Address, “The Story of the Air”
Mr. Moore—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I have been trying to reason out why the management put me at the end of the program, and I have concluded that they had an idea that along about this time in the proceedings they would need to have some one take the platform that had supervision over atmospheric air of abnormal temperature.
Now, why should one wish to conserve the atmosphere? I shall try to show you that that is one of the assets of this continent, and, I am afraid, almost the only one, that cannot be monopolized. (Applause.) And you will be surprised, and probably doubt my statement when I say that, with all due respect to the matter of conservation of our wonderful mineral deposits, the controlling of the flow of our streams, the preservation of our great forests—all of them important—we have in the atmosphere one of our greatest assets, if not the greatest asset of our continent. Humboldt has said that “Man is a product of soil and climate. He is brother to the trees, the rock and the animals.” All true, but still I would slightly modify that and say that man is largely a product of climate. For it is the action of rainfall, flood and temperature changes that makes soil.
I shall try to show you that it is climatic conditions that produce this wonderful, this powerful, this resourceful composite man called the American.
I am to speak on “The Story of the Air,” but before I elucidate any further, let me give you a little picture of this wonderful ocean, on the bottom of which you live.
In the turbulent stratum in which we live we have vortices in the atmosphere which cause weather. Weather is the result of the motions of air; it is the result of the dynamic heating and cooling of ascending and descending currents of air. If it were not for these vortices cooling the air and heating it, you would have precisely the same temperature on any day of one year as you would have on the same day in another year. You would not have one first day of June warmer than the first day of July, or the first day of December colder than the first day of January.
To demonstrate my first proposition that we have a great asset in the climate of the United States, I call your attention to some of the conditions in Europe. Their great mountain ranges trend east and west; ours trend north and south. Cyclonic storms originate largely from conflict of equatorial and polar currents coming together. The currents of air come together in the lower stratum. In Europe the great mountain ranges prevent that conflict; but not so here, with our mountain ranges running north and south. Here is the great meteorological theater of the world, the region of conflict. What is the result? A people powerful physically and resourceful mentally. An actual air is pure and invigorating.
Now, I just have a thought that may not be germane, but it is upon my mind. I remember some years ago I wrote a report that dealt with the relations of forests and floods. Although from the inception of this movement I have been heart and soul with the people back of it, still because I do not agree with some of my friends on forestry, on the effect of forests on the flow of streams, I was classified as an enemy of the cause. I wish to say that it is a mistake to bring a fallacious reasoning to any good doctrine. I believe it is a positive injury to attempt to sustain truth by falsehood. I do not mean that anybody is wilfully untruthful—no, simply mistaken. There are so many reasons why we should conserve and protect, why we should use wisely our great forest areas, that there is no need to bring to the support of that great project anything like a reason that can be successfully attacked and refuted. I am satisfied, and as time goes on and other investigators come along and go over my data, I am thoroughly well convinced that the forests do not exert a great controlling influence over floods. I am satisfied that the percentage of floods has not increased for the past forty years. When we remove one vegetable covering like the forests, if we go on and plant wheat, or corn, or grass, we simply exchange one form of vegetable covering for another. If we cut the forests away and leave them, they will at once begin the process of reforestation, and within a few weeks the ground is shaded. If you grub out the roots and stumps and plow, you change one form of vegetable covering for another, and the history of the United States, as well as of the world, does not bear out the statement that the floods have increased with the disappearing of the forests; nor has it been shown that any part of the world has been materially changed in its climatic conditions as a result of civilization or the coming of man. But that is no reason why the forests should not be protected and a wise use made of them.
Let us get down to facts. Just so long as the Gulf of Mexico lies down there on the south, and the great Atlantic remains on the east, just so long rainfall in the United States will be as voluminous on the great cereal plains as it was when the first white man set foot on the continent, and in its movement back to the sea the permeable, cultivated soil of the unforested acres will doubtless as well conserve and restrict its flow as the forests. We have over-estimated the effect of the little scratchings upon the earth’s surface by the activities of man. The coming civilization of the great West is immaterial in causing an increase in rainfall. When you stop to consider the enormous volume of the atmosphere above the surface, whose vaporous contents must be materially changed and the thermal conditions altered before you can detract from the rainfall, you will realize how absurd are some popular theories. I do not agree. I radically differ from some of my contemporaries in the Department of Agriculture—but people may differ and still be friends. They may differ in regard to the details of a great movement and still not be inimical to its best interests. The man who differs and brings forth the truth is the best friend of the movement, because nothing can stand long that is not predicated on truth.
I am glad to see that in this movement your managers have brought together so many independent lines of human activity. This great movement is only at its inception. I predict that this Conservation Congress will be one of the most potent factors in the Nation for the developing and awakening of the people. You are willing now to have a free forum, to have free discussion by those of differing opinions. And at this time, Mr. President, when there is such great conflict among the forces that make for civilization, we must not only protect ourselves morally and mentally, we must with equal earnestness attempt to conserve and protect the human individual. He is the greatest asset we can have, after all. (Applause.)