the pelts of animals to cover their bodies and the shelter of caves or
rudely constructed huts to protect them from the rigors of the elements
and the incursions of prowling beasts and venomous reptiles, they at
the same time realized the indispensableness of these things and the
necessity and wisdom of conserving them.
As in the case of our own Indians, the struggle they made to obtain the
necessaries of life taught them to be saving of what they procured in
that line and to be vigilant in providing for the future. They took no
more fish from the waters of lake or river than seemed necessary for
actual use, they did not destroy wantonly the wild creatures of the
forest, and the denizens of the air were free from trap and arrow beyond
the range of hunger and necessity. Thus they conserved carefully the
sources of their food supply, and the pathetic story of a Hiawatha had
rarely to be told.
It was only on the coming of the white man, who did not specially rely
upon such means of livelihood, that the wild creatures of the air,
forest, prairie, plain, lake and river were heedlessly slaughtered, or
wantonly destroyed in sport, or driven to hiding places in swamp or
mountain.
It may thus be seen that when things are deemed essential to the
maintenance of life the lesson of care in using and conservation in
protecting and preserving them is brought home to the comprehension and
firmly fixed in mind and habit. But when, on the other hand, things
appear to be measurably superfluous or easy of acquisition, the sense of
their value becomes abated and the spur of conservation blunted.
And so with the land, which to civilized man is the source of life’s
sustenance and the basis of progress and prosperity. Heretofore in
abundance and easily procured at moderate cost or for the mere taking
of it under the homestead law, but little attention was bestowed upon
the preservation of its fertility. When there came manifest and pressing
occasion for keeping it up by the restoration of its exhausted elements
the owners sold it for whatever it would bring and migrated to the easily
procurable new lands of the great West. But now this movement has met
with a decided check, for there is hardly any more arable free or cheap
land to be had. The most desirable government land has been taken by
settlers under the homestead law, and that which has been reclaimed under
the irrigation system is held at comparatively startling prices. Thus
exists a condition which is measurably responsible for the overflow of
nearly a million of our people into the British possessions on the North,
actuated by the lure of virgin soil and cheap lands. And even this door
is now less ajar through the taking by first corners of the choicest
holdings and the failure of our reciprocity negotiations.
The comparatively impoverished lands sold by those who sought new homes
in the West were usually purchased by persons who knew little about
farming, or took them as an experiment or for speculative purposes, and
placed tenants on them—tenants whose chief aim was, not to restore the
fertility of the soil, but to make it yield all the profit possible with
the least possible outlay of money and labor.
But a halt has been called in this state of things, and mainly so, as
it seems to us, through the instrumentality of the many agricultural
boards, alliances and societies, not to mention the Grange and
Department of Agriculture, that appear to have united or coöperated in
the organization of this great conservation movement. There is a marked
tendency, as observers must admit, to look backward to the neglected
lands and abandoned farms. These are being sought again by the returning
pioneers of the West or their descendants, and so probably to a greater
extent relatively in the South than in the East. This counter-movement
is unmistakable and has led to a notable and increasing advance in the
prices of these lands during the past decade. The cause lies not alone in
the acquisition by settlers of all the desirable free and cheap lands of
the West, but also in the expected restoration of soil fertility in the
South and East.
To this end the deliberations of the present Conservation Congress have
in large measure justly and wisely tended. Much has been said, and well
said, touching the study and utilization of scientific means to restore
soil fertility in the case of impoverished lands throughout the country.
It is a subject of paramount importance. It points to the possibility of
increasing at least twofold the productiveness of our present acreage.
It will not be considered as digressing if I refer in this connection
to the Agricultural Department at Washington and the state agricultural
colleges, boards and societies as having conferred incalculable benefit
through work in this line on the people and the country. Well would it
be, too, if the suggestion of President Taft, made in the course of his
address in this hall last Monday evening, could be realized and the
Agricultural Department represented among the people by an intelligent
and practical farmer in each county of the several states. It would bring
directly to the notice of farming communities the most approved means of
cultivating the soil and lead to wholesome emulation in restoring its
fertility and insuring abundant crops.
I am strongly optimistic in regard to the natural resources of the
country and would not venture to set bounds to the possibilities of
our soil and climate. We know historically that for thousands of years
untold millions of people have lived on the same land in China, Japan,
Egypt and Europe. They have treated it as a living thing, feeding it
with the elements requisite for its productiveness. So judiciously and
systematically has this been done that in some quarters it yields twice
as much to the acre as the average of our own land. I venture to predict,
however, that the present movement toward soil enrichment will not fall
short of attaining to a like standard of productiveness.
While the restoration of soil fertility has fittingly been the dominant
theme of these proceedings, I am pleased to observe that they have
taken a much wider range. Thus are vastly broadened the activities and
usefulness of this body, and correspondingly is strengthened its claim
upon the confidence, approval and coöperation of the public.
So much has been said in relation to the conservation of health,
morality, religion, municipal government, deep waterways and the public
welfare that it would be superfluous, even if time permitted, to touch
again upon these subjects.
I may be pardoned, however, for referring somewhat specifically to
education in the light of its saving and helpful influence. It inquires
into, searchingly examines and intelligently determines what to do in
the practical phases of conservation. It penetrates proposed plans and
theories and warns against mistakes, waste and extravagance.
With the diversification and expansion of labor in the industrial domain
its products became marvelously varied in form and utility. With the
machinery which labor invented and introduced one man could accomplish
tenfold as much in a given time as could previously be done by hand. The
things produced by labor were thus enormously multiplied and cheapened,
and this very fact, as in the case of land superabundance, led to
deplorable waste and senseless extravagance.
Ignorance may appropriately be called the mother of these evils.
Education is the antithesis of ignorance and may be depended upon
to curb them. Ignorance is imitative rather than original, and the
wastefulness attendant upon it grows with the expansion of luxury. The
wage or income of unfortunates upon whom it has set its mark usually
passes through their hands as freely as water through a conduit, often
going for the purchase of things unnecessary and tawdry, if not actually
harmful.
But they are not alone in this regard. It happens that no matter what
may be the income of some men it goes promptly forth again on its merry
round, and they are as poor at the end of the month or year as they
were at its beginning. The cause ordinarily lies in absurd vanity or
inexcusable wastefulness and argues lack of self-control and common sense.
Edison is credited with having recently stated as the result of his
observations abroad that a French family could live comfortably on
what an American family throws away. Other travelers have spoken to
like effect, but with remarks applicable to Europe generally. It must
be admitted, however, that the French rank first in this respect or
in the practical application of domestic science and economy. They
have evidently learned to apply the principle of conservation in the
management of kitchen, dining room, household and purchases in the
market. Were we to use like foresight, discrimination and economy the
cost of living might be reduced from one-third to one-half. Would not
this be an easily achievable and reasonably satisfactory solution of the
harassing problem of high prices?
The knowledge that creditably adorns the mind and makes for independence
should show the wisdom of such economy and not be humiliated by betrayal
into imitation of the reckless extravagance characterizing the vulgar
rich in pomp, dress and prandial excesses. Intelligently and sagaciously
inculcated along these lines, such knowledge would revolt at the
conditions indicated. To this end education of wider scope and a more
practical turn is needed. It should be of a nature capable of grappling
successfully with such problems and conditions.
Education, genuine and practical, is the most precious of possessions,
surpassing in value to honorable and useful manhood all the vulgar
hoards of selfish and pleasure-seeking wealth. True education teaches
independence and self-respect and scorns temptation to compete with showy
vulgarism in dress, dining and deportment. It is the key that unlocks
the arcana of knowledge and surpasses all the dross of mine or mountain
in bringing man into soulful communion with God. It makes clearer and
more acceptable the duties we owe to country and to one another. It
teaches courage in adversity and fortitude in affliction. It is a light
that penetrates the gloom of doubt and makes plain the path of honor and
usefulness. It illuminates in all directions the activities of this
great movement and I congratulate you upon having recognized the fact and
so generously acclaimed it in the proceedings of this Congress. (Applause)
President WHITE—I now take pleasure in introducing to the audience United
States Senator Robert L. Owen of Oklahoma. (Applause)
Senator OWEN—Ladies and gentlemen, and delegates of the Conservation
Congress, when called on to pay my respects to this great meeting for
the purpose of bringing about a public sentiment which should sustain
the conservation movement, I felt in duty bound to respond, and for that
reason I delayed my departure from this city to spend a few moments to
present my respects, my sympathies, and my support to this movement.
(Applause) I believe in the conservation of our national resources, and I
believe that no government should go beyond the sentiment of the people,
of the Republic, in the direction of conservation, or of any other
important progressive policy. (Applause) This audience, therefore, and
this Congress, have a duty to perform, and that duty is to sustain public
opinion upon these important matters, and give it a concrete form, that
will make its impress upon the legislative and administrative branches
of this government. I believe in the conservation of our forests; in the
conservation of our land; the reclamation of arid lands; the reclamation
of swamp lands; making accessible the lands that we have, by good roads
and by the improvement of waterways. I believe in the conservation
of our water powers, that they shall not pass into private hands for
speculative purposes, but I believe above and beyond all in every form of
conservation that may be well discussed. I believe in the conservation,
above all other things, of human life and human efficiency. (Applause)
It was for that reason that I took occasion to draft a bill, providing
for a department of health with a secretary in the cabinet at the head
of it. (Applause) And I was actuated to do that by the pitiful history
which we had recorded in the last great war, the war with Spain. I
remember so well that over 900 of our chosen young men, those who had
offered their lives upon the altar of patriotism, those who were willing
to fight the battles of the Republic, instead of being able to die in the
service of their country upon the battle field, facing a hostile foe,
were laid in their graves by a malignant disease, at Chickamauga. We
lost nearly a thousand of our best men at Chickamauga. And why? Because
of the gross, unspeakable ignorance of those who were charged with the
preservation of the lives of those young men. (Applause) It is a noted
fact that the flies came from the cesspools where the offal and waste
of the camp was thrown, came from those cesspools, with the slime on
their feet, with typhoid germs on their feet to poison the chosen youth
of our land by thousands. That is not only a national tragedy, it is a
national humiliation, and it is a disgrace to this Nation. Therefore I
desire, together with thousands of other men, to put an end to that
sort of thing by a department of health. I remember Herman Biggs’ map of
lower New York where in a single house twenty-three cases of tuberculosis
were recorded, and in the house next to it eighteen cases. So that those
houses where the poor workmen go, without notice, were in fact nothing
but charnal houses where they went to their death. We ought not, in a
civilized nation, to permit that to continue. And I glory in the man
who has been trying to preserve the health of this Nation. I glory in
our magnificent Dr. Wiley. (Applause) And I feel a sense of personal
happiness that the millions of microbes that move and have their being in
impure food and drinks, did not get Wiley’s goat. (Applause)
I am reminded in this connection of one of the stories of the champion
of health, Mr. Lutz, of Indiana. It is called the story of the “Little
Mother and the Fat Hog.” There was a little mother in Indiana. She was
only twenty-three years old. She had three children. She began to notice
that she was feeling ill, that the children, in whom she had had great
happiness, were commencing to worry her, and become a care. She knew that
she must be sick, and she went to the doctor. He looked at her and said,
“You are all run down.” He gave a prescription in Latin. It was a little
ginger, and a little alcohol, and a little water and some other things.
She paid a dollar for it at the drug store, and she took it, but did not
get well. She checked her strength out in a little while, and then one
day she felt a sharp pain in her breast, a coughing spell came on and
putting her handkerchief to her mouth, it became covered with blood. She
had a hemorrhage. She sat down and wrote a letter to the secretary of
health of Indiana: “My dear sir:—I am a little mother of Indiana. I have
three children, I would like to raise to be good citizens of Indiana. I
have just had a hemorrhage. Can you tell me what to do or where to go,
so that I may get well? I do not want to die now.” He wrote her back an
official letter right away in typewriting, and said something like this:
“My dear madam, the state of Indiana does not make any provision for a
case like you have described, but in case you die the state of Indiana
will take care of your three children until some good people can be found
who will take them from the asylum. Yours respectfully, Secretary.”
(Applause)
A fat hog squealed in the back yard of a man, and the hired man looked at
him and he said, “He has got the cholera.” The man said, “Telegraph to
Uncle Jimmy Wilson right away.” And he did. And a man came with a little
black satchel marked D. V. S., with a bunch of serum in one hand and a
syringe in the other, and he shot a load into the hog and the hog got
well. MORAL: Be a hog and worth saving. (Applause)
Now, last year as a United States Senator from Oklahoma, I had the
opportunity and I sent out 25,000 bulletins on how to take care of the
hog. And I didn’t have a single bulletin on how to take care of babies.
I believe that the babies and the youth of this land ought to be given
the preference, if necessary, over the swine family. (Applause) In New
Zealand they have a death rate of 9.5 per thousand. In this Republic,
where we have the fancy that we know more than other people do, and
where it is largely a matter of fancy and not one of reality, we have
a death rate of 16.5 to the thousand. In other words we lose by death
from preventable causes seven persons to the thousand that we might
save. That makes a vast army of 630,000 human beings who march to their
graves every year from preventable causes. And we have on an average
nearly three millions of people who are sick on an average throughout
the United States from preventable causes. A careful calculation on a
money basis, putting each individual as worth $1,700 apiece, and I do not
think that is a high estimate for an American—it would make a loss of
four thousand million to this Republic every year. And I think that is
worth conserving. (Applause) Therefore in the few moments which I have at
my disposal I call the attention of this great audience to its duty as
American citizens, and I call the attention of this great Conservation
Congress to its duty to this Republic to put on record a declaration
in favor of a department of health. I thank you for your attention.
(Applause)
President WHITE—Ladies and gentlemen, I now take pleasure in presenting
to you an American citizen who in all this broad land requires no
introduction. (Applause)
Mr. BRYAN—Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I am sure that whatever
you may think of my speech you will agree with me that I was justified
in asking you to listen to these other speakers. (Applause) I believe
in the Conservation Congress. The good that it does is difficult to
calculate. How many of the thousands who are assembled tonight have given
to the subject of conservation the thought or study that it deserves. The
arguments that are presented at such a meeting as this help make up the
public opinion that controls our governments, state and national. A large
number of subjects are brought before a Congress for its attention. The
speeches made present the subject from different points of view, and each
one turns upon the subject the light of his intelligence, and the warmth
of his heart. When we go from such a meeting, we go enlightened, and with
our views enlarged. We go prepared to communicate to others something of
the information that we have received, and to impart to them something of
the zeal that we feel. A number of subjects have been presented here, and
I am sure that this meeting will be worth all that it has cost those who
have brought it about or participated in it.
Take the thought, for instance, that has been presented by Senator Owen.
I am so glad that I insisted upon his speaking, for his ability and
public spirit are only equaled by his modesty, and if I had not insisted,
I am afraid you would have lost the benefit of the speech that he has
delivered. (Applause) And yet what one of us will forget the splendid
illustration that he has given us in the story told of the difference
we make between the human being with a priceless soul and the animal
that can be converted into dollars and cents on demand. (Applause) We
need to have this matter brought to our attention, and I venture the
assertion that there is not one present in this audience that will not
go from this meeting tonight with the conviction that our Nation could
afford to subtract a little from its appropriations intended to prepare
us to kill people, and spend the money in the preservation of human
life. (Applause) Is it not strange how much more interest we can feel
in the battleship and in the new gun than we feel in the preservation
of the life and health of those about us? We need a speech like this to
wake our consciences to our own neglect, and to give us a better idea of
proportion when we look at things about us.
You heard last night a speech upon public health from one who has done so
much to arouse the Nation to the unspeakable iniquity of the adulteration
of food. Who will estimate the benefit of such a speech as that delivered
to an audience with such intelligence as this audience represents?
AGRICULTURAL EXPERTS.
The President presented, as I understand it, a thought that has been
emphasized today. The idea that there should be in every agricultural
county of the Nation a representative of the Government, an expert
on agriculture, to assist the people of that community to a better
and more intelligent production of the crops to which the soil and
climate are adapted. An idea like that needs only to be presented in
order to be accepted and approved. The fact is that what we need is
instruction. In Leeds, England, a year ago, I was speaking at a dinner
in the mayor’s office. I was emphasizing the fact that our difficulties
and controversies are largely due to misunderstandings and that
misunderstandings are largely due to a lack of acquaintance with each
other, and there flashed into my mind that quotation from Holy Writ, the
last prayer of our Savior: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what
they do.” And I was impressed, as I had never been before, with the fact
that ignorance is a large cause of sin. It is ignorance that we have to
combat; when the people are once enlightened and understand a subject,
you can trust their patriotism, their good intent, and their sense of
justice. (Applause) These meetings help by instructing, and we go from
them not only with larger information, but with a stronger determination
to do our part in the correction of evils that need a remedy. As I sat
tonight and listened to those who spoke before me, a thought came into my
mind, and I venture to impart it to you. It is a proverb of Solomon’s;
I do not know of a better motto for the conservation movement. It was
suggested by the gentleman from Indiana that necessity compels us to
conserve the Nation’s resources when we become aware that they are being
impoverished, and I thought of this proverb of Solomon’s: “The wise man
foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself, but the foolish pass on and are
punished.” What is conservation except looking ahead, the making of
provision against coming dangers that may be prevented? Wisdom manifests
itself in foresight. If we had had more foresight we would not have need
of as much energy as is required today to protect that which is being
wasted. I suggest, therefore, as a proper motto for the conservationists
this wise saying of Solomon, “The wise man foreseeth the evil, and hideth
himself, but the foolish pass on and are punished.” (Applause)
Let me gather up some of the scattered threads of the discussion to which
the delegates have listened. I am not an expert in any part of this
conservation work. I confess that I am one who has been blind, during a
part of my life, to the needs that are now so clearly recognized. I have
had work that has engrossed my attention; I have been busy, but not with
matters of conservation such as have been discussed. Possibly I represent
some in the audience who have not had their attention turned to these
subjects. I am grateful to those who have brought me into contact with
this information, and I shall endeavor to make up for lost time by larger
effort along these lines. (Applause)