Address on Behalf of the Local Business Organizations
Mr. Miller—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: When I was honored by the commercial organizations of Indianapolis with the invitation to extend for them a few words of greeting and welcome to this National Conservation Congress, I looked into the biggest book, the Dictionary, for a definition of the word “Conservation.” I found the word concisely defined to mean “the art of preserving from decay, loss or injury.” While the definition is not extended, it is comprehensive and can be readily amplified to cover every phase of the question.
I then turned to the greatest book, the Bible, and read that early edict which still holds good, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” Over this ancient decree and its cause, there have been volumes of theological commiseration, but in the light of subsequent history, it is now generally agreed that man has been a greater force in the garden of the world that if he had remained in the Garden of Eden.
The thought occurs, however, that resting under the edict of life-long toil man would, from an early period, have practiced conservation in all things. But he soon discovered that “the earth and the fulness thereof” were his, and, as ever, has been injuriously careless of results.
Again, he was not left without hope. The same great authority, in language and grandeur of thought unsurpassed, gives a promise of perpetual inspiration, in this, that “While the earth remaineth, seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” This promise, according to accepted chronology, has the confirmation of forty centuries of time and gives man the assurance of a continued field in which to do his work. The earth, the air, the waters are his environment; they are immutable, unchangeable. The animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms furnish him food, clothing, shelter, life. Their best use should be his first and highest consideration.
Nature has been prodigal in her gifts to man. Her kingdoms have been his to rightfully exploit. But too long and too often has selfish and neglectful exploitation been his purpose and practice.
There is abundance for all if nature’s forces are properly conserved and her products fairly distributed. But some men, in their greed and haste, have grabbed a thousand-fold more than their necessities or happiness required. They eat their bread in the sweat of the other man’s face. On the other hand, the many have been ignorantly neglectful of the opportunities of their environments—so that life presses hard, too hard. Avarice, ignorance, waste, have linked arms to the detriment of civilization.
We must strive for the necessities of food, clothing and shelter. These sustain animal life, which is worth while; but animal life, endowed with the highest moral and mental strength, is the goal to be reached, for the summit of man’s ambitions should shine with human comfort and happiness. Conservation is the road to that summit and this National Congress has convened to further blaze the path and light the road. (Applause.)
Inventions of the last century, mostly within the half century, have injected into the field of travel and communication means that excite profound admiration; chemical analysis of the air and soil have shown that the food supply of the world, if nature’s forces are properly conserved, is without limit; while the mighty strides made in the better understanding of the physical needs of man himself insure the race at large improved health and longer life.
May I briefly indulge in a few common illustrations? The telegraph, the telephone, the automobile, steam and electric power save time and shorten distance. In that part of commerce relating to traffic we have caught the spirit of conservation. The railroad builder no longer takes the route of the least resistance in construction, but applies the geometric proposition that the straightest line is the shortest distance between two given points, works to that end, meets the difficulties of engineering, reduces gradients, and practically builds his road along the line of least resistance, conserves time, saves energy, increases efficiency and lessens rates.
The school books tell us of the “Seven Wonders” of the ancient world—the Pyramids, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and so on; all to gratify the vanity of kings and queens; not one for the advancement of civilization.
In a little more than two years the dream of four centuries will be realized—the Panama Canal will be completed. The distance from the Occident to the Orient will be shortened seven thousand miles—the truly modern wonder in advancing civilization and practical conservation. (Applause.)
While the physical aspects of this mighty work, as they relate to the traffic and commerce of the world, stand out in bold relief, but little less, if any, in achievement, is the practical demonstration that scientific sanitary methods can clean the plague spots of the world and make them healthy and habitable for man.
Who can compute the saving of time and energy this mighty work will bestow on the generations to come. Long after the passions of this generation have ceased, history will record the names of the strong men who have brought to full consummation this great waterway, as true benefactors of mankind.
At this time, our public press is ecstatic over the great harvests of 1912 that promise such abounding prosperity. Some writers are so extravagant as to say that the bountiful yields from our soil make an epoch in history. To speak of one crop only, the corn, or Indian maize crop, spreads over 108,000,000 acres, and is estimated to be 3,000,000,000 bushels. How enormous! At fifty cents a bushel, its money value would be $1,500,000,000, or $16.00 to every man, woman and child in the United States. Measured in bread, there would be enough to give to each of our 93,000,000 of people a five-cent loaf for more than 320 days, or nearly one full year. As gratifying as this is, the average yield is only twenty-seven bushels per acre; while it is shown that, by proper selection of seed, cultivation and fertilization of the soil, easily twice the yield could be produced, which would double the benefits enumerated.
How often do we pass a barren field, the soil too impoverished to grow wire grass, nettles, or thistles. The every-day farmer will tell you that a crop or two of clover will restore the necessary plant life to the soil of that field, and again make it blossom like the rose. He knows from practical observation and experience the cure, if he cannot scientifically trace the cause of the transformation.
Truly truth is stranger than fiction. Back of the restoration of a thousand barren fields restored to productiveness in the simply way named, lies one of the world’s greatest romances in patient scientific investigation that will continue to bring untold benefits to mankind. You know the story of Professor Nobbe, of Forest Academy, Germany. He also knew that clover and other legumens of the plant family would restore fertility to the soil. But why? After long and exhaustive study, labor and experiment, he found that the clover family were nature’s chemist of the soil; that by an invisible, intangible cord of attraction they drew from the inexhaustible reservoir of the air nitrogen so necessary to plant and animal life.
We are told that “nitrogen is what makes the muscles and brain of man; that it is the essential element of all elements in the growth of animals and plants, and, significantly enough, it is also the chief constituent of the gunpowder and other explosives with which the wars of the world are waged. The single discharge of a 13-inch gun liberates enough nitrogen to produce scores of bushels of wheat.”
Some day, through this agency, man may turn his attention entirely from war to the production of food, and in that hour true conservation of life will have reached its triumph.
We are further told that four-fifths of the air we breath is nitrogen, and that four-fifths of the atmosphere around us is nitrogen, so that if mankind dies of nitrogen starvation, it will die with food everywhere in and about it.
So that, while the human race may be but from three to six months behind abject starvation, the fact begins to appear that through science “mankind has just begun to sound the world’s capacity for food production and that it is practically limitless.”
The proper conservation of the soil by the application of the research of scientific discovery means increased yields of all plant crops, with but little greater expenditure of energy. This would enable the producer of food and clothing to sell more pounds, bushels and yards at less cost, and still reap as great reward for his labor as at present. This would forestall the Malthusian doctrine that population increases faster than the means of subsistence and, still better, would help to solve the high cost of living that presses so sorely upon the millions throughout the world today. Man is a productive machine; so the more machines of the highest type the world possesses the better for the world.
This conservation movement that is so strongly taking hold of the minds of thinking men and women, is so big, so broad and so comprehensive that it covers every phase of human thought and activity in what is best and highest for the individual as well as organized society. It is education in the broadest sense.
The Golden Rule is not only a statement but a living principle. To teach that a just distribution of nature’s gifts to each individual who is willing to earn and conserve his share is a recognition of that principle.
The City of Indianapolis esteems it a high honor to have this Congress with us. To all of its members, and especially to the distinguished men from other lands who have come to give us their best thought upon the various questions affecting this great movement, we extend our most cordial welcome and greeting, and our deep appreciation of your presence.
Our commercial organizations also cordially join in holding the door of welcome and hospitality open to you, and bespeak for your deliberations their kindest sympathy and deepest interest.