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.