in the time of its executives in bringing up to date and supplementing
the statistics gathered the preceding year. Practically nothing is
now lacking in the figures concerning community water supply, water
works and sewage disposal. Pending the beginning of actual engineering
investigation of a water power site, the commission has studied the
water power laws of all the states of the Union to the end that accurate
information may be presented to the General Assembly when legislation
in this state on these subjects is asked for. The delays and petty
hindrances touched upon are undoubtedly temporary, and with the very
recent completion of the personnel of the commission we have great
hopes and expectations for the work which may be done in the cause of
conservation during the coming year.
During the reading of a list of telegrams, Mr. W. A. Beard of Sacramento,
California, assumed the Chair as temporary chairman.
Temporary Chairman BEARD—The secretary will continue the call of the roll
of states.
Recording Secretary GIPE—Montana; Nevada; New Hampshire; New Mexico; New
York; North Carolina; North Dakota; Ohio.
President WALLACE—I now introduce to you Mr. C. P. Dyar of Marietta,
Ohio, who will speak for Ohio.
Mr. DYAR—I have no speech to make. Ohio simply sends greetings to this
Congress, and wishes it Godspeed and a large measure of success in
the work before it. Ohio has always been a great conservation state
throughout its entire history; it has had presidential, gubernatorial
and senatorial timber, and other minor political timber, sufficient for
the entire consumption of the United States. Ohio felicitates her sister
states on the scope and energy of this movement and she voices the hope
that has been expressed in this meeting, that the lesson of the parable
of the talents shall not be forgotten, that conservation shall not be
interpreted to mean simply to save, but development through wise use,
which creates wealth, not only for the present, but future generations.
Recording Secretary GIPE—Oklahoma.
President WALLACE—I have the pleasure of introducing Mr. Milton Brown,
who will speak for Oklahoma.
[Mr. Brown’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]
Chairman BEARD—We are getting down to business this morning, and I
think we are getting the meat out of the cocoanut. These addresses have
been directly to the point. I now have the pleasure of introducing a
representative of the State of Pennsylvania, Mr. A. B. Farquhar.
Mr. FARQUHAR—Pennsylvania is a state of such gigantic resources it
would take all the rest of our session to begin to describe them, a
good portion of it, and tell what we are trying to do to conserve them.
It is only within the last month or two we created a state branch of
the National Conservation Association, and they wanted me to be its
president, I suppose because I have been interested in conservation for
about twenty years past, and was a director in the National Association.
[Mr. Farquhar’s paper is in the Supplementary Proceedings.]
Chairman BEARD—We will now listen to Dr. Henry S. Drinker, president of
Lehigh University.
Dr. DRINKER—It would seem that this third National Conservation Congress
in ordering its deliberations cannot do so more wisely than in giving
heed to the closing words of President Taft’s luminous address at St.
Paul last year, when he said:
“I am bound to say that the time has come for a halt in general
rhapsodies over conservation, making the word mean every known good in
the world; for after the public attention has been aroused, such appeals
are of doubtful utility and do not direct the public to the specific
course that the people should take, or have their legislators take, in
order to promote the cause of conservation. The rousing of emotions
on a subject like this, which has only dim outlines in the minds of
the people affected, after a while ceases to be useful, and the whole
movement will, if promoted on these lines, die for want of practical
direction and of demonstration to the people that practical reforms are
intended.... I beg of you, therefore, in your deliberations and in your
informal discussions, when men come forward to suggest evils that the
promotion of conservation is to remedy that you invite them to point
out the specific evils and the specific remedies; that you invite them
to come down to details in order that their discussions may flow into
channels that shall be useful rather than into periods that shall be
eloquent and entertaining without shedding real light on the subject. The
people should be shown exactly what is needed in order that they make
their representatives in Congress and the State Legislatures do their
intelligent bidding.”
It would seem well for us here to take account of stock of what has been
done, of the agencies that have been utilized and of those that have been
neglected, as well as to exchange views as to what we think that others,
or the interests we individually represent, should do.
I have the honor of representing Pennsylvania as a state, and the Lehigh
University as an educational organization deeply interested in the
promotion of the cause of forestry and of conservation in general. We
have an efficient and active forestry association. Pennsylvania, as we
all know, has been, and is, famed for her deposits of iron and coal, and
for her pre-eminence in the iron and steel industries. The resources in
these directions are so great that it would be wearying to attempt even
to inflict on you a summary of them in these short talks, but what the
state has learned in conservation of mineral resources is of direct and
pregnant interest. Forty years ago the movement for stopping the waste
in coal was begun at the organization at Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania,
in 1871, of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, an institution
whose membership now runs into the thousands and whose influence for
good is world-wide. As a young engineer I had the privilege of attending
that meeting. Among the things done a committee was appointed to study
the question of waste in the mining, preparation and transportation
of coal. This committee was followed by, and, in fact, incited the
appointment by the Pennsylvania Legislature of a coal waste commission,
which made a valuable and exhaustive report, and we thus see that in one
phase of conservation, and a very important one, that of mining, our
engineers have been doing their duty, and that forty years ago work in
conservation was being done to which the public is only just awakening.
Our government officials are doing most intelligent and good work in
pointing out the way.
Perhaps one of the best summaries of this great conservation question
now before our people, and in which the engineering profession is so
interested, and in regard to which our mining profession has so great a
duty to perform, was given by Dr. C. W. Hayes, Chief Geologist of the
United States Geological Survey, in an address some time ago at the
University of Chicago, when he defined conservation as “Utilization with
a maximum efficiency and a minimum waste,” and said:
The reform that is needed throughout the country as a whole
must gain its motive power not from sporadic instances where
true business methods prevail, or from the well-intentioned
enthusiasm of the few, but from the well-informed intelligence
of the many. The campaign for conservation must be one of
education.
There appears to be an unfortunate confusion in the minds
of certain advocates of conservation. They have apparently
confused conservation of natural resources with destruction
of the trusts, and the mixture has resulted in pure
demagoguery.... Anyone who has studied conditions attending the
development of mineral deposits must have been impressed by
the fact that those deposits held by large companies are being
developed and utilized with a view to prevention of waste,
in accordance with the principles of conservation, to a much
greater extent than are the deposits held by small companies or
by individuals.
I was much struck, as I think we all were yesterday, by the statement
of our President followed by that of the chairman of the executive
committee, that at this Congress we were to discuss conservation without
any infusion of politics, and I take it that we use the word “politics”
in its broadest sense, and are to see how we can best use capital and
labor, and intelligently directed industry, all to the common end of the
promotion of conservation; and that we can and will recognize what I have
quoted above from the Chief Geologist of the United States Geological
Survey in regard to the proper recognition and utilization of capital in
conservation as highly important.
In the report of the National Conservation Commission, made through
President Roosevelt to Congress in January, 1909, Mr. J. A. Holmes (now
director of the United States Bureau of Mines), in reporting on our
mineral resources, said:
In considering the conservation of resources, it should be held
in mind that:
(1) The present generation has the power and the right to use
efficiently so much of these resources as it needs.
(2) The Nation’s needs will not be curtailed; these needs will
increase with the extent and diversity of its industries, and
more rapidly than its population.
(3) The men of this generation will not mine, extract, or
use, these resources in such manner as to entail continuous
financial loss to themselves in order that something be left
for the future. There will be no mineral industry without
profits.
In his message to Congress, 1910, President Taft, speaking of the
anti-trust law, said:
It was not to interfere with a great volume of capital which,
concentrated under one organization, reduced the cost of
production, and made its profit thereby, and took no advantage
of its size by methods akin to duress to stifle competition
with it. I wish to make this distinction as emphatic as
possible, because I conceive that nothing could happen more
destructive to the prosperity of this country than the loss
of that great economy in production which has been and will
be effected in all manufacturing lines by the employment of
large capital under one management. I do not mean to say that
there is not a limit beyond which the economy of management by
the enlargement of plant ceases; and where this happens and
combination continues beyond this point the very fact shows
intent to monopolize and not to economize.
Let us consider these questions as business men, weighing the good as
well as the evil that the different powers can afford that bear on
conservation, and utilizing and encouraging all that will promote the
great ends which the conservation movement was started to serve.
President WALLACE—It was expected that the National Grange would be
represented on this platform. Neither the president nor the gentleman
whom he recommended could come. I have therefore taken the privilege of
appointing Mr. B. G. Holden of Iowa, who will give us an address this
morning, not on the Grange itself, but on the Grange and other movements
that tend to the uplift that we stand for. We will now hear Mr. Holden,
who is the evangel of the corn gospel in all these inner states. We will
hear him for half an hour.
Mr. HOLDEN—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, Members of this Congress:
You came here to listen to the great people of this country, and you are
anxious to hear them, so I will take just as little time as possible,
for I have already been warned by the president that I must be brief. I
have laid my paper upon the table, and I am going to forget all I can
and say the rest to you. I am going to be something like the Irishman
who was painting a fence. He was working as hard as he could putting
on the paint. A neighbor Irishman came along down the street and said,
“Pat, what are you hurrying so for?” Pat kept right on putting on the
paint. And he said, “Begorra, I am trying to get my job done before my
paint runs out.” I am trying to get through before my paint runs out this
morning.
SOCIAL LIFE ON THE FARM.
To conserve humanity—to make humanity worth more to itself; to direct
human forces so that each person wastes the least possible energy, and
accomplishes the greatest good for himself and for others—this is the
most vital problem before our country today.
No nation can long remain great whose rural people are oppressed, or for
any reason have degenerated.
It was Goldsmith who said:
Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates and men decay;
A bold peasantry, their country’s pride,
When once destroyed can never be supplied.
It is not that country life on the farm is bad in the United States, for
it is not, but it can be greatly improved, and in my opinion it is the
greatest question before the Nation today. I am sure that when history is
finally written it will place foremost among the many good things that
President Roosevelt did, the inaugurating of the Country Life Movement.
Three things are necessary: First, and most essential, is an awakened
and serious interest on the part of the rural people themselves; second,
there must be encouragement by both the nation and the states in the way
of better laws and financial aid; third, there must be leadership—men and
women who are willing to devote their lives to this great work.
Just how is this work of bettering country life to be worked out? In
my opinion it must be done largely by the following agencies now in
existence:
First. The church, and allied organizations, such as Y. M. C. A., Boy
Scouts, etc. Second. The schools, libraries and county superintendents.
Third. The Grange, farmers’ clubs, and other organizations of the
kind which have for their main object the betterment of farm life
educationally and socially.
THE GRANGE AND THE FARMERS’ CLUB.
The president has asked me to put particular emphasis on the Grange and
farmers’ clubs as factors in the improvement of the social life of the
farm. It is my opinion that one of the most important steps in this
great forward movement, especially in the corn belt, is the organization
of granges and farmers’ clubs in every community. There is need of a
tremendous awakening to the importance of organization as a means of
agricultural advancement. The effect of these organizations on the
community is most remarkable. Men and women in such communities grow
up with strong attachments not only for the business of farming and
home-making, but for the people of the community in which they live. They
remain on the farm instead of moving into town or out of the state. But
these organizations do more than this. They furnish exactly the social
and educational advantages so much needed by the rural communities. They
enable young men and women to discover themselves and their powers of
usefulness to humanity.
Michigan has nearly nine hundred such organizations, most of them
granges, with a membership of 70,000. In each of the forty agricultural
counties there is an average of twenty-five live, active organizations.
New York granges have a total membership of 90,000. Quebec has nearly six
hundred clubs with more than 55,000 members. In strong contrast to this,
the corn belt, peculiarly and above all else agricultural, has but a few
dozen such organizations scattered throughout the entire area.
President Roosevelt, in his address at the Michigan Agricultural College,
said:
Farmers must learn the vital need of coöperation with one
another. It is only through such combination that American
farmers can develop to the full their economic and social
power. Combination of this kind has in Denmark, for instance,
resulted in bringing the people back to the land, and has
enabled the Danish peasant to compete, in extraordinary
fashion, not only at home but in foreign countries, with all
rivals.
Few people in the West realize what a tremendous influence the grange
and agricultural clubs of the eastern and middle states have exercised
on national legislation directly affecting the agricultural and social
conditions of farmers. As an illustration, attention is called to the
following laws which either had their origin in the granges and clubs
or were enacted largely through their initiative: The Department of
Agriculture; the position of Secretary of Agriculture in the cabinet
was created; the state experiment stations established; free rural mail
delivery provided for; the Grout Pure Food Bill, the Sherman anti-trust
regulations, the Interstate Commerce Act, the Denatured Alcohol Bill and
the Postal Savings Bank Bills all now enacted into laws.
These organizations through their lecturers, legislative and promotional
committees are exerting a tremendous influence in moulding public opinion
and crystallizing it into definite form for new laws.
These associations are now urging the election of United States senators
by popular vote, national aid for establishing agricultural high schools
and the introduction of agricultural and domestic science into the rural
schools; the establishment of the parcels post, postal telegraph and
telephone service; and national and state aid for highway improvement.
While these influences have been great beyond calculation, yet by far the
greatest effect has been in the betterment of the social and intellectual
conditions in the home and in the community.
Mr. G. A. Gigault, the Minister of Agriculture, Province of Quebec, in a
letter to the writer makes the following statement:
The Province has today 591 farmers’ clubs. Among the members of
these associations are to be found the persons the most devoted
to and interested in the development of our agricultural
resources. Most of the agricultural improvements of such
locality are due to the initiative of the officers and members
of the clubs. In every new locality where farmers’ clubs have
been organized, a butter or cheese factory has been erected
and other improvements have been made. This organization
causes progressive ideas to pervade everywhere, as well as
contributing towards the betterment of agricultural methods.
The movement will undoubtedly assume widely different forms in different
communities, ranging from local institutes, men’s clubs, women’s study
clubs and reading circles on the one hand, to agricultural clubs and
granges on the other. It is to be hoped that this latter form of
organization (granges and clubs) will predominate, for it is only when
the entire home is represented that we find the highest standards and the
greatest progress in the community.
THE PLAN OF RURAL CLUBS.
The plan of operation with which I am most familiar is as follows: The
membership is made up of twelve to fifteen families. The meetings are
generally held every two weeks in the homes of the various members of
the organization or in halls built for this purpose. During the winter
months the meetings are held during the day, the program beginning about
10 A. M. At 12:30 tables of planks or boards are prepared on which the
lunch is spread. Every family brings a basket of provisions. The family
in whose home the meeting is held is not allowed under any circumstances
to prepare a dinner, excepting to possibly furnish some coffee, popcorn,
etc., as this would be a serious burden. When the picnic lunch is over,
some of the little tots are boosted up on a box or chair, or on the
table, to speak a piece or sing a song; thus every member of the family
has a part in the meeting.
These organizations are nerve centers of progress. They develop, they
educate, they push their members out of the old into the new and better
ways. They set their members, young and old alike, to studying their
business. This means interest in the daily work, a love for the farm
life and the home life. This means a useful and happy life. It means
intelligence. It means freedom from drudgery, for drudgery is “labor
without thought.”
This meeting together, talking together, working together, and acting
together for mutual protection and improvement brings us nearer to the
great law of “loving our neighbors as ourselves.” To know that others are
depending upon us, have faith in us, love us, and hope for us, is a tower
of strength, of courage and of happiness.
It is not my purpose to criticise our school system. However, our rural
schools can and must be improved and redirected. They do not meet rural
needs. They do not interest the boy and girl in the things of the farm
and home. Frequently the teachers are town girls without farm experience
or sympathy. The farm children must either go without high school
training or get it in the town or city. Our present system educates away
from the business of agriculture instead of towards it.
THE PRACTICAL SIDE OF THINGS.
The following axioms will aid us in a clearer understanding of the
failures of the present system and the remedies:
1. Education is that which trains or fits for the duties of life.
To illustrate, let me ask what are to be the duties of our girls?
Ninety-nine per cent of them must make homes, cook, sew, scrub and nurse.
How much are our rural schools doing to equip our girls for this greatest
of all duties, home-making?
2. The whole boy should be trained, not simply his head.
3. We should teach in terms of the child’s life and surroundings—things
that concern him and his home. He will then be interested and will like
his work, will put the best he has into his work. But instead of teaching
in terms of the boy’s lifework, our schools teach in terms of brick
pavement, bank notes, yards of cloth, foreign exchange, partial payments,
etc., etc.
4. Boys and girls should be taught to think in terms of action, of
accomplishment. There is a more or less well founded prejudice that our
high school and college graduates are impractical and theoretical. They
have not been dealing with the real problems of life. At any rate, few
of these graduates return to the farm. The agricultural colleges are
helping some through their short course schools, farmers’ institutes,
literature sent out, etc., but it is a mere drop in the bucket. What we
really need is a system of schools suited to rural conditions. We must
pay better prices for teachers. This will be done gladly when the school
sends back each night to the home boys and girls better fitted for their
work and interested in it. Teachers must be especially trained for the
rural schools. They must live in the community and be a part of it,
helping Saturdays and Sundays to guide, direct and stimulate. Not only
this, but the farm boys and girls must get their high school work under
agriculture and not city conditions and surroundings. In other words, we
must have rural high schools within the reach of every boy and girl on
the farm. These schools should become the social and educational center
of the rural community.
It is true that the rural church has exercised great influence upon
the people of the country socially and morally, helping to create and
maintain good standards of life, but it has not kept pace with progress
in other lines. It does not measure up to its great opportunity. There
must be put into it not only more vitality and life, but there must be a
new and broader attitude towards life. The rural church must be as broad
as the rural community in which it exists, interesting itself in every
question which concerns the life of the people.
THE MINISTER’S DUTY.