Nowhere in this wide and extended country can there be found a

grander association of noble, unselfish women, planning, acting,

counseling upon the great subject of conservation of human life than

this organization under whose auspices we are all assembled this

evening. Nowhere can there be found an institution more efficient

for good, more blessed in all its labors of love and humanity, more

universal in its application to the advancement of love and sympathy,

stimulating education, encouraging enlightenment and scientific

and humane development and morality, than an institution of the

character of this band of noble women, engaged in such a magnificent

undertaking as your association promulgates. Fully appreciating the

fact that as the world grows better and people become more educated

and more honest in their endeavors to espouse the cause of the weak

against the strong, and the right against the wrong, then such

organizations as the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the National Conservation

Congress will be heralded as the very acme of perfection along

the lines of the contemplated work in which you are now engaged.

(Applause.)

In all ages of the world chivalry has yielded to feminine beauty,

patriotism, loyalty and devotion, and I am sure that our popular

President, Captain White, his efficient officers and all the members

of the National Conservation Congress are at all times ready to

listen to advice and counsel from the fair sex, and to surrender

with wise discretion to all her laudable undertakings. (Applause.)

Wherever cheeks have turned pale with waiting, weeping and watching,

there was woman’s presence to cheer, to comfort and to save, and

in her garden of the sun heaven’s brightest rose is yet to bloom,

and when it comes it will be the bright-hued mission of a heavenly

charity. The poets have sung no truer rhyme than that inscribed by

one of your own number:

“Woman, not she with trait’rous lips her Savior stung,

Not she denied him with unholy tongue,

She, when Apostles shrunk, did dangers brave,

Last at the cross, and earliest at the grave.”

God Almighty, in his crowning work of creation, gave woman to man,

made weakness her strength, modesty her citadel, truth, gentleness

and love her attributes, and the heart of man her throne. (Applause.)

The CHAIRMAN—The meeting will stand adjourned.

_TENTH SESSION._

The Congress convened in the Murat Theater, on the morning of October

4, 1912. It was called to order by President White.

President WHITE—We will put things through on the ten-minute plan

this morning, so as to give every one a chance who has a place on the

program. Today we have reports from the committees, and elect our

officers. We can then get ready for another Congress, for we are all

going into the field, we are going to work for Conservation, and the

whole country is going to take it up. We will give them the text,

and the press will take it up, the politicians will take it up, and

we will each be a committee of one to go forth through the country

and make this Conservation idea a potent force that will change and

correct legislation for the benefit of all the people. (Applause.)

Mr. A. B. Farquhar, who was to speak this morning, spoke yesterday,

and therefore his address, for which a great many expected to be

present, will be printed and you will have an opportunity to read it.

Every one should subscribe for as many copies of the Proceedings as

he can afford, for distribution among friends. It is without doubt

going to prove to be the greatest book on conservation of human life

that has ever been written. These papers are scholarly, and they are

true, and the truth will prevail if we can only get people to read

and to think. We want to give you all an opportunity to subscribe

for this publication, which will be published as soon as possible,

and will only cost one dollar, and those who pay this dollar will be

entitled to membership in this organization next year, so that if

your Mayor, or your Governor, or your civic body does not reappoint

you, you are sure of membership next year, because you have paid in

your dollar and subscribed for the book.

Dr. Livingston Farrand, of New York, will now speak to us on “The

Problem of Tuberculosis.”

Dr. FARRAND—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: The problem of

tuberculosis in the United States is simple in its outlines. Stated

in their lowest terms, the figures which describe it are sufficiently

impressive and appalling. Increasing experience and added knowledge

serve only to confirm earlier estimates and to emphasize the

seriousness of the situation which confronts us. The vital statistics

of our country are notoriously faulty and incomplete, but the lesson

they teach must arrest the attention of every thinking citizen.

According to the census of 1910, treating the non-registration area

on the same basis as that from which mortality reports were recorded,

there were 150,000 deaths from tuberculosis in that year. This is, of

course, an under statement by many thousands. Rigidly conservative

estimates agree that the mortality from tuberculosis in this country

is at least 200,000 each year and very probably considerably more.

Let us for the moment, however, deal with the demonstrable facts and

not enter the field of estimate.

The real problem is not the number of deaths from tuberculosis,

but the number of living cases of the disease. In calculating this

different methods have been employed. For many years, the ratio

of three living cases to each death was used as an index of the

situation in any community. It was quickly realized by those familiar

with the situation that this proportion was far too low, but with

our almost total lack of registration, figures to demonstrate the

discrepancy were not available. With the improvement in recording

the facts of disease in certain typical centers of population, it

became certain, however, that a ratio of five to one was not only

conservative but below the truth.

More recently records of great value have been obtained which confirm

the convictions of experts and allow still sharper definition of the

problem.

It has remained for the city of Cleveland to work out during the past

two years a system of tuberculosis registration and administration

which is undoubtedly the most complete in the country for a community

of its size and complexity. Without going into details of method,

notification, and registration have been brought to such a point in

Cleveland that of all the deaths from tuberculosis now occurring

approximately ninety per cent. have been previously recorded and

under observation by the Department of Health, before death is

reported. This is an achievement for a city of its population of

extraordinary significance. There are in round numbers something over

700 deaths a year from pulmonary tuberculosis in that city of 600,000

inhabitants. There are in register and under observation at this time

approximately 4,600 cases of tuberculosis. Allowing for the ten per

cent. in the mortality not reported before the death, it is obvious

that the number of living cases is over seven times the number of

deaths and with slight allowance for the very large number of active

cases in any community which have not yet come to diagnosis, we can

demonstrate in that city a ratio of eight living cases for each death.

It is singularly fortunate that this demonstration has taken place in

a community of sufficient size to include the problems in some degree

of all our larger cities and to be regarded as reasonably typical

of the situation throughout the country. It has also been shown

that except for certain centers, where the problem of congestion is

extraordinarily prominent, the rural situation in the United States

does not differ appreciably from that obtaining in all cities and

towns so far as the presence of tuberculosis is concerned. I have

no hesitation, therefore, in asserting that we must from this time

on raise our figures and use a ratio of at least eight to one in

calculating the prevalence of tuberculosis on a basis of the recorded

deaths from that disease.

Apply these figures to the country. The Bureau of the Census

indicates 150,000 deaths a year. On this basis we have 1,200,000

living cases of tuberculosis. Let us not forget, however, that

150,000 recorded deaths is far below the actual number, for it is

easy to show in most of our communities that many deaths properly to

be assigned to tuberculosis are reported under other terms, and the

area of the United States from which no statistics are forthcoming

includes precisely those States where the mortality is high and the

prevalence of tuberculosis demonstrably widespread. We are still

absolutely certain that the mortality from this disease is at least

200,000 each year, and the number of living active cases more than a

million and a half.

Such, numerically speaking, is our problem. What are the efforts for

its solution?

Since the discovery of the bacillus as the cause of this disease

in 1882, an organized campaign has gradually been developed. The

inferences from the discovery of the cause were perfectly inevitable

and indicated the lines of operation. It became entirely clear that

tuberculosis, being due to a specific germ, was infectious, and it

was equally clear that the bacillus and its life history being known,

the disease was theoretically preventable. Here, too, the outlines

of the campaign are simple, even though the details of operation are

varied and the end in view baffling to attain.

It was inevitable that the first sporadic efforts based upon slight

experience should have been more or less random, and that years

of trial and proving should precede the establishment of definite

method. Some degree of order is, however, emerging, and we are

witnessing an increasing clearness of purpose and definition of

attack in the preventive movement against tuberculosis which is now

sweeping over the country and the civilized world.

While recognizing the unfortunate complexity of the social conditions

whose maladjustment is perhaps the chief underlying factor in the

problem, while recognizing fully the obligation to lend all possible

aid to the betterment of those conditions, the administration of

the campaign against tuberculosis has still conceived its specific

task to be a direct attack on the sources of infection; this,

because experience has indicated such procedure to be the best

and most feasible means of prevention. As the logical conclusions

of laboratory discovery and clinical experience began to express

themselves in organized movement, it was recognized that the

preliminary task in prevention was one of education; an education

which should impress upon the public mind not only the fundamental

facts that tuberculosis is infectious and preventable and the methods

of its infection and prevention, but an education that should bring

about an improved knowledge of public and private hygiene, and

particularly an education which should create a public sentiment

which could appreciate conditions and would support and even demand

those measures which expert advice and experience might indicate as

necessary. This educational propaganda, now so familiar, has been in

the United States the particular province of private organization.

The union of professional and lay effort in this latter day crusade

has been one of the most inspiring of social phenomena and has

already resulted in accomplishments of imposing dimensions.

With our political organization such as it is, this enlightened

public sentiment is an absolute essential if the responsibility

for the situation is to be an official one, and not left for the

suggestive and stimulating but less final and efficient efforts of

private philanthropy.

The insistence upon official responsibility has been made an

essential point in our American campaign and toward its intelligent

acceptance by public authorities all efforts are directed. As may

well be appreciated, the attainment of this desired end is slow, even

though ultimately inevitable.

In planning the campaign, an ideal program was not difficult to lay

down. It included as fundamental:

1. The education of which I have spoken, not only as it applies to

tuberculosis but as contributing to the solution of that problem of

misery which is, after all, the chief problem of the day and which

reduces in the last instance largely to terms of good or ill health.

2. Enactment or enforcement of protective laws of which the basis

was that notification and registration agreed upon as preliminary to

official knowledge and control of the situation.

3. Adequate institutional provision for all classes of cases; the

sanatorium for the curable; the hospital for the advanced and

hopeless, and dispensaries for early diagnosis and as centers for

that all-important field of action, education and treatment in the

homes of the poor.

The developments of the years have not served appreciably to modify

the main features of this program. Emphasis has shifted from time to

time and will continue so to shift, but the fundamentals remain more

firmly established than ever.

In developing the movement in this country, the most effective

means of stimulating action in our various communities has been

the voluntary association for the prevention of tuberculosis. In

organizing these societies the local community has been recognized as

the essential centers of action. The effort has been made, therefore,

to obtain in every community of considerable size an organization

embracing elements both medical and lay which shall charge itself

with the task of securing adequate official treatment of the

tuberculosis problem as it there presents itself.

In many of our commonwealths such organizations can best be brought

about through the action of a State society, whose special function

becomes one of organization and of securing desired legislation. In

other cases the initiative is local in origin. Where State societies

exist, these act as co-ordinating agents for the affiliated local

societies, and the National Association for the Study and Prevention

of Tuberculosis acts as a clearing house for them all.

It will be seen at once that such organization is but preliminary,

and would be entirely futile, did it not result in preventive

measures of a definite sort. There is, however, no other index

equally valuable of the vigor and growth of this movement in the

United States. Speaking from the national point of view, the

organized campaign in this country has been in existence exactly

seven years. In 1905 there were in the entire country but twenty-one

of these societies, while at the present time there are no less than

660, working in co-operation and presenting a united front to the

enemy. There is no considerable area that does not contain some such

center of intelligent action.

The carrying out of the program outlined a moment ago is the special

function of the organized movement. In the development of this

program it is historically interesting that it was institutional

provision for tuberculosis that first obtained support. It was the

sanatorium for the cure of curable cases with its peculiar appeal

which first engaged attention. From our present point of view, it was

perhaps not the logical beginning, but it was certainly the obvious

and perhaps the most fortunate point of attack. The sanatorium

with its promise of restoring to a wage-earning capacity those

unfortunates who formerly had been regarded as doomed to a speedy and

inevitable death, was peculiarly fitted to arrest public attention

and to engage public support.

As the movement for sanatorium establishment developed momentum,

attention turned to the need of special dispensaries as logical

centers of preventive work. Time will not permit even an outline

of this phase of the problem. Suffice it to say that with the

first general survey of the movement in the United States, six

years ago, there were in the country but eighteen dispensaries

exclusively devoted to tuberculosis. There are today more than 400

such foundations and their number is increasing at a rapid rate.

All those who deal hand to hand with the problem become impressed

at once with the fact that tuberculosis is pre-eminently a disease

of social life, of living and working conditions. In the absence of

adequate institutional facilities it is unavoidable that the problem

should be attacked in the homes and workshops of the people, and

with such weapons as may be at hand or which can be devised. With

early diagnosis and careful instructive nursing supervision, much

can be done even in the distressing conditions which characterize

the crowded and poorer quarters of our great cities. The center

of activity in this field is everywhere the dispensary, and the

elaboration of its function to include supervision in the homes of

indigent patients has been one of the most interesting and important

of recent developments.

The third and possibly the most important aspect of institutional

provision was the last to be taken up with energy. Every survey

of our equipment during recent years has served to emphasize the

shocking lack in our facilities for the care of advanced cases of

tuberculosis. It has become increasingly evident that as centers

of infection the consumptive in the advanced stages presented the

most serious problem. Equipped as we were, with a healthily growing

movement along educational, sanatorium and dispensary lines, the

time seemed ripe for a vigorous attack on this point of weakness.

The result has been that during the last four years there has been

a concentration of energy in this direction and a notable advance

has been made. Without pausing to specify various kinds and degrees

of hospitals and sanatoria for the treatment of tuberculosis in the

United States, it is encouraging to note that we now have over 500 in

the country, as compared with 111 seven years ago. The number of beds

contained in these institutions is approximately 30,000, a number

small when compared with the need, but encouraging when compared with

the situation but a few years since.

The third feature of the program already mentioned, that of

legislation, is less susceptible of numerical expression, but

it is in many ways the most fundamental and most significant of

advancing intelligence. The principle of compulsory notification

and registration has been insisted upon from the outset, and it

has now come to be fairly generally accepted in all parts of the

country. With few exceptions the more important States provide for

registration by enactment either of the Legislature or of the State

health authorities. In most of our larger cities local regulations

are also on the statute books. Unfortunately the enforcement of

these regulations is far behind their expression, but the situation

is rapidly improving, and the example of such cities as New York

in initiating the principle, and of Cleveland in demonstrating its

possibilities, is of inestimable value.

In dealing with the question of public hospital establishment, the

best adapted political unit has caused much embarrassment where

a given community is not large enough to support an independent

institution. Federal provision is agreed upon as being out of the

question. The State as such is in most instances regarded as having

the same limitations to a lesser degree as the national government.

It is fairly generally accepted that where the municipality is of

sufficient size it should accept responsibility for its problem. In

those sections where communities of lesser population are the rule,

the county is now in the focus of attention.

Little difficulty has been encountered in procuring the necessary

legislation for local and county institutional provision. We have

now reached the point where the possibility of mandatory State

legislation is being considered with care and some favor. In this

connection one should note the recent passage by the Legislature

of the State of New Jersey of a law which undoubtedly represents

the most advanced legislation in the United States and probably in

the world. Without going into details, the law in question provides

for the establishment of special tuberculosis hospitals in all the

counties of the State, for the payment by the State of a certain

sum ($3.00 per week per patient) toward the maintenance of such

hospitals, for the compulsory segregation in such hospitals of

dangerous and incorrigible cases of the disease, and for the general

supervision of these provisions by the State Board of Health, though

the primary responsibility is placed upon the local health officer.

This legislation is of the highest interest, not only in its promise

of results, but as an enactment into law of principles formulated

as necessary by expert experience even though in advance of public

appreciation.

Reaching into every field of social activity as this campaign

must do, it is inevitable that new phases of importance should

successively make their appearance and demand attention. I should

say that perhaps the most striking is the essential importance of

the child in the tuberculosis problem. With improved methods of

diagnosis and wider facilities for examination, there has been shown

a prevalence of tuberculosis in children of school age that is most

alarming. It is a conservative statement that there are today in

the public schools of the United States 100,000 children who will

die of tuberculosis before they reach the age of eighteen if the

present rate of mortality be continued. A very recent estimate

presented by the United States Bureau of Education states that at

least 15,000,000 children now in attendance in the schools of the

United States are in need of a physician’s attention, and that of

this number 1,000,000 have or have had tuberculosis. It has become

clear that if our educational campaign in the interest of preventive

medicine and public health is to achieve success, the attention must

be concentrated upon the coming generation rather than upon those who

have already passed their years of plasticity.

We see, then, on every hand the tendency to attack the problem in

the schools, and this not only by the establishment of provision

for open air teaching and the improvement of the undernourished and

the predisposed, but upon insistence of regular and intelligent

instruction as to the prevention of disease.

Such in its general outlines is the plan by which we are working.

With such a situation and with such a campaign what then is

the outlook? I have little sympathy with the enthusiasm which

deals in specific predictions or which assigns a date for the

practical achievement of theoretical possibilities. It is perhaps

inevitable that an impatient public should demand results before

definite results can be forthcoming. There is, on the other hand,

a corresponding obligation for conservatism in expression when

indicating probable or even possible results. A drop in the mortality

curve of a slowly developing and slowly progressive disease such as

tuberculosis, is not a matter of months but a matter of years. It is

unjustifiable to expect results from the specific campaign against

tuberculosis in an observable diminution of mortality for some years

to come. I believe, however, that we have reached a point where our

equipment is such as adequately to test our basis of operations and

to warrant an optimism as to the future if our reasoning and method

be correct.

Believing as we do, that the soundness of the procedure is certain,

it would seem reasonable to expect a response in the mortality tables

within five years, and that ten years should afford indisputable

proof.

There is, of course, no doubt that tuberculosis is diminishing and

has been diminishing for a generation. This decrease is not to

be assigned to the specific warfare against the disease, but is

doubtless correlated with other factors. It is uncertain whether we

are to assign as its cause the general improvement in public hygiene

or whether there may be perhaps an acquisition of immunity gradually

extending through the civilized world. In my own judgment this

decrease in the prevalence of tuberculosis is associated with the

improvement in hygienic conditions which has been so marked during

the last fifty years. I believe we are justified in expecting an

acceleration in this diminution as a result of the specific measures

now being adopted not only here but in Europe. While we cannot

interpret them with confidence, there are already appearing certain

figures of possible significance. It should not be forgotten that the

first result of all concentrated activity and interest is a greater

accuracy in mortality and morbidity statistics, and that an actual

decrease in tuberculosis might appear in official reports as an

apparent increase in the disease.

Taking all these factors into account and viewing the situation

candidly and with all the precautions possible, I do not hesitate to

assert that optimism as to the future is justified, and that the end

of the present decade will witness the beginning of another drop in

the mortality curve comparable to that which was seen in the closing

years of the last century. (Applause.)

President WHITE—Dr. W. C. Mendenhall, of the United States Geological

Survey, at Washington, was expected to be here this morning to speak

upon the subject of “Water as a Natural Resource.” He is unable to be

present, and Mr. Jacob P. Dunn, Secretary of the Indiana Historical

Society, will now have ten minutes to discuss “The Conservation of

Navigable Streams.”

(For Mr. Dunn’s paper see Supplementary Proceedings.)

President WHITE—The subject of the next address is “Social,

Industrial and Civic Progress.” It is to be a review of fifty years

of what has been done in labor economics, by one who has given a

great deal of study to the subject, Mr. Ralph M. Easley, of New

York City, Chairman of the Executive Council of the National Civic

Federation.

Mr. EASLEY—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: In view of the fact

that the work of the Committee on Civics was not outlined at the time

it was organized, and as it was the desire of the national officers

of the Conservation Congress that its work should not duplicate

nor overlap the work of other organizations, the mapping out of a

practical program for the committee was deferred until this meeting

of the Congress.

Recognizing this situation, the officers of the Congress suggested

that, as Chairman of the Committee on Civics, I should briefly review

the progress that has been made by others in this country along

industrial, social and civic lines. This seemed to me wise because

at a gathering of this kind, which has discussed conditions that

call for improvements, it might be helpful to note what progress our

country has already made along these lines. To look back adown the

slopes we have so painfully and undauntedly climbed in advancing to

our present plane of material and moral welfare, far from inspiring

us with a smug complacency, should heighten our resolves and give

renewed energy and freshness of spirit.

Another reason for accepting the suggestion is that I had just read

in an English newspaper a sweeping and vitrolic criticism of our

social and civic conditions. Our unkind critic spoke of us as a

people so utterly bound up in the worship of the “almighty dollar”

that we had lost whatever social vision might have illumined the

minds of our fathers. To all sense of social righteousness we were as

a people pitiably indifferent. In mill, factory and mine our working

people slaved; in tenement and farmhouse our poor lived, little if

any better than the poorest of Europe’s poor; our sick and otherwise

helpless were scarcely given a thought. Politically we were rotten to

the core, statesmanship and graft going hand in hand.

That, in short, ours was a dog-eat-dog civilization, and that the

only direction in which light might be seen breaking was in the “fact

that making headway among the wisest and most far-seeing Americans

was the conviction that American institutions were a failure!”

The editorial concluded with the statement that if any one considered

that view a biased one, all such skeptical readers need do was to

acquaint themselves with the writings and speeches of American

sociologists and magazine writers or to converse with any of that

“dwindling proportion” of our well-informed citizens to whom human

values are not a mere academic phrase or an abstraction.

It is unnecessary to point out that our English critic might have

used his columns to better advantage if he had differentiated between

the sociologists and magazine writers who seek our country’s good and

those who seek only its destruction—a very important differentiation

to make at this time.

In fact, our critic may be a Socialist, who is only passing along

to England the general cry of the pessimists of this country,

that “whatever is, is wrong”; and that there is a great unrest in

the industrial world which will, sooner or later, burst out in

volcanic force and engulf us in a terrible cataclysm—all of which is

unspeakable rot.

I think I am in a position through the organization with which

I am connected (composed as it is of the representatives of the

great labor, agricultural, manufacturing, banking, commercial,

educational and professional organizations) to know something about

this “great unrest” upon which the Socialists and other radical

writers and speakers declaim so much, and I can assure you that the

only unrest in the industrial and social fields that I can discern

is that wholesome, normal unrest which comes through the education

of the people, and therefore a better understanding of their rights

as workers and the translation of that knowledge through the labor

unions and other social and economic organizations into concrete

demands for better living conditions.

But let us take a birdseye view of the situation and see whether we

are advancing or going backward. I think you will agree with me that

the following bare outline of a few of the important achievements

and the work now being done by organizations and movements of

public-spirited citizens is inspiring and encouraging.

Let us start with the industrial gains.

The American Federation of Labor and the railway brotherhoods have

in the past twenty-five years secured better wages and working

conditions for millions of wage-earners and the eight-hour day for

hundreds of thousands, and they have developed a system of collective

bargaining and methods of conciliation and arbitration that are

reducing the number of industrial disturbances. To get a clear idea

of what this means in terms of progress, let us consider that while

in the past six months 500,000 coal miners and their employers have

made contracts covering wages, hours and conditions of employment

for a term of four years; all the railroads east of Chicago are

arbitrating their differences with their thousands and thousands of

engineers, trainmen, conductors and so on; the hundreds of thousands

of carpenters, bricklayers, painters, plasterers and others of the

thirty-five crafts involved in the building industry have made

contracts with associations of builders all over the land from Maine

to California; while the publishers of the great daily newspapers

throughout the United States have made a five-year contract with

their printers, pressmen, stereotypers, etc.; and the street railway

employes in many great cities and many others of the 135 crafts

belonging to the American Federation of Labor have made satisfactory

contracts with their employers—I say, let us consider that while

this is what is going on today in this country, we shall not have to

go very far back into history to find the time when it was a penal

offense for a man to join a labor organization, or for workers to ask

collectively for an increase in wages, and to find that, while we are

now legislating in the interest of the employe for a minimum wage,

at that time the effort of legislation was for a maximum wage in the

interest of the employer.

In the meantime, the State factory legislation has revolutionized

the methods of sanitation in the workshops of the country and is

safeguarding better and better the lives and limbs of the workers.

Employers are making increased provision for the welfare of their

employes through sanitary and safe work places, opportunities for

recreation and education, model homes rented or sold, and relief

funds for sickness, accident and death benefits, as well as old age

pensions, all affecting millions of railroad, factory, mine and

department store workers.

The National Child Labor Committee has led a campaign that in ten

years has secured wholesome legislation in practically every State

in the Union, reducing hours of labor, prohibiting children under

fourteen years of age from working in factories, mines and mills, and

preventing night work for women and children in many places.

The tenement house reform movement in New York alone, where the

problems are greatest, has made seventy-five per cent. improvement

in fifteen years; and as an example of the growing recognition

of big business of its social responsibility, it may be pointed

out that when the Supreme Court upset the Tenement House Law, and

by a decision wiped out all that had been accomplished in twelve

years through the tenement house agitation, the allied real estate

interests in New York joined with the tenement house reformers in

securing the passage of a State law and a city ordinance correcting

the defects.

Amazing in magnitude and usefulness are the health organizations,

public and private, devoted to securing more efficient methods of

sanitation and the prevention of disease, recent statistics in New

York City showing as a result of such work that the mortality rate

has decreased fifty per cent. in fifty years.

There are various national and local organizations devoted to the

protection and education of the millions of immigrants from all parts

of the world who have landed on these shores in the past ten years,

and whose assimilation and adaptation to American standards and

conditions have constituted one of the problems of the age.

There are thousands of non-sectarian hospitals and institutions for

the scientific care of dependents, defectives and delinquents.

Splendid work is being done by the great charity organization

movement which is teaching independence and thrift through its

penny provident societies, and which has organized some of the most

important preventive and remedial agencies.

The National Federation of Remedial Loan Societies covers

twenty-eight cities, where societies lend money to the poor at

reasonable rates to protect them from the loan sharks, the New York

organization alone having a fund of millions for this purpose. A

rapidly increasing number of large employers have changed their

attitude towards their employes, in that they now aid instead of

discharging those who incur debt—the latter policy having played

directly into the hands of the loan sharks.

The National Association for the Promotion of Industrial Education

has brought the manufacturers’ associations and the labor

organizations into harmonious support of the measure providing a

federal appropriation of $5,000,000 for industrial education of the

young workers in towns and cities, whether in factories, stores or

offices, and including domestic science for the girls. The measure

also provides an equal amount for the sons and daughters of the

farmers.

The tremendous program of constructive work undertaken by the United

States Bureau of Labor and the Bureau of Mines in the interest of

the workingmen and by the Department of Agriculture for the farmers

should alone silence our English scoffer. The recent establishment of

the Children’s Bureau is an achievement of which humanitarians may

well be proud.

The public school system and other free educational institutions

enable the children in this country today to receive twelve times

as much schooling as their grandparents—a tremendous factor in our

advancement of itself and one that readily accounts for much of the

unrest without which no progress could come.

The universities, especially the State institutions, have in the past

ten years enlarged the scope of their work to such an extent that

many of them can be classed as leaders in what are termed the “uplift

movements” of the day. A complete catalogue of the public work done

by the University of Wisconsin alone would be a revelation.

The Playground and Recreation Society of America and other recreation

movements are assisting in the development of children’s playgrounds

in parks and schools and are bringing health and good cheer to

congested centers.

The Association for Labor Legislation is working jointly with the

American Medical Association to safeguard wage-earners against

occupational diseases.

The American Bankers’ Association is organizing a movement to help

the farmers of the country develop idle land in the effort to

decrease the cost of living.

One of the most encouraging signs to those who are alarmed over the

high cost of living, and that is about all of us, is the recognition

by the farmers, State agricultural colleges and railroads, of the

necessity of introducing up-to-date methods for raising and marketing

grain, live stock, fruit, dairy produce, etc. Only last week I read

the announcement of a convention called in Kansas, where three

thousand delegates will meet to consider this very question of

improving the methods of farming. These delegates will represent not

only farmers but also the bankers, merchants, wage-earners and all

divisions of society.

It would take a volume to describe even in outline the great social

and economic reforms being promoted by Mr. Andrew Carnegie, Mrs.

Edward H. Harriman, Mrs. Russell Sage and Mr. John D. Rockefeller,

whose $60,000,000 gift covers the promotion and development of the

high school system in the Southern States and the promotion of

higher education throughout the United States, while his Sanitary

Commission has discovered and is eradicating the hookworm disease

in the South. The Carnegie Institute of Washington, with an

endowment of $22,000,000, was founded to encourage in the broadest

and most liberal manner investigation, research and discovery, and

the application of knowledge to the improvement of mankind, while

the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, with its

$15,000,000 endowment, provides retiring pensions for the teachers

of universities, colleges and technical schools. The Russell Sage

Foundation, endowed by Mrs. Sage with $10,000,000, has, for its

purpose the improvement of social and living conditions in the United

States of America.

There are the tremendous achievements through the institutional work

of the churches of all denominations. Three-fourths of the efforts

in the live churches of today are devoted to material welfare, as is

evidenced by the especial care of the orphan, the sick and the poor

on the part of the Catholic Church; the great Hebrew philanthropic

and educational agencies; and such single illustrations as the

social work outlined in the handbooks just issued by Trinity and St.

George’s parishes in New York—the former being a revelation to those

who believed that the millions of Trinity Church were being used only

for commercial profits.

The Young Men’s Christian Association, with its tremendous energy and

enthusiasm, while organized primarily to promote the spiritual growth

of young men, has lately, under its “physical and social well-being”

clause, gone into the field of industrial betterment with conspicuous

success.

The Men and Religion Forward Movement and the Federation of Churches,

representing many million members of Protestant denominations, have

recently adopted broad programs of industrial and social reform.

There are the movement to suppress the social evil, known as the

Federation of Sex Hygiene; the Anti-Tuberculosis Society, with its

wonderfully comprehensive and successful efforts in fighting the

great white plague; the Red Cross Society which, in addition to

relieving distress in great disasters, has fostered with marked

success annual competitive drills of “first-aid” crews from the

mines; the Boy Scouts of America, inculcating patriotism and good

citizenship; the National Consumers’ League; the New York Museum

of Safety and Sanitation; the Prison Labor Reform Association, and

hundreds of other organizations and movements devoted to human

betterment too numerous even to mention by title.

And last, but not least, there is the educational work being

done by the National Civic Federation through its Departments

on Conciliation, Compensation for Injured Workmen, Industrial

Welfare, Pure Food and Drugs, Reform in Legal Procedure, Regulation

of Interstate and Municipal Utilities, Regulation of Industrial

Corporations and Uniform State Legislation.

As much of the work of the various departments of the National Civic

Federation called for uniform State legislation, a special department

was organized to co-operate with the Commissioners on Uniform State

Laws.

The importance of uniformity to all business and commercial

institutions is clearly recognized, when we consider that our larger

corporations—such as the railroads, telegraph, insurance, banking

and trust companies and, in fact, so far as taxation is concerned,

all manufacturing concerns whose plants are in different States—are

subject to forty-eight masters, each with a mind quite different from

that of the others. The “interminable” law’s delay, the clashing

of the States upon the question of regulation of corporations and

combinations, the diversity of State laws on ordinary commercial

matters, such as warehouse receipts, bills of lading and negotiable

notes, the urgent need for a uniform bill on compensation for

industrial accidents, all give emphasis to the need for uniformity.

But even this chaotic legislative situation shows encouraging signs

of clearing up.

So much for progress along industrial and social lines; but we have

made and are making just as great progress in this country along

other lines that affect the general welfare of the people. And also

our ethical standards and our aspirations are conspicuously higher.

For instance:

Within the past twenty years there has been a most remarkable gain

in the popular concept of the relation of industrial, railway and

municipal utility corporations to the public. The large corporations

called trusts have been taught even in the past five years that

they must recognize certain “rules of the game” that give their

competitors a chance, and what is wholesome about this from the

ethical standpoint is that they now admit the justice of these

changed conditions.

The abolition of rebates and free passes and the placing of railroad,

telegraph, telephone and express companies absolutely under the

regulatory power of the Interstate Commerce Commission are so

far-reaching that the benefits to the people are impossible to

measure. From federal regulation of railroads, it was only a step to

State regulation of street railway, gas and electric light companies.

The idea that railways or big corporations are masters of the people

has been dissipated.

Today, through insistent demand of the people for publicity, it can

be said that the big business of the country is being done behind

glass doors. The improved methods of doing business adopted by banks,

trust companies and insurance companies during the past five years

would alone justify this statement.

In practically five years, thanks to the great educational work

of the National Conservation Congress, there has been a complete

transformation of the public mind in the matter of proper control of

our natural resources, such as our public lands, timber and water

power. It was not many years ago, when I was living in the West, that

it was considered a smart thing to “grab off” all public land that

one could get hold of. This was generally accomplished by taking

land in the name of your mother and father and all your children,

past, present and future, and it was not bad form even to use your

neighbor’s name in taking up claims. I found my own name had been

used in three or four different counties by some of my ambitious

neighbors.

Politically speaking, we have progressed from the state where our

elections were great public scandals and where primary elections were

“free-for-alls,” with no legal status whatever, to a day when, thanks

to the Australian ballot law, ballot-box stuffing is practically

unknown and primaries are generally so conducted that the voters

control.

Campaign contributions that were largely responsible for corruption

in politics and legislation are now by law made public to the world.

The initiative, referendum and direct primary have been adopted in

some form in two-thirds of the States and in over two hundred cities

the commission form of government, often with a recall attachment,

has been adopted. These measures, whether they prove to be practical

reforms or not—and there are many who doubt that—undeniably

testify to the paramount power of those agitating for a so-called

“progressive program,” they all being opposed by what are termed the

“reactionaries.”

The civil service, from being a thing detested by nearly everybody

twenty years ago, is so popular today that political parties are

vying with each other to see which can include the largest number

of civil employes. The President has just ordered the 35,000

fourth-class post-masters be taken from under the political brokerage

offices of the Congressmen and placed under the civil service law.

The government of cities, which has been the burning shame of this

country, as it was in the early days of every other country, is

slowly but surely becoming more decent and effective. The work of

the National Municipal League, the hundreds of local municipal

reform associations, and the National Bureau of Municipal Research

with its local bureaus, furnish abundant evidence of the truth of

this statement. The Bureau of Municipal Research is not only making

an exhaustive and painstaking analysis of administrative methods

in many large cities, and installing more up-to-date and efficient

systems, but it also has prevailed upon the Federal Government to

have a similar investigation made in its various departments. It

has, in addition, organized a training school to meet the demand for

municipal experts.

The administration of justice and the influence of wealth upon the

decisions of the courts have been revolutionized in the past ten

years. It used to be charged that the criminal courts convicted only

the poor and released the rich, whereas today the penitentiary that

has not a half dozen or more bankers or rich malefactors within its

walls is the exception. There is no man or corporation so powerful

today as to be immune from attack by the government when violating

the law.

The American Bar Association and the National Civic Federation are

jointly working to bring about a reform in legal procedure which will

wipe out unnecessary delays and cost in litigation, thereby opening

the courts more freely to the wage-earner.

Five years ago there was no such thing as a Pure Food and Drug

Law. Today there is a federal act which has been made the basis of

legislation in thirty-five States, and in another five years it is

likely to be practically impossible for misbranders or adulterators

of food and drugs to live outside of our penal institutions.

The rural free delivery, the postal savings bank and the parcel post

are all great advances from which the farmers largely benefit.

The building and loan associations and savings banks, unknown in

early days, are great aids to wage-earners.

In other words, reform is writ large over all sections of the country

and all classes of society. There are:

Over two thousand boards of trade and chambers of commerce, at least

half of whose efforts are directed towards municipal and industrial

reforms, and the other half to commercial reforms;

Thousands of church societies and committees aiding in the

improvement of industrial, social and political conditions in their

respective localities;

Thousands of women’s clubs, representing over two million of the

brightest and most energetic women of our nation, devoted to securing

civic improvement, factory legislation and reforms in public schools,

to spreading information upon social hygiene and domestic science

and working for the protection of women and the redemption of

unfortunate ones;

Thirty thousand labor organizations, whose purpose is not only

to secure better working conditions, better wages and a shorter

workday for wage-earners, but also to lift them to a higher plane of

citizenship, and

Millions of farmers who, through granges, alliances and institutes,

are working not only to improve the home life on the farm, but to

educate their children in the use of better and more scientific

methods of production.

Pretty fair, is it not, for a people whom our English critics and our

American Socialists say are bereft, or almost so, of a social sense?

And it must also be kept in mind that this resumé does not refer to

progress in science, invention and the arts, nor is attention called

to the fact that never before in the history of this country were the

basic conditions better than they are now, despite the fact that a

national political campaign is supposed to be on.

But while the progress made has been so tremendous that we do not

realize it, on none of these lines is it contended that anything near

the ideal has been reached. There are yet very many black places

and perplexing problems demanding attention on the part of those

who love their fellow-men. But the same courage, intelligence and

humanitarianism that have accomplished so much will not now falter,

but will press forward.

Many in this audience may conclude that I am unduly optimistic and

that I am able only to see the good, but I can assure you that I know

something as well about the ills of society; for instance, I could

cite from the records of the Welfare Department of the National Civic

Federation alone a catalogue of industrial horrors showing where

greedy and thoughtless, if not unfeeling and criminal, employers

are grossly and outrageously mistreating the wage-earners in their

employ, paying them atrociously low wages, working them excessively

long hours and giving no consideration to the comforts or decencies

that a humane employer would furnish. But also from that same record

I could show that all such evils are being met by other employers,

justifying the belief that, through education and proper agitation,

the remaining sore spots can be removed. Last year one great

corporation alone spent five millions of dollars in betterment work,

including a gradual shortening of the working time in its plans for

improving conditions, and several large corporations, operating night

and day, have gone from two twelve-hour shifts to three eight-hour

shifts without decrease of pay.

As a concrete and striking example of the power of agitation and

education, there can be no better illustration than the present

widespread sentiment in favor of legal enactments requiring

compensation to injured wage-earners in lieu of the old employers’

liability system. Through the work of the National Civic Federation

and co-operating bodies, this complete reversal of policy has been

brought about in four years, fourteen States having already passed

workmen’s compensation laws. The legislation, both Federal and State,

which is now being secured, makes the industry bear the burden, while

before the wage-earner took all the chances, did all the suffering

and, if, after long-drawn-out litigation, he finally got anything in

the way of damages, he had to give up fifty per cent. of it to the

“ambulance chaser.”

I am happy to state that a movement is now on foot to make a

painstaking inquiry into the progress made during the past fifty

years in the directions indicated, with a view not only to

discovering the good, but also to ascertaining what social and

economic ills remain to be eradicated, and to propose, as far as

possible, practical remedies therefor.

It is believed that a movement which will recognize the good and

sincerely seek to remedy the wrong would be more effective in

accomplishing reform than one designed only to tear down and destroy.

It were well, and with this suggestion I conclude, if at all future

gatherings of this great organization some such counting of the

milestones passed were to be made a feature. There is good reason for

this. There are among our ninety millions of people many who, strange

as it may seem, interpret such occasions as this as diagnostic of a

body-social sick nigh unto death as the result of neglect. They do

not know—and the fault is not wholly theirs—that the patient, far

from being in extremis, is in better condition than ever before, that

what to them is a death chamber consultation is merely an evidence

of periodical stock taking in terms of social health and welfare.

(Applause.)

President WHITE—This is certainly a truthful resumé. It is well for

us all sometimes to stop and “count our blessings.” (Applause.)

We will now listen to Dr. Burton J. Ashley, of Morgan Park, Illinois.

His subject is “Disposition of Sewage,” a very interesting aspect of

Conservation.

Dr. ASHLEY—The universal aim of every one is to succeed. Success in

anything depends, it is aptly said, on one’s ability, reliability,

endurance, and action—four personal requisites, the absence of any

one of which means failure. Ability and reliability are personal

qualities, while endurance and action, two of these four requisites,

are physical endowments dependable on one’s health. Accepting these

statements as correct, then half of our successes is dependable on

personal health and one-half on personal quality.

If man’s successes are equally as dependable on health as on his

mental or acquired qualities or abilities, then we must draw but

one conclusion, viz., that as much attention should be given to the

maintenance of a healthy body as to the use and maintenance of our

mental and moral capabilities.

Healthfulness depends in part on cleanliness, the state or quality

of being clean. Health is natural. Disease is unnatural and is the

result of some known or unknown transgression of natural laws. Dirt

and disease have always been good friends. Disease is always most

flourishing when it has dirt and filth for company; and to be dirty

or filthy is to transgress nature’s efforts at keeping the body well.

Water and food are essential to life. Consume them and the liquid

waste produce is sewage filth. To man the foulest and most repulsive

dirt or filth is that of his own daily making, and well that it

is, for it contains the most poisonous substances that exist and

civilized humanity everywhere is increasingly directing its efforts

to accomplish its destruction in the most sanitary and economical way

possible. Modern methods employed by cities or lesser municipalities

to disposal of their liquid filth is that of establishing systems of

underground drains called sewers, into which such liquid filth is

discharged.

The first well designed sewerage system to be adopted in the United

States was built in Chicago about the year 1855.

The modern water-closet was not evolved until early in the last

century, and in consequence of which evolution water carriage as a

means of conveying sewage away logically followed its introduction.

Former designs of sewerage provided for drains that would accommodate

both the storm waters as well as the sewage. This method is commonly

known as the “Combined System,” but when the employment of this

character of sewage disposal created nuisances, the demand arose for

the abatement of said nuisances, and it was then that civilization

faced sewage purification in some form as a remedy. Storm waters

are only dirty waters and not, strictly speaking, polluted waters,

for merely dirty water will not create an offensive nuisance and

requires no purification, while polluted water does. So the “separate

system” of sewers was then evolved, namely, where one system conveys

the storm waters and a separate system the sanitary sewage, for,

inasmuch as only sanitary sewage needs purifying, therefore works of

smaller capacity are needed than would be required were the large and

unsteady volume of storm waters to be also subjected to the purifying

process.

Many experiments have been made and varying forms of sewage purifying

plants have been built during the last half century, and out of the

many failures there have been evolved a few processes of purification

which have proven fairly successful, but from an economic standpoint

as well as from a physical one much yet has to be gained.

The broad irrigation of land with raw or crude sewage has been tried

out and its limitations discovered. Although physically successful

when properly administered, this form of disposal has been found to

be expensive. Existing costly land values are usually exceedingly

against the adoption of this form of disposal. The Broad Irrigation

Plant of Berlin, Germany, with her 43,000 acres of land, is a notable

example of the continuance of this form of disposal, but while this

scheme has through its years of usefulness sometimes shown profits

and sometimes deficits, the profits have never been large enough to

pay the interest and sinking fund charges on the capital expended on

the purchase of farms.

The method of purification now in general use is what is broadly

called the biological method, wherein nature’s own mysterious forces,

viz., putrefaction and nitrification, are encouraged usually by first

impounding the sewage and then nitrifying the impounded liquid in a

filter bed, so called.

This form of sewage purification is found to require a minimum amount

of manipulation or labor as compared with some of the other forms.

The plea for sewage disposal is that it enhances life by preventing

disease. The United States Conservation Commission reported that

eighty-five per cent. of typhoid and malaria are preventable.

The sewage disposal problem is by no means an easy one, for every

case being a law unto itself is sure to present a greater or less

number of physical conditions that may not be found in any other

case. Sewages differ in their composition as people differ. Some

sewages are easily controlled and gotten rid of, while other sewages

are stubborn to almost refusing to be subdued. The sanitary engineer

in arriving at determination is obliged to previously dig deep and

acquaint himself with existing conditions before he can safely

conclude upon designs or measures or means that will bring successful

results. The sanitary engineer’s practice is therefore much like that

of a physician who considers symptoms before offering a diagnosis or

prescribing a remedy.

Contrivances that have worked successfully in England have often

proven to be failures in the United States. The character and

composition of sewage abroad differs widely from the composition of

our greatly diluted sewage here. Latitude, quantity of contained

manufacturing wastes, character of water supply and numerous other

components all combine to make the art of sewage disposal a problem.

For instance, when the water supply is what is commonly termed “hard”

undue collection of scum or mat is almost sure to form in biological

tanks, and this is only one of the innumerable vexatious enigmas

that confront the engineer or biologist. Pioneer practitioners have

frequently undertaken the solution of sewage disposal questions when

not qualified for such duty, largely in answer to the urgent request

of an impecunious public with the usual disappointing results. But

the value and possibilities of health Conservation have now been

brought to that degree of successful accomplishment where the demand

for specialists in the advancement of this modern art has become

enhanced, and the advisability of employing specialists when the

nature of the work is of such vital importance as is sewage disposal

needs no argument.

Mr. Winslow has told us that a badly constructed or badly operated

system is worse than none at all, for it creates a sense of false

security and it also breeds a sense of distrust.

The first city to go about the establishment of sewage disposal in a

thoroughly exhaustive way was Columbus, Ohio. Its example was shortly

followed by the cities of Baltimore and Philadelphia. Very elaborate

and exhaustive experiments are now being made by the city of Chicago

at an experimental plant costing $60,000, which experiments have

already covered a period of over two years, so that when a report

shall be forthcoming the character of disposal best suited to that

city will be a known factor and such steps as will be taken will be

along lines of certainty.

The whole civilized world is or should be deeply indebted to the

far-reaching experiments that have been conducted since the year

1887 at Lawrence, Mass., by the Massachusetts State Board of Health.

The annual reports of the findings have become classic both at home

and abroad. Nor would we forget to mention particularly the fifth

report of the English Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal, which,

after making exhaustive observation covering a period of four years

of the operation of twenty-seven sewage disposal plants in actual

daily operation, gave information, the value of which to the sanitary

expert and indirectly to the civilized world at large, may not be

determined.

At this stage of sanitary advancement our common people should not

be further excused for the density of their ignorance regarding the

value of preventive medicine as exemplified in clean premises and

person and the adopting of respectable sanitary conveniences.

Want of knowledge along lines of modern sanitary advancement is to a

very large extent due to the inertness of legislatures in enacting

laws to meet the modern sanitary needs. The passing and enforcing of

such laws would surely force our ignorance on this subject out of us

and place us on a higher hygienic plane, such as has been established

by the excellent enactments in a few of our States.

Standing out pre-eminently in this respect are the laws relating to

the public health in Massachusetts, with New York following as a

close second. One of the most important laws which is the foundation

of others in Massachusetts is a provision for the acquirement

of land by cities and towns for the purification of sewage. All

through the Massachusetts code are to be found an abundance of

preventive measures, as well as curative—abatement of nuisances, of

offensive trades; establishing water supply and sewage disposal.

Then follows a long list of subjects spell as lying-in hospitals,

dangerous diseases, spitting, drinking cups, protection of infants,

vaccination, quarantine, public school inspection, diseases of

domestic animals, hydrophobia, cemeteries, cremating of dead bodies,

burials, bakeries, supervision of plumbing, pollution of streams,

food and drugs, milk, registry of births, marriages and deaths—not

one of which but has its peculiar relation to the producing of

sewage, and indirectly with sewage disposal.

As a contrast with the Massachusetts code let me refer to the

sanitary laws, or want of them, in the State of Illinois. According

to a copy of the public health laws issued for the information of

local health authorities and others of this State, there occurs,

for instance, but two sections covering the establishing of sewers.

Rules and regulations are in evidence for isolating, quarantining,

disinfecting and coping with various infectious diseases after they

come into existence, but not a statutory provision is to be found

establishing sewage disposal, nor for preventing the pollution

of streams and lakes. The State Board of Health in this State is

well-nigh powerless in taking initiative steps, particularly with

regard to sewage disposal and stream pollution. It is high time State

legislatures betook themselves to looking more into the all important

art of sanitation and its far-reaching results and at once enact laws

that will meet the advanced requirements of our daily living, and

give such attention to the conservation of health and to the physical

welfare of our homes as it in some cases has given to the welfare

of the barn, the pigsty and their occupants. Had I the time I could

refer to some very astonishing facts that might cause the blush of

negligence to come to the faces of our Hoosier legislators.

Ohio has recently enacted a code of plumbing and drainage laws,

containing provisions supposed to cover scientific sewage disposal.

This code provides for and encourages contrivances that have been

most soundly condemned by leading sanitarians both in this country

and abroad for a century past.

It was Eugene Field who said:

“It seems to me I’d like to go

Where bells don’t ring or whistles blow

Nor clocks don’t strike nor gongs don’t sound,

And I’d have stillness all around,

Not real stillness, but just the trees

Low whispering of the hum of bees.”

What this tender poet wrote several years ago is increasingly being

enacted today by the exodus of the prosperous captains of industry,

of commerce and of the professions from their narrow city confines

in unneighborly city neighborhoods to well appointed habitations

in the outlying suburbs, or in his comfortable summer home up in

the mountains or alongside the beautiful waters of some inland

lake. These prosperous friends, though removing to the country, are

unwilling to yield up any of the comforts and conveniences afforded

by municipal service. Sewers usually unavailable in these more or

less remote locations causes sewage disposal to become at once one of

their most vexatious problems, so here comes a new demand for special

skill in aiding our country gentlemen in establishing a satisfactory

sanitary service that will tend to his comfort and respectability

and prevent a menace to life and health. So all along the line

the requirements for the sanitary uplift of home surroundings is

widening, and the requirements in the daily living is enhancing,

for modern sanitary methods of which sewage disposal is the most

important are found to be most effective and therefore more necessary

in the conservation of man’s most valuable asset—health. (Applause.)

President WHITE—While waiting for committee reports, we will hear

from a gentleman from San Francisco, who asks a little time. I will

introduce to you Mr. J. P. Baumgartner.

Mr. BAUMGARTNER—I just want to say to you that San Francisco will

be in the field at the proper time with an invitation to this

Congress to meet in that city in 1915—the year of the Panama-Pacific

International Exposition. The State of California has raised twenty

million dollars for this Exposition. There will be a million-dollar

convention auditorium on the Exposition grounds, and we feel there

are many reasons why it would be particularly fitting for this

Congress to meet in that city that year. I do not want to press this

matter unduly at this time, but I felt I had a duty to perform to

tell you that we want you to come to San Francisco in 1915, and that

we will extend to you a royal welcome. I thank you. (Applause.)

President WHITE—There is a committee to report at this time. The

Chairman of the Executive Committee, Mr. E. L. Worsham, will report

on some amendments to the Constitution.

Chairman WORSHAM—Mr. President and Members of the Congress: The

Executive Committee makes the following recommendations for changes

in the Constitution of the National Conservation Congress:

That the following be added as Section 3, Article III:

“After a call of the Executive Committee by the Chairman, and after

all members of the committee have been notified of the meeting in

sufficient time to be present, three members shall constitute a

quorum for the transaction of business.”

That Article IV, Section 1, be amended as follows:

“Section 1. The officers of the Congress shall consist of a

President, to be elected by the Congress; a Vice-President, to be

elected by the Congress; a Vice-President from each State, to be

chosen by the respective State delegations; one from the National

Conservation Association and one from the National Association of

Conservation Commissioners; an Executive Secretary, a Recording

Secretary, and a Treasurer, to be elected by the Congress.”

That in Article V, Section 1, the words “during each regular annual

session” be stricken out.

That Article V of the Constitution be amended to read as follows:

“Section 4. The President shall appoint a Finance Committee of five,

three from the members of the Executive Committee and two from the

Advisory Board, whose duty it shall be to plan ways and means of

increasing the revenue of the Congress, and to prepare a budget

of expenditures. The Chairman shall be a member of the Executive

Committee.

“Section 5. The Executive Committee shall appoint in consultation

with the Vice-President from the State, a State Secretary whose

duty shall be to work with the State organizations for the especial

interests of the Congress. Such Secretary shall report progress to

the Executive Committee.”

That the remaining sections of Article V be renumbered accordingly.

That Section 2 be added to Article VII, to read as follows:

“The membership in the National Conservation Congress shall be as

follows:

“Individual membership, one dollar a year, entitling the member

to a copy of the Proceedings and an invitation to the next year’s

Congress, without further appointment from any organization.

“Individual permanent, or life membership, twenty-five dollars,

entitling the member to a certificate of membership and a copy of the

Proceedings and invitations to all succeeding annual Congresses.

“Individual supporting membership, one hundred dollars, or more,

entitling the member to a certificate of membership, a copy of the

Proceedings, and an invitation to all succeeding Congresses.

“Organization membership, twenty-five dollars, entitling its

delegates to the Proceedings and an invitation to the organization to

appoint delegates to the next Congress.

“Organization supporting membership, one hundred dollars or more,

entitling the organization to appoint one delegate from each State,

each of whom shall receive a copy of the Proceedings.”

Mr. WORSHAM—We are proposing some radical changes regarding the

membership of the Congress. Heretofore, the personnel of the Congress

has varied from year to year, and we have had no way of keeping in

touch with delegates who attend. We think it is necessary to place

the Congress on a good financial basis, and also to keep in touch

with the people who attend from year to year, and we have, therefore,

recommended these changes. I move the adoption of this report.

The motion was seconded, put, and declared carried.

President WHITE—I will now call for the report of the Nominating

Committee, which will be presented by the Chairman, Prof. George E.

Condra.

Professor CONDRA—Your committee has been working very diligently,

canvassing the situation. We have looked over the field, reviewed

the work of various persons connected with Conservation, noted their

efficiency. We have looked into the future, we have thought of the

fitness of certain individuals for the work, and therefore report as

follows:

For President, a man who can take up the work where Captain White

leaves off—Mr. Charles Lathrop Pack, of Cleveland, Ohio. (Great

applause.)

For Executive Secretary, one who has been with the work since its

beginning, and has accomplished so much—Mr. Thomas R. Shipp, of

Indianapolis. (Applause.)

For Recording Secretary, one who has also been valuable in the work,

and has been associated with Mr. Pack and with Captain White—Mr.

James C. Gipe, of Indianapolis. (Applause.)

For Treasurer, the man whom the Executive Committee at an earlier

Congress gave an earnest invitation to take up this work, that it

might be taken care of in a manner befitting this Congress—Mr. D.

Austin Latchaw, of Kansas City. (Applause.)

The one who has been nominated for second place, Vice-President,

we named because of fitness to serve all phases of the work of

Conservation, but especially the conservation of life and the home.

Not chosen because she is such a womanly woman; not especially

because she has done splendid work for us here, but chosen because

she is a great leader and we want her for the work. A person known to

most of you—Mrs. Philip N. Moore, of St. Louis. (Applause.)

I do not name the Vice-Presidents of the States, for reasons given

in the report of the Executive Committee. I take great pleasure in

moving the adoption of this report.

The motion was seconded by Mr. A. B. Farquhar, put, and declared

carried.

President WHITE—I now wish to present to you your next President, Mr.

Charles Lathrop Pack. (Applause.)

It is with great pleasure that I present to you the President of the

next Congress. He is one who is thoroughly in love with Conservation.

He is one of those who first studied Conservation. He spent years in

its study, and he is, I know, the first American who ever received

a fee for scientific forestry advice. He was paid one thousand

dollars by the President of the Missouri Pacific Road for his

expert opinion. When Mr. Pack returned from Germany, where he had

been studying forestry for some time, he was sent for by Jay Gould,

who asked him for his expert opinion on some forestry matters. Next

morning Mr. Pack found in his box at the hotel a check for $1,000.

This was the earliest record of such a fee being paid in the United

States. So, if he was appreciated to this extent by a great railroad

president then, we surely can trust him now. We are proud to have him

as our President, and we feel he will be a great help to Conservation

in the ensuing year. Mr. Charles Lathrop Pack, your new President,

will now take the chair. (Applause.)

President PACK—Ladies and Gentlemen: You have a great work before

you, not only for the ensuing year, but for all years. The

Conservation movement is not one for today, but for all time, and

it matters very little the name or the names of the workers in the

cause. It matters that you, and every one of you, should have your

hearts right and do the right work. Conservation makes for the best

use of all resources, and is dead against their abuse. It is your

duty and my duty not only to come to these Congresses and confer and

talk, but when you go home to be a true advocate of the cause and to

be against everything that is opposed to it. (Applause.) Conservation

is for men and women, and for one I thank God we have the women with

us. (Applause.)

I do not intend to make a speech; I am not a speech-maker. You have

plenty of orators. But with your help during the next year, I will

try to do my part, and I ask every one of you to go to your homes and

come back to the next Conservation Congress with three delegates in

place of one. I thank you. (Applause.)

Before we go any farther, I ask you to rise and join me in giving

three cheers for that great Conservationist, Captain White.

Three rousing cheers were given, led by Mr. Pack.

Mr. WHITE—Ladies and Gentlemen, Delegates to the Congress, Mr.

President: This is glory enough for me. I feel paid for the work I

have done in the past year in having the appreciation of such a good

class of people. (Applause.)

President PACK—The next speaker on the program is Mr. George M.

Lehman, representing the Mayor of Pittsburgh, who will speak to us on

“The Investigations of the Flood Commission of Pittsburgh.”

Mr. LEHMAN—Mr. Chairman and Delegates of the Fourth National

Conservation Congress: It has been the custom in this country to

build dams and locks on lower reaches of rivers, for navigation; to

build regulating works for forming and maintaining channel depth,

etc., and to dredge deposits caused by erosion.

Our country has received large benefit from this process,

particularly in certain sections. It would have thrived, however, to

a far greater extent and much suffering, involving general living and

business conditions, would have been avoided and a better foundation

provided for future generations, if, in addition to the above-named

developments, attention had been promptly and thoroughly given to

the control and conservation of flood water. We have been woefully

thoughtless and backward in bringing about a comprehensive treatment

of this matter which is of such great national importance.

HISTORICAL AND GENERAL OUTLINE OF WORK.

Pittsburgh having been seriously troubled by destructive floods

for over a century, attention was finally directed toward means

of alleviation and in 1908 the Chamber of Commerce organized

a commission consisting of business men, engineers and other

professional men, to ascertain the character and extent of flood

damage and make investigations of methods for relief. Later, an

enlargement of the commission was made by the addition of city and

county officials and representatives of manufacturing and various

business concerns affected by floods. The expense of carrying on

the work has been borne by public-spirited citizens, including

the interests affected by the floods, and by county and city

contributions. To this date about $137,000 has been expended.

The work has involved detailed surveys and soundings, within the city

limits, of the Ohio, Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, and a survey

of the areas of overflow. The topography was fully developed, and

streets, lines of transportation, buildings, etc., located. Extensive

topographic surveys were made along the principal tributaries of the

Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers for the purpose of determining the

possibility of constructing storage reservoirs.

In connection with complete contour maps, diagrams, profiles, etc.,

made from the above work, studies have been made of the cost and

effectiveness of a flood wall, in connection with dredging, in

deepening, widening and straightening of the river channel at the

city, and the cost and effectiveness of regulating the stream flow

by storage reservoirs, located throughout the drainage basins.

In addition to the collection of a vast amount of general data,

including precipitation, taken from the records of the United States

Weather Bureau, the work involved many special studies, among which

were forest conditions, geology and stream-flow. For the stream-flow

studies, gauging stations were established by the Flood Commission

and also a number in co-operation with the Water Supply Commission of

Pennsylvania. In the forest studies, the co-operation of the United

States Forest Service and of the Forestry Department of Pennsylvania

were secured. Valuable stream-flow data have been provided by the

United States Geological Survey.

At the beginning of the investigations the matter was treated as

of local concern only, but as the work progressed the broad aspect

of the problem and its national scope were realized, as it became

evident that Pittsburgh’s floods had a direct bearing upon the flood

troubles of other communities. Further study disclosed the fact that

inseparable from the flood problem was the question of navigation,

sanitation, water supply and water power, and that the valleys of the

Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio Rivers could be benefited wherever

conditions are favorable for the construction of storage reservoirs.

On many of the principal tributaries of the Ohio below Pittsburgh,

the topography is favorable for storage reservoirs upon a large

scale, and floods could be prevented throughout the Ohio valley by

extending the plans of the Flood Commission.

An exhaustive report, consisting mostly of original data, has been

published by the Commission, as the result of nearly four years

of painstaking work. It is said that this report forms the most

comprehensive treatment of a subject of this kind that has ever been

carried out. The report contains over 900 pages, including numerous

maps and diagrams, and a large number of illustrations, showing flood

damage, reservoir sites, forest conditions, etc.

FLOOD DAMAGE.

Pittsburgh, which has a population of 533,905, and about twice as

much with the contemplated greater city, is located at the head of

the Ohio River and at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela

Rivers. The combined drainage area, above the city, amounts to 18,920

square miles. Of the two rivers, 150 miles, directly connecting with

the city, have been slackwatered. About 14,000 miles of navigable

waterway lies below the city. The National Government, in a few

years’ time, will have the entire 967 miles of the Ohio River

improved.

The tonnage of Pittsburgh, incoming and outgoing, amounted in 1910

to 167,000,000 tons, of which 11,000,000 tons consisted of river

traffic. The above total tonnage, which has doubled in the last six

years, is twice as great as the combined tonnage of New York, London,

Hamburg and Marseilles.

As is frequently the case in communities situated upon the inland

rivers of this country, the most important commercial and industrial

parts of Pittsburgh are located upon the low lying areas bordering

the water. The need of free access to water and of rail and water

transportation naturally brings about such development. In fact, on

account of the topography, rail communication can in many cases be

satisfactorily established only along the stream. Such a condition,

however, frequently causes great suffering and interruption to

business, involving not only the districts in direct touch with the

river, but the whole community.

During the progress of the investigations, it became evident that

unless some adequate method of flood relief could be devised and

carried out, the larger portion of the flood affected areas could

never be properly developed, and the capital invested therein would

continue to suffer. The general needs of building operations and of

city improvements will of necessity keep pace with the advance of

population; and the flood damages, which in their effect involve the

home conditions and business life of the entire city and surrounding

communities, will become correspondingly greater.

In ascertaining the extent of flood damage to the city, a careful

investigation was made of three floods which occurred within a period

of about twelve months, from March 15, 1907, to March 20, 1908. In

the conduct of this work it was noted that while those coming in

direct contact with the floods are alert to the seriousness of the

situation during the flood, the matter is, however, after a time

almost forgotten; the disposition in most cases apparently being to

take the troubles as they come rather than to do anything in the way

of even attempting to devise means of relief.

The classification under which this work was done, and the monetary

amount of direct losses within the city by the three floods may be

given as follows:

Damage to buildings, equipment and machinery $782,400

Damage to materials 1,698,900

Loss to employer by suspension of business 1,974,200

Loss to employee due to shut-down 1,308,300

Expense of cleaning up 547,400

Charities dispensed and funds for prevention of disease 27,800

Fires uncontrolled through inaccessibility or lack of

water pressure 175,000

——————————

Total $6,514,000

It was found that the loss ranges as follows: For the flood of 27.3

feet, $414,700; 30.7 feet, $839,800; 35.5 feet, $5,259,500.

The area comprising the larger part of the mercantile, industrial

and railroad interests amounts to about 3,000 acres, 1,540 of which

was covered by water during the great flood of 1907, which had a

height of 35.5 feet, or 13.5 feet above the danger line. This flood

remained sixty-five hours above the danger line of 22 feet. About

fifteen miles of river front land are occupied with industrial works

of various kinds. The assessed value of real estate as affected by

the 1907 flood amounts to about $160,000,000, and a careful estimate

shows that this property is nearly $50,000,000 lower in value than

it would be if protected from floods. Using the results obtained for

the above floods and the flood records for the past twenty years it

is estimated that the direct loss to the city has amounted in that

period to about $17,000,000, over $12,000,000 of which occurred in

the ten years preceding January, 1911.

Based on the assumption that in the next two ten-year periods

there will be no increase in number or height of floods over those

occurring in the ten years just preceding January, 1911, it is

estimated, if protective measures are not provided, that the flood

losses at Pittsburgh in the next twenty years will amount to about

$25,000,000. As records show, however, that floods are increasing

in frequency and height, it is estimated that the losses in the

next twenty years will amount to about $40,000,000, or nearly twice

as much as it will cost to carry out the flood prevention measures

recommended by the Commission.

The Commission did not have resources for securing the amount of

damage at the many important points along the rivers, above and

below Pittsburgh, but at Wheeling, W. Va., it was ascertained, for

instance, that about $1,000,000 was lost during the flood of 1907.

Authorities consider that the total loss along the Ohio Valley for

the two floods of 1907 amounted to more than $100,000,000. This is

indicative of the vast losses occurring annually all over the country.

In addition to many miles of street car tracks, streets and alleys,

about 435 acres of railroad and industrial yards were covered, in

addition to 17 miles of main railroad, by the big flood of 1907.

At high stages many manufacturing plants must close down. The

following is quoted from a report of the American Iron and Steel

Association: “Damage to the iron and steel industry unprecedented. At

beginning of March, 1907, flood there were forty-four blast furnaces

in Allegheny County in blast, and of these thirty-eight had to be

banked for an average of two days. Work at most of the sixty-five or

seventy rolling mills and steel works was suspended.” Many of the

open-hearth furnaces were badly damaged and some of them practically

ruined.

FLOOD PROTECTION.

Regarding methods of local treatment, studies and estimates of

cost were made of the following: A wall of about twenty-five miles

in length to be built in the city along the river fronts; also

for deepening, widening and straightening of the river channel by

dredging.

The wall, high in places above the river streets, would prevent

overflow by confining the floods to the channel. Dredging and

removal of obstacles in the channel, bank encroachments, etc., as

can now be accomplished, would have comparatively slight effect in

reducing flood heights and these means were, therefore, not broadly

recommended. Furthermore, these forms of treatment would be of local

flood benefit only and communities above and below Pittsburgh would

continue to suffer in various ways.

A wall of limited height, however, is really desirable, at least

along certain parts of the river. While reservoir control would

result in reclaiming considerable areas of land, a wall would provide

means for adding to the amount and greatly improve the appearance

and usefulness of the banks. The handling of cargoes, to and from

river boats would be greatly facilitated by means of modern devices.

Sheds could be constructed along the wall and close to the boats

which would lie alongside. Such arrangement would make feasible the

bringing directly of river and rail transportation with the great

advantage of through rates and routes, a condition which is now

lacking at practically all points on American rivers.

FLOOD PREVENTION.

In the treatment of the flood problem, prevention, by the use of

storage reservoirs, for the purpose of holding back the damaging

part of the flood water, is the rational and comprehensive method,

as it goes to the source of the trouble, and extends its benefits

throughout the entire river valleys, not only in the form of flood

relief, but by improvement of the low-water flow, due to the release

of the impounded flood waters during the dry season.

Forest cover is beneficial to some extent in retarding the run-off

and in improvement of low-water flow, and the attitude of the Flood

Commission is to support such National and State legislation as

will tend to preserve and increase the present forest cover. The

Commission, however, recommends the use of the storage reservoir

system, supplemented by other means where necessary, for the reason

that such a system could be speedily brought about. The use of

storage reservoirs for flood control is not a new idea in this

country and this method is now successfully employed in European

countries.

The exhaustive surveys and studies for flood prevention disclosed

the fact that forty-three reservoir sites are available in the

Allegheny and Monongahela drainage basins above Pittsburgh, and

that while not needed for present purposes additional sites are

feasible. The forty-three projects would have a total capacity of

80,500,000,000 cubic feet, would cost $34,000,000, and would control

about sixty-two per cent. of the total drainage area above the

city. After a careful analysis it was found that a less number of

reservoirs was practically as effective, under proper manipulation,

and a selection was made of the most favorable ones, seventeen in

number. These would have a total capacity of 59,500,000,000 cubic

feet, would cost $21,700,000, or about $364 per million cubic feet of

storage capacity, and would control fifty-four per cent. of the total

drainage area.

As a basis, eleven of the principal floods, occurring within recent

years, were exhaustively studied and it was found that the seventeen

selected reservoir projects would reduce all of them, with one

exception, to below danger line. Investigation showed that a low wall

built at comparatively small cost along a few parts of the low-lying

river fronts could be used in combination with the seventeen

reservoirs to prevent overflow by the highest known floods. This

combination was therefore recommended, the total cost being estimated

at $22,350,000.

Some of the benefits to be derived by preventative methods and stream

regulation and development, may be summarized as follows:

1. Reducing or doing away with floods and flood damages and their

constant menace, thereby encouraging and making possible for present

and future generations full development of affected areas.

2. (a) Improving of navigation, by permanently increased stream-flow

in slackwatered rivers, where dry weather flow is frequently

inadequate to furnish desired draft, thus providing uninterrupted

transportation not only for present business but for future demands.

(If the reservoirs were brought up to maximum capacity, that is,

above flood control requirements, the low-water flow of the Ohio, at

Wheeling, ninety miles below Pittsburgh, would be nearly six times

the present minimum, giving an increase in stage of 3.7 feet. One of

the largest floods would have been reduced over thirteen feet.)

(b) Making possible slack water on certain rivers, worthy of

attention, but now unimproved largely on account of absolute lack of

sufficient water.

(c) Reducing velocity of current, due to lowering of high stages,

thereby making safer the maneuvering of river craft; reducing

wide fluctuations in water levels, particularly at river ports,

facilitating thereby the handling of cargoes and increasing

clearance under bridges. (Under a certain bridge at Pittsburgh,

investigations show that during the past fifty-three years there

has been an average of fifty-seven days when the ordinary steamboat

could not pass. Had the proposed system of reservoirs been in

operation the water would have been lowered so that there would have

been an average of only three days.)

(d) By having the great fluctuations reduced, the erosion of the

banks along the bottom lands and at other places would naturally be

considerably lessened.

3. Improving sanitary conditions and increasing the quality and

quantity of the supply for municipal and industrial purposes. High

stages leave deposits on banks, becoming a nuisance to health; and

low stages are frequently unable to properly carry away polluted

water stagnating in slack water or natural pools.

4. Developing water power, which is feasible under favorable

conditions in connection with reservoir systems for flood prevention.

I would call attention to the fact that this brief review upon stream

regulation goes far enough to show that so far as damage from floods

is concerned alone, the matter is not only of local but of great

National concern, affecting as it does railroads and manufacturing

interests which supply the Nation. What is true of Pittsburgh is

also true of many other river localities, and it is therefore urged

that the question be looked at in a progressive manner and that

suitable State and National legislation be enacted at the earliest

possible moment to provide not only for full navigation requirements,

but in addition for flood damage and the combination of needs as

outlined in the report of the Flood Commission. It is hoped that this

Congress will lend its powerful co-operation in bringing about the

accomplishment of this great movement which is so necessary to the

public welfare. (Applause.)

President PACK—I am sure we are all indebted for this paper, and

to Mr. Lehman for coming from Pittsburgh to present this valuable

subject.

If there is nothing more before the Congress at this time we will

adjourn until 2:00 o’clock.

_ELEVENTH SESSION._

The Congress was called to order by Mr. J. B. White, in the Murat

Theater, Indianapolis, at 2:30 o’clock p. m.

Chairman WHITE—It is long past the time for our meeting, but we have

not had the last word from Governor Hadley. He wired me night before

last of an accident, and that his physician said it would not do for

him to come yesterday. Last night we had another telegram, saying he

was afraid he could not come, and that we had better not depend on

him. I also received a letter. Then I wired him again, but have no

reply, so it is barely possible that he will be here in time to speak

to us this afternoon. The committee has gone down to meet the 2:50

train. In his letter, he says:

“I want to thank you again for your kindness in giving me such a

prominent place upon your program, and were it not for the fact that

I know your meeting will be a complete success with Governor Wilson

alone, it would be an added regret—my inability to be present.”

I know many of you came expecting to hear Governor Hadley, and he

certainly will give us a splendid address if he comes. He appointed

a commission in the State of Missouri, of which I have the honor of

being a member, and we have had meetings at the Governor’s mansion,

and we are trying to induce the Legislature of Missouri to pass

a good law in favor of Conservation of all natural resources. I

cannot report as to our progress as I would like, so I will not say

anything about what we have done. We know what we are trying to do.

The newly elected President is not here, and he insists that I take

his place until he comes. We will now listen to “The Story of the

Soil,” from one who has given it great thought and attention. He has

brought about good results that will be of benefit to the farmer and

to every one who lives in the country, and therefore of benefit to

all the citizens of our common country. I have pleasure in presenting

Mr. H. H. Gross, President of the National Soil Fertility League, who

will speak on “The Story of the Soil.” (Applause.)

Mr. GROSS—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am here representing

what we think is one of the most distinguished organizations of this

country—one devoted to a specific and definite purpose, and that is

to secure the application upon our farms of the best methods of farm

practices.

In our self-sufficiency we are sometimes disposed to pooh-pooh

science. I have heard farmers say, “What do I care about science? I

know how to farm. I am a practical farmer.” When I hear a man talk

about being a practical farmer, or a practical shoemaker or anything

else, I begin to question his knowledge of the art. Reduced to its

last analysis, science is simply applied common sense. In other

words, to find out the best way of doing anything and then doing it

that way.

Scientific farming will increase the output per man, per plow, per

mule, per acre, and at the same time it will build up the fertility

of the soil. Unscientific methods will wear it out. Millions upon

millions of acres of land have been wasted by practical farmers in

unscientific farming, by abuse and misuse until the land fails to

yield enough to pay the labor of cultivating them. There are millions

of acres east of Albany that are not worth today one-fourth as much

as they were one hundred years ago.

The soil is our greatest natural asset. It is God’s best gift to man

outside of Him who came to save us. It is our duty to conserve this

gift as a priceless heritage. In a higher sense the man in whose name

the title stands is not the real owner of the land; it is his to use

during his lifetime and to pass it on to his successor. It is his

paramount duty to turn it over to those that follow him as useful as

when he received it. The land is not his except to use, it is not his

to abuse. The fertile fields were placed here by God Almighty for the

use of humanity for all time and no one has the right to rob the soil

of its power to produce and thereby imperil or destroy the birthright

of succeeding generations.

Let us look at Europe. They produce two or three times as much as

we do upon the same area, notwithstanding their lands have been a

thousand years longer under the plow than our own. There must be a

reason, and it is that Europe, because of its large population, has

been compelled to adopt intensive farming or go hungry. With us it

has been different up to the present time. A few years ago, some of

we older men can remember the time, when the United States invited

everybody to come in and possess the land. An old song says, “Uncle

Sam is rich enough to give us all a farm.” Since then our population

has increased faster than the farming industry. We are now consuming

ninety per cent. of our wheat and ninety-eight per cent. of our corn.

The population is rapidly overtaking production. In fifty years our

population will be doubled. What shall we do about it? I say to

you this, we must do better farming or the people will go hungry.

A thousand years or so ago Japan and India were at the parting of

the ways—about where we stand today. Japan chose the better part

and conserved the fertility of her soil and by intensive scientific

culture she has fed her people and has demonstrated that a very

small patch of ground indeed is sufficient to support an individual.

This has been shown in this country—that one or two acres, properly

handled, will take care of a small family. Japan acted wisely and

is rich and prosperous today. India neglected her duties and her

opportunity and today there are millions starving there on account of

the lack of foresight of those people who lived thousands of years

ago. Shall we follow Japan or India? There can be but one answer. The

intelligence of the American people, the spirit of the age demands

that we go forward to attain the highest and best and it is our duty

to help to this end.

Denmark, a generation or two ago, was in poverty and distress,

its people were crowding into the cities. The government saw

something must be done to improve conditions. It wisely decided that

agriculture must be encouraged, so it commenced to teach agriculture

in the schools. It had its agricultural colleges strengthened, it

sent men out among the people as traveling schoolmasters, visiting

one community after another. Agriculture was taught in the schools.

This helped some, but did not solve the problem. Finally they

adopted the plan which we propose to follow, of sending a trained

farm demonstrator into every community and stay there, study local

conditions, meet the farmers right on the soil, and help them to

understand and apply the best methods and get the best results for

the time and effort expended. In two generations it brought Denmark

from poverty to thrift, and today it is the finest agricultural

country in the world. This comes about from carrying the knowledge to

the farm home in the personality of the farm demonstrator who helps

the farmer apply the best methods in practice.

Wherever the plan has been tried it has succeeded. It is the one plan

that has made good, and in my judgment it is the only one that ever

will. Now, then, what are we going to do about it? The most important

question that has been discussed on this platform during this

Congress is the one under discussion now. It is vital, it touches

every human interest. The question is, shall we build up our soil and

insure the food supply for coming generations, or shall we not? It is

a tremendously important question and one pressing for answer.

I am glad to say this to you, that the National Soil Fertility League

determined upon a plan, and so far we have had greater success in

carrying it forward than we had any reason to expect. Its plan has

the approval of nearly every agricultural authority in the land.

It awakened a tremendous amount of interest. It shows many people

were thinking in a general way that something ought to be done and

were ready to rally to the support of any definite proposition that

commended itself to their judgment. The National Soil Fertility

League, together with the agricultural college men, drafted what is

known as the Lever bill, the object of which is to provide for the

co-operation of the Federal Government and the several States in

carrying forward this farm demonstration plan. Under this bill the

Federal Government makes an annual appropriation to every State of

$10,000 a year, irrespective of condition; then it makes further

appropriations conditioned upon the States furnishing an equal sum

beginning with $300,000 and increasing to $3,000,000 in ten years.

Except for the $10,000 all the appropriations are prorated among the

States on the basis of rural population. Indiana under this plan

would get $10,000 right off the reel from the fixed appropriation;

it would get $9,400 from the conditional appropriation provided

Indiana should furnish an equal sum. So Indiana would get from the

Federal Government the first year a total of $19,400. This would go

to Purdue University. Next year it would be increased to $28,800 and

would go on up to $104,000 from the general government to the State

College of Agriculture. In order to get this money Indiana would have

to raise $94,000, so that the State would have when the maximum was

reached approximately $200,000 to expend for carrying to the farmers

of Indiana the existing methods of agriculture and carrying to the

farmer’s wife the best they can give her. What a wonderful help this

would be.

There are three great needs in the open country. One is better

schools. The country schools of today are not worthy of their name.

They fail to meet the requirements of the day and generation. The

next important need is good roads, and the third is scientific

agriculture. Bringing these improvements about will revolutionize

conditions. It will raise agriculture to the first place and the

highest place in the estimation of the people. It will be the

strongest possible magnet to hold the girl and the boy to the farm

home. It will make agriculture more pleasant, more profitable and in

every way a more desirable vocation.

When I was a boy and went away to school, I entered a class of boys

and we were lined up before the principal and each was asked his

name and his father’s business; one would answer his father was a

banker, another a merchant, another a doctor, a manufacturer, and so

on. When it came to me, I said a farmer. The boys all laughed and I

was obliged to take it. I licked two or three of them afterward to

get my standing on the campus.

We used to think that anybody could run a farm. A story is told of a

man who had three sons. One was very smart, one was exceedingly good

and one was simple-minded. The father said: “Tom is smart as chain

lightning; I am going to make a lawyer of Tom. William is about the

best boy I ever knew; you can’t get him to go wrong; I am going to

make a preacher of him. But Jack don’t seem to know much of anything,

and I will make a farmer of Jack.” (Laughter.)

Let me say to you with all possible emphasis that it takes as much

ability to run a farm well as it does to run a bank or a factory, and

much more than it does to run for office. (Laughter.)

When the Lever bill was introduced in Congress, it passed the

committee and was placed on the calendar and was buried there. The

question was to get that bill on the floor for a vote. Upon inquiry I

found there was only one way to do it in order to get quick action,

and that was to get a petition signed by a majority of the members,

asking that the bill be taken from its position on the calendar and

placed at the head of the list as unfinished business. Mr. Lever

secured the required signatures and the bill was thus advanced to the

position of unfinished business. The leaders of both parties rallied

to its support and the bill finally passed the House by unanimous

vote. It is now before the Senate and we want your help to get it

enacted into law before the holiday season arrives.

The mind can hardly grasp the benefits that will flow from this

legislation. Let me tell you a little of what scientific farming

means. Dr. Hopkins, of the University of Illinois, and one of the

world’s authorities, just told me that they raised on an average

ninety bushels of corn to the acre, covering a period of six years,

and twenty-three bushels of wheat, average for six years. The Ohio

experiment station on wheat for twenty years showed an average of

about thirty-five bushels, while the average for the whole country

was less than fifteen bushels. Denmark raises forty bushels average,

many fields returning sixty and seventy-five bushels to the acre. We

must do better farming.

During the ten years from 1900 to 1910 our population increased

twenty-one per cent., our meat supplying animals decreased more than

twenty-five per cent. We have an unparalleled high cost of living,

due to the fact that population is pressing hard upon production. In

short, we have too few producers and too many consumers. Increased

production is not the only thing necessary. It is quite as important

that the farm production shall reach the ultimate consumer from

the farm at less than the present cost. Our marketing system is

cumbersome, unwieldy, wasteful and burdensome. (Applause.) The woman

who orders her supplies over the telephone pays more money and gets

less than the one who goes to market. I had the honor of speaking

before the National Federation of Women’s Clubs at San Francisco

on the first day of July. It was the greatest and most intelligent

audience I ever faced. They were very enthusiastic and were quick

to grasp the points as they were made. This great organization

affiliated itself with the National Soil Fertility League, and when

they did so we felt it brought to us the greatest assistance that

could possibly come. I know of no organization of wider influence

than the Women’s Clubs of America. I have heard it said, if you want

to get anything done to get a woman after it. (Applause.)

We must re-direct our agriculture; we must raise our meat upon the

farms. The ranges are gone. The silo, alfalfa and scientific methods

make it possible for the farmer to carry at least twice as much stock

upon his farm as he thinks he can carry. In the silo the feed is kept

practically green and juicy. You get forty per cent. more out of your

corn by putting it through the silo than by handling it in the old

way. There is no reason why the cost of producing meat may not be

reduced practically one-half. The farmer has given and is giving too

much thought to how much he can get for what he raises. It is equally

important that he raise more. If he wants 2,400 bushels of corn, it

is better to raise it on forty acres with a yield of sixty bushels

than to raise it on sixty acres with a yield of forty bushels.

Our plan is to bring home to the farmer the best method that has been

determined by the agricultural college and experiment station. We

want to get the best results from year to year and at the same time

build up the soil. This can be done and this is scientific farming.

This is what the whole world needs. The colleges of agriculture and

experiment stations have gathered a vast fund of knowledge, and if

this were put into practical operation it would double the yield of

our farms within a few years and give us a large surplus for export

and bring money into the country. We would get richer and richer

as the years go by. We would largely supply the world with food.

Our position in the councils of nations would be paramount. When

it comes to the question of peace or war, the country that has the

money and the bread basket is ten times more potent than the nation

that only has back of it battleships and armies. (Applause.) So I

wish to emphasize that the success of this country rests primarily

upon the scientific farming of our fields. Let us remember that no

country ever became great and remained so that could not furnish its

people with an ample food supply at a moderate cost. To that end we

are securing legislation that will put the plan in operation. The

Lever measure is a simple one, it creates no new administrative

machinery; it simply carries to the farmer and puts to work the

information and knowledge that the States and Federal Government have

been gathering for fifty years. This whole matter may be likened to a

great irrigating system. The United States Department of Agriculture

is a dam, it has been gathering and has stored up the knowledge—the

water. The colleges of agriculture are the main channels for reaching

the various parts of the country; but so long as the water is back

of the dam it is doing no good; so long as it remains in the main

channels it is accomplishing nothing. What is needed is to get the

water to the grass roots, or, in other words, our purpose is to get

the information to the actual farmer—the man behind the plow.

Fifty years ago Horace Greeley said, “Go West, young man, and grow

up with the country.” If he were here today he would say go South

and East, for that is the land of opportunity. In my judgment this

Congress ought to meet next year somewhere in the South. That part of

the land is entitled to recognition, and you will get a welcome such

as you never had before.

In conclusion, I wish to urge that you give us every possible

support. We need it. It will help you and it will help us. Let us all

work together for reviving agriculture. (Applause.)

(A woman in the audience): “Is it true that Congress is investigating

this silo business and under the pure food law is it to be condemned?

Also, what must we do in Indiana to cultivate alfalfa?”

Mr. GROSS—I have not heard anything about the Federal Government

condemning silo, and I do not expect to. Inoculate your soil for

alfalfa. You had better take this matter up with your people at

Purdue. Ask them what to do. They will send you all the information

necessary. They will examine into conditions and tell you just what

to do. The most valuable crop today, outside of wheat and corn, is

alfalfa. (Applause.)

Chairman WHITE—I have been handed a communication, and I wish to say

for the benefit of the gentleman who sent it to the chair that it

will be referred to the Executive Committee, which takes up matters

of this kind. This is the communication:

“You are requested to make a motion that this organization take steps

toward publishing a monthly, or quarterly, magazine, to be known

as the National Conservation Magazine. If the society is unable to

finance it, there is little doubt that the Carnegie Institute or the

Sage Foundation would back it.”

Chairman WHITE—I will now introduce a gentleman who will tell you

“The Story of the Air,” Prof. Willis L. Moore, of Washington, Chief

of the United States Weather Bureau. (Applause.)

Mr. MOORE—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I have been trying to

reason out why the management put me at the end of the program, and

I have concluded that they had an idea that along about this time in

the proceedings they would need to have some one take the platform

that had supervision over atmospheric air of abnormal temperature.

Now, why should one wish to conserve the atmosphere? I shall try to

show you that that is one of the assets of this continent, and, I am

afraid, almost the only one, that cannot be monopolized. (Applause.)

And you will be surprised, and probably doubt my statement when I

say that, with all due respect to the matter of conservation of

our wonderful mineral deposits, the controlling of the flow of

our streams, the preservation of our great forests—all of them

important—we have in the atmosphere one of our greatest assets, if

not the greatest asset of our continent. Humboldt has said that “Man

is a product of soil and climate. He is brother to the trees, the

rock and the animals.” All true, but still I would slightly modify

that and say that man is largely a product of climate. For it is the

action of rainfall, flood and temperature changes that makes soil.

I shall try to show you that it is climatic conditions that produce

this wonderful, this powerful, this resourceful composite man called

the American.

I am to speak on “The Story of the Air,” but before I elucidate any

further, let me give you a little picture of this wonderful ocean, on

the bottom of which you live.

In the turbulent stratum in which we live we have vortices in the

atmosphere which cause weather. Weather is the result of the motions

of air; it is the result of the dynamic heating and cooling of

ascending and descending currents of air. If it were not for these

vortices cooling the air and heating it, you would have precisely the

same temperature on any day of one year as you would have on the same

day in another year. You would not have one first day of June warmer

than the first day of July, or the first day of December colder than

the first day of January.

To demonstrate my first proposition that we have a great asset in

the climate of the United States, I call your attention to some of

the conditions in Europe. Their great mountain ranges trend east and

west; ours trend north and south. Cyclonic storms originate largely

from conflict of equatorial and polar currents coming together.

The currents of air come together in the lower stratum. In Europe

the great mountain ranges prevent that conflict; but not so here,

with our mountain ranges running north and south. Here is the great

meteorological theater of the world, the region of conflict. What is

the result? A people powerful physically and resourceful mentally.

An actual air is pure and invigorating.

Now, I just have a thought that may not be germane, but it is upon

my mind. I remember some years ago I wrote a report that dealt with

the relations of forests and floods. Although from the inception of

this movement I have been heart and soul with the people back of it,

still because I do not agree with some of my friends on forestry, on

the effect of forests on the flow of streams, I was classified as an

enemy of the cause. I wish to say that it is a mistake to bring a

fallacious reasoning to any good doctrine. I believe it is a positive

injury to attempt to sustain truth by falsehood. I do not mean that

anybody is wilfully untruthful—no, simply mistaken. There are so many

reasons why we should conserve and protect, why we should use wisely

our great forest areas, that there is no need to bring to the support

of that great project anything like a reason that can be successfully

attacked and refuted. I am satisfied, and as time goes on and other

investigators come along and go over my data, I am thoroughly well

convinced that the forests do not exert a great controlling influence

over floods. I am satisfied that the percentage of floods has not

increased for the past forty years. When we remove one vegetable

covering like the forests, if we go on and plant wheat, or corn, or

grass, we simply exchange one form of vegetable covering for another.

If we cut the forests away and leave them, they will at once begin

the process of reforestation, and within a few weeks the ground is

shaded. If you grub out the roots and stumps and plow, you change one

form of vegetable covering for another, and the history of the United

States, as well as of the world, does not bear out the statement

that the floods have increased with the disappearing of the forests;

nor has it been shown that any part of the world has been materially

changed in its climatic conditions as a result of civilization or the

coming of man. But that is no reason why the forests should not be

protected and a wise use made of them.