Address, Mrs. John R. Walker
Mrs. Walker—Madam Chairman, and Ladies and Gentlemen: The term Conversation has become so all embracing, from the viewpoint of a Daughter of the American Revolution, it is as much a work of patriotism as that of our own great organization—the one dealing with the present and the future, the other with the past, the present and the future. The motto of the Daughters of the American Revolution is “Home and Country,” and so lofty is its ideal, so practical its work, it will be felt throughout all time, as will this broad, wise work of Conservation. The spirit of commercialism, of money worship, about in the land, is fast sapping the resources of our great country and begetting a selfishness that makes a willing sacrifice of the rightful heritage of future generations. It would seem in the order of things in this work of Conservation, that the men of our land should give special concern to its material needs, its lands, its waters, its mineral resources, and that the conservation of life should appeal as nothing else to woman, the transmitter of life—Life, a priceless boon. We protest against child labor—implore with all the tenderness, developed through mother love, to spare the child in the greed of money getting. Refuse the work of little hands, and little feet, in factories, mills, and mines, and out of your abundance make it possible for them, during the few short years of childhood, to enjoy the freedom of the bird and the butterfly, give them a memory of Nature’s blessed joys—God’s pure, sweet air; the wayside flower plucked at will, the willow-shaded stream, and all that the sweet breast of Nature offers so freely, without money and without price—to the child of poverty. The Daughters of the American Revolution are awakened to the realization that we, the home-makers, descendants of the woman of the spinning wheel, hold the destiny of a nation in our hands, that we must not only accept but consecrate ourselves to woman’s highest mission, the crowning glory of womanhood—guiding the young feet into right paths.
To give patriots to our country, we must rear patriots, train Americans for America. In our great work of patriotic education our aim is to train the youth of our land in good citizenship; teach them to battle for good laws and social conditions, and to be courageous in the fight, daring to do right in both the political and business world—thus honoring his birthright. The Daughters of the American Revolution have gathered the alien into the fold of the children of the republic, to make of them true Americans, do for them the best we know how; and many a lesson we can learn from them of thrift, industry and patience under discouragement. In my own State opportunity came to such men as Carl Schurz and Joseph Pulitzer, poor emigrants, who became pre-eminent in our country’s history. The privileges of the American woman go hand in hand with her responsibilities, in her zeal for home and country; she is pointing the way, realizing that our children have a great work before them, a great problem to solve.
The Jewish dramatist, Zangwill, says: “To think that the same great torch of liberty, which threw its light across all the broad seas and lands into my little garret in Russia, is shining also for all those other weeping millions of Europe, shining wherever men hunger, or are oppressed, shining over the starving villages of Italy and Ireland; over the swarming cities of Poland; over the ruined farms of Roumania; over the shambles of Russia. What is the glory of Rome and Jerusalem, where all races come to worship and look back, compared to the glory of America, where all races and nations came to labor and look forward.” America! great charity of God to the human race.
Conservation of life! As I stand before the shafts erected at Arlington and Richmond and read to the memory of sixteen thousand who fell in battle, to the memory of eight hundred unknown dead, my very soul cries out against war. Eight hundred unknown dead! Can you not see the long procession of anguished, broken-hearted mothers, waiting and watching—watching and waiting, and hoping? Our law makers oppose legislative measures advocating universal peace. How can they with our Civil War yet fresh in memory, the nations of the earth yet shuddering over the horrors of the war between Russia and Japan? The heart sickens at the memory of the undying hatred of the human heart; the blood thirst for blood in its brutal frenzy, sacrificing her young men—the hope of a nation—and all for what? One more island, perhaps, or insignificant kingdom. A war involving principle, as our Revolutionary War, hundreds of years afterward excites the most passionate interest and feeling; but wars for power, and possession, the world cries out against. The time has come to sheathe the sword and spare mankind. The vast expenditure of money for more destructive engines of warfare, for the slaughter of men, would go so far in our work for humanity, the helpless, the unfortunate, the struggling. War affects not only those who bear arms, but those who stay at home; the entire country is affected. War retards progress, paralyzes effort; ambition cannot feed a sorrow, hands are listless and lax when the heart is heavy. Mrs. Browning’s Italian mother wails: “Both boys dead, one of them shot by the sea in the East, and one of them shot in the West by the sea. Dead! both my boys. If your flag takes all heaven, with its white, green and red, for what end is it done, if we have not a son?”
On one occasion, a distinguished Confederate general was a guest at our table; he had fought from the beginning to the close of the Civil War. The little boy of the family gazed upon him with awe and admiration. To know and be close to a great soldier, one who had commanded armies and fought many battles, was indeed glory for a small boy. After gazing upon him long and steadily, he startled the assembled company by saying: “General, how many men have you killed?” We gasped in horror, wondering what the reply would be. Quickly the General responded, “I don’t know that I have killed any.”
We read “The Charge of the Light Brigade”; “Scots Who Ha’e Wi’ Wallace Bled,” and other stirring poems of war, and see only the glory of it. Death by shot and shell and sabre stroke is heroic; but the question of a little child startles us with the question of our individual responsibility; we are brought face to face with the words engraven on the tablets of stone, “Thou shalt not kill.”
Universal peace is no longer a dream. The peace court at The Hague is established, and marks an epoch in international law. Let us not cease in our efforts until the pressure of strong public sentiment becomes so compelling, legislation will be favorable. Our country is the beacon light; she stands for justice, for freedom, for God; she is the messenger of the Prince of Peace, is elected to proclaim with trumpet call, peace to all the nations of the earth and the islands of the sea.
I cannot let this opportunity pass without asking this influential body of men to throw the weight of its great influence in favor of another matter taken up by the Daughters of the American Revolution—the desecration of the flag. I was appointed by our President-General Mrs. McLean, to speak on the subject before a committee of the United States Senate, and, with representatives from other patriotic societies, urged legislation upon it. It is a matter of sentiment, but what is life without sentiment? With you men laboring for your country’s welfare, see to it that our country’s emblem is held sacred, shall not be used as an advertising medium by the soulless money-maker, who cares for naught save personal gain, who does not consider that this banner stands for this great country—“your flag and my flag.”
“And Oh! how much it holds,
Your land and my land
Secure within its folds,
Your heart, and my heart,
Beat quicker at the sight,
Sun-kissed and wind tossed the
Red and Blue and White;
The one Flag—the Great Flag—the Flag for me and you
Glorified all else besides—the Red and White and Blue.”
Wherever we fling it to the breeze, it carries a breath of freedom into every land and unto every people. Should we not hold it a sacred thing? (Continued applause.)
The Chairman—For the past two years the next speaker has been working in the General Federation as Chairman of the Department of Conservation. We have worked so closely together, I, as her adviser, and she doing the large work of the organization, that it is almost like speaking of one’s own family in introducing this speaker. I shall not try to tell of her work. We are the very best of Conservation friends to this day—Mrs. Marion A. Crocker, of Fitchburg, Mass.
Mrs. Crocker—Madam Chairman, and Mr. President and Members of the Convention: Conservation is a term so apt that it has been borrowed and made to fit almost all lines of public work, but Conservation as applied to that department bearing its name in the General Federation means conservation of natural resources only, and that is a field so vast that we have found it all that can well be handled under one head without a chance of neglecting the very principle for which the Conservation movement was established. And then it is always easier to come back to simpler things. I do not mean exactly “simpler,” but to those that touch our lives from day to day, of which we may see the effect almost from hour to hour, and therefore it seems so unnecessary to dwell on these things that are far away. The problem of Conservation of natural resources is so wide and far extended that much of it must be solved on great government plans, and that seems to make it even more remote.
Now, we all concede that there is nothing so important as the conservation of life, of health, education and vital force, so closely connected with the life. We all grant that, and it is only because the conservation of natural resources is so closely related to these other lines that it is of any vital consequence. But, with the other side having been so strongly emphasized, and, to my sorrow, a few times I have noticed it even being decried in this conference, it seems to me it has become my bounden duty to emphasize the other side, because if we do not follow the most scientific approved methods, the most modern discoveries of how to conserve and propagate and renew wherever possible those resources which Nature in her providence has given to man for his use but not abuse, the time will come when the world will not be able to support life, and then we shall have no need of conservation of health, strength or vital force, because we must have the things to support life or else everything else is useless.
Do not think I am pessimistic. I should not feel this so strongly, but I feel that this Congress was originally established for the conservation of natural resources, because the other side had received so much greater recognition and it is naturally nearer to our hearts. You do not know how much harder it is to appeal to people for these far-away things than to those that are so near and dear to them, and the things they can take hold of in an animate way.
I would like you to review with me just a few of the natural resources and the result of their Conservation, or the result of a lack of Conservation.
We will begin with the forests, because in our natural conservation we consider that the foundation of the fundamental principle of the conservation of natural resources. And what does the forest for us? What is the purpose of the forest? Why must we have them? Well, the forest makes soil in a way; that is, it makes humus matter, which is so large a portion of the soil that it may well be termed the soil. The forest is the only crop that grows that gives to the soil more than it takes from the soil. It also conserves the mineral in the soil that it takes Nature ages to produce by its slow processes of disintegration, and at the same time prevents the filling up of reservoirs, lakes and streams, and to that extent prevents the pollution of the waters. The forest is a great health resort, and why? Because it actually purifies the air. Its action is just the reverse of animals. It gives the air what we need and takes from it that which is detrimental to our health.
We must look a little into plant life and see what nature does that we may fully appreciate that point. I cannot take time tonight because of the late hour to go into the whole life of the tree, but I will say that its principal constituent is carbon, and it takes from the air the carbonic acid gas which is so detrimental to human beings and to all animals. It has a way of converting it into its own life blood in combination with the sap taken up from the roots, by the marvelous process in the leaves, by this little understood substance called chlorophyll, that has the power of converting this poisonous substance for us into the life of the tree, and then taking so much from it and giving it to the soil. That is a most important factor which is so often overlooked.
Then the forest is valuable as a wind shield for crops. And for the wood supply. Wood is demanded in all the industries or the arts, for almost all things we use.
These are the fundamental things the forest does for us. Are we not working for conservation of strength and health and human life when we are working for the forest?
While the General Federation takes up many phases of water Conservation, perhaps I may just say that we have irrigation, drainage, waterways, the deep canals for transportation, we have water power, which is the coming thing. This is something to be conserved, and which conserves our coal, which conserves the purity of our atmosphere by not having all the gases turned into it by the burning of the coal.
All these things it does for us.
And then the very last and most vital is the pure continuous supply of water, which all human beings and which all animals demand. It is, next to the air we breathe, the most important factor in animal existence. Are we not working for health, for strength and for life when we are working for this pure plentiful water supply, and does not that come pretty near working directly for conservation of human life? Have you anything you can bring forward that touches much more nearly the health, life, strength of human beings, the child, than this same conservation of water, which is a natural resource?
The soil is indirectly our staff of life. From it does not come our bread? Must not this seed fall into the ground, spring from the earth and be protected until it reaches maturity, and we have food? Many other instances might I bring forward had I time.
Then the animal kingdom is much more nearly related to human existence than we would think at the outset; but when we come to look more deeply into it we find this close relationship.
I so often come up against the saying, “Oh, I am so much interested in human life. I have no time, no thought, no desire to give to the animal kingdom. It is all right enough for you sentimentalists, but I am not interested.” Yes, but even from a selfish point of view, if we do not care at all for any suffering, or anything which may come to the animal kingdom beside ourselves, it is of economic value to us.
I will choose but one example of the animal kingdom, and that is the birds, because it is said that all vegetation from the earth would cease if the birds existed no longer. It is very interesting to know that Longfellow appreciated this economic value of insectivorous birds long before there was any movement on foot for bird protection, and I wish you would all read the poem, the last of the Wayside Inn stories.
This very conservation of bird life is one of the things that is the great new problem of conservation of natural resources, and one in which you women take a hand and have the real control. I know you have heard so much about that I am not going to give you statistics as to what the birds do for agriculture. I am going to ask you a personal favor: that this fall when you choose your fall millinery, will you not think of your Chairman of your Conservation Department of the General Federation, and I beg you choose some other decoration for your hats. This is not sentiment. It is pure economics. You have no idea what you do when you wear these feathers, until you think really deeply into it, and I am not speaking of the egret, of the paradise feather, wholly, but of the less choice feathers. There is only one exception to this rule, and that is the wearing of the ostrich plume. That is a legitimate business and one to be encouraged. There is no reason why we should not use ostrich plumes if so we deem it best, but in regard to everything else in the way of feathers, let us turn over a new leaf for the fall. Will you not spread this gospel, not only to yourselves, but all the other women need to be asked to do the same thing? There are so many other articles, all the jets, the laces and ribbons. Will you not consider those things, even leaving out the sentiment?
I might cite for you many examples where conservation of natural resources works for the betterment of the human race, but I have just brought up a few of the most important.
Now, I want to say just a few words about the way to go to work to do some of these things. I will not go into the larger fields of forestry, or even into shade trees, except to emphasize the fact that while the shade tree is a very important one, and especially in the cities, we must never lose sight of the larger fact that after all it is not forestry, it does not stand for that, and that our arbor day, where we plant the one tree, should extend far beyond that. But I think one of our primary ways of working is to begin with the school, perhaps begin with the normal school. Many of the States have made great progress in that. I really have not the record of Indiana in that regard. I may be carrying coals to Newcastle to bring up this subject in Indiana. My own State, Massachusetts, stands very high in this line. Still I know there are many States that need this message. There is a great work to be done with the children, in making the school garden, and then the home garden; to teach the children to know what the soil is made of and how it should be treated, to make them love the growing flower and to make them respect the property of others. There we are laying the foundation of things for the next generation.
I know perhaps of no better book on the subject than that fine book for children, “The Land We Live In.” I sent a copy into each State of the United States last year, with a request to each of my State chairmen that she do all she could to introduce that work into the libraries of her State, and the schools, feeling sure that if every child could read that book or hear it read, he would have a different idea of the natural resources and the need of natural Conservation. Some of the States have hundreds and thousands of copies of this book, and I am sure it is doing a great propaganda work.
I am going to tell you a little story of how I became interested in these things. It was before I was out of school myself, although pretty nearly so. It was when the welfare work began of taking the children out in the country from the slums in the north end. I was personally acquainted with one of the teachers, who was among the first to take the children out in the fresh air to breathe and see the grass and flowers and trees that they had never seen before. One little boy, after he had looked around in amazement—it was in the fall of the year—saw the bright red apples on the trees, and he looked up and said, “Apples on trees, by God!”
It is overwhelming, isn’t it? I don’t wonder that you gasp at it. But look a little more deeply into it and see the pity of it. That child had been born and bred in the slums of the north end of Boston and actually had never seen apples on trees. He had seen apples in barrels. How did that poor child know that they did not grow in barrels? No, it had never occurred to him. They did not teach, in those days, the principles of horticulture in the schools. Was it not pathetic? Doesn’t that teach a lesson? That has come home to me many and many a time. I actually believe that was the foundation of my interest in Conservation. I think I was born with a love of the soil. And the story of the boy added to that, made me feel that I must know something about nature, about the fundamental principles, about the other side of life, the vegetable kingdom that supports the human life. Those two things combined taught me a lesson that I never, never could forget, and I wish you would think them over.
I will say to you this one message, while you are working for this thing of prime importance, the conservation of life, for which this Congress has stood at this fall meeting, do not forget that the conservation of life itself must be built on the solid foundation of conservation of natural resources, or it will be a house built upon the sands that will be washed away. It will not be lasting. I thank you. (Great applause.)