of the Nation, Address by Dr. HENRY S. DRINKER, 347–349
State Activities in, 54, 55
Statistics, Address by A. B. Farquhar, 214–223
Vitality, Saving, 151
Vote of Thanks to Judge LINDSEY, 181
Wage-Earners, improvement of Conditions for, 273
Wage Question, 159
Wages, Improvement of, 273
WALKER, Mrs. JOHN R., Address by, 255–258
WALLACE, Dr. HENRY, Address by, 161–170
Chairman Pro Tem, 122
Member, Nominating Committee, 196
War, Policy of Waste; Peace Policy of Conservation, Address by
Mrs. ELMER BLACK, 352–356
Water Power, 22
Address of Hon. HENRY L. STIMSON, 41–46
Coosa River Bill, 45
Combination to Control, 184
James River Bill, 44
National Policy, 43
A Prominent Resource, 43
Public Control of, 22
Waters, Committee on, 10
WELCH, Dr. WILLIAM H., Chairman, Committee on Vital Statistics, 10
Weeks Law, Reference to, 319
Western Forestry and Conservation Association, Reference to, 65
WHEELER, N. P., Member, Nominating Committee, 196
WHITE, Hon. J. B., Address as President, 48
WHITE, President, Remarks in Presenting Hon. WOODROW WILSON, 232
Remarks Presenting CHARLES LATHROP PACK, 288
Remarks of, 33, 37, 40, 47, 75, 92, 102, 139, 160, 170, 181, 183,
195, 200, 231, 240, 264, 298
1912, 9
Announcements by, 111, 134, 182
Remarks by, 311
Statement by, 302
WICKS, Rev. Dr. F. S. C., Invocation by, 24
Wild Life Protection, State Activities in, 346
Report of Standing Committee of, 344
WILEY, Dr. HARVEY W., Address by, 75–91
Chairman, Committee on Food, 10
Chairman, Section on Food, 326
Mention of, 28
WILSON, WOODROW, Introduction of, by President WHITE, 232
Address by, 232–240
Woodworking Industries, Risks in, 189, 190
Women’s Meeting, 240
Workman’s Compensation Act, 187
Acts, States Which Have, 188
WORSHAM, E. LEE, Remarks by, 287
Chairman, Executive Committee, 1912, 9
1913, 11
Transcriber’s note
Consolidated the different spelling of cooperation and coöperation
with the most used co-operation throughout book
Added missing punctuation where needed
Wide tables were split into two parts for readability
pg 4 Changed Relation to Pulbic to: Public
pg 5 Changed Scott 250-258 to: 250-254
pg 5 Added letter h to Pittsburg in: Pittsburg, Mr. George M. Lehman
pg 10 Changed W J McGee. to: McGee,
pg 11 Changed Okland to: Oakland, Cal.
pg 14 Changed from the State Conservations to: Conservation
pg 16 Added period to: of less than 25,000.
pg 27 Changed take Russion with her to: Russia
pg 28 Changed spelling of: and familiarizing themeslves to:
themselves
pg 29 Changed comma to period at: drainage and the like.
pg 31 Changed spelling of: $600,000 to $300,000 annully to:
annually
pg 37 Changed something for beyond to: something far beyond
pg 43 Changed which will create waterpower to: water power
pg 45 Changed case of First, Is the river to: is
pg 54 Changed one of reforstation to: reforestation
pg 58 Changed spelling of older communities undistrubed to:
undisturbed
pg 74 Changed This we as through to: ask
pg 80 Changed principles of serum phophylaxis to: prophylaxis
pg 85 Changed spelling nature of the phagocytosthe to: phagocytose
pg 88 Changed spelling in any localtiy to: locality
pg 89 Changed spelling the use of stimulii to stimuli (3 places)
pg 98 Changed spelling other official public healh to: health
pg 100 Changed spelling height of absudity to: absurdity
pg 108 Changed spelling already passed the prosphorus to:
phosphorus
pg 111 Changed spelling simply to breath to: breathe
pg 124 Changed spelling speculation and over valuation to:
overvaluation (other matches in book)
pg 135 Matched spelling of little short of marvellous to: spelled
marvelous in other places
pg 135 Changed world-wide movement, by friends to: my friends
pg 135 Changed that not may purpose to: my purpose
pg 137 Changed they have not he to: the
pg 138 Added comma to million boys and girls,
pg 141 Changed low standards or decency to: of decency
pg 144 Changed spelling ethical and spirtual to: spiritual
pg 150 Removed unnecessary quote after: to have adequate
recreation.
pg 150 Changed spelling A Japanese physican to: physician
pg 152 Changed two instances of clamy hands, clamy feet to: clammy
pg 152 Changed insomnia, fugative pains to: fugitive pains
pg 154 Changed spelling temperance and sanitied to: sanitized
pg 155 Changed alloy steel because it work to: works
pg 166 Changed mathematics to compete to: compute
pg 166 Changed which tends to drawf to: dwarf
pg 172 Changed waterfalls and vendure to: verdure
pg 176 Changed spelling refuse to perfrom to: perform
pg 179 Changed where these things out to: ought
pg 206 Chart total for Scalded or Burned does not add up 197,
should be 297
pg 210 Changed human factor with its attendent to: attendant
pg 214 Changed President White—Whe to: We
pg 217 Changed Similiar to the work to: Similar
pg 235 Changed single quote to double after: partners in the
creation?
pg 236 Changed not write an immoral to: immortal
pg 247 Changed deux ex machina to: deus
pg 255 Changed abundance make it posible to: possible
pg 258 Changed I feel that this Congres to: Congress
pg 264 Changed each year and very probaly to: probably
pg 269 Changed in procuring the necesary to: necessary
pg 279 Changed released the rich, wheras to: whereas
pg 280 Changed mind that this resume to: resumé
pg 290 Changed Pittsburg having been to: Pittsburgh
pg 290 Changed In conection with complete to: In connection
pg 293 Changed also for deeping to: deepening
pg 294 Changed now successfully empolyed to: employed
pg 295 Changed derived by preventitive to: preventative
pg 303 Changed in the lower straum to: stratum
pg 304 Removed comma after if we go on and plant
pg 307 Removed period after Office of Public Roads
pg 308 Changed time when these Stats to: States
pg 309 Removed comma after Mr. Chairman, Knoxville
pg 313 Changed effort to secure reforstation. to: reforestation.
pg 316 Added period after: given the necessary publicity
pg 325 Changed In the hands of sopilsmen to: spoilsmen
pg 326 Changed and large quanities to: quantities
pg 333 Changed no criteron of their quality. to no criterion
pg 338 Added period to: governmental activity in this direction
pg 346 Changed North Carolina, Tennsesee to: Tennessee
pg 346 Changed extinct as the mastadon to: mastodon
pg 353 Changed International Court of Aribtration to: Arbitration
pg 358 Added double quote to: always applied it to “White River
pg 363 Changed be large in quanaity to: quantity
pg 364 Changed Not only since its inseption to: inception
pg 365 Removed the word for from: soil in the form for of food
pg 367 Changed he knew definitely that has to: his
pg 369 Added period to: Baumgartner, J.
pg 369 Changed capitalization of In relation to the home, 252 to:
in relation
pg 370 Changed Investigation of Pittsburgh Flood Commisson to:
Commission
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Proceedings fourth National Conservation Congress: Indianapolis, October 1-4, 1912" ***
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