Governor Eberhart—Mr President, Members of the Congress, Ladies and Gentlemen: When I was invited to appear before this Congress and bid you welcome, it was suggested that I also outline what the people of Minnesota felt when they sought to have this splendid gathering at Saint Paul.
I am sure that no State or city could receive greater honor than to have the President of the United States come fifteen hundred miles to deliver the most important message on Conservation that has ever been presented to the people of this great country. (Applause) Yet I am not going to take more than the twenty minutes allotted to assure you that the only interest this State has in the Conservation movement is that which every true friend of the movement stands for. Last night I cut out the meat of my remarks, this morning the bones, and now there is nothing left but the nerve, and I have scarcely enough "nerve" to deliver it. (Laughter and applause)
The Conservation of natural resources does not consist merely in the preservation of these resources for the benefit of future generations, but rather such present use thereof as will result in the greatest general good and yet maintain that productive power which insures continued future enjoyment. (Applause) While it is true that exhaustible resources like mineral wealth cannot be conserved for both future and present use, except by economic regulations and the prevention of wasteful methods, Conservation deals with their distribution in such a way as to prevent their control by grasping corporations and individuals, who would monopolize them for their own exclusive benefit at the expense of the general public. (Applause)
It follows necessarily that any theory of Conservation which does not provide for the present as well as the future does not cover the entire field and cannot possibly bring the best results. (Applause) From every economic standpoint it is desirable that the present generation should be preferred, since future discoveries and inventions may render present resources of less value and importance to the coming generations.
In its broadest sense the Conservation movement is not limited merely to the consideration of natural resources. Every great convention called to consider the problems involved has widened the scope of the movement so that today it includes the elimination of wasteful methods in almost every field of human activity and the conservation of all human endeavor so as to confer on all mankind the greatest blessings that a bounteous nature and twenty centuries of enlightenment can bestow.
Every consideration of natural resources for the purpose of eliminating wasteful methods, preserving and increasing productive power, as well as regulating operation and control, has for its ultimate object the conservation of human energy, health and life, the securing of equal opportunities for all, and such dissemination of knowledge as will guarantee the continual possession and enjoyment of these blessings. The subjects for consideration by this Congress should, therefore, include not only the restoration and increase of soil fertility, the protection and development of forests, mines and water-powers, the reclamation of arid and swamp lands by irrigation and drainage, the forestation of areas unsuited to farming, the control of rivers by reservoirs so as to prevent flooding, as well as the elimination of waste in the use of these resources, but also the problems of public comfort, health and life that are so intimately connected with all material and intellectual development. (Applause) Many of these questions will concern home attractions and management, industrial education in the public schools, public highways, State advertising and settlement, pure food, public health, and sanitation.
By far the most important of all natural resources is the soil, and the maintenance and increase of its fertility must, therefore, be given the greatest consideration. (Applause) As long as food is necessary to human life, agriculture must continue to be the most vital industry of man, and the farm will be the most general and indispensable theater of his activity. We must have manufacture, art, schools, churches and government to round out our sphere of civilized existence, but the foundation of them all is the farm. (Applause) From the earth come all the materials for manufactures, the commodities of commerce, and ultimately the support of all human institutions. During the half century just past our country has devoted its energies to the development of manufacturing and commercial industries to such an extent that the scientific methods of agriculture necessary to insure not only the permanency of our institutions but the very existence of human life itself have been comparatively neglected. The pendulum is now swinging back to the farm, and our great Nation is becoming aroused to the fact that its most vital concern is the elimination of soil waste, the promotion of scientific methods of agriculture, and the conservation of that soil fertility which is the foundation of our entire social, political and commercial superstructure. (Applause)
This new birth of agricultural progress comes at a psychological moment. We have developed American manufactures until the $16,000,000,000 product of our mills and factories exceeds that of Germany, France, and the United Kingdom combined. (Applause) We have built railroads by liberal public and private enterprise until the United States has about one-half of all the railway mileage and tonnage of the world. We have developed banking enterprise and home trade until we have the greatest banking power on earth, and an internal commerce which far exceeds the entire foreign commerce of the globe. We have become the model of the world in our free public schools and our republican form of government. But while we have demonstrated the possession of the greatest agricultural resources on the globe, and have heretofore supplied the world's markets with an unparalleled volume of farm products, we have wasted a wealth that would maintain our population for centuries. The loss in farm values in nearly all of the older States, as shown by the census records from 1880 to 1900, varies from $1,000,000 to $160,000,000 in each State and aggregates the enormous total of more than $1,000,000,000. Is this not sufficient to arouse the entire Nation and cause such a wave of reform as will put into activity every agency and instrumentality for scientific and progressive methods of agricultural reconstruction?
The unprecedented agricultural growth of the United States, in spite of wasteful methods, has been caused by the extraordinary fertility of its virgin soil, the great inducement offered by States and Nation to promote settlement and cultivation, the rapid growth of favorable transportation facilities, as well as the great demand for agricultural products resulting from the rapid increase of population, wealth and commercial enterprise.