that are dependent or delinquent, that nothing is so important as facts.
In my humble judgment—I may be wrong, and that is just why we want a
bureau of this kind, in order that I may know and you may know whether I
am right or wrong—in my judgment there are 100,000 children, dependent
and delinquent, coming to the courts of this country every year, and
that means 1,600,000 children coming to the courts of this Nation in
every generation of childhood. Is this great government of ours, with
sufficient facts already gathered in this imperfect way to demonstrate
the necessity, going to neglect this opportunity of spreading useful
information concerning the children of this country?
I recall a certain city in which I asked the chief of police how many
children had been in jail that year. He said 100. When we investigated
the records, we found there were 650 boys alone brought to the jail in
that city of less than 200,000 people. In another city I asked the jailer
how many boys had been in jail, he said five or six hundred. When we
investigated the records, we found there were 4,000 arrests in that city
among the boys alone under twenty years of age and over 2,000 brought to
the jail were under seventeen years of age.
But finally any work for children of the city or country must bring us
face to face with many of the social, economic, industrial and political
conditions that concern us as a people. There is no real problem of the
child that is not also the problem of the parent. We cannot do our duty
toward the children of this Nation without attacking the conditions that
deform the lives of the children. This must take us so far afield that
I do not dare attempt to follow now lest it take me so far beyond the
immediate scope of this paper as to find for it no satisfactory ending.
The fight for the childhood of today is the fight for the parenthood of
tomorrow, the manhood of tomorrow; it is after all the supreme battle
for the country, the city, the state, for justice for all men and women,
and that means a day of better things, a happier country, a more perfect
civilization; the dawn of a tomorrow, a new day, a new time in which the
scriptural promise shall be more than fulfilled, for the little child
shall lead, shall teach, shall save the world.
Chairman HADLEY—The audience will remain seated a moment. There are a few
more of the states that will be called, and as it is necessary for me to
attend to some official duties, President Wallace will now take charge of
the meeting.
President WALLACE—The Congress is not yet adjourned, and we have
some good things in store. Please come to order as soon as possible.
I wish to announce Hon. B. A. Fowler, president of the National
Irrigation Congress, of Phoenix, Arizona, as chairman of the committee
on resolutions. Now, we want every state that has not appointed a
committeeman on resolutions to do so at once, and report to the clerk,
and Mr. Fowler will announce when and where that committee will meet.
Another thing. Any of you that have resolutions will please turn them in
to that committee at the time and place of meeting. The committee will
consider the resolutions and present them and their final report on next
Wednesday. It is to be regretted that many of the governors could not be
here this afternoon, but some of them have sent representatives.
President WALLACE—I have the pleasure of introducing to you Mr. D. M.
Neill, representing the governor of Minnesota.
[Mr. Neill’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]
President WALLACE—The Honorable George Coupland of Nebraska is here as
its representative, and has been asked to speak next. Mr. Coupland.
[Mr. Coupland’s paper is to be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]
President WALLACE—When this meeting adjourns, which will be at 5 o’clock
sharp, it will adjourn to meet at 8 this evening, and will be presided
over by Hon. B. A. Fowler, the president of the National Irrigation
Congress. Mr. Condra has an announcement to make.
Professor CONDRA—I wish to announce a meeting of the credential
committee as soon as I leave the stage about ten minutes to 5. Another
announcement: There are about a hundred state conservation commissioners
present, and they will meet in the white room at the Baltimore Hotel
tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock for a conference.
President WALLACE—This Congress intended to get Hon. Woodrow Wilson
of New Jersey to address us. He was unable to come, but has sent a
representative, Mr. Edward A. Stevens, Commissioner of Public Roads, and
he will be heard as soon as the secretary makes some announcements, which
will close the program for this afternoon.
After announcements by Secretary Gipe, President WALLACE continued:
We will now hear from the representative of Hon. Woodrow Wilson, Mr.
Stevens. (Applause)
Mr. STEVENS—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I did not come prepared
to represent the Governor of New Jersey, or to make a speech. That had
been entrusted, I believe, to somebody better fitted than myself. I find
in the West the State of New Jersey is considered and known for its
mitigation of corporations which do not meet the approval of the United
States Supreme Court. But it is not that industry I wish to interest you
in, or in fact any New Jersey industry. All I can do today is to give a
slight enumeration of the work being done in one of the smallest and most
densely populated states of the Union. We have commissions or officers
in charge of the following branches of conservation work: Forestry; the
oyster industry; the conservation of flowing water; the geological survey
of the state (which is one of the most complete and most accurate yet
carried out by any state of the Union); of agriculture; of public roads;
of inland waterways; the regulation of public utilities; the watching
over health by the State Board of Health, and also special institutions
for the care of tuberculosis, of epileptic and feeble-minded children. We
have a fish and game commission, because with us the ocean furnishes a
vast source of wealth in its fisheries. We have besides that a commission
for the regulation of factory labor, and especially for the regulation of
child labor, for children in New Jersey cannot enter into work without
passing an examination and without special permits. I am sorry that I
cannot do much more than merely enumerate the branches of activity which
the state is undertaking. I am only familiar with one of them, that is
public road building. If I can be of any service in that technical line
to this Congress I hope I will be considered at its disposal. (Applause)
President WALLACE—Prof. F. W. Rane, State Forester, will speak for the
State of Massachusetts.
[Prof. Rane’s paper is to be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]
President WALLACE—The Congress now stands adjourned until 8 o’clock,
when the conference of the states will be resumed. We will meet tomorrow
morning at 9:30 promptly.
_THIRD SESSION._
In the absence of President Wallace, who was attending the dinner given
to the President of the United States, Prof. Condra acted as chairman of
the meeting.
Professor CONDRA—Ladies and Gentlemen, your attention: We will
continue the program this evening from 8 o’clock until the arrival
of the President and his party. We will have reports from a number
of the states. The states which are represented should send their
representatives to the platform. If I understand it, we are now to hear
from Michigan, Montana, New York and a number of other states, and in
addition to that we will have a short talk which will please you I am
sure. The first thing on the program is a flashlight picture.
After the flashlight picture was taken, the Congress continued as follows:
Professor CONDRA—Are there any announcements to be made by the members
of the different committees? Has the chairman of the committee on
resolutions an announcement to make?
I wish to announce that there are a good many scientific men present
who are representing various bodies and they are going to hold a number
of important meetings. One of these will be held in the Coates House,
room 244, at 8:30 tomorrow morning. The question is, “What should be the
relation of Conservation to Science, to the Discovery of Truth?” We must
not divorce the two departments. They are identical when we understand
the two. All chemists, geologists, agriculturists, and others who are
ready to assist in this work and wish to meet with the scientists are
invited to do so tomorrow morning. I understand Dr. Shinnick of Iowa is
to preside at that meeting. He represents the American Association for
the Advancement of Science.
Another announcement: We have gathered here about one hundred state
conservation commissioners. The conservation commissions of the various
states are not political bodies, neither are they partisan, but they
are men and women who are studying the truth underlying conservation.
The conservation commissioners, together with the various scientists,
namely, geologists, agriculturists, chemists and others, will hold
meetings tomorrow. I ask you to take notice. And representing these
various scientific bodies, the meeting of the conservation commissioners
and the friends of that kind of work; those who want to get at the
details of state conserving, including what we should investigate and
give to the people as the basis of conservation activity, how we shall
do soil survey, geological survey, what kind of maps must be prepared,
what is the truth of dry farming, what is true drainage, how shall we
make up the various inventories, what kind of forest study should be
made in the state—in other words, in what manner are we to coöperate
in the various states, and in what manner are we to coöperate with the
Federal Government in getting at the conservation facts? We ask all of
you interested in these subjects to join us in the white room at the
Baltimore Hotel tomorrow. We will have talks by such men as Prof. Holden,
Dr. Hawarth, W. J. Spillman, of the Department of Agriculture, and I
might name a number of others, men practically engaged in this line of
work. I would like to know whether there is anyone to speak for Michigan?
At the meeting of last year there was not full opportunity to hear from
the men representing the states. We want these men to come forward and
tell us what they are doing. Michigan has not responded. Is Montana
represented? Is New York? New Mexico? We ask that you will come here to
the platform. Will the representative of Pennsylvania please come to
the platform? I ask those of you who are scattered here and there in
this great building to be as quiet as you can, because there may be some
who are not used to speaking before so many persons and it is rather
difficult to speak from this position. Mr. Emil Gunther, representing
Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia in particular.
Mr. GUNTHER—The chairman has just announced I may have five minutes.
Realizing the importance of time, I wrote out my remarks so that I could
not speak more than five minutes if I wanted to.
[Mr. Gunther’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]
Chairman CONDRA—It is quite possible that the people throughout this
Middle Western country and all of the western part of the United
States may fail to realize the different phases of activity that are
maintained in the great empire state of New York. That state has recently
established a conservation commission, with three scientists as members,
paying those men $10,000 a year for the difficult task of organizing the
various lines of conservation activity in the state. I have the pleasure
of introducing one of the state commissioners of New York, Mr. John D.
Moore.
[Mr. Moore’s address is in Supplementary Proceedings.]
Chairman CONDRA—Is the representative of South Carolina, Dr. M. W.
Twitchell, present?
A DELEGATE from Kansas—We have tried to hear two speakers from the East,
but in Kansas City, half way across the continent, we have been unable to
hear them. If you have any more Eastern speakers, California, perhaps, in
the rear end of the hall, would like to hear something they say.
Chairman CONDRA—I would call attention to the fact that people are coming
in. I know that those who are here are as quiet as you can be, and I ask
that those in the rear on this first floor will call the attention of the
ushers to this fact so they may request people to enter more quietly. We
realize that this is a very large building, and you ought not to require
every man to speak to all of you. They haven’t all got lungs strong
enough to make everyone hear, but we hope Dr. Twitchell has.
[Dr. Twitchell’s address is in Supplementary Proceedings.]
Chairman CONDRA—We will postpone the reports from the states until
tomorrow. The first speaker represents the National Soil Fertility
League, who will speak for ten minutes. After that we will have a talk by
Bernard Baker, our old conservation friend, the man who was the president
of the Congress at St. Paul during its last Congress. If President Taft
should enter during either one of these speeches, I ask that the band may
start up “America.” I think it would be appropriate to sing “America”
when the President of this great country enters such a great hall filled
with such an audience. (Applause) I understand that the gentleman who
is to speak is able to talk to the uttermost parts of the gallery. I
now introduce Howard H. Gross, president of the National Soil Fertility
League. Mr. Gross, of Chicago.
Mr. GROSS—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I want to thank you
kindly for the applause, for it may be the only occasion when it would
be proper. (Applause) I want to say as president of the National Soil
Fertility League that it is an organization formed to do a specific
definite work, and to work with this great Congress, and all who are
striving for a better agriculture. I have been doing considerable
institute work, and I made this observation: that the farmer was very
quick to see and demonstrate how some of these half-baked theories
that he was asked to subscribe to did not appeal to him, or, in other
words, that we are all from Missouri, and it was necessary to be shown.
(Applause) We know that we are not getting out of our farms what we ought
to get. We know that Europe is getting two or three times as much per
acre as we are. So, in the organization of the National Soil Fertility
League I felt that two or three things were necessary: First, we must
have an organization that would command the respect of the people, and
when I give you the names of the gentlemen who make up the advisory
committee I believe you will agree with me that they have been wisely
chosen, and we are under obligations to them, all of us, for joining in a
great work of this kind. On the advisory committee are Mr. James J. Hill
of St. Paul, whom I regard as one of the greatest men who it has ever
been my privilege to meet; the next is our most distinguished, our first
citizen, William Howard Taft (applause); Franklin MacVeigh; Missouri’s
great son, Champ Clark (applause)—gentlemen, this is not a political
convention. Dr. James, of the University of Illinois; William Jennings
Bryan (applause)—now, gentlemen, it would not do for me to read the
other names if you are going to break over like this. It is against the
rules. Mr. F. D. Coburn, Secretary of Agriculture of the State of Kansas
(applause); Benjamin Franklin Yoakum; William George, banker and farmer;
Samuel Gompers, president of the Federation of Labor (applause); Alvin
H. Saunders of the Breeders’ Gazette; J. M. Studebaker, of wagon fame;
Samuel Allerton; Henry Wallace, you all know (applause), and W. D. Howard
is no less distinguished. The speaker is the only cheap skate in the
crowd. (Applause)
Now, gentlemen, the National Soil Fertility League was formed for
a definite purpose. It will have a paid organization. We will be
Johnny-on-the-spot every minute during the year, doing business. What we
propose to do is this: to supplement the great work that is being done
by the agricultural colleges, and insist that the state and the nation
shall recognize these great institutions with adequate contributions, so
that they may do extension work and reach every community in the land
from Maine to California. (Applause) We mean to have Congress appropriate
a million dollars to start with, and increase it to eight or nine or
ten millions if necessary, and every man who has anything to say in
Washington is committed to this proposition from top to bottom, and we
are going to get the money. Then we propose to have bills introduced at
the next meeting of the Legislature in forty-four states, and get the
people back of those bills, to the end that the money will be forthcoming
to enable the college of agriculture to take up this great work and
carry it forward. The plan will be to take a soil chemist, a skilled
agriculturist, and put one in every county in the state. That man is
responsible to the state university of where the county is situated. He
will help the farmer solve the problems of a larger field, coöperating
with him, studying the local conditions, to the end that we may establish
a permanent agricultural college, and get the largest returns possible
and maintain soil fertility. In Europe where they have been farming
for a thousand or fifteen hundred years they are raising two or three
times what we get, and our land originally was better than theirs. Now
there are several problems that are collateral to this. Let me know, Mr.
Chairman, when my time is up—and one is farm labor, how to keep the boy
on the farm. The new agriculture showing the boy that we can use his
brain as well as his brawn, that farming is profitable, far more than he
thinks, that he can make dollars out of dimes by proper manipulation,
and so he will see that the largest field of opportunity for a man of
brawn and brain is in treating with the soil. Show him also that it is a
high and noble and splendid business avocation. Also we must have better
schools in the country. (Applause)
There is no reason why the boy and the girl on the farm should not have
as good educational advantages as those in the city schools. The greatest
product that we have on our farm is not cattle, hogs and alfalfa, wheat
and oats, but the boy and the girl in the farm home. (Applause) Upon
them depends the future of this great country. So let us realize the
personal equation and take care of the boys and the girls; give them the
education that they want and let them get it at home instead of going
to town. Home life is a great deal more pleasant. You must have good
roads, consolidated schools, fill your homes with the best there is in
the land, and there is no place on God’s green earth where society and
civilization can reach a higher plane and a better one than upon the
great plain of Illinois and Michigan, Missouri, Kansas, and all these
great states. But let the young men realize that they can learn something
from the green leaves of the field, as well as from the yellow leaves
of the library. When we get to doing business, and we are doing it now,
we want you all to help us get the legislation that is necessary, so
that we can provide abundant and cheap food supply for the country, and
have plenty to ship abroad, without impairing one single dollar of the
farmer’s income, but make it twice what it is today. (Applause)
Chairman CONDRA—I wonder if you really believe what this gentleman has
said? (Sure we do. Yes.)
In the course of my work I have run on a few individuals who have an
idea that it is not necessary for the state to be concerned with the
materials of conservation, or with the conditions that obtain in those
states. I hope that the time will come when the people on the farm, in
the factory, all the citizens in the state will realize that an American
state that does not have a full survey of its climate, its topography,
its structure, its drainage, its resources, is behind the times. I want
you people to pledge me, though not orally, that you will go home, return
to your places, and stand by the men like Professor Holden, like Dr.
Hawarth, like Dr. DeWolf, and those men who are farmer boys who have
gone to the land to study the real value that they may give of their
knowledge of farm management. Do you believe that? (Sure. Yes, sir. You
bet.) Well, suppose as delegates we might bring in a resolution which
says that conservation in these states must be based on that basis,
on the material, on the conditions, would you vote it down? Would you
believe that these men are sincere? Would you think those men are put in
a glass case, that they represent a museum curiosity, or would you think
that those men that are huskies, those men of brawn, would you think that
those men are your friends, that they mean what they say and they know
what they are talking about? They are the ones who have seen this thing
from the practical side, and they must work with you. Let me sound this
note: I make the plea that you may, in the conservation of the various
states, stand for conservation based on fact, not on conservation based
on dogma without foundation. Will you stand for that? (Applause) I wish
to assure all now I am not now making an argument for the man who does
the geological survey, the agricultural survey, the nursery survey, the
industrial survey; I am making an argument to the people for the people
who ought to have the truth of the situation, the benefit of those
surveys. We have seen too many concerns floated without basis. We have
seen altogether too much promotion without basis. The time is when our
agriculture will flourish according to the conditions that obtain. We
will not misrepresent for the purpose of drawing a population from one
section of our great country to an unfavorable place in another section.
We are going to take the land as it is. We will take the climate as it
is. We will take the resources through and through as they are. And the
state will place its stamp of approval, based on the fruits, and the
people can go here and there according to the light that is found. And
we condemn any concern in the state that goes into another state and
misrepresents things to the people, taking them to a place for which
they are not fitted, and to land which they do not understand. I do not
want to discourage you, and here let me clear up a thought. We stand as
conservationists for reclamation. We intend to make more of these dry
lands, those sandy lands, those wet lands, and the various other kinds,
and we want to get more out of these trees, out of that coal, out of that
gold, out of that iron.
Let us stand on the basis of truth. Let us stand against
misrepresentation. May I sound another warning? There never was a state
that misrepresented industrial facts and attracted factories to those
unfavorable places, or attracted people to an unfavorable locality,
which they did not understand, there never was a state that permitted
that but suffered for the same sooner or later. We must take truth as
it is. We must abide by the facts. We must, as people of the state,
loyal to our state and our country, put our forces against all kinds of
misrepresentation, because they end up badly. (Applause) Now you don’t
understand that, all of you. The farmer gets occasionally into some
one of these concerns that ends badly. Then he objects to all kinds of
business, and he objects to the railroads, and he objects to the men in
the factory, and he thinks all business is illegitimate. We have reached
a time in the conservation of our states when we will base our industry
on investigation and reliable report, made by one who will not pad the
facts.
I ask Mr. Baker to tell us a little about the Panama Canal.