George Aitkin
Vermont Conservation Commission
The Commission on the Conservation of the Natural Resources of Vermont has no statutory existence, but was originally appointed by Governor Fletcher D. Proctor in support of the general Conservation movement instituted by the Conference of Governors at Washington in May of 1908. The Commission has been continued by parole of Governor George H. Prouty.
It has recognized and been in absolute sympathy with the principles fundamental to Conservation work, namely, that conservative use and, where practicable, the intelligent maintenance and restoration of natural resources are indispensable to the continued prosperity of State and Nation and of inter-nations; that State boundaries or National boundaries do not confine and limit natural resources; that it has become the sacred duty of State and Nation to take measures for the preservation on the people's account of all the means of their life, welfare, and comfort, including soils, water, minerals, and forests; these to be safeguarded as public utilities to be used and treated in the interests of future as well as of existing generations, and to be stripped of every vestige of monopoly and trust.
Apart from the conservation of these necessary and material things, we have been interested in the advancement also of what is nearly as, if not more, important, the conservation of health, the retention and improvement of our self-governing opportunities, the equalizing and qualification of educational opportunity, and of every phase of civic, moral and social advance. Vermont is mainly interested directly in the conservation and right use of public health, of its soil, of its forests and woodlots, of its water supplies, of its quarries of granite, marble, and slate, of its game and fish, and in its steadfast attention to educational opportunity and the administration of justice. For the greater part it possesses a very widespread individual ownership and control in all its natural resources and their development and use. It has for decades prior to the so-called Conservation movement supervised and fostered all these economies through legislation; so that it may be said that the State has gradually but definitely applied the principles of Conservation to its affairs and its resources for many years prior to the existing discussion of the subject. This is true in connection with quarrying, agriculture, forestry, and water supplies, though it should be added that Conservation subjects have been much more prominently considered in recent years with increasing advantage to the farmers of the State and also with an increase in manufactures.
Our method of legislation and the machinery of our self-government represent an evolution and are the result of much and intimate public discussion, and they are working out good economic results. Perhaps this may best be indicated by a reference to the legislation passed in 1908. There was enacted a law which abolished the Board of Agriculture, and substituted in its place a Board of Agriculture and Forestry, consisting of the Governor, the director of the State Agricultural Experiment Station, and two citizens known to be interested in the advancement of agriculture and forestry. The disbursement of the appropriation under this Act was left discretionary between agriculture and forestry, and the results in the brief elapsing period since its passage have been very gratifying. In addition to this there were acts sustaining the work of the State Agricultural College, providing for increased support of agricultural fairs, for the acquisition of forest reserves, for the appointment and maintenance of a State Forester, for the more definite supervision of all agricultural interests, and for a more direct inspection of cattle and of dairies. The appropriations of 1908 included increased provision for the conservation of agricultural, forest, and dairy interests, for the care of game, for education and public health, and for the investigation of the water resources of the State. Special attention was given to amendments of the law which aim to safeguard forests from fire and game from extinction, and to prevent the loss or misuse of water for domestic, power, and transportation purposes. This, however, was not an accident of recent agitation, but more particularly an evolution; and it operates, so far as Vermont is concerned, in a true appreciation, use, and care-taking of its local resources.
There has been special consideration given of late to public health, and laws were enacted governing the inspection of animals, supervising control of contagious and infectious diseases, suppressing adulterations of foods and drugs, advancing the working plans of the State laboratory of hygiene, more closely regulating the practice of medicine and surgery, forcing more specific duties on health officers everywhere, defining the practice of optometry—in short, all the means by which a State government may advance the well-being of its citizens through the application of what has been made known in science touching all these questions.
The State also advanced the well-being of its people by conserving their natural resources, material or acquired, through the creation of a Public Utility Commission, whose work has since demonstrated the need and value of its existence by its influence in behalf of the public of their use and service. We hold here that one of the most effective Conservation measures is that which gives the people the best service at the lowest cost of all the applications of natural resources, as interpreted by science, which nature bestows in the way of power, water, light, and drainage. We wish to state positively, however, that these problems cannot be treated as accidents of public experience, but as subjects of legislation and public treatment which define themselves in their true relationship to property rights and individual rights and to public necessity by the process of evolution.
This is illustrated by the way in which forestry conservation was instituted in Vermont many years back, when a few men of foresight took an interest in the subject, formed a society, and kept bringing attention to the subject until it was made a part of the law and in equal standing with agriculture in this State, and is now apparently an assured State subject of continued standing as much as other subjects of legislation, like education, public health, the preservation of game, and the administration of justice.
The expansion of the granite and marble industries of Vermont has been so great as to give it rank among the foremost producing States of the Union, and in the art and quality of its material and work it is foremost in all respects.
In self-government, as affects all the things which make living conditions naturally satisfactory and profitable, there has been marked increase in the conservation of all the living opportunities afforded by the State; but it is again emphasized that this has been in due course of growth and not the incidental recognition of a possibility. Our people have been conservative, rational, and human in the development of their chance, their natural resources, and their duty in regard to these, and have not required either through neglect or by any lapse of their rights the service of the National Government in this regard, least of all through any material modification of the relationship defining State rights and State duties. There is a greater disposition here to accept direction as concerns the husbandry of our resources from science than from politics, and to insist that the care and supervision of such matters will best conserve our interests and our happiness if left to the judgment, regulation, and control of our own folks.