After our present Government was founded, its first conflict with the British provincial idea was in the Whiskey Rebellion of Pennsylvania; the special interests that dealt in rum, under the guise of State sovereignty defied the Nation's laws; but George Washingtonput down that first State rights rebellion in the name of the Government of all the people (applause). Then came the special interests' defiance of the laws of the General Government in Andrew Jackson's day, and Andrew Jackson's voice, like the voice of Washington, was the voice of all the people against the voice of the special interests who tried to exploit the people. Next came the special interests that thrived on human slavery, and, in the name of State rights tried to destroy the Government they could not control. But again the National sentiment responded to Abraham Lincoln's call to arms (great applause), and a million bayonets wrote across our Constitution these words of the American people's immortality: THIS IS A NATION! (Applause)
Then came the special interests that robbed and poisoned the people by lotteries, that destroyed the morals of the people by obscene literature. They flourished under State protection. Only the Nation could stop them. Those special interests denied that the Nation had the power to stop them. But the Nationdidstop them, and the Supreme Court of the Nation upheld the Nation's power (applause). Then came the special interests that sold to the people diseased meats, poisoned foods, and adulterated drugs. Again they flourished under State protection. Again the Nation only could protect the lives of the Nation's people. And again those special interests denied that the Nation had the power, but the Nationexercisedthe power, and today National laws protect the lives and rights of the American people from special interests that were plundering and poisoning and killing them. (Applause)
And it is the same conflict between the National and the provincial idea, for and against the great, necessary, and inevitable reform of the National control of corporate capitalization, on which so largely depend just prices and rates to the people. (Applause)
These are examples of the evils; but nearly every step of progress we have taken has been due to the success of the National idea. For example, President Madison vetoed the first internal improvement bill. He said, in one of the ablest messages ever written—far abler than the diluted State rights doctrine we hear today—that the Constitution gave the Nation no power to build roads, bridge rivers, improve harbors; but the people needed these things in order to win that righteous prosperity which only they can have acting as one people, under one flag—and so Congress passed the internal improvement bill over Madison's veto, and today no one dares question the Nation's power to make internal improvements; the only question today is how we can best do that work. (Applause)
Again, for a hundred years, the provincial idea kept the quarantine of the Nation's ports exclusively in the hands of the States; but if pestilence entered at a port of one State it attacked the people of other States. The germs of yellow fever did not know State lineswhen they saw them, any more than a forest fire knows the boundaries between States when it sees them. And so the open grave, the dead on the street, the people's past and future peril, asserted the National idea again for the Nation's safety, and today we have substantially a National control of National quarantine to keep pests and death from our shores, and the States are cooperating.
So you see that the history of the American people has been merely the narrative of the making of the Nation, merely the record of the compounding of a people, merely the chronicle of the knitting together of one great brotherhood. It is an inevitable process, and it is a safe process—except for special interests that seek to exploit all the people. For the American people can be trusted (applause). The combined intelligence and composite conscience of the American people is the mightiest force for wisdom and righteousness in all the world, and no ancient and provincial interpretation of State rights in the name of development must impede our general welfare (applause), no plea for hasty local development must impair our healthy general development (applause), no temporary State politics compelled by the wealthy few must prevent permanent National statesmanship for the general good of all. (Applause)
Affairs that concern exclusively the people living within a State are the business and the problem of that State. Affairs affecting the general welfare of the whole people are the business and problem of the Nation (applause). And even in solving its own problems, every State must remember that its people are an inseparable and indivisible part of the whole American people (applause). Of States as of men it may be written, No State liveth unto itself alone. (Applause)
Just as the idea of provincialism has caused most of our National evils in the past, so it has wrought the waste of our National resources. The provincial idea was that the National resources belonging to all the people should be handed over for nothing to special interests. This was done under the plea of encouraging individual enterprise and the hastening of local development. And so forests, which once belonged to all the people, have been ruthlessly slaughtered, and upon their ruins have risen the empires of our lumber kings (applause). Priceless deposits of coal and iron and copper and phosphates have been freely surrendered to special interests, and those sources of the people's revenue, which should have flowed into the people's treasury to help pay the expenses of the people's government, have been diverted by the ditch dug by the provincial idea into the treasury of special interests until the multi-millionaire constitutes one of the gravest problems confronting American statesmanship. (Applause)
All this waste and robbery of the people's property must be stopped! (Applause) The hand of waste or theft must not be strengthenedby any legal technicality that plays into the hands of special interests and out of the hands of the American people! (Great applause)
Had we kept all the property that belonged to all the people, and compelled special interests who exploited it to pay us a reasonable price for it, that income today would be paying most of our National expenses. Our resources would have been developed and not exhausted, and our whole material evolution would have been rational and sound instead of unbalanced and defective. Had this been our policy from the start, we would have enjoyed all the benefits from our natural resources, and our children today would inherit colossal National wealth and small National burdens instead of the special interests enjoying all the benefits of the people's property andtheirchildren inheriting colossal fortunes and small private burdens. (Applause)
The Nation must keep and administer for the benefit of all the people the property yet remaining to the people (applause). Every State should help and not hinder the Nation, in doing this great duty (applause). Every State should administer the public property within it, and belonging to it, for the public good. Every municipality should keep and administer the property belonging to it for the public good; and both State and municipality should aid the Nation in keeping and administering for the people the property that belongs toallof them.
I want to give you an illustration, very concrete: Many of New York's inconceivably vast fortunes have been expanded by corrupt councils selling watercourses and other property for a mere song to private owners. Had New York kept the property which belonged to the city, instead of squandering it to already multi-millionaires, the city's debt today would not be so vast—and her great private fortunes would not be so vast either (applause). The people's taxes would have been less, and the gigantic unearned incomes of the heirs of great wealth would have been less (applause). And as between the two, the wiser policy have been for the city to keep the property that belonged to all the people of the city instead of selling it sometimes for an infamous price to private owners whose vast wealth, accumulating by the work of the city itself, has raised up in the midst of the American people one of the great questions of the age.
Cooperation of municipality, State, and Nation, in keeping and administering for the general good the property of all the people—this is the policy of common sense and common honesty (applause). Strife and dissension between municipality, State, and Nation, that the reign of pillage may go on and that mighty accumulations of wealth may be upbuilded upon the ruins of the people's resources—thatis the policy of private avarice and private plunder (applause). Coal, timber, asphalt, phosphates, water-powers—all the property of the people—must be kept and administered for the people by the Governmentwhich Lincoln said was "of the people by the people for the people" (applause). Already this greatest of our present-day National policies is well under way. Let any man beware how he retards or hinders it (applause). Already we have saved much of the people's property still belonging to the people. We must saveallof the people's property still belonging to the people. (Applause and cries of "Good") "Honor to whom honor is due." (Applause) Let us not forget, in this great hour, that the man who, by thought, word, and deed, has wrought for this great reform, until today he stands its National personification (applause), that splendid, courageous, pure, unselfish young American, the President of the National Conservation Association, Gifford Pinchot. (Tumultuous applause and cheers, calls for "Pinchot"; and the audience rose, gave the Chautauqua salute, and continued cheering for many minutes)
For years—and I speak from personal knowledge, because twelve years ago when I entered the Senate I was made the chairman of the then despised forestry committee—for years Gifford Pinchot has ceaselessly worked and fearlessly fought to keep for the people the property of the people which special interests were trying to steal from the people (applause). And in that Nation-wide battle he has been the field-officer of the man whofirstsucceeded in making Conservation a permanent and practical policy of American statesmanship, Theodore Roosevelt. (Great applause. A Voice: Let us vote to give him back his job!)
The soul of our prosperity—even of our very life—is in the idea of our unity as a people. Let municipality, State, and Nation, each act and, within its own province, work to keep what belongs to the people for the people, instead of the municipality, State, and Nation, each within its province, conniving at the waste of the people's property for the upbuilding of the wealth of special interests to the detriment of all the people. The wise, honest and economic administration of the people's welfare means the just advantage which individual enterprise and thrift as of right ought to have. The unwise, uneconomic and dishonest waste of the people's resources for the enrichment of the special few, this in the end, believe me, is the denial of that just advantage which individual thrift, enterprise, and integrity as of right ought to have. (Applause)
The young men of today in working for themselves individually must think and act for what the Constitution calls "the general welfare" of the whole people (applause). After all, only as the Nation is prosperous can any State be really prosperous. After all, only as the Nation is powerful can any State be really safe from foes, foreign and domestic. The young men of the twentieth century in this Republic are not the heirs of the provincial idea which we inherited from the British kings, and which has so hindered our real progress as a people, squandered so much of the people's resources, shed somuch of the people's blood. No! The young men of today are the heirs of all the advancement that our struggling millions have made toward their common brotherhood. The young men of today are the heirs of all the victories which heroes and statesmen have won for the general welfare. The young men of today are the heirs of all the unifying influences by which the genius of man has knit this great people into one splendid family. And so the young American of today, when thinking of himself, must think in the terms of the Nation; through his veins must pulse the blood of our general welfare; his every thought and act must be for the common good of all. And only so can his individual success be well builded; and when it is builded on such foundation, though "the rains descend and the floods come and the winds blow" and beat upon a house thus builded "it shall not fall, for it is founded upon a rock." (Applause)
Why was the American Nation founded? What is the purpose of this Republic? It is to create a greater human happiness than the world has ever known (applause). It is to enable millions of men and women to cooperate in building clean, honorable, prosperous homes. And so let us Americans move forward as brothers and as sisters until we shall give the whole world an example of one great brotherhood in heart and in deed as well as in words. (Great applause)
There were repeated calls for "Pinchot"; and Mr Pinchot, coming forward amidst great cheers and hearty applause, said—
Ladies and Gentlemen, Members of this great meeting: There can be in a man's life but few moments like this, in seeing policies in which he believes and for which he has tried to work so splendidly acclaimed by such a meeting, when at first they were questioned. I haven't anything to say at this time except to thank you most profoundly, and to add that the policies for which this Congress stands are sweeping the country as they are sweeping this body—and that, so far as the United States is concerned, Conservation, I believe, has won out. (Applause) I thank you!
PresidentBaker—Ladies and Gentlemen: We all know Conservation has, with such a leader, won out. (Applause)
We now take up "A Rational System of Taxing National Resources," by Frank L. McVey, President of the University of North Dakota, whom I have the pleasure of introducing. (Applause)
PresidentMcVey—Mr Chairman and Good Friends: The invitation of the President of the Congress to be present and to deliver an address on the subject of a rational system of taxing natural resources, asked that specific suggestions be made of a practical nature for the improvement of our present laws on this subject. This places upon me a heavy responsibility if the suggestions madeare to be accepted in any serious way. The title of the address assigned emphasizes arationalsystem; it implies that the one now in vogue cannot be so designated, and that any system of taxation has a close relation to the Conservation of natural resources. This, if I may put it in so many words, is my thesis.
It is unnecessary for me to go into the need of Conservation, since that has been done in the previous Congress and at various times in the public prints. The question then to which I must devote the time of the program assigned to me is this: How does taxation affect the Conservation of natural resources, and what suggestions of a practical nature can be made for the betterment of the taxation of such resources?
It may be said in the beginning that the difficulties involved in the taxing of natural resources exist to still greater degree in the case of other property. Generally speaking, we have not attained to a rational system of taxation in any field, and we are now attempting to revamp the old system and extend it, by adding to or taking from it. Economic conditions in America have changed from time to time, and these changes have forced upon us a reorganization of our methods, not only of manufacture and of transportation, but also of administration, government, and social organization. Such a condition of affairs is seen today in nearly every State, and attempts are being made to meet it in the specific instance of the fiscal problem by adding to the old system of taxation through the special taxation of corporations, inheritances, royalties, and incomes. The consequence is that so far as natural resources are concerned we have no principle existent in the general scheme of taxation that can be used to meet the new conditions that have arisen in our efforts to conserve our resources. Just as the problems of industrial organization have come upon the States, so now has come the problem of our natural resources. In hazy thinking, and sometimes in indefinite laws, we have attempted to regulate through legislation the great corporations of the present day; and in much the same manner we shall, by feeling our way, attempt to develop some plan of taxing natural resources.
Sometimes in discussing this question of the taxation of natural resources a great deal of emphasis is placed on the statement that it is the cause of the depletion of timber and mineral lands especially. I think it may be said at the outset that the taxation of natural resources is only one of many factors in the destruction of them. The extent to which this takes place is impossible to say, but the fact remains that the taxation of natural resources may or may not hasten the destruction of forest lands, the exploitation of minerals, and the cultivation of the soil. Where lands bearing timber are owned, interest charges with each year of ownership are piled up, and the same is true of the taxes. Where, on the other hand, lands are held through a royalty contract, the lessee is in a position to carrythe lands without special cost to himself except that of the taxes. The consequence is that it is impossible to apply the same principle of taxation to agricultural lands, timber lands, minerals, and water-powers. There must be a differentiation between them, and a differentiation that will clearly meet the various uses to which they are put.
Without question, the general property tax, as it now stands upon the statute books of the different States, does not meet in any true sense of the term the general economic conditions, and the special needs of mining and lumbering in particular. The principle of taxing the product when it is placed upon the market applies particularly to mineral and timber lands, but the same principle in the case of agricultural lands would probably deter their use and fail to meet the needs of revenue as well as working to the discouragement of the agricultural industry. The single-taxers have insisted that the taxation of lands hastens its use, that it forces the owner to develop it; and this is just the thing that is needed in the special instances of agricultural lands and of town lots, but the same principle could not be applied to the other resources of the Nation.
It is possible for the owners of timber lands by following the principles of forestry to modify the product and to keep the land in producing condition indefinitely. Taxation of such land, therefore, should have in view the maintenance of this condition. It must be clearly understood, however, that the fear of fire, interest charges on investment, and the cost of management will act quite as surely toward the rapid destruction of forests as will taxation. These conditions must also be recognized by the State in the establishment of a fire warden system, and the encouragement of forestation through some plan of bonuses. Where forestation is not practiced, the taxation of timber products under present conditions, whether on stumpage or in transit to the saw-mills, is a serious problem—serious to the local governments because under existing laws logs in transit are taxable where they are owned, and serious to the owners of the timber lands because the fixed charges on their property increase each day without any income from them. As near as can be ascertained, the annual taxes on timber vary from one cent per thousand feet to fifty cents per thousand feet, with an average tax of somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen cents per thousand feet. Interest charges are probably about twenty-three cents, making a total annual cost of something like thirty-eight cents per thousand feet. In ten years time the tax on each thousand feet of standing timber will amount to $1.50, which compounded with interest makes a total of $2.37. When added to the other charges it is probably true that the owner of timber under modern conditions must have at least $13.02 per thousand feet on his logs delivered at the mill if he is to come out even at the end of ten years with a profit of six percent.
The suggestions which have been made from time to time regarding the taxation of timber have as their fundamental principle the separation of the value of the land from the value of the timber. This plan meets the criticism of the local assessing officers by providing a basis of taxing annually a part of the valuation, and of procuring some income for the local government. If it is understood then that the land may be taxed annually and the timber product when it is cut, we have under this plan a simple scheme of taxation which will unquestionably meet the difficulty that is now urged against the general property assessment of timber lands. Under the old plan of valueing annually the property, it was difficult to secure an appraisement that was satisfactory to anybody; and, what was more, as the years went by the local governments found their assessed values decreasing and the burden of government materially increasing with the decline in amount of standing timber. The annual taxation of the land on which the timber stands meets this difficulty, while the taxation of the product at the time of harvesting provides a plan that is fair both to the local government and to the owner of timber.
On the other hand, the taxation of mineral properties differs from the taxation of timber lands in that it is not possible for the owner to increase by any plan of Conservation the amount of tonnage that he has in his possession. The Conservation which he might practice is the simple Conservation of saving for a future time. From the point of view of the State the problem is largely one of getting a share of the value of the minerals in the ground. The method that has been generally followed is that of making an appraisement of the mineral lands, which might be very far from or very near the truth. The same principle which is applied in the case of the timber lands, namely, the taxation of the product, should be applied to the taxation of mineral properties. There is no question that the easiest way, and the most satisfactory and acceptable way to all concerned, is a tonnage tax, varying possibly with the character of the ore and the cost of mining, but always depending for the rate and the amount on the ore that has been mined. It will probably be argued, as it has in other instances, that the local governments are compelled to rely largely for their support upon the taxes paid by the owners of mineral properties, and consequently a tonnage tax would deprive them of the regularity of their income. There is much to be considered in this point; but the taxation of the surface on some such basis as that seen in the case of the timber tax would provide a regular income, which would be supplemented by the amount of the tonnage taxes.
The rate of the tonnage tax would not, as in the case of the appraisement of a general property tax, tend to hasten the utilization of the ore. That would be determined entirely by the demand for it in the fields of manufacture. The real essence of the tonnage taxlies in the fact that value found in the ground is distinctly a product of nature, which anad valoremtax cannot recognize, and in consequence the State's right to a share of the value of the earth's products, together with the diminishing value element involved, are overlooked. The protection of the local government, and often of the mineral owner, demands a combination of the tonnage tax and of the local land tax.
When we come to the taxation of water-power we are face to face with a problem that involves even more difficulties than are found in the case of the timber and mineral lands. The thing here involved is so elusive, so difficult of measurement, and requires such expensive administration, that it is quite conceivable that many years must elapse before an adequate plan for such taxation can be developed. A water-power, however, is perpetual, and in this particular it differs from timber and mineral properties, and is more akin to farm lands. It differs from the latter, however, in this particular, that the work once done in harnessing it is done once for all, and the annual labor expended upon it is not exhausted, as in the case of the farm. Nature, having been harnessed, is able to accomplish the work for which she is called upon.
The first step in any adequate system of taxing water-powers must be their survey. This means listing, locating, and measuring. It means, too, that the Legislature should assume at the beginning all water-powers belonging to the State, and that the acquirement of them must be through lease, as in the case of mineral lands in the State of Minnesota, for example. Several plans have been suggested for the taxation of water-power. One is the measurement of the water flowing over a dam, and another is the taxation of the actual horsepower developed. The latter plan is subject to many criticisms. The development of horsepower depends so largely on the skill of the engineer, on the capital invested, and on the way the water is handled, that it would be far better to measure the capacity of the dam under proper engineering authority and determine a fair rate for the amount of power produced by the water passing over the dam. Of necessity many refinements of this plan would be required; such as the determination of the movement of the stream, the height of the water, the difficulties of harnessing the power; but it is possible, by taking into consideration the general expense of operating a water-power plant, to work out a rate which would be fair to the users as well as to the State. In no instance of Conservation does a greater need of proper taxation appear than in the case of water-power. Nature provides a perpetual force with but little expense after the necessary fundamentals have been arranged, and for the State to receive no compensation of any kind for the utilization of such a great wealth-producer is to bring into existence the greatest possible factor of injustice in the matter of taxation.
It will therefore be seen that a rational taxation of natural resources does not depend on any very great and intricate principle, but that, on the other hand, the principles involved are comparatively simple. It must be clearly understood as well that the taxation of land for agricultural purposes, for minerals, for timber, or for water-power, must differ in many respects, and that a principle of taxation applied in one case may not work out in the other. But if we keep clearly in mind the purposes for which land can be utilized, and that the fundamental taxation of land as such can be made annually, and that of the product at the time of its harvesting, we have in the three instances of agricultural, mineral, and timber lands a principle that may prove satisfactory when put in the form of legislation. The same idea can be applied to the water-power site; taxation of the land at a nominal assessment and of the water-power on the basis of the amount of water passing over the dam gives us again a principle upon which can be based satisfactory legislation.
It must be remembered, however, that all legislation is compromise in character, and that the recognition of these principles has usually been set aside when it came to the question of legislation. The States have reached a point in the raising of revenue where not only more revenue is needed for the purposes of general social advancement, but where better administration is as essential and necessary as the other. Administration bureaus must be provided in all of the States to furnish the necessary data, if we are to reach some practical basis of conserving our resources through taxation. And tax commissions must be given ample authority, and in addition must have plenty of expert advice and assistance which will give it the necessary endorsement. To my mind, a rational system of taxing natural resources depends largely on administration based upon a few fundamental principles of legislation. It is comparatively not a difficult matter; it is largely a question of willingness to meet the problem; but if the experience of the past has any light to throw upon this subject, it is very clear indeed that legislation will be slow, and that the different interests involved, through fear of some possible advantage likely to be gained over them, will cling to the old system until it is almost too late to produce any results through adequate taxation.
It is my hope that a Congress like this may have some power and some influence in setting aside this attitude, but I fear that an adequate system of taxation will move very slowly when it comes to its formulation in legislation. This is not encouraging, but it is truth; and that after all is what we are really trying to get at without confusing the issue by arguments favoring present attitudes either of the State or of owners of natural resources. Big views will help solve the problems, little and narrow ones never. (Applause)
PresidentBaker—Mr J. B. White, Chairman of our Executive Committee, will discuss the question of taxation, especially in relation to woodlands. (Applause)
ChairmanWhite—Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen: We have listened to a great paper upon this subject of taxation. It is a subject difficult to analyze and very difficult to apply, because each section of the country requires a different form of taxation; each State has different views, and each should apply the remedy according to the local conditions.
I speak as a representative lumberman, and as Chairman of the Conservation Committee of the Lumber Manufacturers of the United States. Now, the lumbermen have asked for nothing in regard to taxation excepting what they have incorporated in a resolution, part of the preamble to which I read:
Whereas, there is a great and growing need for uniform laws among the States in the interest of forest growth, conservation, and protection from forest fires, and for an equitable and helpful system of taxation which will make possible the conservative handling of standing timber.
Whereas, there is a great and growing need for uniform laws among the States in the interest of forest growth, conservation, and protection from forest fires, and for an equitable and helpful system of taxation which will make possible the conservative handling of standing timber.
That is the declaration of the preamble. It asks simply a uniform system of taxation.
I want to say a word for our fathers and grandfathers who have been called the ruthless destroyers of the forests, and I want to say in their behalf that they committed no sin which shall be visited upon their children or their children's children (applause). They cut the forests to make homes for the people; they cut the forests to build our cities and our towns; they sold all they could, they saved all they could, they committed no waste; and it should not be imputed to them that there is a penalty to be paid by their children or their children's children upon the forests that now stand. (Applause)
Taxation is regarded everywhere as a part of the cost of a commodity. Every person that buys a foot of lumber, every person that buys a yard of cloth, every person that buys a suit of clothes, or groceries, or anything that is manufactured, is the one who pays the taxes (applause). We are all consumers. We pay each other's taxes, and there is no way of avoiding taxation. It is said that death and taxation are sure. There is no way of avoiding either. The consumer must pay the tax because it is part of the cost.
Now, in regard to the system of taxation; every Nation has its own form. When it is necessary to encourage the growth or manufacture of a product, the States of the world have some way of encouraging it by relief from taxation. Germany has a law putting a duty on American wheat in order that every nook and corner of the waste land of Germany may be made to grow wheat. Now, that is a tax. The people of Germany pay that tax, but it encourages the farmer to grow wheat. And in our own country, when it is necessary to encourage the farmer in the beet-sugar, or any related industry, theGovernment gives a bounty, and people pay it, and the money is kept at home instead of going abroad for the product. So in timber taxation, it would seem to me that the reasonable way is to tax it as it is cut—let the tax follow the saw. Of course every State will apply the remedy according to local conditions. Louisiana has applied the remedy. She has passed some very good laws, and we are going to hear from the representatives of that State, before this Congress adjourns. We want to consider these things.
There are now so many substitutes for lumber that there will be inducements to let trees stand if they are not overtaxed. A tree must have a hundred years' growth before it can be utilized in the shape of clear lumber in the upper grades. If you tax the tree every year, you are putting one hundred years' taxes upon the timber. We must be reasonable about these things if we would encourage the growing of trees. Any other commodity in the United States pays a tax annually upon the crop, but here, in growing timber, we are paying for a hundred years where we should only pay for one. (Applause)
Some States will not grow trees. Illinois will not grow trees. It would prefer to grow corn. Its land is too rich to grow timber, and the people will grow corn and exchange it for the product of other States which are better adapted to tree-growing and not so well adapted to agriculture. The lands west of the Cascade Range are well adapted to tree-growing on account of the great rainfall, and not so well adapted for other uses. A tree will grow there in forty years to as great a size as it will in eighty years on this side of the Cascade Range. In short, trees will be grown where it pays to grow them, where they are encouraged to be grown, where the people want them grown. We cannot grow trees on sentiment; tree-growing will have to pay; it will have to stand upon a commercial basis. The Government cannot grow trees without its costing something to grow them. Conservation has been wrongly understood.
The great leader of American forestry, Gifford Pinchot, is in favor of development (applause). He said in his speech at Seattle a year ago that there could be greater waste by non-development and by non-use than there had been by the wastefulness of the past. That is true. By non-development and non-use we commit sometimes more waste than we did in the past, for we could not waste when things were not worth anything; a thing that isn't worth saving and whose by-product cannot be utilized is not wasted even if it goes to the burning ground or lies in the woods. (Applause)
PresidentBaker—Ladies and Gentlemen: You will all be glad to hear from the greatest, grandest, noblest work of God, our good women. I have the pleasure of introducing Mrs George O. Welch, of Fergus Falls, representing the General Federation of Women's Clubs. (Applause).
MrsWelch—Mr President, Delegates to the Second National Conservation Congress, Ladies and Gentlemen: In the preparations for this great Congress, there seems to have been no possible item omitted which could in any way contribute to the pleasure or edification of visitors, save in two particulars; and with these the management had nothing to do. The first is the unavoidable absence of the President of the General Federation of Women's Clubs, Mrs Philip N. Moore, resulting from the accident which befell her in Cincinnati last May, from which she has not fully recovered. The second is due to those two elements which have for years uncounted interfered with man's proposals—time and tide. It is because time must be consumed in crossing the Atlantic and tide reckoned with on the voyage that Mrs Emmons Crocker, of Boston, is not able to be present to speak on "Woman's Influence in National Questions." Her absence is indeed to be regretted, since influence is today women's best asset.
Because of these two regrettable occurrences a great honor and pleasure has fallen upon me. I am proud to be the bearer of greetings to the Second National Conservation Congress from the General Federation of Women's Clubs, an organization 800,000 strong, that may justly claim kinship with this body, since its watch words for years have been Conservation and Service, which are the impulse and purpose of this great Congress.
The inception of the General Federation of Women's Clubs was due to the recognition of the necessity of conserving the energy and strength wastefully expended by scattered clubs remote from each other, which concentrated, might make a tremendous influence for the development of good fellowship and good citizenship. That the General Federation has become of great force I think you will admit, since its President was invited to be one of that first notable Conference called by the President of the United States in 1908 to consider the problems which this Congress is hoping to solve. She was the only woman invited to that Conference of Governors, and it is not vain pride which prompts the mention of the great honor thus conferred upon the General Federation—it is rather an humble sort of pride, since recognition of the work which Women's Clubs are doing carries with it an obligation to greater effort and greater achievement.
The General Federation of Women's Clubs has long been teaching the necessity of Conservation, not only of the natural resources on which the material prosperity of this country depends, but of that vital force which means public health and all that goes with it; of that intellectual force which means education; and of that spiritual force which makes for higher ideals, wider sympathies, and fuller appreciation of our responsibility for the welfare of our fellow-beings.
In the matter of the Conservation of natural resources, the one which claimed our earliest attention was that of forestry. As far backas 1900 the forestry committee in the General Federation served to bring into mutual recognition and helpfulness the efforts of all the clubs engaged in the work for the protection of forests; and I was proud of the praise given us yesterday by our most distinguished visitor for Minnesota's successful efforts to preserve a large acreage of white pine timber as a National forest reserve. It was a fine and inspiring example to other States engaged in a warfare against the devastating hand of commercialism (applause). And it is another matter of pride that for four years the chairman of the forestry committee of the General Federation was a Minnesota woman, Mrs Lydia Phillips Williams (applause), whose life was devoted to the promulgation of forestry education, and to whose untiring efforts very much of the splendid work done for forestry by Women's Clubs is attributable.
Perhaps the most signal of the triumphs won by the Women's Clubs in the line of forestry was the saving of the big trees of California, after a fight lasting nine years (applause). Those were years of great stress for the women, but we are willing to fight nine years more if need be for the right sort of protection to the forests in the White Mountains and Appalachian ranges (applause). Today we are fighting not alone for the trees that are standing, but for the reforestation of devastated lands and for a stay of the wanton waste of forest products. At our recent biennial convention a whole session was devoted to this phase of the work, showing that our interest is practical as well as sentimental. Since the conserving of forests and the conserving of water supplies are interdependent, the General Federation of Women's Clubs through its committee on waterways is disseminating information, creating interest, and urging legislation for the further protection of these resources.
But the Conservation of natural resources, important as it is, is not the work which represents our heart interest, which appeals to our highest nature; it is not the thing for which we make our greatest effort. It is the problems of life, those affecting the home, society, our children, to which we give our most earnest endeavor. There never was a convention of Women's Clubs anywhere that did not in some way stress the Conservation of the home, the family, the school, as our greatest need; and it is because we are aware of the grave dangers threatening them, dangers born of our times and fostered by our rapid material growth, that we are endeavoring through organization and concentration of forces to turn the tide into safer channels.
The child has always been the central figure in our deliberations, the one for whom our hardest battles have been fought. The General Federation, through its committees on health, education, and household economy, is carrying on a campaign of education which will give to all children greater opportunity for normal, helpful, happy development. To the child himself, through its department of civics, theFederation is teaching his duty to society and his responsibility to the future. Through its committee on industrial and social conditions it is trying to secure for him safety and efficiency in the great industrial struggle; to protect him against the forces that are pushing him, imperfectly prepared, into the great maelstrom of the workaday world, wasting his young life, minimizing his chances for happiness and usefulness. As long ago as the Los Angeles convention in 1902, Jane Addams, our greatest American woman (applause), pleaded for the protection of the child against the awful economic waste of child labor (applause). She told of little lives by scores and hundreds yearly sacrificed to the god of greed: of conditions in some of the industrial pursuits where for want of a few dollars expended in safety devices, many children were yearly killed outright, or maimed for life. She so touched the hearts of her hearers that a committee on child labor was there created, whose province it was to discover if possible a remedy for these crying evils; at any rate to inform the public of their existence.
Women have worked long and earnestly to ameliorate these conditions, but they must depend on the mutual action of earnest, interested men, such as are sitting in this Congress today, for the enactment and enforcement of the laws necessary to improve a state of things which women have only the power to point out. In the particular case of child labor there can be no accusation of exaggeration or hysteria, since from so unemotional a source as the Federal Government we learn that its recent investigation of child labor shows need of a strenuous and continued effort for the conservation of child life. In the cotton textile industry alone, and along the line of age-limit and illiteracy alone, its statistics show that in a group of States having no age limit for child laborers, there are over 10 percent of female workers under fourteen years of age, and that in those same States over 50 percent of the children of both sexes so employed are unable to read or write. What worth have forests or mines or any material wealth, gained at the sacrifice of so much vital force?
For the welfare of women and girls, as well as for children, the General Federation is working with all its energy and strength. For moral and social as well as industrial protection it begs cooperation. Against the black plague as well as the white plague it is waging its warfare. For better housing in cities, for improved conditions in rural and remote communities, it is using all its power. What conservation and concentration of effort can do it is trying to accomplish, but it must as yet find its work constantly hampered and hindered by its inability to press to their ultimate accomplishment things which only legislation can effect. A club woman has wisely said that as conditions are today it is the women who suggest and initiate, the men who adopt and complete. This is true; for, after all, women can only point the way.
The Ex-President of the United States told us yesterday that it was a great wrong to allow any body of people to monopolize any good thing. There is, however, an exception to this rule, which I am sure our honored First Citizen would concede to us: Women have long had a monopoly on influence; it has been the one thing accounted their own particular weapon in social warfare (applause). And so I appeal to the men in this audience to yield themselves to that women's weapon when next the General Federation of Women's Clubs or any individual members of the Federation asks them for the enactment of laws which shall tend to the Conservation of the vital forces represented in the mothers of the race and the children who are to be the country's future citizens. The General Federation is, after all, just one more organization trying to make this land a better place to live in, and its people better fitted to live in this better land. (Applause).
PresidentBaker—The next lady I wish to present represents an association that has done much; Mrs Hoyle Tomkies, of Shreveport, President of the Women's National Rivers and Harbors Congress.
MrsHoyle Tomkies—Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen: Greetings to this Second National Conservation Congress from the Women's National Rivers and Harbors Congress, organized June, 1908, and having officers in thirty-eight States and Territorial possessions.
This organization has for its object the development of the meritorious rivers and harbors, the preservation of the forests, and the Conservation of all the natural resources of the Nation. It stands for the establishment by the Federal Government of a definite waterway policy for the improvement of all approved rivers and harbors of the entire country, and also for the adoption of such a policy as will secure not only forest reserves but general forest development. The Congress believes that the development of the waterways of the Nation increases and conserves the people's wealth,first, directly, by securing the cheapest mode of transportation;second, indirectly, by lowering the cost of transportation by rail; andthird, by encouraging production. The platform as adopted immediately after organization stated a belief in the need for the Conservation of all the natural resources of the Nation because of the interdependence which necessitated the development of each.
The membership of our Congress is composed of individuals and clubs, representing almost thirty thousand men and women, the latter largely predominating. The work of the Congress, conducted through the Departments of Education and Publicity, is directed by a board of directors representing thirty-nine States and Territories. Voluntarily these women are giving their time, finding in the joy of service for the cause ample recompense.
In the educational campaign, the Congress has culled from the best authorities the strongest arguments and convincing statistics, and has had these printed and circulated in many thousands of copies throughout the length and breadth of the land. In 1908 this Congress secured the cooperation of the General Federation of Women's Clubs for the promotion of waterway development.
Since organization the Congress has worked incessantly for the passage of Rivers and Harbors bills, and individually for State projects for waterway development. It has worked for the Week's Bill, and for general National and State development. It urged upon Congress the passage of the bill for the preservation of Niagara Falls in the spring of 1909.
In its educational campaign it has covered the entire question of Conservation, and also urged the non-pollution and the beautification of the streams of our country. It has secured and arranged for large audiences in critical or indifferent centers, for experts to advocate the cause, and it has had speakers at all important public gatherings possible. It has organized Conservation clubs, and secured the addition of Conservation committees in various organizations. It has offered prizes, securing the writing of many thousands of essays by school children upon waterway and forest development. The various State vice-presidents have issued State circular letters, showing how their States were concerned in the cause we represent.
The plan of the Congress to supplement or substitute Arbor Day with Conservation Day met with the hearty approval of the United States Department of Agriculture and the cooperation of many educators, and has been successfully carried out in many States. The resolution of the Congress asking that the principles of Conservation of natural resources be taught in the school and summer normals, has been presented to every State represented in the Congress, Louisiana being the first to immediately pass the resolution unanimously at its State Conference of High School Superintendents, representing forty thousand pupils, and at its State Teachers' Association; Kentucky being a close second, with every encouragement from other States. (Applause)
The same resolution was presented to the National Educational Association in convention at Boston, July 5-9, 1910. Of this resolution, Honorable Elmer Ellsworth Brown, United States Commissioner of Education, to whom we later had the pleasure of listening, wrote in reply to me a pleasant letter in which he enclosed the following copy of his letter to Dr Irwin Shepard, Secretary of the National Educational Association:
DEPARTMENT OF INTERIORBUREAU OF EDUCATIONWASHINGTON
Doctor Irwin Shepard,Secretary National Educational Association,Westminster Hotel,Boston, Mass.My dear Doctor Shepard: The preamble and resolution enclosed herewith have been sent to me by the Woman's National Rivers and Harbors Congress, Mrs Hoyle Tomkies, of Shreveport, Louisiana, as President National Educational Association at its Boston meeting. Following our ordinary course in such matters, may I ask you to lay this matter before the committee on resolutions.You are aware of the conservative position which I take as regards proposals for the incorporation of new studies in our school curriculum, and also as regards the turning aside of our school instructions from the aims of general education to the propaganda of any special cause. The organization presenting this resolution, however, disclaim any intention of introducing a separate new study in the course. The subject which they propose, however, is one so intimately bound up with the geographical conditions and the past history of this country, as well as with our prospect for the future, that it seems to me very desirable that the attention of teachers should be called to it, and that they should be led to see its relation to any proper and adequate treatment of a knowledge of our country. I should think it very desirable, accordingly, that something of this kind be introduced into the platform of the Association of this year, with such adaptation of form and phraseology as the common practice of the Association would suggest.I am, believe me,
Doctor Irwin Shepard,Secretary National Educational Association,Westminster Hotel,Boston, Mass.
My dear Doctor Shepard: The preamble and resolution enclosed herewith have been sent to me by the Woman's National Rivers and Harbors Congress, Mrs Hoyle Tomkies, of Shreveport, Louisiana, as President National Educational Association at its Boston meeting. Following our ordinary course in such matters, may I ask you to lay this matter before the committee on resolutions.
You are aware of the conservative position which I take as regards proposals for the incorporation of new studies in our school curriculum, and also as regards the turning aside of our school instructions from the aims of general education to the propaganda of any special cause. The organization presenting this resolution, however, disclaim any intention of introducing a separate new study in the course. The subject which they propose, however, is one so intimately bound up with the geographical conditions and the past history of this country, as well as with our prospect for the future, that it seems to me very desirable that the attention of teachers should be called to it, and that they should be led to see its relation to any proper and adequate treatment of a knowledge of our country. I should think it very desirable, accordingly, that something of this kind be introduced into the platform of the Association of this year, with such adaptation of form and phraseology as the common practice of the Association would suggest.
I am, believe me,
Very truly yours,[Signed]Elmer Ellsworth Brown,Commissioner.
As to the action of the National Educational Association regarding the resolution, Dr Shepard wrote to me in part as follows: "I sincerely regret that you were not duly informed earlier of the action, or rather the non-action, of the Committee on Resolutions. I cannot explain their action in this matter. They had a large number of subjects to consider, and the omission of a declaration upon any subject is not to be considered as a judgment against such a declaration, but simply that the Committee did not find it practicable, for reasons satisfactory to them, to include it in the declarations which they offered. Incidentally I may suggest to you the present uncertainty regarding what is meant by Conservation and the wisest policies to be adopted may have led them to defer action in this matter. Let me assure you that we are all deeply interested in Conservation, and believe that it can be profitably brought into the work of the public schools, but many are still uncertain as to the form of such work and the methods by which it can be most profitably introduced into the public school curriculum."
Members of this Congress, there is in this non-action a suggestion potent to us. This indecision, this lack of harmony, should speedily as possible be changed into a definite, harmonious union of Conservation policies (applause). This fall a printed catechism of questions on Conservation adapted to the various grades will become a part of the curriculum of the public schools of Kentucky, and will be tried in various other States.
Delegates have been sent by the Women's National Rivers and Harbors Congress to all important conventions of kindred interests. Since organization it has had representative speakers on the platformof many of the most important conventions. The Congress has furnished lecturers to schools and to various clubs of men and women, and also to the churches, in which latter the subject of "Conservation of Natural Resources from the Moral Standpoint" has proved an appropriate and impressive theme.
In December, 1909, the Congress endorsed the disinterested and patriotic policy of Honorable Gifford Pinchot as Chief Forester of the United States. (Applause)
This report cannot satisfactorily be closed without mention of the loyal and very enthusiastic support of Conservation being given us by our Hawaiian members, who number several hundred, and who began immediately to put belief into practice. Our State vice president there, Mrs A. F. Knudson, came all the way to Washington to attend our last convention.
These are the general activities of the organization. It would be impossible for me to go into the State activities at this time. Sufficient to say that the message is being given at the fireside, from the platform, in the schools, through the press, all with the idea of perpetuating this Nation—won by the blood of our forefathers—and handing it down in all the glory of its wealth and beauty to future generations. (Applause)
PresidentBaker—It is a pleasure to present Mrs G. B. Sneath, of Tiffin, Ohio.
MrsSneath—Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen: After hearing the general purpose for which the women of the General Federation of Women's Clubs have been working, it may seem needless for me to tell what one definite part of this great body is endeavoring to accomplish. I represent Mrs J. D. Wilkinson, Chairman of the Waterways Committee of the General Federation, which is a part of the great Conservation Committee of the Federation, comprising almost 800,000 women in its organization.
Our work is entirely educational. We go into all the schools where we can possibly gain access, and strive to get the matter of preservation of inland waterways taught in the schools as among the great Conservation problems. We have heard from experts all that is being done, all that they are trying to do, all that they are trying to remedy; and we feel that we, as women, have one chief and great duty to perform. You have heard how women strive to conserve the lives of children, to make them strong mentally, morally and physically. Yet this is not all; the one great problem before the American people today is that of pure food and pure water (applause); and we, as women, must strive in the communities in which we live and the States of which we are a part—and the Nation must come to our aid—to rescue and prevent from contamination the life-giving streams of this country, streams that were given for the benefit ofmankind but which man has turned into drainage canals and cesspools. We must have help; we must have it through State Legislatures, we must have it through the Federal Government, else we cannot conserve the lives of those that are dear to us. If a visitor from another land were to say to us, "Your children are being poisoned by their own parents," we would hesitate to believe it; but our childrenarebeing poisoned—not by criminal intent but by the carelessness of the municipalities in which we live (applause). So I leave with you this one thought: If we accomplish nothing else, if we leave to the men the questions of transportation and navigation and the great problems of irrigation and of water-power, let us work for the purity of our rivers and streams and lakes and inland waterways.[1](Applause)
PresidentBaker—The Proceedings of this Congress are to be published through the kindness of a gentleman in Saint Paul who has guaranteed to have it printed, and all these addresses will go in.
We will now hear from Mrs Jay Cooke Howard, of Duluth.
MrsHoward—Mr President, Ladies and Gentleman: I will keep you only a minute, because you look hungry, and I'm hungry myself. I will simply file my report and tell you briefly what the Daughters of the American Revolution are doing for Conservation.
The D. A. R., being a patriotic society, believe that all their work is in the spirit of true Conservation; but we have a special National Committee, with a member or members from each State. I represent the chairman, Mrs Belle Merrill Draper, because I am the member for Minnesota. Mrs Draper wrote last fall to all the Governors, asking each what we could do to help the cause of Conservation in his State. When the answers came we went to work, chiefly in three ways: First, in our own meetings, in which we worked up enthusiasm. Second, in the press; the papers in the larger cities have much Conservation matter, but in smaller cities and towns this is not always the case, and you from such places will never know how much about Conservation that you have read—or skipped—was inspired by the D. A. R. Our third branch of work, and the most important one, is with the children. I notice that most of the Governors, whose interesting letters are contained in the report I am filing, preferred to have us turn our attention to the children rather than to the men (laughter). Governor Eberhart's courteous letter mentioned them, and the forests, especially. We have worked through the schools, and also in our own homes. May I tell my own experience? [Voices: "Go on, Go on!"] I felt very proud when my little boy, who had saved eleven cents and did not know what to do with it all, finally said, "Mother, I will give it to the baby; put it in his bank; it will teach him to save." Butstraws in the family show which way the wind blows in the Nation. Listen to what happened: I provided savings banks, the children conserved their resources, saved their wealth and then somebody came and stole the banks! (Laughter and cries of "Good!")
PresidentBaker—The Congress stands adjourned until 2 oclock.
The Congress reconvened in the Auditorium, Saint Paul, at 2 p.m. September 7, President Baker in the chair.
PresidentBaker—Ladies and Gentlemen: I have the honor of asking Senator Moses E. Clapp, of Minnesota, to preside this afternoon, and to him I now yield the chair. (Applause)
SenatorClapp—Ladies and Gentlemen: During the course of this Congress much has been said concerning the fact that Conservation applies not only to the material resources of a Nation, but to its productiveness and to its energies; and among those things to which it must under that classification apply is the Conservation of time. Now, I am going to give you a practical illustration of how a loyal adherent can carry out the Conservation of time by omitting a speech, and proceeding at once to the business of the afternoon. (Laughter)
The first entry in the program for this afternoon is an address, "Making Our People Count," by Dr Edwin Boone Craighead, President of Tulane University, whom I take great pleasure in introducing. (Applause)
PresidentCraighead—Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: In this Republic there is one thing supremely great and sacred, greater than the great Republican party, the party of Lincoln and Grant, greater than the great Democratic party, the party of Jefferson and Jackson, more precious than the Conservation of our natural resources, more sacred than the Supreme Court, or even the Constitution itself—I mean the great American people (applause). To make this people count, not only in the Conservation of our natural resources but also in the enlargement and enrichment of their own lives, is the fundamental, the paramount, problem of this Republic; for ours, it must not be forgotten, is not only a Government of the people and by the people, but also preeminently a Governmentforthe people.
The Founders of this Republic were not only scholars and thinkers, but seers and prophets. With profound knowledge of the despotisms that for five thousand years had crushed and enslaved the greatest and sublimest thing on this earth, the individual man, the Fathers of the Republic laid broad and deep its foundations upon an everlasting rock—the inalienable, the ineradicable, the eternal right of man to life,liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They builded for all time and for all generation of men. (Applause)
The individual man, the individual woman, is by far the greatest and sublimest creation of God that we know of—far greater and grander than any or all the institutions of society. These institutions are the works of the hands of man, they exist for him, and their only reason for being is that they minister to him. Yea, the earth was made for man, and the only reason for the Conservation of its resources is that they may minister unto the needs of the individual man: