Address of Welcome for the City of Indianapolis
Mr. Lieber—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: It is a very great pleasure and a distinguished honor to welcome you to our city upon this auspicious occasion. The City of Indianapolis deeply appreciates your coming and knows that through participation in your assemblages and deliberations it will materially profit in those matters which are of such vast and comprehensive benefit to its citizens. From here, through your able and learned speakers, potential knowledge will be disseminated throughout the length and breadth of our beloved country, which, in its application, will increase the happiness, contentment and usefulness of our people.
You have come here to consider most serious problems regarding the conservation of national wealth, more particularly that of vital resources, and above all, the conservation of human life.
For that reason, coupled with our welcome, is our expression of thanks for your coming, for “your worth is warrant of your welcome.”
The thought of conservation is comparatively new. It marks a new era in the development of the country, and nowhere are its lessons more intensely needed than in a country like ours, vast in its expanse, relatively sparsely populated and apparently inexhaustible in its natural riches.
But are these riches inexhaustible? Can we go on in the manner of our fathers and forefathers, who frequently had to destroy in self defense?
Not since the days of the migration of nations, not even since the legendary days of the fall of Troy has the world witnessed anything like this stupendous conquest of a virgin continent. It is an intensified Iliad of modern days. No comparison with former ages can suffice. What are even the wondrous tales of Moses’ messengers of the great land where “floweth milk and honey” compared with the gigantic proportions and abounding riches of this modern promised land?
That the pioneer, coming to this land was destructive before he could be constructive is a matter of historical truth. It could not have been otherwise. He fought civilization’s battle, that civilization may enjoy peace and prosperity. But some of these destructive habits of the settler have taken root in our being and destruction has continued where construction was needed. What have the American people not wasted! Land and water, fish and game, coal, natural gas and too many other riches. Above all, how many useful and dear lives are drawn into the surging maelstrom of our national waste through indifference, carelessness and greed!
We find ourselves confronted here with the anamorphosis of civilization.
Human sacrifice belongs to a dark and unenlightened day, but the human sacrifice in mills and mines, in railroads and sweatshops in our time is a dark blot upon our civilization. (Applause.)
In this mad chase after things material at any cost, we must pause, for a nation will become unbalanced in its natural progress if its spiritual and intellectual advance be retarded.
Conservation wishes to bring about a more harmonious blending of these national needs. It teaches a wholesome regard for created values, it preaches the sanctity of a child’s life and the economic value of our boys’ and girls’ health, and aside from general consideration where is an application of conservation ideals and principles more needed than in our cities. We must learn that a good man’s or woman’s example in the community is more beneficial and of greater force than a mere ordinance. Virtue, righteousness and high principle spring from the seen of teaching that has fallen in mind and heart; they are inculcated but cannot be legislated. (Applause.)
CHARLES LATHROP PACK
PRESIDENT, FIFTH NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS
Would it not in this connection be braver for us fathers and mothers to speak openly to our boys and girls concerning the dangers that beset them in their course of life end thus turn the energies of their lives into the board avenues of light, strength and usefulness than to let them be drawn into the abysmal chasm of a veritable hell of human waste. Would it not be better to save, to lessen the inflow, than to clog the mouth of this human sewer by police orders after prudery, hypocrisy and cowardice have filled it? (Applause.) We are everlastingly treating symptoms instead of diseases, attacking effects instead of causes, and we persistently thereby aggravate the malady.
Let us have more light of thought, more air of true freedom and a deeper and more sympathetic understanding of our own needs and those of our fellow man that we may be enabled to show the folly of vice, the contentment of virtue; that we may alleviate pain and want, and that the warmth of human sympathy may send hope to the hopeless, courage to the faltering and faith to the despondent.
With these fervent wishes the City of Indianapolis welcomes the Fourth National Conservation Congress. (Applause.)
President White—These words of welcome, coming from a different point of view, are felt deeply by us all. We feel the spur of duty still greater.
It is very fitting that another side of conservation should be heard from. The business men, the local business organizations of a city have done a good work for conservation. Human efficiency is one of the greatest forces that move the world, and systematic organization is one of the greatest powers towards efficient conservation of life and of all material progress. A business man knows that his success depends upon perfect organization, and that perfect organization is just as necessary to the conservation of every natural resource.
I have the pleasure of introducing to you Mr. Winfield Miller, of Indianapolis, who speaks on behalf of the local business organizations. (Applause.)