President’s Address
President White—This is a proud day for the officers of this Congress, for its delegates from the different States, and for the friends of Conservation everywhere, to be welcomed so hospitably, not only for ourselves who are strangers within your gates, but generously because of your sympathy in the great cause for which we stand. The citizens of your great city are noted for their public spirit, for their broad culture, and as being always found in the van with the army of those of progressive ideas. It is very fitting that the State of Indiana should have this Congress within its borders because of the immense interest shown and all the valuable help given by its citizens in the conservation of all natural resources, especially of human life and soil fertility.
To become the best, to do the best for all in a community, we must each develop the best within us, and must find our greatest reward in something far beyond the mere accumulation of dollars. Our community of interests recognizes a reciprocity of duty each to and for the other. Our title to the regard of our fellow men must come from our devotion to them and our love of humanity and its highest ideals, and not from selfish zeal in accumulating monetary wealth, which only represents the toil, the waste, and the necessities of human lives. This has been and is the age of commercialism. The measure of success has been gauged by the amount of money accumulated. In the language of Goldsmith, our country was in danger of descending to a condition “where wealth accumulates and men decay.” But I believe a turning point has been reached; and that we are entering upon a new era, a more glorious conception of higher duties for mankind; so that it shall not be asked: “What hath he taken from others in the competitive struggle for existence,” but rather: “What hath he given to others of himself for their advancement and development?” He who lives only for himself and does not plant for those that are to come after him, lives in vain. I believe the time is near at hand when a man shall be regarded with pity and as very poor indeed, who has nothing but money selfishly gained for selfish use.
The Conservation Congress of the United States has a great field to occupy. Its labors are for the betterment of its citizens in every way. Its work is to seek for the best methods to do the greatest good to all for this and for future generations. And in this there is no partisan politics; but it is such good national politics, that each party will strive only in seeking for the best methods for the common good.
Human life, with its possible attainments, is far beyond valuation in money. We should reverse the tables; and instead of human life being estimated in dollars, the dollar should be valued only for what it can do for greater humanity. Dr. Holmes, Director of the United States Bureau of Mines, in illustrating waste of material resources, says that in producing one half billion tons of coal, we waste or leave underground one quarter of a billion tons. And then only eleven per cent of the energy in coal is utilized; nearly ninety per cent is lost through inefficiency of boilers, engines and dynamos. How great a per cent. are we wasting of human life and human efficiency? We will have abundance of all the necessaries of life, and even of life itself, if we wisely save, wisely develop and protect, and wisely use. Human life is our greatest asset, and its waste is a permanent loss. The wealth of the nation is in its men, thrifty, honest, capable and patriotic men—in their moral and physical health, the foundation of their highest efficiency. The milestones of a nation’s progress are recorded in the history of every generation. In India, the average duration of life is twenty-five years; in Sweden more than fifty years; in the State of Massachusetts (the State where most careful records have been taken) it is over forty-five years. Wherever sanitary and highest medical science has been applied, it has been found possible to increase the span of life. In Europe it is said to have doubled in three and a half centuries. The report from Massachusetts shows an increase of fourteen years in the past century. So this humanitarian cause is surely a most economic, worthy and profitable one. In figuring from the standpoint of capital, Prof. Mayo Smith estimates that men and women between fifteen and forty-five years of age are worth an average of one thousand dollars. But figuring from a human standpoint, they are worth all that there is, money being only one of the tools to work with in effecting exchange of commodities, and the products of brawn and brain. We want to increase the ratio of the value of man to the soil, of man to all and any of his products, of man to money, and to put man first all the time. (Applause.)
We will increase the fertility and productiveness of the soil and we will enlarge the scope and increase the efficiency of the man. We waste in production as well as in consumption. In agriculture we will say that we will make the soil produce so many bushels per acre per man. The man will be first in his wise application of labor and methods and of means to an end. The “limits of subsistence” under what political economists used to call their “law of diminishing returns” has no fear for the conservationist. The developing of human intelligence is enlarging the production of the soil. Irrigation, where possible, and where impossible the science of what is called dry farming brings increasing results. Old farms in Europe produce more than they did 300 years ago, and this will prove true with us, and there will be no starvation for the human race because of increasing population.
And so will it be with all other industries, occupations and professions. He will be greatest who accomplishes most for man. For the brotherhood of man was the world made and the fullness thereof. Such freedom as may benefit any individual and does not in any way work to the injury of others is natural justice to all. Competition shall be robbed of the “red tooth and the bloody claw,” and co-operation and development for the good of all shall be the supreme object of all our efforts.
We will protect our watersheds by growing forests, and learn to control our floods, prevent soil erosion, and store the water, and convert its power into electricity, and from electricity produce light, heat and power in undiminishing quantity forever. In nearly every State there is daily flowing to waste power enough, if arrested and utilized on its way to the sea, to turn every wheel of industry and to move the traffic of commerce, and furnish light and heat for every city. It is said that the wheel does not turn with water that is past, but other wheels farther down the stream do, and the power is used again and again and finally pumped back by the sun to the mountains and plains to forever repeat the process of service to mankind. New discoveries are being made, and the use for by-products is being multiplied so that they are often found to be of greater use than the product from which they are derived. We must protect our forests by preventing forest fires. Government and State appropriations must be made sufficient for this purpose. In the report of the Conservation Commission to the President, it is stated that fifty million acres are burned over annually, and since 1870 there has been lost each year an average of fifty lives and fifty million dollars’ worth of timber. The lumbermen’s interests are to prevent fires and to stop waste; and they are anxious to co-operate with the State and with associations for this purpose, and are already doing so in many places. The true, saving features of forestry are becoming better understood, and better applied; and we will save our forests, and will grow trees, wherever necessary and profitable, the same as any other crop; and there will be no timber famine in the near or distant future. Our foresters are studying the experience of France, Austria, Italy, and Switzerland, coupled with our own experience, and we are making successful progress. In Kansas five years ago, according to President Waters of the State Agricultural College, there was only one school that taught agriculture. Now nearly five hundred high schools and more than six thousand rural schools are teaching the principles of agriculture, forestry and domestic science.
The Commissioner of Internal Revenue reports that for the official year 1912 ending June 30, the people of the United States drank more whisky and rum and smoked more cigarettes than ever before in its history. The smoking of over 11,221,000,000 cigarettes exceeded the record of 1911 by nearly two billions. Does this make for or against human efficiency? In this huge traffic is it the man or the dollar that stands first in importance? Popular education will be the source of protection, that all may have a fair chance for a useful life. There are other great factors of vice and crime leading to national decay. Also there is the enormous waste of human life by our railroads, mills, mines and factories amounting to tens of thousands annually, and those permanently injured and made a burden to themselves and to society to tens of thousands more. In no civilized country in the world is this loss anywhere near as great in proportion to work accomplished as in the United States. The greatest part of this immense loss can be prevented. (Applause.)
Here is thought and work for those in the department of vital statistics and those in charge of our health departments, who are laboring for the conservation of human life. Surely there is a great moral and economic need for this national organization. May this Congress, which now begins the work of its program, prove to be another step in advance of its predecessors in the labor of love and of progressive activities. The work in this vineyard is for both men and women; for him with one talent as well as for him with ten talents. Conservation should be taught in our schools and preached in our churches. It is a call of and for all the people.
In the language of the official call of this Congress, the objects of this Congress are “to provide for discussion of the resources of the United States as the foundation for the prosperity of the people; to furnish definite information concerning the resources and their development, use and preservation, and to afford an agency through which the people of the country may frame policies and principles affecting the conservation and utilization of their resources and to be put into effect by their representatives in State and Federal governments.” (Applause.)
President White—The preliminary organization has now been completed. It was expected that the President of the United States would be present to honor this occasion, at the opening of this Congress, or it was at least hoped that it would be possible for him to do so, but before he knew that he would send a personal representative he wrote a letter of greeting to the Congress, which I will now read:
MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT.