President Baker—It is a pleasure to present Mrs G. B. Sneath, of Tiffin, Ohio.
Mrs Sneath—Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen: After hearing the general purpose for which the women of the General Federation of Women's Clubs have been working, it may seem needless for me to tell what one definite part of this great body is endeavoring to accomplish. I represent Mrs J. D. Wilkinson, Chairman of the Waterways Committee of the General Federation, which is a part of the great Conservation Committee of the Federation, comprising almost 800,000 women in its organization.
Our work is entirely educational. We go into all the schools where we can possibly gain access, and strive to get the matter of preservation of inland waterways taught in the schools as among the great Conservation problems. We have heard from experts all that is being done, all that they are trying to do, all that they are trying to remedy; and we feel that we, as women, have one chief and great duty to perform. You have heard how women strive to conserve the lives of children, to make them strong mentally, morally and physically. Yet this is not all; the one great problem before the American people today is that of pure food and pure water (applause); and we, as women, must strive in the communities in which we live and the States of which we are a part—and the Nation must come to our aid—to rescue and prevent from contamination the life-giving streams of this country, streams that were given for the benefit of mankind but which man has turned into drainage canals and cesspools. We must have help; we must have it through State Legislatures, we must have it through the Federal Government, else we cannot conserve the lives of those that are dear to us. If a visitor from another land were to say to us, "Your children are being poisoned by their own parents," we would hesitate to believe it; but our children are being poisoned—not by criminal intent but by the carelessness of the municipalities in which we live (applause). So I leave with you this one thought: If we accomplish nothing else, if we leave to the men the questions of transportation and navigation and the great problems of irrigation and of water-power, let us work for the purity of our rivers and streams and lakes and inland waterways.[1] (Applause)
President Baker—The Proceedings of this Congress are to be published through the kindness of a gentleman in Saint Paul who has guaranteed to have it printed, and all these addresses will go in.
We will now hear from Mrs Jay Cooke Howard, of Duluth.
Mrs Howard—Mr President, Ladies and Gentleman: I will keep you only a minute, because you look hungry, and I'm hungry myself. I will simply file my report and tell you briefly what the Daughters of the American Revolution are doing for Conservation.
The D. A. R., being a patriotic society, believe that all their work is in the spirit of true Conservation; but we have a special National Committee, with a member or members from each State. I represent the chairman, Mrs Belle Merrill Draper, because I am the member for Minnesota. Mrs Draper wrote last fall to all the Governors, asking each what we could do to help the cause of Conservation in his State. When the answers came we went to work, chiefly in three ways: First, in our own meetings, in which we worked up enthusiasm. Second, in the press; the papers in the larger cities have much Conservation matter, but in smaller cities and towns this is not always the case, and you from such places will never know how much about Conservation that you have read—or skipped—was inspired by the D. A. R. Our third branch of work, and the most important one, is with the children. I notice that most of the Governors, whose interesting letters are contained in the report I am filing, preferred to have us turn our attention to the children rather than to the men (laughter). Governor Eberhart's courteous letter mentioned them, and the forests, especially. We have worked through the schools, and also in our own homes. May I tell my own experience? [Voices: "Go on, Go on!">[ I felt very proud when my little boy, who had saved eleven cents and did not know what to do with it all, finally said, "Mother, I will give it to the baby; put it in his bank; it will teach him to save." But straws in the family show which way the wind blows in the Nation. Listen to what happened: I provided savings banks, the children conserved their resources, saved their wealth and then somebody came and stole the banks! (Laughter and cries of "Good!")