Ask this business council to formulate ways of making known not only the facts about forests and water supply, and the importance of these facts to every individual man, woman and child in the Nation, but why we in the United States average 131/2 bushels of wheat per acre, instead of 231/2 bushels, as they do in Germany, and 309/10 bushels in Great Britain; how this is making homestead lands scarce, and prices high, because we only get half the amount of crops we should get from the land we have under cultivation. When we find our production less to the acre each succeeding year and more mouths to feed, it is time everybody knew why.
Tell them in the simplest and most direct manner possible what is meant by the "pork barrel" in politics—how it is being used to retard the proper development of our natural resources, and why therefore it stands in the way of the Nation's progress. Let them know why we all have reason to thank God that we have in the White House a President who does not let politics silence his tongue on that subject or swerve him from his determination to stop this waste of the Nation's funds. (Applause)
Write up a short story of what Reclamation has done and can do in relieving the situation by opening up to us millions of acres of land which can and will add greatly to our food and meat supply; tell them what has already been accomplished and the progress that is still being made by reclamation work, to the great benefit of the people. Explain in a simple manner that hand in hand with the profitable development of our natural resources must go the development of our great waterways and railroads—that there can be no general prosperity without railroad prosperity; that our railroads and waterways are the connecting links which make our natural resources available, and that the practical value of our natural resources depends largely on the efficiency of our transportation service. (Applause)
Point out to them the lessons which we should get from cases of individual effort along the lines of modern methods in farming; how, for instance, Mr Claude Hollingsworth, near Colfax, Washington, raised this year 45 bushels of wheat to the acre, averaging 62 pounds to the bushel, and of barley 721/3 bushels to the acre, when his neighbors, with the same conditions of soil, climate, and rainfall, averaged only half as much; or in South Carolina, where Mr E. McI. Williamson has, by the proper application of fertilizers, modern methods, and little additional expense, increased his production of corn from 15 bushels per acre to an average of nearly 60 bushels, and of cotton from less than half a bale to an average of a bale per acre. Such examples are most convincing, and will do much to arouse interest in the practical value of Conservation.
The conservation of the National health deserves to be emphasized even when we have under consideration this general subject from purely a business standpoint. When we consider that tuberculosis alone costs the people of the State of New York over $200,000,000 per year, and that it is a preventable disease, and that that $200,000,000 might be used as capital to give to millions of people profitable and wholesome occupation, the relation of the health movement to the business interests of the country is self-evident.
Of course, this suggestion is based upon entire confidence in the cooperation of the daily press—I have no doubt about that whatever. The newspapers and magazines are not only most potent factors in spreading enlightenment, but they can always be depended on to take enthusiastic hold of any movement that is honestly and disinterestedly for the general good. (Applause)
This whole subject of Conservation is fundamentally a business proposition—a question of managing the people's business with the same care and foresight that we put into private business—a question of using the Nation's capital in a way that will produce a regular, steady and proper income year after year, and at the same time so safeguard the principal that the people of these United States may go on in business indefinitely.
History tells of many peoples who have spent their capital and disappeared from the face of the earth. Let us so organize this Nation's business that it may go on down the centuries as history's exception to the general rule of rise and fall (applause). As we point with pride, honor and gratitude to the signers of our Declaration of Independence and the makers of our Constitution, so may the coming generations of Americans, having in mind the fates of other peoples, look back with gratitude to us and have occasion to exclaim "See what would also have been our lot had it not been for the foresight and business judgment of our ancestors of the Twentieth Century—worthy successors of the great men who founded this Government of the people by the people and for the people, not only for their own time, but for all time." (Applause)
President Baker—Ladies and Gentlemen: Nothing is more important to Conservation than education; and I have the honor now to introduce the Commissioner of Education, Dr Elmer Ellsworth Brown, who will address you on "Education and Conservation."