If in the next five years there should develop a new demand for petroleum over and above that now existing, which would amount to 100,000,000 barrels a year, where could such a supply be found, and what policy should be adopted to secure it?
If in the next five years there should develop a new demand for petroleum over and above that now existing, which would amount to 100,000,000 barrels a year, where could such a supply be found, and what policy should be adopted to secure it?
The conclusions of this board may be summarized as follows:
(1) Such an oil need could not be met from domestic sources of supply.(2) It could not be assured unless equal opportunities were given our nationals for commercial development of foreign oils.(3) Assurance of this oil supply therefore inevitably entails political as well as commercial competition with other nationals, as other nationals controlling foreign sources of supply have adopted policies that discriminate against, hinder, and even prevent our nationals entering foreign fields.(4) The encouragement of and effective assistance to our nationals in developing foreign fields is essential to securing the oil needed.(5) Commercial control by our nationals over large foreign sources of supply will be essential if the estimated requirements are to be assured.(6) It is necessary that all countries be induced to abandon or adequately modify present discriminatory policies and that the interest of our nationals be protected.(7) Some form of world-wide oil-producing, purchasing, and marketing agency fostered by this Government seems essential to assure the commercial control over sufficient resources to meet the competition of other nationals. England has apparently adopted such a policy.
(1) Such an oil need could not be met from domestic sources of supply.
(2) It could not be assured unless equal opportunities were given our nationals for commercial development of foreign oils.
(3) Assurance of this oil supply therefore inevitably entails political as well as commercial competition with other nationals, as other nationals controlling foreign sources of supply have adopted policies that discriminate against, hinder, and even prevent our nationals entering foreign fields.
(4) The encouragement of and effective assistance to our nationals in developing foreign fields is essential to securing the oil needed.
(5) Commercial control by our nationals over large foreign sources of supply will be essential if the estimated requirements are to be assured.
(6) It is necessary that all countries be induced to abandon or adequately modify present discriminatory policies and that the interest of our nationals be protected.
(7) Some form of world-wide oil-producing, purchasing, and marketing agency fostered by this Government seems essential to assure the commercial control over sufficient resources to meet the competition of other nationals. England has apparently adopted such a policy.
This board proposed the following program of action:
(1) To secure the removal of all discriminations to the end that our nationals may enjoy in other countries all the privileges now enjoyed by other nationals in ours:(a) By appropriate diplomatic and trade measures.(b) By securing equal rights to our nationals in countries newly organized as mandatories.(2) To encourage our nationals to acquire, develop, and market oil in foreign countries:(a) By assured adequate protection of our citizens engaged in securing and developing foreign oil fields.(b) By promotion of syndication of our nationals engaged in foreign business, in order to effectually conduct oil development and distribution of petroleum and its products abroad.(3) Governmental action—through special agency or board:(a) Through the organization of a subsidiary governmental corporation with power to produce, purchase, refine, transport, store, and market oil and oil products.(b) Through the formation of a permanent petroleum administration.(4) To assure to our nationals the exclusive opportunity to explore, develop, and market the oil resources of the Philippine Islands, provided discriminatory policies of other nations against our nationals are not abandoned or satisfactorily modified.
(1) To secure the removal of all discriminations to the end that our nationals may enjoy in other countries all the privileges now enjoyed by other nationals in ours:
(a) By appropriate diplomatic and trade measures.
(b) By securing equal rights to our nationals in countries newly organized as mandatories.
(2) To encourage our nationals to acquire, develop, and market oil in foreign countries:
(a) By assured adequate protection of our citizens engaged in securing and developing foreign oil fields.
(b) By promotion of syndication of our nationals engaged in foreign business, in order to effectually conduct oil development and distribution of petroleum and its products abroad.
(3) Governmental action—through special agency or board:
(a) Through the organization of a subsidiary governmental corporation with power to produce, purchase, refine, transport, store, and market oil and oil products.
(b) Through the formation of a permanent petroleum administration.
(4) To assure to our nationals the exclusive opportunity to explore, develop, and market the oil resources of the Philippine Islands, provided discriminatory policies of other nations against our nationals are not abandoned or satisfactorily modified.
I have given much thought during the past year to this problem of adding to our petroleum supply, and it has seemed to me but fairthat we should first make every effort to increase the domestic supply through the methods that have been indicated—
(1) The saving of that which is now wasted, below ground and above ground.
(2) The more intensive use, through new machinery and devices, of the supply which we have.
(3) The development of oil fields on our withdrawn territory and in new areas such as the Philippines.
In addition, we must look abroad for a supplemental supply, and this may be secured through American enterprise if we do these things:
(1) Assure American capital that if it goes into a foreign country and secures the right to drill for oil on a legal and fair basis (all of which must be shown to the State Department) it will be protected against confiscation or discrimination. This should be a known, published policy.
(2) Require every American corporation producing oil in a foreign country to take out a Federal charter for such enterprise under which whatever oil it produces should be subject to a preferential right on the part of this Government to take all of its supply or a percentage thereof at any time on payment of the market price.
(3) Sell no oil to a vessel carrying a charter from any foreign government either at an American port or at any American bunker when that government does not sell oil at a nondiscriminatory price to our vessels at its bunkers or ports.
The oil industry is more distinctively American than any other of the great basic industries. It has been the creation of no one class or group but of many men of many kinds—the hardy, keen-eyed prospector with a "nose for oil" who spent his months upon the deserts and in the mountains searching for seepages and tracing them to their source; the rough and two-fisted driller, a man generally of unusual physical strength, who handled the great tools of his trade; the venturesome "wildcatter," part prospector, part promoter, part operator, the "marine" of the industry, "soldier and sailor too"; the geologist who through his study of the anatomy of the earth crust could map the pools and sands almost as if he saw them; the inventor; the chemist with still and furnace; the genius who found that oil would run in a pipe—these and many more, in most of the sciences and in nearly all of the crafts, have created this American industry. If they are permitted they will reveal the world supply of oil. And upon that supply the industries of our country will come to be increasingly dependent year by year.
BY WAY OF SUMMARY.
It would seem to be our plain duty to discover how little oil we need to use. To do this we must dignify coal by grading it in termsnot merely of convenience as to size, but in terms of service as to its power. We should save it, if for no better reason than that we may sell it to a coal-hungry world. We should develop water power as an inexhaustible substitute for coal and if necessary compel the coordination of all power plants which serve a common territory. New petroleum supplies have become a national necessity, so quickly have we adapted ourselves to this new fuel and so extravagantly have we given ourselves over to its adaptability. To save that we may use abundantly, to develop that we may never be weak, to bring together into greater effectiveness all power possibilities—these would seem to be national duties, dictated by a large self-interest.
I have gone only sufficiently far into this whole question to realize that it is as fundamental and of as deep public concern as the railroad question and that it is even more complex. No one, so far as I can learn, has mastered all of its various phases; in fact, there are few who know even one sector of the great battle front of power. A Foch is needed, one in whom would center a knowledge of all the activities and the inactivities of these three great industries, which in reality are but a single industry. We should know more than we do, far more about the ways and means by which our unequaled wealth in all three divisions can be used and made interdependent, and the moral and the legal strength of the Nation should be behind a studied, fact-based, long-viewed plan to make America the home of the cheapest and the most abundant and the most immediately and intimately serviceable power supply in the world. If we do this, we can release labor and lighten nearly every task. We will not need to send the call to other countries for men, and we can distribute our industries in parts of the country where labor is less abundant and where homes will take the place of tenements. One could expand upon the benefits that would come to this land if a rounded program such as has been but skeletonized here could be carried out. I am convinced that within a generation it will be effected, because it will be necessary.
The simple steps now obviously needed are to pass those primary bills which are already before Congress or are here suggested. But beyond this there is imperative need that some one man (an assistant secretary in this department would serve)—some one man with a competent staff and commanding all the resources of this and other departments of the Government shall be given the task of taking a world view as well as a national view of this whole involved and growing problem, that he may recommend policies and induce activities and promote cooperative relationships which will effect the most economical production of light, heat, and power, which is more than the first among the immediate practical problems ofscience, as Sir William Crookes said, for it is foremost among the immediate practical problems of national and international statesmanship.
LAND DEVELOPMENT.
I wish now to ask consideration for another matter of home concern to which I gave attention in my last report and as to which the intervening year has strengthened and perhaps broadened my ideas—the development of our unused lands.
It was never more vital to the welfare of our people that a creative and out-reaching plan of developing and utilizing our natural resources should go bravely forward than it is to-day. Ours is a growing country, and as its social and industrial superstructure expands its agricultural foundation must be broadened in proportion. The normal growth of the United States now requires an addition of 6,300,000 acres to its cultivable area each year, which means an average increase of 17,000 acres a day.
Fortunately, the opportunity for this essential expansion exists not only in the West, where much of the public domain is yet unoccupied, but in every part of the Republic. We have a great fund of natural resources in the very oldest States, from Maine to Louisiana, which invite and would richly reward the constructive genius of the Nation. It is claimed by those who have specialized for years on the subject of reclamation that the control and utilization of flood waters now wasted would produce within the next 10 years more wealth than the entire cost to the United States of the war with Germany.
After every other war in our history the work of internal development has gone forward by leaps and bounds, and our people have thus quickly made good the economic wastes of the conflict. The needs of to-day are different from those of the past and require different treatment, but they are by no means beyond the reach of enlightened thought and action.
More than a year ago we began an earnest discussion of reconstruction policies, particularly with respect to the land. But nothing has been done. Not one line of legislation, not one dollar of money has been provided except in the way of preliminary investigation. We stand voiceless in the presence of opportunity and idle in the face of urgent national need.
A PROGRAM OF PROGRESS.
The great work of material development accomplished in the past has been done very largely by private capital and enterprise. Doubtless this must be the chief reliance for progress in the future. We should realize, however, that this method has involved losses as wellas gains, for the Nation has sometimes been too prodigal in offering its natural resources as an inducement to private effort. Not only so, but with the exhaustion of the free public lands in our great central valleys—the most remarkable natural heritage that ever fell into the lap of a young nation—conditions of home making and settlement have radically changed.
There can be do doubt that there is an important sphere of action which the Government must occupy if we are to go steadily forward with the work of continental conquest, and all it implies to the future of the Nation, but in suggesting practicable steps of progress at this time I do not forget the burden of taxation which confronts our people nor the delicate and difficult task which Congress is called upon to perform in trying to keep the national outgo within the national income. Hence, I am now suggesting such constructive things as the Government may be able to do through the exercise of its powers of supervision and direction and with the smallest possible outlay of money.
Under this head I put, first, the matter of suburban homes for wage earners; second, reclamation of desert, overflow, and cut-over areas, together with improvement of abandoned farms, under a system of district organization which may be made to finance itself; third, cooperation with various States in the work of internal development.
GARDEN HOMES FOR THE PEOPLE.
There is no more baffling problem than that presented by the continued growth of great cities, but it is a problem with which we must sometime deal. It bears directly on the high cost of living and is, indeed, largely responsible for it. Rent is based on land values. Land values rise with increasing population. The price of food is closely related to the growing disproportion between consumers and producers, resulting from urban congestion.
Here is Washington, a city of some 400,000 people, doubtless destined steadily to grow until—a Member of Congress predicts—it may touch 2,000,000 twenty years hence. Already the housing problem is acute, as it is in almost every other large American city. It would be a pitiful thing if the provision of more housing facilities to meet the needs of growing population meant merely more congestion and higher rents, with an ever-decreasing degree of landed proprietorship and true individual independence. Such conditions, it seems to me, undermine the American hearthstone and carry a deep menace to the future of our institutions. I believe there must be a better way, and that the time has come when we should make an earnest effort to find it.
Within a 10–mile circle drawn around the Capitol dome are thousands of acres of good agricultural land, of which the merest fraction has been reduced to intensive cultivation. Much of it is wastefully used, and much of it is not used at all. Conditions of soil, climate, and water supply are good and represent a fair average for the United States. Suburban transportation is a serious problem in some localities and less so in others, but tends to become more simple with the extension of good roads and increasing use of motor vehicles, including the auto bus.
Somewhere and sometime, it seems to me, a new system must be devised to disperse the people of great cities on the vacant lands surrounding them, to give the masses a real hold upon the soil, and to replace the apartment house with the home in a garden. Such a system should enable the ambitious and thrifty family not only to save the entire cost of rent, but possibly half the cost of food, while at the same time enhancing its standard of living socially and spiritually, as well as economically.
It has been suggested that there is no better place to demonstrate a new form of suburban life than here at the National Capital, where we may freely draw upon all the resources of the governmental departments for expert knowledge and advice and where the demonstration can readily command wide publicity and come under the observation of the Nation's lawmakers. And I am expecting that this experiment will be made. Such a plan of town or community life, rather than city life, should be extended to every other large city in the Nation. A simple act of legislation, accompanied by a moderate appropriation for organization and educational work, would enable the department to put its facilities at the service of local communities and of the industries throughout the United States. This form of national leadership would be of value both to investors in the local securities and to the home builders themselves. If the work of land acquisition and construction, together with the organization of community settlements resulting therefrom, were conducted under the supervision of the State or the Federal Government it would safeguard the character of the movement from every point of view.
Therefore, I put first among the constructive things which may be done by the exercise of the Government's power of supervision and direction, with the smallest outlay of money, this matter of providing suburban homes for our millions of wage earners.
RECLAMATION BY DISTRICT ORGANIZATION.
The provision of garden homes for millions of city workers will contribute largely to the Nation's food supply and become in time a most effective influence in reducing excessive cost of living for manyof our people. It will not, of course, solve the problem of increasing the number of farms and the area of cultivation to meet the needs of growing population. Neither will it enable us to expand our home market rapidly and largely enough to keep the country on an even keel of prosperity.
We must go forward with the development of natural resources as we have done for the past three centuries. And we must recognize at the outset that conditions have changed with the depletion of the public domain to the point where it offers comparatively little in the way of cultivable lands.
We have now to deal principally with lands in private ownership. This calls for a new point of view and for the application of a somewhat different principle than that which has governed our reclamation policy heretofore. Moreover, reclamation is no longer an affair of one section of the United States. The day has come when it must be nationalized and extended to all parts of the Republic.
To the deserts of the West we have brought the creative touch of water, and we must find a way to go on with this work. But it is of equal importance that we should liberate rich areas now held in bondage by the swamp, convert millions of acres of idle cut-over lands to profitable use, and raise from the dead the once vigorous agricultural life of our abandoned farms.
One more fundamental consideration—we have outlived our day of small things. Whether we would or not, we are compelled by the inexorable law of necessity arising out of existing physical conditions to cooperate, to work together, and to employ large-scale operations, and on this principle we should move: Not what the Government can do for the people, but what the people can do for themselves under the intelligent and kindly leadership of the Government.
We have an instrument at hand in the Reclamation Service which has dealt with every phase of the problem which now confronts us, and with such high average success as to command the entire confidence of Congress and the country. It has turned rivers out of their natural beds, reared the highest dams in existence, transported water long distances by every form of canal, conduit, and tunnel, installed electric power plants, cleared land, provided drainage systems, constructed highways and even railroads, platted townsites, and erected buildings of various sorts. In this experience, obtained under a variety of physical and climatic conditions, it has developed a body of trained men equal to any constructive task which may be assigned to it in connection with reclamation and settlement in any part of the country.
True economic reclamation is a process of converting liabilities into assets—of transforming dormant natural resources into agencies of living production. When such a process is intelligently appliedit should be able to pay its own bills without placing fresh burdens on the national treasury. It is in the confident belief that such is actually the case that I suggest the policy of reclamation by means of local districts, financed on the basis of their own credit but with the fullest measure of encouragement and moral support of the Government, practically expressed through the Reclamation Service.
In this connection it seems worth while to recall that with a net expenditure of $119,000,000 the Reclamation Service has created taxable values of $500,000,000 in the States where it has operated. The ratio is better than three to one, and that is a wider margin of security than is usually demanded by the most conservative banking methods. There is no reason to doubt that the overflow lands of the South, the cut-over areas of the Northwest, and the abandoned farm districts of New England and New York and other States would do quite as well as the deserts of the West if handled by such an organization.
What is the legitimate function of the Government in connection with reclamation districts to be financed entirely upon their own credits without the aid of national appropriations? I should say that the Government, with great advantage to the investor, the landowner, the future settler, and the general public, might do these things:
1. Employ its trained, experienced engineers, attorneys, and economists in making a thorough investigation of all the factors involved in a given situation, to be followed by a thorough official report upon the district proposed to be formed.
2. Offer the district securities for public subscription in the open market. This, of course, would follow the actual organization of the district and the approval of its proceedings by the Government's legal experts.
3. Construct the works of reclamation with proceeds of district bond sales, and administer the system until it becomes a "going concern," when it may be safely confided to its local officers.
The most obvious advantage of Government cooperation is the fact that it would assure the service of a body of engineers, builders, and administrators trained in the actual work of reclamation. This advantage, as compared with the management that might be had in a sparsely settled local district, would often make all the difference between success and failure. Unquestionably it would materially reduce the interest rate on district bonds and greatly facilitate their sale in the open market.
There are other advantages less obvious but really more important. Experience has shown that great enterprises can best be handled under centralized control. This control, to be effective, must extend from the initiation to the completion of the project. Therecan be no assurance of this when the management is left to the electorate of a local district, and without such assurance it is difficult to command the support, first, of the landowners whose consent is essential to the formation of the district; next, of the investors who must supply the money; finally, of the settlers who must purchase and develop the land in order that the object of the enterprise may be realized. The Government can give the assurance of precisely that quality of unified, centralized, permanent, and responsible control that is required to command the confidence of all the factors in the situation.
There is another advantage of Government cooperation that will inure greatly to the benefit of the settler. The Government may readily apply the policy it now uses in connection with privately owned lands within reclamation projects. It requires the owners to enter into a contract by which they agree to accept a certain maximum price for their land if sold within a given period of years. This price is based upon the value of the land before reclamation. There are many instances, particularly of swamp and cut-over areas, where land that may be bought for $10 an acre and reclaimed at a cost of $25 to $50 per acre, has an actual market value of $100 to $200 per acre the moment it is put into shape for cultivation. If the Government, by means of a contract with the local district, undertakes the work of reclamation and settlement and does this work at actual cost, the settler will generally save enough to pay for all his improvements and equipment.
The crowning consideration is the fact that, because of all these advantages, the work of reclamation would actually be accomplished, while to-day it is not being done except in the far West, and accomplished without the aid of Government appropriations.
SOLDIER-SETTLEMENT LEGISLATION.
In the foregoing, attention has been called to those things which may be accomplished by the exercise of the Government's powers of supervision and direction with the smallest outlay of money. In all this I have been speaking of reclamation for the sake of reclamation.
The proposed soldier-settlement legislation stands on an entirely different footing. The primary object is not to reclaim land but to reward our returned soldiers with the opportunity to obtain employment and larger interest in the proprietorship of the country. The policy is based on a sense of gratitude for heroic service, not on economic considerations. This is the answer to those who have criticized it as class legislation or the proposal to grant special privileges to one element of our citizenship or as a plunge intosocialism. Frankly, we avow our purpose to do for the soldier what we would not think of doing for anybody else and what would not be justified solely as a matter of reclamation.
Many measures of soldier legislation have been introduced into Congress. Only one of these has been favorably reported. This was introduced by Representative Mondell, of Wyoming, on the first day of the present special session, embodying the plan of reclamation and community settlement brought forward by this department in the spring of 1918.
The measure has been much misunderstood and sometimes deliberately misrepresented. In the first place, it was not put forward as the complete solution of the soldier problem. It was at no time supposed or expected that all of the 4,800,000 men and women engaged in the war with Germany would or could take advantage of its provisions. It fortunately happens that the vast majority quickly found their places in the national life. Of the remainder, a very large proportion may be classified as "city minded." They have no taste for farm life but would be better served by vocational training and opportunities to enter upon remunerative trades or professions. There is an element of "country minded," and of these some 150,000 have made application for opportunities of employment and home-making under the terms of this bill. Largely they are men who have had agricultural experience but who can not obtain farms of their own without very considerable cash advances and other assistance which the Government could render. It is for this element that the policy is designed.
It has often been said that the plan would be applied only in the West and South. The truth is that it has been the purpose from the first to extend it to every State where feasible projects could be found, and that our preliminary investigations lead us to believe this will include every State in the Union.
The wide discussion of the measure has been highly educational to the country, and some of the criticism is of constructive character. For example, attention has been sharply called to the fact that in certain localities there are individual farms well suited to our purpose which may often be had at a price representing rather less than the value of their improvements. These are the so-called "abandoned farms" so numerous in the Northeastern States. In some cases they are interspersed with land now cultivated, so situated that it is not possible to bring together a large number of contiguous farms as the basis of a Government project.
In New England and elsewhere public sentiment strongly favors a modification of the pending measure which will enable the purchase of individual farms rather than community settlement. This wouldbe practicable only in localities where a sufficient number of farms, even if not contiguous, could be had to make possible the necessary supervision and instruction, together with cooperative organization for the purchase of supplies and sale of products. Without these advantages the plan of soldier settlement would fail in many instances. My information is that these conditions could be met. Not only so, but it is urged that existing farm communities would be inspired by the presence of soldier settlers and benefited by the presence of soldier settlers by their cooperative buying and selling agencies.
Another criticism of the pending measure is directed to the amount of the first payment the soldier settler is required to make. As the bill now stands it calls for 5 per cent on the land, 25 per cent on improvements and live stock, and 40 per cent on implements and other equipment. It has been urged by some friends of soldier settlement that no first payment should be required, but that the Government should make advances of 100 per cent in view of the soldiers' peculiar claim upon national consideration. It might be feasible to do this in the case of community settlements. But it could not be done in the case of scattered and individual farms, at least without abandoning the principles of sound business.
In the case of community settlement the soldier literally "gets in on the ground floor." Starting with a territory that is entirely blank so far as homes and improvements are concerned, he finds himself in a place where community values remain to be created. When he buys an improved farm in a settled neighborhood the situation is precisely reversed. In both cases there is or will be "unearned increment," or society-created values; but in the one case hegetsthe increment, while in the other case hepaysit. Obviously, a larger advance would be justified in one case than in the other.
ALASKA.
One of the first recommendations made by me in my report of seven years ago was that the Government build a railroad from Seward to Fairbanks in Alaska. Five years ago you intrusted to me the direction of this work. The road is now more than two-thirds built, and Congress at this session, after exhaustively examining into the work, has authorized an additional appropriation sufficient for its completion. The showing made before Congress was that the road had been built without graft: every dollar has gone into actual work or material. It has been built without giving profits to any large contractors, for it has been constructed entirely by small contractors or by day's labor. It has been built without touch of politics: every man on the road has been chosen exclusively for abilityand experience. It has been well and solidly built as a permanent road, not an exploiting road. It has been built for as little money as private parties could have built it, as all competent independent engineers who have seen the road advise.
Edwin F. Wendt, of the Interstate Commerce Commission, in charge of valuation of the railroads of the United States from Pittsburgh to Boston, after an investigation into the manner in which the Alaskan Railroad was constructed and its cost, reported to me as follows:
In concluding, it is not amiss to again state that after the full study which was given to the property during our trip, we are satisfied that the project is being executed rapidly and efficiently by men of experience and ability. It is believed that it is being handled as cheaply as private contractors could handle it under the circumstances.
In concluding, it is not amiss to again state that after the full study which was given to the property during our trip, we are satisfied that the project is being executed rapidly and efficiently by men of experience and ability. It is believed that it is being handled as cheaply as private contractors could handle it under the circumstances.
The road has not been built as soon as expected because each year we have exhausted our appropriation before the work contemplated had been done. We could not say in October of one year what the cost of anything a year or more later would be, and we ran out of money earlier than anticipated. It has not been built as cheaply as expected because it has been built on a rising market for everything that went into its construction—from labor, lumber, food supplies, machinery, and steel to rail and ocean transportation. I believe, however, it can safely be said that no other piece of Government construction or private construction done during the war will show a less percentage of increase over a cost that was estimated more than four years ago.
The men have been well housed and well fed. Their wages have been good and promptly paid; there has been but one strike, and that was four years ago and was settled by Department of Labor experts fixing the scale of wages. The men have had the benefit of a system of compensation for damages like that in the Reclamation Service and Panama Canal. They have had excellent hospital service, and our camps and towns have been free of typhoid fever and malaria. That the men like the work is testified by the fact that hundreds who "came out" the past two years, attracted by the high wages of war industries, are now anxious to return to Alaska.
There has been but one setback in the construction, and that was the washing out of 12 miles of tracks along the Nenana River. This is a glacial stream which, when the snows melt, comes down at times with irresistible force. In this instance it abandoned its long accustomed way and cut into a new bed and through trees that had been standing for several generations, tearing out part of the track which had been laid.
The work of locating and constructing the road has been left in the hands of the engineers appointed by yourself. The only instructionwhich they received from me was that they should build the road as if they were working for a private concern, selecting the best men for the work irrespective of politics or pressure of any kind. As a result, we have a force that has been gathered from the construction camps of the western railroads, made up of men of experience and proved capacity. That they have done their work efficiently, honestly, and at reasonable cost is my belief.
It is not possible during the construction of a railroad to tell what it costs per mile because all the foundation work, the construction of bases from which to work, the equipment for construction, and much of the material is a charge which must be spread over the entire completed line. The best estimate that can be made to-day as to the newly constructed road is that it has cost between $70,000 and $80,000 per main-line mile, or between $60,000 and $70,000 per mile of track.
This cost per mile includes the building of the most difficult and expensive stretch of line along the entire route from Seward to Fairbanks—that running along Turnagain Arm, which is sheer rock rising precipitously from the sea for nearly 30 miles. There are miles of this road which have cost $200,000 per mile. Even to blast a mule trail in one portion of this route cost $25,000 a mile.
The only Government-built railroad—that across the Isthmus of Panama—cost $221,052 per mile. The only two recently built railroads in the United States are (1) the Virginian, built by H.H. Rogers, which cost exclusive of equipment $151,000 per mile, with labor at from $1.35 to $1.75 per day and all machinery, fuel, rails, and supplies at its door, and (2) the Milwaukee line to Puget Sound, which is estimated as having cost $130,000 per mile exclusive of equipment.
The work has been conducted with its main base at Anchorage, which is at the head of Cook Inlet. The point was chosen as the nearest point from which to construct a railroad into the Matanuska coal fields. That was the primary objective of the railroad, to get at the Matanuska coal. From Anchorage it was also intended to drive farther north through the Susitna Valley and across Broad Pass, and to the south along Turnagain Arm toward the Alaska Northern track. To secure coal for Alaska was the first need. So in addition to Anchorage as a base, one was also started at Nenana, on the Tanana River, from which to reach the Nenana coal fields lying to the south. If these two fields were open, one would supply the coast of Alaska and one the interior. This program has been acted upon, with the result that the Matanuska field is open to tidewater with a downgrade road all the way. The Nenana road has been pushed far enough south to touch a coal mine near the track, which may obviate the immediate necessity for reaching into the Nenana field proper.
There is an open stretch across Broad Pass to connect the Susitna Valley with the road coming down from Nenana. This gap closed, there will be through connection between Seward and Fairbanks.
MATANUSKA COAL.
By decisions of the Commissioner of the Land Office all of the claims in the Matanuska coal field were set aside, and by act of Congress a leasing bill was put into effect over the entire field. Under this law a number of claims must be reserved to the Government. The field was surveyed, and some of the most promising portions of the field have been so reserved.
Two leases have been entered into by the Government, one with Lars Netland, a miner, who has a backer, Mr. Fontana, a business man of San Francisco, and the other with Oliver La Duke and associates. There are many thousands of acres in this field which are open for lease and which will be leased to any responsible parties who will undertake their development. Government experts who have examined this field do not promise without further exploring a larger output of coal from this field than 150,000 tons a year.
The population of Alaska has fallen off during the war. She sent, I am told, 5,000 men into the Army, the largest proportion to population sent by any part of the United States. The high cost of labor and materials closed some of the gold mines, and the attractive wages offered by war industries drew labor from Alaska to the mainland. All prospecting practically closed. But with the return of peace there is evidence of a new movement toward that Territory which should be given added confidence in its future by the completion of the Alaskan Railroad. There is enough arable land in Alaska to maintain a population the equal of all those now living in Norway, Sweden, and Finland, and all that can be produced in those countries can be produced in Alaska. The great need is a market, and this will be found only as the mining and fishing industries of the country develop.
SAVE AND DEVELOP AMERICANS.
When the whole story is told of American achievement and the picture is painted of our material resources, we come back to the plain but all-significant fact that far beyond all our possessions in land and coal and waters and oil and industries is the American man. To him, to his spirit and to his character, to his skill and to his intelligence is due all the credit for the land in which we live. And that resource we are neglecting. He may be the best nurtured and the best clothed and the best housed of all men on this great globe. He may have more chances to become independent and even rich. He may have opportunities for schooling nowhere else afforded.He may have a freedom to speak and to worship and to exercise his judgment over the affairs of the Nation. And yet he is the most neglected of our resources because he does not know how rich he is, how rich beyond all other men he is. Not rich in money—I do not speak of that—but rich in the endowment of powers and possibilities no other man ever was given.
Twenty-five per cent of the 1,600,000 men between 21 and 31 years of age who were first drafted into our Army could not read nor write our language, and tens of thousands could not speak it nor understand it. To them the daily paper telling what Von Hindenberg was doing was a blur. To them the appeals of Hoover came by word of mouth, if at all. To them the messages of their commander in chief were as so much blank paper. To them the word of mother or sweetheart came filtering in through other eyes that had to read their letters.
Now this is wrong. There is something lacking in the sense of a society that would permit it in a land of public schools that assumes leadership in the world.
Here is raw material truly, of the most important kind and the greatest possibility for good as well as for ill.
Save! Save! Save! This has been the mandate for the past two years. It is a word with which this report is replete. But we have been talking of food and land and oil while the boys and young men that are about us who carry the fortune of the democracy in their hands are without a primary knowledge of our institutions, our history, our wars and what we have fought for, our men and what they have stood for, our country and what its place in the world is.
The marvelous force of public opinion and the rare absorbing quality of the American mind never was shown more clearly than by the fact that out of these men came a loyalty and a stern devotion to America when the day of test came. Had Germany known what we know now, it would have been beyond her to believe that America could draft an army to adventure into war in Europe. There should not be a man who was in our Army or our Navy who has the ambition for an education who should not be given that opportunity—indeed, induced to take it—not merely out of appreciation but out of the greater value to the Nation that he would be if the tools of life were put into his hand. There is no word to say upon this theme of Americanization that has not been said, and Congress, it is now hoped, will believe those figures which, when presented nearly two years ago, were flouted as untrue. The Nation is humiliated at its own indifference, and action must be the result.
To save and to develop, I have said, were equally the expression of a true conservation. What is true as to material things is trueas to human beings. And once given a foundation of health there is no other course by which this policy may be effected than to place at the command of every one the means of acquiring knowledge. The whole people must turn in that direction. We should enable all, without distinction, to have that training for which they are fitted by their own natural endowment. Then we can draw out of hiding the talents that have been hidden. The school will yet come to be the first institution of our land, in acknowledged preeminence in the making of Americans who understand why they are Americans and why to be one is worth while.[5]
FOOTNOTES
[1]Extract from the annual report of the Secretary of the Interior for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1919. The page numbers are the same as those in the report.
[1]Extract from the annual report of the Secretary of the Interior for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1919. The page numbers are the same as those in the report.
[2]In spite of the strike order, effective the last day of the week, the production of soft coal during the seven days Oct. 26–Nov. 1 was greater than in any week this year save one. The exception was the preceding week, that of Oct. 25, which full reports now confirm as the record in the history of coal mining in the United States. The total production during the week ended Nov. 1 (including lignite and coal made into coke) is estimated at 12,142,000 net tons, an average per working day of 2,024,000 tons.Indeed had it not been for the strike, curtailing the output of Saturday, the week of Nov. 1 would have far outstripped its predecessor. The extraordinary efforts made by the railroads to provide cars bore fruit in a rate of production during the first five days of the week which, if maintained for the 304 working days of full-time year, would yield 715,000,000 tons of coal. It is worth noting that this figure is almost identical with the 700,000,000 tons accepted early in 1918 by the Geological Survey and the Railroad Administration as representing the country's annual capacity. During these five days, therefore, the soft-coal mines were working close to actual capacity. There can be little doubt that the output on Monday, Oct. 27, was the largest ever attained in a single day. (U.S. Geol. Survey Bull.)
[2]In spite of the strike order, effective the last day of the week, the production of soft coal during the seven days Oct. 26–Nov. 1 was greater than in any week this year save one. The exception was the preceding week, that of Oct. 25, which full reports now confirm as the record in the history of coal mining in the United States. The total production during the week ended Nov. 1 (including lignite and coal made into coke) is estimated at 12,142,000 net tons, an average per working day of 2,024,000 tons.
Indeed had it not been for the strike, curtailing the output of Saturday, the week of Nov. 1 would have far outstripped its predecessor. The extraordinary efforts made by the railroads to provide cars bore fruit in a rate of production during the first five days of the week which, if maintained for the 304 working days of full-time year, would yield 715,000,000 tons of coal. It is worth noting that this figure is almost identical with the 700,000,000 tons accepted early in 1918 by the Geological Survey and the Railroad Administration as representing the country's annual capacity. During these five days, therefore, the soft-coal mines were working close to actual capacity. There can be little doubt that the output on Monday, Oct. 27, was the largest ever attained in a single day. (U.S. Geol. Survey Bull.)
[3]It is the western and southern fields that are most affected by the seasonal demand. As a typical example, Illinois may be cited, with 18 per cent of the year's production in 25 per cent of the time, April, May, and June, in 1915, and 15 per cent in 1916. Retail dealers received 27 per cent of the coal from Illinois in the period from August, 1918, to February, 1919, compared with 4 per cent from the Pittsburgh, Pa., field.
[3]It is the western and southern fields that are most affected by the seasonal demand. As a typical example, Illinois may be cited, with 18 per cent of the year's production in 25 per cent of the time, April, May, and June, in 1915, and 15 per cent in 1916. Retail dealers received 27 per cent of the coal from Illinois in the period from August, 1918, to February, 1919, compared with 4 per cent from the Pittsburgh, Pa., field.
[4]In every trainload of coal hauled from the mines to our coal bins, 1 carload out of every 5 is going nowhere. In a train of 40 cars, the last 8 are dead load that might better have been left in the bowels of the earth. No less an authority than Martin A. Rooney states: "Every fifth shovel full of coal that the average fireman throws into his furnace serves no more useful purpose than to decorate the atmosphere with a long black stream of precious soot. At best one-fifth of all our coal is wasted."The first requisite toward effecting fuel economy is to secure cooperation between owners, managers, and the men who fire the coal. Mechanical devices to increase efficiency in the use of coal can not produce satisfactory results unless the operators who handle them are impressed with the importance of their duties.It is not essential for the plant manager to be a fuel expert, but he should be familiar with the instruments that give a check on the daily operations. It is a mistake not to provide proper instruments, for they guide the firemen and show the management what has taken place daily. Instruments provided for the boiler room manifest the interest taken by the management toward conserving fuel. It indicates cooperation and encourages the firemen to work harder to increase the efficiency.A second factor effecting fuel economy is the selection of fuel for the particular plant. It is not expected of a plant manager that he should be thoroughly informed as to the character of all fuels; but he can enlist the services of a man who is thoroughly trained In this field. The Bureau of Mines has compiled valuable information on the character and analyses of coal from almost every field in the United States. Information concerning the character and chemical constituents of the coal, together with knowledge pertaining to the equipment of the plant, makes it possible to select a fuel adapted to the equipment, thereby insuring better combustion. Hundreds of boiler plants operate at no greater than 60 per cent efficiency, and it would be a comparatively simple matter to bring them up to 70 per cent efficiency. The saving in tonnage would be more than the combined yearly coal-carrying capacity of the Baltimore & Ohio and the Southern Railway systems. The direct saving to our industries at $5 per ton would amount to $200,000,000 worth of coal per year.
[4]In every trainload of coal hauled from the mines to our coal bins, 1 carload out of every 5 is going nowhere. In a train of 40 cars, the last 8 are dead load that might better have been left in the bowels of the earth. No less an authority than Martin A. Rooney states: "Every fifth shovel full of coal that the average fireman throws into his furnace serves no more useful purpose than to decorate the atmosphere with a long black stream of precious soot. At best one-fifth of all our coal is wasted."
The first requisite toward effecting fuel economy is to secure cooperation between owners, managers, and the men who fire the coal. Mechanical devices to increase efficiency in the use of coal can not produce satisfactory results unless the operators who handle them are impressed with the importance of their duties.
It is not essential for the plant manager to be a fuel expert, but he should be familiar with the instruments that give a check on the daily operations. It is a mistake not to provide proper instruments, for they guide the firemen and show the management what has taken place daily. Instruments provided for the boiler room manifest the interest taken by the management toward conserving fuel. It indicates cooperation and encourages the firemen to work harder to increase the efficiency.
A second factor effecting fuel economy is the selection of fuel for the particular plant. It is not expected of a plant manager that he should be thoroughly informed as to the character of all fuels; but he can enlist the services of a man who is thoroughly trained In this field. The Bureau of Mines has compiled valuable information on the character and analyses of coal from almost every field in the United States. Information concerning the character and chemical constituents of the coal, together with knowledge pertaining to the equipment of the plant, makes it possible to select a fuel adapted to the equipment, thereby insuring better combustion. Hundreds of boiler plants operate at no greater than 60 per cent efficiency, and it would be a comparatively simple matter to bring them up to 70 per cent efficiency. The saving in tonnage would be more than the combined yearly coal-carrying capacity of the Baltimore & Ohio and the Southern Railway systems. The direct saving to our industries at $5 per ton would amount to $200,000,000 worth of coal per year.