Seas roll to waft him, suns to light him rise;His footstool the earth, his canopy the skies.
Seas roll to waft him, suns to light him rise;His footstool the earth, his canopy the skies.
In the deliberations of this Congress the words of Ruskin should be uppermost in the minds of all: "There is no real wealth but life;" and by life he meant the perfection of the entire man, body, soul, and spirit. That church is best, that institution is noblest, that civilization is highest, that country is greatest, which furnishes the most abundant life to the largest number of human beings.
The Chinese Empire, which embraces near four hundred million human beings, has existed for five thousand years; yet the countless millions of China, springing up like tropical weeds and sinking back to dreamless dust, have contributed far less to civilization than the twenty thousand Athenians who in the brief Periclean age followed the footsteps of Plato and Socrates. (Applause)
Neither vastness of population or territory, nor richness of natural resources, nor accumulated wealth can alone make a great country. That country is great, no matter how barren its soil, whose children may truthfully repeat the words of the stern old Spartan, who, when one pointing in derision to the bleak hills of Lacedemonia asked, "What do you grow there?" replied, "We grow men there" (applause). To breed a race of strong men and noble women is the one and only thing that can make a country truly great.
Consider Scotland—a poor and barren country, yet who would dare to call poor the land of Scott and Burns and Carlyle? Who shall estimate the wealth of Scotland's contribution to the world and to America? The sons of her sturdy pioneers who poured down through Virginia and Kentucky and the Carolinas have been worth to this Republic their weight in gold. (Applause)
Take Ireland, that synonym of poverty; and yet how could our great metropolitan cities thrive for a single day without the helping hand of the sons of Erin? Somebody has advised that we buy Ireland, not for her natural resources, not to grow corn and wheat and cotton, but to grow policemen. (Applause)
Coming a little nearer home, take New England with her thousands of abandoned farms, rich only in the variety and ferocity of her climate and the blessed dispensations of our American protection; and yet far from mean have been New England's contributions to thewealth of American democracy. New England, rocky old New England, barren, storm-swept New England, "Land of brown bread and beans," home of the liberty-loving Puritans who, for the sake of the immaterial good, in quest of freedom, crossed the stormy sea, endured the hardships of an untamed wilderness battling with hunger and wild beasts and savages—grand, glorious New England (applause), home of Adams and Webster and Emerson and Hawthorne and Williams and Lowell and Longfellow and Edward Everett and Phillips Brooks (applause)—grand, glorious, immortal New England, by her schools and colleges has almost dominated the intellectual life of this country; and in every part of this vast Republic, yea, in every civilized land under the sun, may be found the sons and daughters of the pilgrims of the Mayflower; scholars, preachers, teachers, missionaries, pioneers who have blazed out the pathway of civilization, established schools and colleges and universities, always and everywhere children of sweetness and light who even on the remotest frontier have kept trimmed and lighted the sacred lamps of learning (applause). Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Bowdoin, Dartmouth, Williams, have contributed more to the dignity of man, given more to the everlasting glory of the American commonwealth, than all the stock speculators of New York, or all the battleships ever built for the American Navy. (Applause)
Take only one other illustration: Who of you from the waving cornfields of Iowa and Illinois, from the fertile lowlands of the Mississippi, has not wondered, while passing through the Old Dominion and looking out upon her red clay hills, how on earth do these people make a living? Why give me one acre of the best Louisiana soil—and it is nearly all good—and put it down upon the barren rocks of New England, or upon the red hills of Old Virginia, and I would make a fortune selling it for fertilizer (laughter). And yet Virginia has contributed more to the wealth of the American Republic than any other single State of the Union (applause). At the call of what other States did there ever arise a larger band of more gallant men than they who under the leadership of Jackson and Lee withstood for long weary months the combined forces of the Union? And when the War was over, and Virginia found herself in abjectest poverty, she showed to the world that her riches were inexhaustible; for during the next forty years she sent abroad into other States five hundred thousand of her most adventurous sons (applause), and, in so doing, contributed more to the wealth of this Republic than all the gold that was ever dug from the mines of California (applause). I do not wonder that the poorest the humblest son of the Old Dominion, no matter where he finds himself, whether trudging through the snows of Minnesota or loitering perchance beneath the fragrant magnolias of Louisiana—even he, the poorest and humblest, must quicken his steps and lift aloft his head as he remembers, "Mine is the land of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and James Monroe and John Marshalland John Randolph and Patrick Henry and Stonewall Jackson and—towering above them all save Washington only—that matchless military chieftain, great in battle but still greater in defeat as a private citizen, the stainless, the immortal Robert E. Lee." (Applause)
James Russell Lowell said—and said truthfully—that countries are great only in proportion to what they do for the moral and the intellectual energy, the spiritual faith, the hope, the comfort, the happiness of mankind. (Applause)
ChairmanClapp—Ladies and Gentlemen: It is provided in the program that between the set speeches we will hear briefly from the accredited representatives of the various States, taken in alphabetical order. I now have the pleasure of calling upon the State of Alabama. (Pause) If no one cares to be heard from Alabama, I now call upon Arizona. (Pause) If no one from Arizona, then from the State ofArkansaw; and that there may be no mistake on the part of the inhabitants of that State in the termination of the name, I repeat that call in the name of Arkansas. (Laughter)
A Delegate—Mr Chairman, I suggest that the call of the States be deferred until 8.30 in the morning, and that it then be taken up as a definite matter of business.
ChairmanClapp—Will the gentleman make a motion to that effect?
[The motion was made, seconded, put and carried without dissenting voice.]
PresidentBaker—Mr Chairman: I will be very glad to be here at 8.30. We want everyone to be heard, and I would come here at 6 oclock if desired, though I think 8.30 is early enough. I will be here promptly to open the Congress and hear from the States until the regular speakers begin. Then on Thursday afternoon we have set aside a special time to hear from all the States and all the different organizations represented here.
ChairmanClapp—Ladies and Gentlemen: During last summer it became my province to distribute nuggets of moral philosophy and political truth to the people of Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa; and while laboring in that moral vineyard I discovered that there was a newspaper in the Southwest that had an immense influence throughout all that section. We have a representative of that paper with us this afternoon, who will now address us on "The Press and the People"; Mr D. Austin Latchaw, of the Kansas City Star. (Applause)
MrLatchaw—Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: As a representative of the newspaper profession, before I say anything else, I wish, on behalf of my associates and myself, to thank the city of Saint Paul and its Committee on Arrangements for the very excellent facilities provided and the thoughtful courtesies extended to the men assigned to cover this Congress.
The subject assigned me is incidental rather than germane to the work of this Congress. It is a big subject, and even if I felt that I could do justice to it I would doubt the appropriateness of using this occasion for the discourse. You are here to consider practical Conservation; to discuss ways and means to develop and, so far as possible, to foster the natural resources of this country, and above all to check and prevent the wasting of them. And it is one striking commentary on the relations of the press to the people that you do not need to give a moment's concern about the publication of your deliberations and conclusions. (Applause)
Yet it does seem fitting that at some stage of these proceedings a little time should be given to the consideration of that far-reaching agency without which the results of this Congress would not reach the public at large; for what you do today will be made known to tens of millions of readers tomorrow. If it were not so, the value of such public-spirited meetings as this would be immeasurably discounted.
However, as a member of the newspaper profession I cannot but feel that my subject would be more appropriately discussed by someone outside of that profession. It might be handled more frankly. It might be made more instructive to both the press and the people. Most assuredly I have not come here to throw stones at my professional brethren, and as for handing them bouquets, that gentle function might be performed with a somewhat better grace by someone outside the family. Still, I shall not be quite so reserved as was an old farmer back in Pennsylvania, whose farm adjoined that of my father when I was a boy, and who always got the worst of it in a horse trade because he was too modest to brag about his end of the proposition.
First of all the newspapers of this country could not have the splendid field they possess, the great opportunities they enjoy and the inspiring attention they command, if they did not appeal to the best read, the most intelligent, and the most responsive people on earth. In no other country is such a large percentage of the public a newspaper-reading public. Nowhere else does the average man know so much about current affairs of all kinds as in this country of ours.
On the other hand, I believe this popular intelligence is reciprocal—that the response the newspapers find for their endeavors is largely due to their efficiency in disseminating the news, in analyzing public questions, and in reiterating the truth. The man who is an habitual reader of a good newspaper owes much to that paper, just as the paper also owes much to him.
It is true that newspapers differ in policies and methods and doctrines, and there are times when the public may be confused rather than enlightened by the different presentations of the same subject, especially if the subject be one of technical complexities, such, for example, as that of the protective tariff. But in the daily run of eventsand the discussion of them, and in the long run of complex problems, the lines between right and wrong are not difficult to follow. And I am glad to say that from the newspaper point of view, these lines seem to be more clearly discerned than ever before, not alone by the press, but by the people. There has been a National awakening in this country, and the newspapers have had their share of it (applause). There is a broader and franker handling of the subjects of the day. The number of wholly independent papers is constantly increasing, and the number of independent party papers is increasing still more rapidly. The uncompromising party organ will soon be a thing of the past (applause). This greater independence of the press is largely responsible for the increasing independence of the electorate. The time has come when no man's loyalty to his party can be questioned when he honestly disapproves of some legislative measure or official representative of that party.
The chief function of the press is, of course, to present the news, and the news, collectively speaking, is non-partisan. A paper's advertising is non-partisan. If it is the right sort of paper, its circulation is largely non-partisan. And with equal freedom in its editorial policy, a newspaper, especially the big resourceful paper with an efficient and somewhat specialized staff, may make of itself a sort of popular university for its readers, furnishing them with authoritative information, whether obvious in the news or elucidated in the editorials, on the current life of the world.
I am not one of those who believe that a newspaper should confine itself to the mere presentation of the news. That is a great and powerful function, but the paper with a vast audience, with a reputation for honesty and authority, can make of itself a constructive agency of tremendous power (applause). Also, it can make itself a destructive agency, when the public welfare demands that something should be destroyed (applause).
Of course, we are a busy people, and newspapers must be prepared with reference to our limited leisure. A few papers are conducted on the theory that the public has no time to read anything but the headlines. I am not here to "knock" this class of newspaper. If they do not show a regrettable preference for the sensational or the scandalous, they serve a good purpose in the scheme of publicity. They have greatly enlarged the newspaper audience. Do not forget that. And it is the experience of those who have published this class of papers that sooner or later their readers require more conservatism. As a result there has been a tendency for some time among these papers toward a more dignified style of publication.
But, as I have said, we are busy people. We have need for intelligent digests, authoritative discussions of the subjects of the day as well as news developments of those subjects. An evidence of this need is the fact that, in some of our municipal, State, and Nationalcontests in which great issues are at stake, it is necessary, in spite of our boasted and undoubted intelligence, to reiterate salient facts day after day in order to drive them home and make them enter into the conviction of the masses (applause). Sometimes this reiteration becomes tiresome to those of quick perception or ample leisure; but it is a necessary practice on the part of a newspaper that regards itself as an instructive and constructive agency as well as news furnisher. And when a paper thus regards itself it would seem that the ideal and final policy would be one of untrammeled freedom—freedom to support the man or the measure best calculated to serve the public welfare, or to oppose the man or the measure believed to be inimical to popular well-being. A paper thus established, not as an infallible judge but as an intelligent investigator, a patriotic champion, and an enterprising and faithful agency for progress in the community that supports it, can become a tremendous factor for good—a factor that will be taken into account by all friends of the people, and must be taken into account by all enemies of the people. (Applause)
I will not presume to encroach upon the direct business of this Congress except so far as the newspaper hears a relation to it. Every newspaper publisher has a personal as well as his public share of the general interest in Conservation. The problem of procuring wood pulp at prices that will permit the continuation of the publication of newspapers at the present low rates will soon be serious unless a check is put upon the rapid decrease in the forest area. Wood pulp is made almost entirely from the spruce tree. For years the manufacturers of pulp stripped the forests with little thought of the morrow. The visible supply of pulp timber is becoming limited. Unless tree-growing comes to the rescue, it will not be long before print paper will have to be made from some other material, if a satisfactory substitute can be found, or the pulp will have to be bought from other countries.
I do not know whether you understand how much good timber is handled by newspaper readers. Let me give you some figures: The readers of the paper I represent handle sixty tons of it a day, taking into account the weekly edition. This is, in round numbers, 20,000 tons per year. We are already importing 20 percent of the pulp used in our paper mill. Think of it! In this great, big, new country, once almost covered with mighty forests, we find it advantageous today to import a common forest product from old Germany, where the highest standards of forest preservation and use are to be found. And this pulp, with a protective duty paid, is laid down in Kansas City for less than we have to pay for the domestic product of the same kind and quality. To make the paper for this one mill, the output of which is used exclusively by one paper, a daily average of more than one acre of spruce forest is used.
It is a matter for congratulation that the press of the country has assumed a most friendly attitude toward the Conservation movement(applause). Newspapers still disagree about many things. They have their little differences on the tariff, on the currency system, on corporation regulation, on certain men and particular measures, and they do not agree as to why "Jim" Jeffries didn't come back (laughter); but I have yet to find in a single issue of any paper flat opposition to the Conservation of natural resources (applause). Gentlemen of the Conservation Congress, you have here a movement of National and irresistible sweep, a theme that will endure through successive generations—for if it does not endure the Nation ultimately must perish. The people have grasped this subject spontaneously, and they are ready to study it zealously. Few yet comprehend its scope, fewer still its diversified details; but collectively the people intuitively understand its vital significance. The country has at last awakened to its gross neglect and waste and prodigality. It has suddenly been reminded of its obligation to future generations along material lines. There is something even more appealing in this than the promptings of altruism: there is the moving sense of parental obligation, of sacred trusteeship. You are to be congratulated—you who are the fathers and prime movers of this great cause—that you have the united press of the country behind you.
And not only is the press with you, but it is ready to do far more than it has been able to do thus far. This movement needs publicity—much publicity. It is new. It must be made familiar. The people must be informed in detail as to the location, the character, and the extent of their resources, and as to the means employed or proposed for the developing and fostering of those resources. The only effective means for the dissemination of this information is the press.
Every year the Government spends millions of dollars on Government reports. These reports are necessary as matters of record and reference, but they are worthless for general reading. Many of the millions expended on these reports could be saved by limiting the number of copies to those that will be used and by leaving the mails unencumbered with the surplus (applause). If a part of the money thus saved were expended in the intelligent preparation of news matter pertaining to the various Government departments, giving to the people the interesting facts as they develop instead of depending on voluminous and unpopular reports for the education of the people in these matters, the work of the Government would be facilitated by popular enlightenment where it is now hampered by popular ignorance. It seems to me there is an opportunity here for the Conservation of our National revenues and our natural resources at the same time.
What is needed is an intelligent publicity bureau or agent in each department and the more important subdivisions, capable of preparing, in news form, as the facts develop, the interesting and instructive features of the department's daily work. This does not mean that all the papers will use all this matter, but some of it would be used by allto whom it is offered, and all of it would be used by some papers. On the whole there would be much wider publicity than could be procured in any other way.
I am not suggesting an untried experiment. Some of the bureaus at Washington have publicity departments. Those of the Agricultural Department and the Geological Survey have been measurably effective, and manufacturers and importers have found large use for the popularized consular reports. But with a single exception there has been no near approach to the possibilities of cheap and helpful publicity in any department at Washington. The exception I have in mind is the Forest Service (applause). Do you know why the country knows so much more about forest conditions and the employed and proposed measures for their improvement than it knows about irrigation, reclamation, the use of the rivers, the potentialities of water-power, or the conservation of coal or oil or minerals? It is because the Forest Service, under the direction of Mr Gifford Pinchot, established a news service of such a character that the press of the country used its output freely and without the cost of one cent to the Government other than the cost of putting the matter in form acceptable to the press. (Applause)
For some reason it was proposed, a couple of years ago, to prohibit, by Congressional enactment, the continuance of this publicity. But the effort resulted only in a complete vindication of the service. It was shown that only legitimate news had been given out, and that this news had appeared in an average of 9,000,000 copies of newspapers per month. These figures were based on clippings procured through the clipping bureaus, and did not include many publications that must have escaped the clippers.
Now, if it had been undertaken to place this same matter before the same number of readers through the medium of the formal and technical reports of the department, the cost would have been more than 100 times as great—and nobody would have read them.
As an illustration that newspapers want more Conservation news than they are getting through regular channels: A number of publishers recently formed a special Conservation service, which they maintained in Washington, whose business it is to follow exclusively the developments of this movement. But this service cannot be made what it should be made if the Government does not cooperate in this policy of needed publicity.
Considering the waste that is incurred in the publishing of Government documents that have no popular educational value, it seems well nigh preposterous that there should not be ample provision, out of a saving that could be made by cutting off this waste, for the publication of matter that the people want and the newspapers stand ready to print free of cost. It would be no more absurd for this Congress to go into executive session, bar these gentlemen of the press from itsdeliberations, and assume that the official report of your proceedings, which will be printed in the due course of time, would furnish sufficient publicity for the work of this convention. As it is, you have a circulation of tens of millions daily for your output. (Applause)
ChairmanClapp—Ladies and Gentlemen: We often find a man who excels along some one line of work. The well-rounded man is the one who studies along every line; the truly great manisthe well-rounded man, the man who studies the forces which make for the conditions in which he lives. We have such a man in this city, of whom we are all justly proud; a man who long ago, in the forge of hope and courage, welded his own fate with the possibilities of the then undeveloped Northwest, and who has lived to see the prophecies born of a study of conditions mature and develop in a splendid empire. It affords me great pleasure to present to you one who will speak on the subject of "Soils and Crops, Food and Clothing"—Mr James J. Hill, of Saint Paul. (Great and prolonged applause)
MrHill—Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I do not intend to take much of your time this afternoon, but I hope to bring before you some thoughts that may suggest the practical side of the subject we have to consider at this Congress. In order to make myself clearly understood and to be exact in my statements I will ask your indulgence in allowing me to read what I have to say:
Every movement that affects permanently a nation's life passes through three stages. First it is the abstract idea, understood by few. Next it is the subject of agitation and earnest general discussion. Third, after it has won its way to a sure place in the national life, comes the era of practical adaptation. Mistakes and extravagances due to the enthusiasm of friends or the malice of enemies are corrected, details are fitted to actual needs, the divine idea is harnessed to the common needs of man. In this stage, which the Conservation movement has now reached, the most difficult and important work must be done.
In our own history and in that of other nations we have seen this process many times repeated. Public education was an abstract idea in the time of Plato, a controversy of the Renaissance, and is still only partly realized. Back of all written records lived the man who first saw a vision of government universal, equal, free and just. But the world has not yet achieved the final adaptation of this mighty conception to man as we find him. Democracy is still in the fighting stage.
Only a few years have passed since it first dawned upon a people who had reveled in plenty for a century that the richest patrimony is not proof against constant and careless waste; that a nation of spenders must take thought for its morrow or come to poverty. The first actual Conservation work of this Government was done in forestry, following the example of European countries. It soon becameevident that our mineral resources should receive equal though less urgent care. The supreme importance of conserving the most important resource of all, the wealth of the soil itself, was realized. In an address delivered four years ago this month before the Agricultural Society of this State, I first stated fully the problem that we have to meet and the method of its solution. With their great capacity for assimilating a new and valid thought, the people of this country were soon interested. Belief in a comprehensive system of Conservation of all resources has now taken possession of the public mind. What remains to be done is that most difficult of all the tasks of statesmanship—the application of an accepted principle and making it conform in all its general outlines to the common good.
To pack the fact into a single statement, the need of the hour and the end to which this Congress should devote itself is to conserve Conservation. It has come into that peril which no great truth escapes—the danger that lurks in the house of its friends. It has been used to forward that serious error of policy, the extension of the powers and activities of the National Government at the expense of those of the States. The time is ripe and this occasion is most fitting for distinguishing between real and fanciful Conservation, and for establishing a sound relation of means to ends. (Applause)
We should first exclude certain activities that come only indirectly under the term, "Conservation." The Reclamation Service is one. Its work is not preservation, but utilization. The arid lands of this country have been where they now are, the streams have flowed past them uselessly ever since Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden. Irrigation was practiced in prehistoric time. What we have to do is to bring modern methods to the aid of one of the oldest agricultural arts. It is mentioned here because its progress illustrates the dangers that beset Conservation projects proper. They are dangers inseparable from National control and conduct of affairs. The machine is too big and too distant; its operation is slow, cumbrous, and costly. So slow is it that settlers are waiting in distress for water promised long ago. So faulty has been the adjustment of time and money that Congress has had to authorize the issue of $20,000,000 of National obligations to complete projects still hanging in the air. So expensive is it that estimates have been exceeded again and again. The settler has had either to pay more than the cost figure he relied on or seek cheaper land in Canada. It costs the Government from 50 percent more to twice as much as it would private enterprise to put water on the land (applause). Under the Lower Yellowstone project the charge is $42.50 per acre, and one dollar per acre annually for maintenance. The Sunnyside project carries a charge of $52 per acre, and 95 cents maintenance. Under the North Platte project the charge is $45 per acre, plus a maintenance charge not announced. These projects, in widely separated localities, entail a land charge prohibitive to thefrontier settlers to provide homes for those for whom this work was believed to have been undertaken. The pioneer settler who can pay, even in ten annual installments, from $3,500 to $4,000 for eighty acres of land, in addition to the yearly fee per acre, must have some other resources to aid him. The work of irrigation would have been more cheaply done if turned over to private enterprise or committed to the several States within which lie the lands to be reclaimed (applause). This is not a criticism upon any individual. It is merely one more proof of the excessive cost of Government work. (Applause)
Toward the conservation of our mineral resources little can be done by Federal action. The output is determined not by the mine owner, but by the consumer. The withdrawal of vast areas of supposed coal lands tends to increase price by restricting the area of possible supply. Nor can such deposits be utilized eventually except under some such system as is now employed. It is foolish to talk of leasing coal lands in small quantities in order to prevent monopoly. Mining must be carried on upon a large enough scale to be commercially possible. The lessee of a small area could not afford to install the necessary machinery and provide means of transportation without charging for the product a prohibitory price. The land should not be leased by the acre, but by the quantity of coal contained in the land (applause). A vein four feet thick contains about 4,000 tons to the acre; in many fields there are three, four, five, and six veins containing from fifteen to thirty feet of coal, or from fifteen to thirty thousand tons to the acre. What we want is intelligent understanding of the situation (applause). Under too restrictive conditions the coal would remain in the ground indefinitely. The people of the West see little practical difference between a resource withheld entirely from use and a resource dissipated or exhausted. They understand by Conservation the most economical development and best care of resources. It is the only definition consistent with the natural growth of communities in the history of the civilized world.
The prairie States are more interested than any other in the question of cheap fuel. We do not depend on Alaska for our future supply. There is abundant coal on the Pacific Coast nearer to our seaports and commercial centers. Vancouver Island is underlain with it; today, while the railroad companies with which I am connected bought coal lands on Puget Sound, which they still own, we are prepared to burn oil from California instead of coal. I speak of that as a practical reason why we should, before we leap, look to see what the actual conditions are. Then, to say nothing of Nova Scotia on the Eastern coast, there is coal in Spitzbergen, within the Arctic Circle, actually nearer our Eastern markets than the coal of Alaska. While we lament the exhaustion of our coal supply, we maintain a tariff that compels us to draw upon it continuously. It would be well to cast out this beam before we worry too much over the Conservation mote. (Applause)
The iron deposits of Minnesota, the most wonderful in the world, are today not only furnishing industry in the Nation with its raw material, but are piling up a school fund at home that is the envy of other States and adding more and more every year to the contents of the State treasury. Minnesota is considering the reduction of her general tax levy by one-half. Would it be better if these lands were today held idle and unproductive by the Federal Government, or worked only on leases whose proceeds went into the Federal treasury and enabled Congress to squander a few more millions in annual appropriations? (Applause)
Against some forestry theories the West enters an even stronger plea. What the United States needs is neither reckless destruction nor an embargo upon our splendid Western commonwealths by locking up a considerable portion of their available area. There were, by the last report of the Forest Service, over 194,500,000 acres withdrawn from use in our forest reserves on June 30, 1909. Of this, nearly 58 percent, over 112,000,000 acres, or 175,000 square miles, lies in six Western States. That is an area six-sevenths the size of Germany or France. It is 80 percent of the size of the unappropriated and unreserved land in those six States. How are the cities, towns, and villages in those States to grow if so large a portion of the land is closed to the husbandman? I received today an official statement of the entire amount of public land withdrawn from settlement, and it is astounding. In area it is greater than the thirteen original States; it is nearly as great as New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois (applause). And at the same time, we are driving this year not less than 100,000 American farmers to the Canadian Northwest to seek homes there (applause). Now, I say to you that the area of this total withdrawal for various purposes of the public domain is greater than the cultivatable area of the entire Canadian Northwest.
The forest reserves and the lands conveyed by Congressional grants to private interests in Oregon amount to some 50,000 square miles. More than half the area of this great State has been withdrawn by action of the Government in one way or another from cultivation and the enjoyment and profit of the people of the State. Over one-third of Idaho and 27 percent of Washington are forest reserves. Colorado is almost as badly off; and not more than 30 percent of its forest reserves is covered with merchantable timber, while about 40 percent has no timber at all. On the Olympic peninsula are lands reported to be withdrawn to conserve our water supply where the annual rainfall amounts to something like seven to ten feet (laughter). According to the official report, the cost of administering the Forest Service in 1909 was a little short of three million dollars, and the receipts were $1,800,000. The deficit on current account alone was over $1,100,000.The total disbursements were over $4,400,000, and the actual deficit $2,600,000. Now, we should be liberal in our grants for the care of our public forests. We should also closely scrutinize the manner of their care. The present season has seen an enormous destruction in the value of the timber in the forest reserves. Our company, for over two months, has had from 800 to 1,000 men at work doing nothing else but trying to put out the fires in the forest reserves. (Applause)
The Forest Service has over 2,000 employes. In 1909 they planted 611 acres, and sowed 1,126 acres more. The West believes in forest preservation. But it believes practically and not theoretically. It realizes that a good thing may cost too much, and is not ignorant of the extravagant financial tendency of every Federal department and bureau. It wants all good agricultural land open to the settler, wherever it may be situated. It wants timber resources conservatively utilized, and not wasted or destroyed.
In connection with forestry interests there is just now much question of the conservation of water-power sites. The demand is that Federal lands forming such sites should be withdrawn and leased for the profit and at the pleasure of the Federal Government. Against this the whole West rightly protests. The water-power differs from the coal deposit in that it is not destroyed by use. It will do its undiminished work as long as the rains fall and the snows melt. Not the resource but the use of it is a proper subject for Conservation and regulation. To withdraw these sources of potential wealth from present utilization is to take just so much from the industrial capital of the States in which they are situated.
The attempted Federal control of water-powers is illegal, because the use of the waters within a State is the property of the State and cannot be taken from it (applause), and that the State may and actually does, in the case of Idaho for example, perfectly safeguard its water-powers from monopoly and make them useful without extortion has been shown conclusively by Senator Borah in a speech in the United States Senate in which this whole subject is admirably covered. Back in our history beyond the memory of most men now living there was the same controversy over the public domain. Ought it to be administered by the Government and disposed of for its profit, or opened to the people and shared with the States? Let experience determine which was the better guardian. The worst scandals of State land misappropriation, and there were many, are insignificant when compared with the record of the Nation. The total cash receipts of the Federal Government from the disposal of public and Indian lands from 1785 to 1909 were $423,451,673. The money is gone. It has been expended, wisely or unwisely, with other treasury receipts. It would be interesting to know how much the above sum exceeded the cost of administration. To go back 125 years and dig up the cost of the administration of public lands would be more of a task than I have timefor, but I took the last report of the General Government, and in the disbursements of the Interior Department I found that the cost of administering the public lands was in 1907 $17,421,000, in 1908 $15,190,000, in 1909 $14,441,000. Now if we take the entire proceeds of all the public lands sold, including the Indian lands, it averages $3,400,000 a year for the 125 years during which it has been sold; and we find here that the cost of administering the greatly reduced estate is from three to five times as much as the total receipts would average (applause). But certain limited areas of lands were conveyed to the States for educational purposes. The permanent common school funds, State and local, conserved by the States, amount to $246,943,349. The estimated value of productive school lands today is $138,851,634, and of unproductive $86,347,482. Add to these the land grant funds of colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts, and the total is merely half a billion dollars. To what magnitude these great funds, now jealously guarded for educational purposes by the States, may grow in time we cannot even guess. Some may eventually provide amply for all educational needs of their States forever. This is one telling proof of the superior fidelity of the commonwealth as custodian of any trust for future generations.
There remains an opportunity and a need of Conservation transcending in value all others combined. The soil is the ultimate employer of all industry and the greatest source of all wealth (applause). It is the universal banker. Upon the maintenance, unimpaired in quantity and quality, of the tillable area of the country its whole future is conditioned. Four years ago, and on many occasions since, I presented the facts and statistics that make land conservation incomparably the paramount issue with all who have at heart the prosperity of our people and the permanence of our institutions. It is unnecessary to repeat in detail what has now become matter of common knowledge and is accessible to all. For the last ten years the average wheat yield in the United States was 14.1 bushels, while in Germany it was 28.7 and in the United Kingdom 32.6. This is a measure of our general agriculture. The cattle other than milch cows on farms in the United States are over 4,000,000 fewer than they were three years ago. The number of hogs declined 7,000,000 in the last three years, and is less than it was twenty years ago. The increase in total value of food products is due to a great extent to higher prices. This failure to conserve soil fertility and maintain the agricultural interest is expressed in recent changes in our foreign trade. These are more than mere balance sheets; since, as you know, variations in international trade balances may produce wide-reaching effects upon all industry.
While our total foreign trade last year was only a little less than the high record made in 1907, the distribution of it was vastly different. For the last fiscal year our imports were nearly $240,000,000 in excess of those for the same period in 1909, and $303,000,000 abovethose of 1908. Our exports were more by $82,000,000 only than in 1909, and were nearly $116,000,000 less than in 1908. In 1908 the excess of exports over imports was $666,000,000; by 1910 it had fallen to $187,000,000. We are buying more lavishly and selling less because there is less that we can spare—yet, my friends, that $187,000,000 of balance of trade due to this country is not enough to pay the extravagant traveling expenses of our "globe trotters" who are annually passing from one end of Europe to the other. (Applause)
A glance at the following table of our exports for the last five years in three great schedules dependent directly on the soil tells the whole story:
BreadstuffsMeat and Dairy ProductsCattle, Sheep and Hogs1906$186,468,901$210,990,065$43,516,2581907184,120,702202,392,50835,617,0741908215,260,588192,802,70830,235,6211909159,929,221166,521,94918,556,7361910133,191,330130,632,78312,456,109
With the exception of the increase in breadstuffs in 1907-8, caused by our desperate need to send something abroad that would bring in money to stay a panic, the decline is constant and enormous. A continuance of similar conditions—and no change is in sight—must mean partial food famine and hardship prices in the home market; an annual indebtedness abroad which, having no foodstuffs to spare, we must pay in cash; and financial depression and industrial misfortune because we have drawn too unwisely upon the soil. This impending misfortune, only the conservation of a neglected soil and all the interests connected with it can avert.
The saving feature of the situation is the interest already awakened in agricultural improvements; an interest which it should be the first object of this Congress to deepen and preserve. Much has been done, but it is only a beginning. The experiment station; the demonstration farm; agricultural instruction in public schools; emphasis upon right cultivation, seed selection, and fertilization through the keeping of live stock, all these are slowly increasing the agricultural product and raising the index of soil values. The work being done by the Agricultural Department under the care of our old Iowa friend, Secretary Wilson—who is a farmer from choice (applause)—is scientifically selecting the good from the bad and the wise from unwise methods, and the information is within the reach of every farmer of this country who will only put out his hand and ask for it. (Applause)
But the work moves more slowly than our needs. The possibilities are great. One might make the comparison with current agriculture elsewhere almost at random, since European Russia is the only first-class country more backward than our own. Take the smallestand what might be supposed the least promising illustration: Denmark's area is about twice that of Massachusetts. It is occupied by more than two and a half million people. This Jutland was originally land of inferior fertility. What has been done with it? Denmark is now called "the model farm of Europe." Her exports of horses, cattle, bacon and lard, butter and eggs, amounted in 1908 to nearly $89,000,000. Mr Frederic C. Howe in a recent article says: "The total export trade is approximately $380 for every farm, of which 133,000 of the 250,000 are of less than 131/2acres in extent, the average of all the farms being but 43 acres for the entire country. The export business alone amounts to nine dollars per acre, in addition to the domestic consumption, as well as the support of the farmer himself." One-half the population are depositors in the savings banks, with an average deposit of $154. How have these things been accomplished?
First negatively, it has not been done by any artificial means or legislative hocus-pocus (applause). No bounty and no subsidy has any share in the national prosperity. The ruler of the country is the small farmer. He cultivates his acres as we cultivate a garden. He raises everything that belongs to the land. He fertilizes it by using every ounce of material from his live stock, and by purchasing more fertilizers when necessary. There are 42 high schools and 29 agricultural colleges in this little country with a population less than that of Massachusetts in 1900. Whatever else they teach, agriculture is taught first, last, and all the time, to young and old alike. The Dane is a farmer, and is proud of it. England and Ireland and Germany are studying his methods today. No people could imitate them with more profit than our own. (Applause)
Recent good years have brought the average wheat yield per acre in the United States up to over fourteen bushels. Twice that would be considered poor in Great Britain and an average crop in Germany. Therefore twenty-five bushels per acre is a reasonable possibility for us. Suppose we raise it. The present wheat acreage of the United States is about 46,500,000 acres on the average. If it gave 25 bushels per acre, the crop would amount to 1,162,500,000 bushels. At our present rate of production and consumption we may cease to be a wheat exporting Nation within the next ten or fifteen years, perhaps earlier. With the larger yield we could supply all our own wants and have a surplus of 400,000,000 bushels for export. This is no fancy picture, but a statement of plain fact. Is there any other field where Conservation could produce results so immense and so important? Is there any other where it bears so directly upon our economic future, the stability of our Government, the well-being of our people?
Any survey of practical Conservation would be imperfect if it omitted the almost desperate necessity at this time of conserving capital and credit. This subject deserves full and separate treatment.No more is possible here than to summarize some of the facts and conclusions presented by me to the Conservation Conference that assembled in this city a few months ago. Conservation of cash and credit is important to the farmer as it saves or wastes results of his work, and his work furnishes the greater part of the Nation's wealth. Our States, including cities and minor civil subdivisions, have run in debt about three-quarters of a billion dollars in the last twelve years. Public expenditure is increasing everywhere. Public economy is a virtue either lost or despised. From 1890 to 1902 the aggregate expenditures of all the States increased 103 percent. Boston's tax levy, says Brooks Adams in a late article including this among the serious problems of modern civilization, was $3.20 per capita in 1822, while now it is nearly $30. The per capita cost of maintaining the Federal Government was $2.14 in 1880, $4.75 in 1890, $6.39 in 1900, and $7.56 in 1908. The total appropriations voted by Congress for the four years from 1892 to 1896 were $1,871,509,578; for the four years from 1904 to 1908 they were $3,842,203,577. An increase of $2,000,000,000 in expense for two four-year periods with only eight years between them should give any people pause. Spendthrift man and spendthrift Nation must face at last the same law carrying the same penalty.
If anyone believes that this growth of expenditure is a consequence of the general material growth of the country, let him study the following brief table of comparative statistics. It establishes the indictment of national extravagance: