It has therefore come about, in connection with this one-sided development, that we have lost sight of that great subject which we have for consideration today—the conservation of human life. We have been too busy to think about it. We have jumped on and off street cars and railway trains; we have slipped on our waxed floors; we have met with all sorts of serious accidents in our fast automobiles and flying machines; yet we ask, “Why are these miners so careless as to kill themselves, and these railroad employes?” And we are just as bad as they are. So let us not talk about careless railway employes, or careless miners, but stop to think what we can do to help the entire situation. Let us ask ourselves the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” and there is but one answer, and that is in the affirmative.
I want to call attention to the fact that we have in this country two great foundations of industry. We have always considered agriculture as the great foundation industry of the country, but we have another—mining. The savage did not need any mines. He only wants a limited amount of material for clothing, and a large amount of material in the way of something to eat. He does not need the great modern appliances which we have today. When we drew up the Constitution of this country we did not think the mining industry of much importance, and it was not possible to anticipate the great complex social fabric which we have in the United States today. A man said to me the other day that he thought if Thomas Jefferson could see the things that we are asking of this great Federal Government, he would not know what to do. My own judgment is that he would advocate the doing by this Federal Government of all the things that this great American people demand that it do today. (Applause.) The trouble is that while we were making this tremendous progress, all of the people were not keeping pace, and perhaps it is well that this is true, because if there was nobody to hold back we would not only progress too rapidly, but progress in too many one-sided ways.
We recognize, furthermore, that while agriculture has made tremendous strides, and in large measure because of the investigations conducted under the Federal Government, other branches of industry have made rapid strides, but they have been forced to one-sided development in order to keep pace. It needs, then, the great co-operating influence of some great force like the Federal Government to help keep the industries from becoming one-sided.
The mining industry touches us on every hand, and today in a great hall like this, where you can find materials from every part of the world, you will find they came from the mine, or were manufactured through the agency of the products of the mine. We can not do anything on a large scale today without the aid of this great mining industry. During last March, the English people awakened to a realization of that fact. They did not consider mining as one of the great fundamental industries, but the stopping of the coal mines for four weeks stopped all the industries of the British, and they came to the conclusion that the very life of the nation was in danger by the cessation of coal mining.
Mining and Conservation should be linked very closely together. Men realize the fact that with agriculture, the resources increase year by year. We increase the fertility of the soil by taking the nitrogen from the air, and from that we get the crops, so that the wealth of the country based on agriculture is easily predicated. The mining industry is just the reverse. We started in this country with greater mineral resources than we will ever have again. Furthermore, in agriculture we have the healthiest vocation known, while mining is the most dangerous industry in the world.
Now, this mining industry has increased so rapidly that we have not been able to take care of many of the difficulties that have arisen, nor do we have a realization of how rapid that increase has been. We have increased in forty years from less than a ton to every man, woman and child, to, in the last year, six tons. Forty years ago a pound of iron, as compared with thirteen today for every man, woman and child. And so it has been with the great industries—they are increasing so much more rapidly than the population that it is hard to tell what has become of this increase, and one of the questions is, can this increase continue? Some of our great statesmen in Washington who have been fighting this Conservation movement, say it can not continue. The fact that the mining industry has nearly doubled every ten years, they say can not continue. But no man today would say that this country will not continue to grow, and as it grows this great mining industry will increase also. We are just entering upon our development. We are just beginning to export the products of our mines, so when we ask the question whether this great Nation will continue to grow, and this industry will increase, there is but one answer, and that is in the affirmative. We ask another question—are these resources inexhaustible? And there is but one answer, and that is in the negative, because we are now beginning to see the end of some of these resources. Shall we curtail the development of an industry like this and not supply the needs of the people? Our politicians ask this and expect us to answer in the affirmative, but no conservationist answers it that way. We say, no, the needs increase and we must meet the needs.
What can we do to perpetuate the welfare of the country? There are but two things we can do, and they are fairly easy to do. Use more and more efficiently all the resources, and prevent unnecessary waste. Now, in connection with this wasteful use of our resources, you say, after all, is there any great waste? What can we do to stop it? Only a few years ago the State of Indiana thought its natural gas was gone, so it passed laws forbidding the waste of natural gas; the Supreme Court of the United States confirmed such an act in regard to coal—after the coal was gone. One of the Supreme Judges said that a man who owns a coal mine had a legal right to destroy it if he wished to. But in the State of New York one of the associate justices overruled the Supreme Justice, and in every case the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as the Supreme Court of the several States, have shown a desire to keep pace with the progress of this country in interpreting the Constitution of the United States for the permanent future welfare of the people of this country. (Applause.) There are a good many signs of improvement, not only in what the Federal and State Governments are doing, but in what private individuals are doing.
Only yesterday, I went through the great plant at Gary, and I found the United States Steel Corporation was using two million horse-power developed from gases from its own operations, which only a few years ago was allowed to go to waste, and that power is not only operating all the machinery of that company, but is supplying the power for other industries in the immediate vicinity. I found that the slag coming from the furnaces, which in many great manufacturing sections of the country we see piled up in great, unsightly masses, is all being converted into cement, and that cement is being used by the people of this country. And so we find an interesting situation—that the steel being manufactured by that plant is likely soon to be a by-product, and not the main product for which the plant is operated.
And so it is when we watch the great industries of this country. Under this great spirit of Conservation individuals are meeting the Federal Government and State more than half way, and they are finding what is the greatest basis of permanent success—that it pays to conserve our resources. And when that great company does any mining for ore in the lake country, instead of burying the materials which they cannot use today, they are laying that material to one side, so that just as soon as it becomes useful it will be immediately available for preparation for that purpose.
Out of five hundred million tons of coal mined last year, we wasted, by leaving it underground, no less than two hundred million tons. Meanwhile, if we could have exported that coal to Central or South America and brought back from these countries raw materials which we could use in manufacture, it would be something worth doing; but to waste it entirely is nothing more than a discredit to this nation. But what are we going to do about it? The coal operator cannot change the situation, because he is doing the best he can at the price he gets; the miner cannot change the situation, because he is doing the best he can at the price he is paid. It is not simply a question for chemists and engineers—it is a problem for statesmen, and the statesman is the man who must remedy the economic conditions.