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Title: Proceedings of the second National Conservation Congress at
Saint Paul, September 5-8, 1910

Creator: United States. National Conservation Congress

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PROCEEDINGS
OF THE SECOND NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS AT
SAINT PAUL, SEPTEMBER 5-8, 1910 ***

ADDRESSES AND PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

Second
National Conservation Congress

HELD AT

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA
SEPTEMBER 5-8
1910

BERNARD N. BAKER
Baltimore, Md.
President, Second National Conservation Congress

PROCEEDINGS

OF THE

Second
National Conservation Congress

AT

Saint Paul
SEPTEMBER 5-8, 1910

"Let us conserve the foundations of our prosperity"
(Declaration of the Governors, 1908)

WASHINGTON
NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS
1911

W. F. ROBERTS COMPANY
PRINTERS
WASHINGTON, D. C.

HON. J. B. WHITE
Kansas City, Mo.
Chairman, Executive Committee, Second National Conservation
Congress and Third National Conservation Congress

OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES FOR 1909-10

President
B. N. Baker, Baltimore
Executive Secretary
Thomas R. Shipp, Washington, D. C.
Secretary
L. Frank Brown, Seattle
Vice-Presidents
John Barrett, Washington, D. C.
James S. Whipple, Albany
E. J. Wickson, Berkeley
Alfred C. Ackerman, Athens, Ga.
Henry A. Barker, Providence
Executive Committee
J. B. White, Kansas City, Mo., Chairman
B. N. Baker, Baltimore
J. N. Teal, Portland, Ore.
A. B. Farquhar, York, Pa.
L. H. Bailey, Ithaca
Thomas Burke, Seattle
Henry E. Hardtner, Urania, La.
W. A. Fleming Jones, Las Cruces
Mrs Philip N. Moore, Saint Louis
Mrs J. Ellen Foster, Washington, D. C.
Local Board of Managers for the Saint Paul Congress
Hon. A. O. Eberhart, Chairman
Frank B. Kellogg, Vice-Chairman
J. S. Bell, Minneapolis
H. A. Tuttle, Minneapolis
George M. Gillette, Minneapolis
B. F. Nelson, Minneapolis
L. S. Donaldson, Minneapolis
Joseph H. Beek, Saint Paul
George H. Prince, Saint Paul
Reuben Warner, Saint Paul

Paul W. Doty, Saint Paul
Theodore W. Griggs, Saint Paul
W. C. Handy, Secretary

OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES FOR 1910-11

President
Henry Wallace, Des Moines
Executive Secretary
Thomas R. Shipp, Washington, D. C.
Treasurer
D. Austin Latchaw, Kansas City, Mo.
Recording Secretary
James C. Gipe, Clarks, La.
Executive Committee
J. B. White, Kansas City, Mo., Chairman
B. N. Baker, Baltimore
L. H. Bailey, Ithaca
James R. Garfield, Cleveland
Frank C. Goudy, Denver
W. A. Fleming Jones, Las Cruces
Mrs Philip N. Moore, Saint Louis
Walter H. Page, New York
George C. Pardee, Oakland, Cal.
Gifford Pinchot, Washington, D. C.
J. N. Teal, Portland, Ore.
E. L. Worsham, Atlanta
Vice-Presidents

Alabama, Hon. Albert P. Bush, Mobile; Alaska, Hon. James Wickersham,
Fairbanks; Arizona, B. A. Fowler, Phenix; Arkansas, A. H. Purdue,
Fayetteville; California, E. H. Cox, San Francisco; Colorado, Murdo
Mackenzie, Trinidad; Columbia (District of), W J McGee, Washington;
Connecticut, Rollin S. Woodruff, Hartford; Delaware, Hon. George Gray,
Wilmington; Florida, Cromwell Gibbons, Jacksonville; Georgia, Hon. Jno.
C. Hart, Union Point; Hawaii, Mrs Margaret R. Knudsen, Kanai; Idaho,
James A. MacLean, University of Idaho; Illinois, Julius Rosenwald,
Chicago; Indiana, F. J. Breeze, Lafayette; Iowa, Carl Leopold, Burlington;
Kansas, W. R. Stubbs, Topeka; Kentucky, James K. Patterson, Lexington;
Louisiana, Newton C. Blanchard, Shreveport; Maine, Bert M. Fernald,
Augusta; Maryland, William Bullock Clark, Baltimore; Massachusetts,
Frank W. Rane, Boston; Michigan, J. L. Snyder, Lansing; Minnesota,
Ambrose Tighe, Saint Paul; Mississippi, A. W. Shands, Sardis; Missouri,
Hermann Von Schrenk, Saint Louis; Montana, E. L. Norris, Helena;
Nebraska, Dr F. A. Long, Madison; Nevada, Senator Francis G. Newlands,
Reno; New Hampshire, George B. Leighton, Monadnock; New Jersey,
Charles Lathrop Pack, Lakewood; New Mexico, W. A. Fleming Jones, Las
Cruces; New York, R. A. Pearson, Albany; North Carolina, T. Gilbert
Pearson, Greensboro; North Dakota, U. G. Larimore, Larimore; Ohio,
James R. Garfield, Cleveland; Oklahoma, Benj. Martin, Jr., Muskogee;
Oregon, J. N. Teal, Portland; Pennsylvania, William S. Harvey,
Philadelphia; Philippine Islands, Maj. George P. Ahern, Manila; Porto
Rico, Hon. Walter K. Landis, San Juan; Rhode Island, Henry A. Barker,
Providence; South Carolina, E. J. Watson, Columbia; South Dakota,
Ellwood C. Perisho, Vermillion; Tennessee, Herman Suter, Nashville;
Texas, W. Goodrich Jones, Temple; Utah, Harden Bennion, Salt Lake City;
Vermont, Fletcher D. Proctor, Proctor; Virginia, A. R. Turnbull, Norfolk;
Washington, M. E. Hay, Olympia; West Virginia, A. B. Fleming,
Fairmont; Wisconsin, Charles R. Van Hise, Madison; Wyoming, Bryant B.
Brooks, Cheyenne; National Conservation Association, Gifford Pinchot,
Washington.
Standing Committees
Forests—H. S. Graves, U. S. Forester, Washington, D. C., Chairman; E. M.
Griffith, Madison, Wis.; E. T. Allen, Portland, Ore.; J. Lewis Thompson,
Houston.

Lands—Governor W. R. Stubbs, Topeka, Chairman; Dwight B. Heard,
Phenix; J. L. Snyder, Lansing; Murdo Mackenzie, Trinidad; Charles S.
Barrett, Union City, Ga.
Waters—W J McGee, Washington, D. C., Chairman; E. A. Smith,
Spokane; Henry A. Barker, Providence; J. N. Teal, Portland, Ore.; Herbert
Knox Smith, Washington, D. C.
Minerals—Charles R. Van Hise, Madison, Chairman; Joseph A. Holmes,
Washington, D. C.; D. W. Brunton, Denver; John Mitchell, New York; I. C.
White, Morgantown, W. Va.
Vital Resources—Dr William H. Welch, Baltimore, Chairman; Professor
Irving Fisher, New Haven; Dr H. W. Wiley, Washington, D. C.; Dr J. H.
Kellogg, Battle Creek, Mich.; Walter H. Page, New York.

HENRY WALLACE
Des Moines, Iowa
President, Third National Conservation Congress

CONTENTS

page
CONSTITUTION ix
OPENING SESSION 1
Invocation by Archbishop Ireland 1
Greeting from Cardinal Gibbons 3
Address by Governor Eberhart 3
Welcome by Mayor Keller 13
Address by President Taft 14
SECOND SESSION 34
Induction of Governor Stubbs as Chairman 34
Address by Senator Nelson 35
Address by Governor Noel 48
Address by Governor Norris 52
Address by Governor Deneen 59
Address by Governor Hay 64
Announcement by Professor Condra 71
Address by Governor Brooks 72
Remarks by Governor Stubbs 75
Address by Governor Vessey 77
THIRD SESSION 79
Appointment of Credentials Committee 79
Action on Constitution of the National Conservation Congress 79
Remarks by Director-General Barrett 80
Remarks by Governor Stubbs 81
Invocation by Reverend Doctor Montgomery 81
Address by Ex-President Roosevelt 82
FOURTH SESSION 93
Address by Miss Boardman 94
Address by Commissioner Herbert Knox Smith 101
Modification of Credentials Committee 106
Address by Honorable James R. Garfield 106
Address by Ex-Governor Pardee 115
Remarks by Delegate Horr, of Washington 120
Address by Ex-Governor Blanchard 121

Address by William E. Smythe 127
Address by Walter L. Fisher 129
Address by Colonel James H. Davidson 132
FIFTH SESSION 134
Invocation by Bishop Edsall 134
Address by President Finley 135
Report of Credentials Committee 145
Address by Senator Beveridge 146
Response by Gifford Pinchot 152
Address by President McVey 152
Discussion by Chairman White 158
Address by Mrs Welch, of the General Federation of
160
Women's Clubs
Address by Mrs Hoyle Tomkies, of the Women's National
163
Rivers and Harbors Congress
Address by Mrs Sneath, of the General Federation of
166
Women's Clubs
Report by Mrs Howard, of the Daughters of the American
167
Revolution
SIXTH SESSION 168
Induction of Senator Clapp as Chairman 168
Address by President Craighead 168
Postponement of Call of States 171
Address by D. Austin Latchaw 171
Address by James J. Hill 177
Discussion by Henry Wallace 188
Address by Secretary Wilson 194
Discussion by Representative Stevens 201
Address by Professor Bailey 203
SEVENTH SESSION 213
Address by Professor Graves 214
Address by Alfred L. Baker 222
Address by Frank H. Short 226
Address by Director-General Barrett 237

Address by Honorable Esmond Ovey 243
Action on time for election and report of Resolutions
246
Committee
EIGHTH SESSION 246
Appointment of Nominating Committee 246
Induction of Governor Eberhart as Chairman 246
Address by Dean Wesbrook 247
Address by Wallace D. Simmons 257
Address by Commissioner Elmer E. Brown 264
Address by Mrs Scott, President of the Daughters of the
270
American Revolution
Action in memory of Mrs J. Ellen Foster 276
Presentation by Mrs Howard to Gifford Pinchot 276
Response by Mr Pinchot 277
Address by Francis J. Heney 278
Address by Gifford Pinchot 292
Expression by Governor Eberhart 298
Statement by Professor Condra 298
CLOSING SESSION 299
Commencement of Call of States 299
Response by Delegate Harvey, of Pennsylvania 299
Interlude by E. W. Ross, of Washington 302
Report of Nominating Committee 303
Nomination by Chairman White 303
Second by Gifford Pinchot 304
Election of and response by Henry Wallace as President 305
Election of other Officers 306
Resolution of thanks to retiring President Baker 308
Response by Mr Baker 308
Report of Resolutions Committee 308
Adoption of Resolutions 312
Interlude by E. W. Ross, of Washington 312
Remarks by Delegate Horr, of Washington 313
Ratification of Vice-Presidents 313

Resolution in memory of Professor Green 313
Resumption of Call of States 314
Response by Delegate Purdue, of Arkansas 314
Response by Delegate Bannister, of Indiana 314
Response by Delegate Miller, of Iowa 314
Response by Delegate Young, of Kansas 314
Response by Delegate Baker, of Maryland 314
Response by Delegate Thorp, of Minnesota 315
Response by State Geologist Lowe, of Mississippi 315
Response by General Noble, of Missouri 315
Response by Chairman White 316
Response by Professor Condra, of Nebraska 317
Response by a Delegate from New York 318
Response by Delegate Nestos, of North Dakota 318
Response by Delegate Krueger, of South Dakota 319
Remarks by Delegate Johns, of Washington 320
Privileged statement by Land Commissioner Ross, of
322
Washington
Response by Delegate Fowler, of Arizona 324
Response by Delegate Hunt, of District of Columbia 324
Response by Delegate Barker, of Rhode Island 324
Response by Professor White, of West Virginia 325
Response by Delegate Worsham, of Georgia 325
Motion for adjournment by Delegate Martin, of Oklahoma 326
SUPPLEMENTARY PROCEEDINGS 327
Laws that should be Passed, by Senator Francis G. Newlands 327
Conservation of the Nation's Resources, by Chairman J. B.
328
White
Practical Aspects of Conservation, by A. B. Farquhar 331
Report from Arkansas, by Sid B. Redding 333
Report from Colorado, by Frank C. Goudy 334
Report from Florida, by Cromwell Gibbons 335
Report from Idaho, by Jerome J. Day 336
Report from Indiana, by A. E. Metzger 336

Report from Iowa, by A. C. Miller 337
Report from Louisiana, by Henry E. Hardtner 339
Report from Maine, by Cyrus C. Babb 341
Report from Massachusetts, by Frank William Rane and
343
Henry H. Sprague
Report from Missouri, by Hermann von Schrenk 344
Report from Montana, by Rudolph von Tobel 345
Report from New Mexico, by Colonel W. A. Fleming Jones 347
Report from New York, by J. S. Whipple 347
Special report from New York, by Henry H. Persons 352
Report from North Dakota, by Professor Waldron 362
Report from Ohio, by Professor Lazenby 364
Report from Oklahoma, by Benj. Martin, Jr. 365
Report from Oregon, by E. T. Allen 367
Report from Rhode Island, by Henry A. Barker 368
Report from South Carolina, by E. J. Watson 369
Report from South Dakota, by Doane Robinson 369
Report from Texas, by Will L. Sargent 370
Report from Utah, by O. J. Salisbury 372
Supplementary report from Utah, by E. T. Merritt 372
Report from Vermont, by George Aitkin 373
Report from Washington, by E. G. Griggs 375
Report from West Virginia, by Hu Maxwell 376
Report from Wisconsin, by E. M. Griffith 377
Report of the American Academy of Political and Social
379
Science
Report of the American Automobile Association 380
Report of the American Civic Association 383
Report of the American Forestry Association 384
Report of the American Humane Association 385
Report of the American Institute of Architects 386
Report of the American Paper and Pulp Association 388
Report of the American Medical Association 389

Report of the American Railway Engineering and
392
Maintenance of Way Association
Report of the American Railway Master Mechanics'
393
Association
Report of the American Scenic and Historic Preservation
394
Society
Report of the Association for the Protection of the
397
Adirondacks
Report of the Carriage Builders' National Association 410
Report of the Delaware State Federation of Women's Clubs 411
Report of the Farmers' Union of America 411
Report of the General Federation of Women's Clubs 412
Report of the Lakes-to-Gulf Deep Waterway Association 413
Report of the League of American Sportsmen 415
Report of the National Board of Fire Underwriters 416
Report of the National Board of Trade 419
Report of the National Business League of America 420
Report of the Missouri Valley River Improvement Association 420
Report of the Upper Mississippi River Improvement
421
Association
Report of the Washington State Federation of Labor 422
Report of the Western Forestry and Conservation Association 423
Report of the United Mine Workers 424
Timber Conservation, by George H. Emerson 424
Forests and Stream-Flow, by William S. Harvey 428
The Conservation of Minerals and Subterranean Waters, by
429
George F. Kunz, Ph.D.
The Question of Land Titles, by Franklin McCray 430
INDEX 431

1. Gifford Pinchot, Vice-President (1910).
2. James R. Garfield, Vice-President (1910).

3. Henry A. Barker, Vice-President (1909-10).
4. A. B. Farquhar, Executive Committee (1909).
5. W. A. Fleming Jones, Vice-president (1910).
6. E. L. Worsham, Executive Committee (1910).
7. George C. Pardee, Executive Committee (1910).
8. J. N. Teal, Executive Committee (1909-10).
9. Walter H. Page, Executive Committee (1910).
10. L. H. Bailey, Executive Committee (1909-10).

CONSTITUTION

Article 1—Name
This organization shall be known as the National Conservation Congress.
Article 2—Object
The object of the National Conservation Congress shall be: (1) to provide a
forum for discussion of the resources of the United States as the foundation
for the prosperity of the people, (2) to furnish definite information
concerning the resources and their utilization, and (3) to afford an agency
through which the people of the country may frame policies and principles
affecting the wise and practical development, conservation, and utilization
of the resources, to be put into effect by their representatives in State and
Federal Governments.
Article 3—Meetings
Section 1. Regular annual meetings shall be held at such time and place as
may be determined by the Executive Committee.
Section 2. Special meetings of the Congress, or its officers, committees, or
boards, may be held subject to the call of the President of the Congress or
the Chairman of the Executive Committee.

Article 4—Officers
Section 1. The officers of the Congress shall consist of a President, to be
elected by the Congress; a Vice-President from each State, to be chosen by
the respective State delegations, and from the National Conservation
Association; an Executive Secretary; a Recording Secretary; and a
Treasurer.
Section 2. The duties of these officers may at any time be prescribed by
formal action of the Congress or Executive Committee. In the absence of
such action their duties shall be those implied by their designations and
established by custom. In addition, it shall be the duty of the Vice-
Presidents to receive, from the State Conservation Commissions and other
organizations concerned in Conservation, suggestions and
recommendations, and report them to the Executive Committee of the
Congress.
Section 3. The officers shall serve for one year, or until their successors are
elected and qualify.
Article 5—Committees and Boards
Section 1. An Executive Committee of seven, in addition to which the
President of the National Conservation Association and all ex-Presidents of
the Congress shall be members ex-officio, shall be appointed by the
President during each regular annual session to act for the ensuing year; its
membership shall be drawn from different States, and not more than one of
the appointed members shall be from any one State. The Executive
Committee shall act for the Congress and shall be empowered to initiate
action and meet emergencies. It shall report to each regular annual session.
Section 2. A Board of Managers shall be created in each city in which the
next ensuing session of the Congress is to be held, preferably by leading
organizations of citizens. The Board of Managers shall have power to raise
and expend funds, to incur obligations on its own responsibility, and to
appoint subordinate boards and committees, all with the approval of the
Executive Committee of the Congress. It shall report to the Executive
Committee at least two days before the opening of the ensuing session, and
at such other times as the Congress or the Executive Committee may direct.

Section 3. A Committee on Credentials shall be appointed, consisting of five
(5) members, by the President of the Congress not later than on the second
day of each session of the Congress. It shall determine all questions raised
by delegates as to representation, and shall report to the Congress from time
to time as required by the President of the Congress.
Section 4. A Committee on Resolutions shall be created for each annual
meeting of the Congress. A Chairman shall be appointed by the President.
One member of the Committee shall be selected by each State represented
in the Congress. The Committee shall report to the Congress not later than
the morning of the last day of each annual meeting.
Section 5. Permanent Committees, consisting of five (5) members each,
shall be appointed by the President of the Congress on each of the following
five divisions of Conservation: Forests, Waters, Lands, Minerals, and Vital
Resources. These committees shall, during the intervals between the annual
meetings of the Congress, inquire into these respective subjects and prepare
reports to be submitted on the request of the Executive Committee, and
render such other assistance to the Congress as the Executive Committee
may direct.
Section 6. By direction of the Congress, standing and special committees
may be appointed by the President.
Section 7. The President shall be a member, ex-officio, of every committee
of the Congress.
Article 6—Arrangements for Sessions
Section 1. The program for the session of each annual meeting of the
Congress, including a list of speakers, shall be arranged by the Executive
Committee. The entire program, including allotments of time to speakers
and hours for daily sessions and all other arrangements concerning the
program, shall be made by the Executive Committee.
Section 2. Unless otherwise ordered, the rules adopted for the guidance of
the preceding Congress shall continue in force.
Article 7—Membership

Section 1. The personnel of the National Conservation Congress shall be as
follows:
Officers and Delegates
Officers of the National Conservation Congress.
Fifteen Delegates appointed by the Governor of each State and Territory.
Five Delegates appointed by the Mayor of each city with a population of
25,000, or more.
Two Delegates appointed by the Mayor of each city with a population of
less than 25,000.
Two Delegates appointed by each Board of County Commissioners.
Five Delegates appointed by each National Organization concerned in the
work of Conservation.
Five Delegates appointed by each State or Interstate Organization
concerned in the work of Conservation.
Three Delegates appointed by each Chamber of Commerce, Board of Trade,
Commercial Club, or other local organization concerned in the work of
Conservation.
Two Delegates appointed by each State or other University or College, and
by each Agricultural College or Experiment Station.
Honorary Members
The President of the United States.
The Vice-President of the United States.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives.
The Cabinet.
The United States Senate and House of Representatives.
The Supreme Court of the United States.

The Representatives of Foreign Governments.
The Governors of the States and Territories.
The Lieutenant-Governors of the States and Territories.
The Speakers of State Houses of Representatives.
The State Officers.
The Mayors of Cities.
The County Commissioners.
The Presidents of State and other Universities and Colleges.
The Officers and Members of the National Conservation Association.
The Officers and Members of the National Conservation Commission.
The Officers and Members of the State Conservation Commissions and
Associations.
Article 8—Delegations and State Officers
Section 1. The several Delegates from each State in attendance at any
Congress shall assemble at the earliest practicable time and organize by
choosing a Chairman and a Secretary. These Delegates, when approved by
the Committee on Credentials, shall constitute the Delegation from that
State.
Article 9—Voting
Section 1. Each member of the Congress shall be entitled to one vote on all
actions taken viva voce.
Section 2. A division or call of States may be demanded on any action by a
State delegation. On division, each Delegate shall be entitled to one vote;
provided (1) that no State shall have more than twenty votes; and provided
(2) that when a State is represented by less than ten Delegates, said
Delegates may cast ten votes for such State.

Section 3. The term "State" as used herein is to be construed to mean either
State, Territory, or Insular Possession.
Article 10—Amendments
This Constitution may be amended by a two-thirds vote of the Congress
during any regular session, provided notice of the proposed amendment has
been given from the Chair not less than one day or more than two days
preceding; or by unanimous vote without such notice.

1. D. Austin Latchaw, Treasurer (1910).
2. Thomas R. Shipp, Executive Secretary (1909-10).

3. James C. Gipe, Recording Secretary (1910).
4. John Barrett, Vice-President (1909).
5. Mrs Philip N. Moore, Executive Committee (1909-10).
6. Frank C. Goudy, Executive Committee (1910).
7. Thomas Burke, Executive Committee (1909).
8. E. J. Wickson, Vice-President (1909).
9. Henry D. Hardtner, Vice-President (1909).
10. James S. Whipple, Vice-President (1909).
11. W J McGee, Vice-President (Editor of Proceedings).

SECOND NATIONAL
CONSERVATION CONGRESS

OPENING SESSION
The Congress convened in the Auditorium, Saint Paul, Minnesota, on the
morning of September 5, 1910, President Baker in the chair, and was called
to order on arrival of the President of the United States.
President Baker—Mr President, your Grace, Ladies and Gentlemen: The
honor I have today in opening this great Congress is one that will always be
highly treasured, for I feel that what we are trying to do is to make our
country great and strong by men who see the Nation's wrongs and are
giving their time to this great object. We are meeting today for the purpose
of using our very best efforts to assist in protecting the interests of this great
country in a way that will best protect every man and woman and child in
his or her rights, with justice to all. That our great National resources are in
danger of being wasted and not fully preserved for the future, I am satisfied
is the thought of all the great minds assembled here today to take part in this
Congress.
There is a Great High Power that rules and governs for the best in the
world, and I now call upon His Grace, Archbishop Ireland, to open our
Congress with an invocation to that Great Power for help, guidance, and
direction.
Invocation
Almighty and eternal God. We bow before Thee in deep humility. Accept
from us, we beseech Thee, from submissive minds and sincere hearts,
adoration, praise, gratitude, love, and the promise of abiding recognition of
Thy sovereignty and of loyal obedience to Thy laws.
O God, all things are Thine; all things were made by Thee; no thing that
was made was made without Thee; "the heavens show forth Thy glory and
the firmament declareth Thy power, day to day uttereth speech, night to
night showeth knowledge," ever proclaiming that Thou are the Master, that
things created are the scintillations of Thy power and wisdom. We are
Thine, O God, Thee our Father and our Master; earth and skies are ours

through gift of Thy munificence. "Till the earth," was it said to us, "and
subdue it and dominate over the fishes of the sea and the fowls of the air
and all living creatures that move upon the earth." Earth is ours, not, O
Lord, that we use it at our will and caprice, but that under Thy guidance we
bid it turn to our best and truest welfare, to the best and truest welfare of
our fellow-men, Thy children all; over all of whom spread Thy love and
care.
Grant to us, O Lord, this morning wisdom in our counselings and
deliberations, that the intents of Thy providence be our intents, and, Thy
will the inspiration of our counselings and our actions.
We thank thee, O God, for the gift to us of America. As to few other lands,
Thou hast been prodigal to America of gifts rich and rare. In America skies
are serene and health-giving above us; beneath us fields are verdant and
fertile; nowhere else are forests more fruitful, hills and mountains richer in
imbedded treasure; nowhere else are lakes and rivers endowed with higher
grandeur or more ready to proffer to man useful and ennobling service. Of
America, through Thy munificence, O God, we are the caretakers. May we
be wise and prudent in our duty. We pray that under Thy abiding
watchfulness, through our intelligent industry, America grows ever in
fairness and in wealth, and be the first and most beauteous of the stopping-
places allowed to men in their pilgrimage toward their abiding home in
heaven.
Bless, O Lord, America, and bless its people, that they be ever faithful to
Thy laws; bless its citizenship, bless its Government, that the spirit of its
freedom-giving institutions never die, never lessen in sweetness and in
power; that here liberty be ever encircled in order, and order ever wreathed
in liberty; that righteousness dominate and permeate prosperity; that
whatever the laws we form may be scintillations of Thy own eternal laws—
compliance with which is life and felicity, forgetfulness of which is misery
and death to men and to nations.
And we pray Thee, O God, send down Thy blessing upon the President of
the Republic, upon whose shoulders descends the chief responsibility of
upholding the salvation and the dignity of America. We pray that Thou
bestow upon him Thy precious blessing. The burthen is heavy, often the

horizon is dark, often the polar star is hidden from which guidance might
come; but in Thee, O God, he confideth,—send upon him the wisdom and
the strength of Thy Holy Spirit, the wisdom that he may know, the power
that he may do, ever Thy will. In Thee, O Lord, in Thy omnipotent hand—
prompt to give aid in single-mindedness of purpose and in rectitude of
intention—he puts his trust. Be Thou his teacher, be Thou his guide.
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily
bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
against us, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from all evil.
Amen.

President Baker—Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen: His Eminence,
Cardinal Gibbons, sends you greeting:
Allow me to say how earnestly I wish the Congress every success in the
much-needed work of National Conservation.
It is said that the French and Germans could subsist on what we waste; and
I fear that to a stranger visiting our country it must seem that in a hundred
years we have wasted more of our natural resources than the nations of
Europe have done in all the centuries of their existence. But if we have been
reckless in the past, wasting like vandals our rich inheritance, it is also most
consoling and full of promise for the future that with the strong aid of our
President, of Colonel Roosevelt, and of leading citizens in various parts of
the country, we may look for a wiser use of our resources in the near future.
And I am the more hopeful of a successful Congress from the fact that there
is no political issue involved in the great subject before it which might
threaten to divide our counsels and breed discontent, but that the sole
motive that actuates the Congress is to conserve and increase our natural
resources and thereby contribute to the material prosperity of our beloved
country.
It is also decidedly my opinion that we should regard our natural resources
as the patrimony of the Nation, a sacred trust committed to our keeping to

be administered for the good of the whole people, and to be transmitted by
us, as far as possible unimpaired, to our posterity. By husbanding and using
economically the gifts of Nature, we shall have an abundant supply for our
own times, and also make suitable provisions for the future. Mother Earth is
not only a fruitful mother; she is also a grateful mother, and repays her
children for every kindness and tenderness we exercise toward her. And
there are also instances on record to show that she is relentless when she
chastises.
Did my many duties allow, I should gladly take a more active part in the
greatly needed Conservation labors. However, I trust you will feel assured
of my entire sympathy and of the hope I confidently entertain of the very
great benefits coming to us all as the fruitful result of these devoted
laborers. James Card. Gibbons.

President Baker—Ladies and Gentlemen: The opening of the Congress
today in Saint Paul is due largely to the kind assistance and friendly
welcome of the Governor of Minnesota, His Excellency A. O. Eberhart,
who will now extend you a welcome. (Great applause and cheers)
Governor Eberhart—Mr President, Members of the Congress, Ladies and
Gentlemen: When I was invited to appear before this Congress and bid you
welcome, it was suggested that I also outline what the people of Minnesota
felt when they sought to have this splendid gathering at Saint Paul.
I am sure that no State or city could receive greater honor than to have the
President of the United States come fifteen hundred miles to deliver the
most important message on Conservation that has ever been presented to
the people of this great country. (Applause) Yet I am not going to take more
than the twenty minutes allotted to assure you that the only interest this
State has in the Conservation movement is that which every true friend of
the movement stands for. Last night I cut out the meat of my remarks, this
morning the bones, and now there is nothing left but the nerve, and I have
scarcely enough "nerve" to deliver it. (Laughter and applause)

The Conservation of natural resources does not consist merely in the
preservation of these resources for the benefit of future generations, but
rather such present use thereof as will result in the greatest general good
and yet maintain that productive power which insures continued future
enjoyment. (Applause) While it is true that exhaustible resources like
mineral wealth cannot be conserved for both future and present use, except
by economic regulations and the prevention of wasteful methods,
Conservation deals with their distribution in such a way as to prevent their
control by grasping corporations and individuals, who would monopolize
them for their own exclusive benefit at the expense of the general public.
(Applause)
It follows necessarily that any theory of Conservation which does not
provide for the present as well as the future does not cover the entire field
and cannot possibly bring the best results. (Applause) From every economic
standpoint it is desirable that the present generation should be preferred,
since future discoveries and inventions may render present resources of less
value and importance to the coming generations.
In its broadest sense the Conservation movement is not limited merely to
the consideration of natural resources. Every great convention called to
consider the problems involved has widened the scope of the movement so
that today it includes the elimination of wasteful methods in almost every
field of human activity and the conservation of all human endeavor so as to
confer on all mankind the greatest blessings that a bounteous nature and
twenty centuries of enlightenment can bestow.
Every consideration of natural resources for the purpose of eliminating
wasteful methods, preserving and increasing productive power, as well as
regulating operation and control, has for its ultimate object the conservation
of human energy, health and life, the securing of equal opportunities for all,
and such dissemination of knowledge as will guarantee the continual
possession and enjoyment of these blessings. The subjects for consideration
by this Congress should, therefore, include not only the restoration and
increase of soil fertility, the protection and development of forests, mines
and water-powers, the reclamation of arid and swamp lands by irrigation
and drainage, the forestation of areas unsuited to farming, the control of
rivers by reservoirs so as to prevent flooding, as well as the elimination of

waste in the use of these resources, but also the problems of public comfort,
health and life that are so intimately connected with all material and
intellectual development. (Applause) Many of these questions will concern
home attractions and management, industrial education in the public
schools, public highways, State advertising and settlement, pure food,
public health, and sanitation.
By far the most important of all natural resources is the soil, and the
maintenance and increase of its fertility must, therefore, be given the
greatest consideration. (Applause) As long as food is necessary to human
life, agriculture must continue to be the most vital industry of man, and the
farm will be the most general and indispensable theater of his activity. We
must have manufacture, art, schools, churches and government to round out
our sphere of civilized existence, but the foundation of them all is the farm.
(Applause) From the earth come all the materials for manufactures, the
commodities of commerce, and ultimately the support of all human
institutions. During the half century just past our country has devoted its
energies to the development of manufacturing and commercial industries to
such an extent that the scientific methods of agriculture necessary to insure
not only the permanency of our institutions but the very existence of human
life itself have been comparatively neglected. The pendulum is now
swinging back to the farm, and our great Nation is becoming aroused to the
fact that its most vital concern is the elimination of soil waste, the
promotion of scientific methods of agriculture, and the conservation of that
soil fertility which is the foundation of our entire social, political and
commercial superstructure. (Applause)
This new birth of agricultural progress comes at a psychological moment.
We have developed American manufactures until the $16,000,000,000
product of our mills and factories exceeds that of Germany, France, and the
United Kingdom combined. (Applause) We have built railroads by liberal
public and private enterprise until the United States has about one-half of
all the railway mileage and tonnage of the world. We have developed
banking enterprise and home trade until we have the greatest banking power
on earth, and an internal commerce which far exceeds the entire foreign
commerce of the globe. We have become the model of the world in our free
public schools and our republican form of government. But while we have
demonstrated the possession of the greatest agricultural resources on the

globe, and have heretofore supplied the world's markets with an
unparalleled volume of farm products, we have wasted a wealth that would
maintain our population for centuries. The loss in farm values in nearly all
of the older States, as shown by the census records from 1880 to 1900,
varies from $1,000,000 to $160,000,000 in each State and aggregates the
enormous total of more than $1,000,000,000. Is this not sufficient to arouse
the entire Nation and cause such a wave of reform as will put into activity
every agency and instrumentality for scientific and progressive methods of
agricultural reconstruction?
The unprecedented agricultural growth of the United States, in spite of
wasteful methods, has been caused by the extraordinary fertility of its virgin
soil, the great inducement offered by States and Nation to promote
settlement and cultivation, the rapid growth of favorable transportation
facilities, as well as the great demand for agricultural products resulting
from the rapid increase of population, wealth and commercial enterprise.
Minnesota affords a splendid illustration of this development process, and I
trust that I may be pardoned for using my own State for that purpose, since
I am best acquainted with her conditions, development, and resources. Of
her 50,000,000 acres of land area, about one-half is actually tilled,
constituting the field area of about 200,000 farms whose aggregate area,
including lands not tilled, approximates 32,000,000 acres, or 160 acres
each. Nearly 4,000,000 acres of her area are covered by 10,000 lakes. This
vast farm area possesses a soil unsurpassed by any State or any country in
the world. The great glacier of several thousand years ago was generous to
Minnesota. Its fine glacial drift almost wholly covers the old rock
formations. Coming from many regions and rock sources, it has given to the
soil an excellent chemical composition. This, together with the vegetal
mold, accumulated for ages, makes the very best of hospitable soils. The
incomparable fertility of the Minnesota soil and its ability to withstand fifty
years of starvation methods in cultivation is accounted for by the almost
uniform mixture of vegetal mold with all kinds of decomposed rock drift,
thus making it possible for less than half of the State to produce farm
products aggregating the enormous total for 1909 of more than
$427,000,000. (Applause) It accounts also for the fact that, while
Minnesota, like all other States, during this period of fifty years has been
rather mining the fertility out of her soil than cultivating it, she has

withstood the consequent impoverishment without appreciable shrinkage in
farm value. There is perhaps not a single representative in this distinguished
assemblage who cannot recall the day when the virgin soil in his locality
did not produce from 50 to 100 percent larger crops than it does today,
when dense forests covered large tracts now a barren waste, and when the
bosom of the earth contained untold millions of mineral wealth now
represented on the surface by huge spoil-banks and sunken surfaces. We
remember only too well when our fertile fields yielded thirty-five to forty
bushels of wheat to the acre, and that the same fields produced only about
twelve bushels five years ago. In nearly every community there is found
that pathetic omen of decay, the deserted farm—even in this young State.
The economic importance of soil conservation is so great that it can
scarcely be estimated. In making my estimates I have taken a very
conservative view, and while no absolutely accurate figures can be
obtained, the few that I shall give will be found sufficiently reliable to
establish the paramount value of soil conservation.
In Minnesota the low tide of soil impoverishment occurred about five years
ago. At that time, after several years of apparently unsuccessful effort, the
Agricultural College and schools, assisted by the State Farmers' Institutes
and the press, succeeded in stemming the tide and arousing considerable
interest in new methods of farming along more intelligent and intensive
lines. Only within the last year, however, has progress been marked and
rapid. When the first State Conservation Congress was called to meet in
Saint Paul, March, 1909, nearly every township in the State was represented
and all but two counties presented agricultural and industrial exhibits,
attracting a total attendance of more than 150,000 people. The wonderful
success of that Congress and the enthusiasm it stirred up all over the State
gave a great impetus to this new era of agricultural reform in the entire
Northwest and insured the complete success of this Congress from a local
standpoint. Never before had 6,000 of the most progressive farmers of a
State met for the purpose of discussing more intelligent methods of
farming, as well as the suppression of wasteful methods in all fields of
agricultural and industrial activity.
During the past short period of five years the average cereal yield of this
State has been increased more than five bushels per acre; the corn belt has

been extended northward more than 300 miles to the Canadian boundary by
the production of hardy and early maturing varieties of corn, yielding the
State last year over 60,000,000 bushels, and placing Minnesota among the
dozen leading corn States of the Union. It is estimated that plant breeding
and seed selection alone last year added about $15,000,000 to our
agricultural products. The cereal production has also affected clover,
timothy and other tame grasses, thus largely contributing to the growth of
the dairy industry, which has been increased ten-fold in twenty years until it
now yields the State $50,000,000 annually, several counties netting more
than $1,000,000 each. Similar progress has been made in the live stock,
fruit, and truck gardening industries, and it is safe to conclude that
Minnesota has entered in earnest upon a complete plan of agricultural
reconstruction.
But let us consider the opportunities for advancement that are still open, in
order that we may determine the economy of soil conservation in terms of
dollars and cents. The average yield of Minnesota wheat last season was
seventeen bushels per acre. At the agricultural experiment stations the same
wheat with improved seed selection and better preparation of soil by crop
rotation and tillage yielded twenty-eight bushels per acre, climatic and soil
conditions, as well as expense of tillage being otherwise similar, a
difference in favor of intelligent farming approximating from five to eight
dollars per acre, depending on local conditions. Assuming for the sake of
argument that the average difference in the State would not be more than
four dollars per acre, it would still increase the agricultural net earning of
the State on the basis of the present acreage $100,000,000 annually. These
figures do not take into consideration the further increase of soil
productivity by various methods of fertilization other than those resulting
from planting crops which enrich the soil with nitrogen, phosphoric acid,
potash and calcium, the essential elements of plant growth. Besides, I have
not attempted to estimate the value of raising almost maximum yields,
where weather conditions are unfavorable, by such drainage, preparation of
soil, planting and tillage as will best suit local and climatic conditions. No
crop emphasizes the value of seed selection in such unmistakable terms as
corn. The average stand of this crop does not exceed 60 percent, which
means that the farmer spends 40 percent of his time in the cornfield without
result. By selecting the seed in the field at the proper season, testing each

ear before planting, and separating with reference to size, so that as nearly
as possible the planter will put three kernels in each hill, the stand can be
increased to at least 95 percent. Applying this increase to the 2,000,000
acres of cornfield in Minnesota, it would add approximately 30,000,000
bushels with practically no additional cost of production. That the
importance of this matter might be more firmly impressed upon the people
of the State, I have issued a seed-corn proclamation designating the time
when the seed-corn should be selected and calling the attention of the
people to the feed value of the corn product as well as corn fodder, which is
of utmost importance in a dry season like the one we are now experiencing.
This proclamation has received extensive publicity, and it is safe to say that
a large number of Minnesota's 200,000 farmers will heed the note of
warning.
Of still more vital importance, if possible, is the maintenance and increase
of soil fertility as a source of support for future generations. The soil is the
only permanent asset of the farmer, and its net returns in crops constitute his
annual dividends. Any impairment of this asset will not only reduce the
dividends on which his support depends, but will destroy the productive
power of the soil to such extent as to deprive future owners of the most
essential means of livelihood. A loss of $1,000,000,000 in farm values, such
as the older States have already suffered, does not mean merely that this
vast sum of money has been wasted, but that its annual earning capacity on
which thousands should depend for support has been entirely destroyed, and
that these thousands have been forced to seek their sustenance from the
fields of commerce and manufacture in the large cities. We enact stringent
legislation to prevent the impairment of capital in our banking institutions
to protect depositors from loss, but the working capital investment of
millions in farm property on which all human institutions must necessarily
depend for existence has not been safeguarded in any manner whatsoever.
Without any organized effort to interfere, we still permit millions of farmers
to mine out the fertility of the soil, thus increasing the drudgery of farm life,
reducing every source of farm income, converting the producers of the farm
into consumers of the city, and thus contributing directly to the great
increase in cost of living, the scarcity of farm labor, and the congested
conditions that breed disease and crime in our large cities. Apply the
situation to the country at large and you will find a situation that is simply

appalling. There are approximately 500,000,000 acres under actual tillage in
the United States. Instead of figuring four dollars per acre waste, which
probably would be a fair average, we will place the loss at the extremely
low estimate of one dollar. This will still make the total loss through
wasteful farming methods in the United States reach the enormous total of
$500,000,000 annually. In other words, if the loss were in fact not greater
than one dollar per acre, which is unquestionably too low, and that rate
could be maintained perpetually without an ultimate depletion of the soil, it
would mean that a capital investment of $12,500,000,000 with an earning
capacity of four percent per annum aggregating $500,000,000 annually, had
been completely destroyed.
At the rate of two dollars per acre, which is a low average, we are every
year wasting the income from $25,000,000,000, a sum so great as to be
entirely beyond human comprehension. In many of the older States, where
farms were sold forty years ago at $150 per acre, the same farms cannot be
sold today for $25 per acre, sometimes less than the actual cash value of the
buildings and other improvements, because the soil has been robbed of its
fertility, making it impossible for the owner to earn the most meager living
without restoring the vitality of the soil through expensive methods of
fertilization.
It is not at all difficult to see how such wasteful methods of farming must
affect the entire industrial situation. The younger generation, inspired with
the hopes, aspirations, and energy of youth, stirred by the achievements,
opportunities, and general prosperity of a truly great Nation, and
encouraged by the possibilities of a liberal education, cannot afford to stake
its future on the eking out of a mere existence under the shadow of a rapidly
increasing farm mortgage or the threatening omen of a deserted homestead.
All honor and credit to that farmer's boy who early realizes the handicap
placed upon him by the impairment, and oftentimes utter destruction, of the
only safe capital investment of the farmer—fertile and productive soil.
Should we complain because he goes to the city to seek more inviting and
attractive fields of existence after having been robbed of his only means of
livelihood on the farm? This is the proper time for us to think it over. In the
younger States, where soil mining has been of such short duration as to be
incomplete, and the value of the land through settlement, city growth, and
increased transportation facilities is constantly growing, the young man,

who has learned intelligent and progressive methods of farming, should
have no fear as to the future, for he has the making of a safe investment; but
the young lad who, without experience or training, unexpectedly finds
himself possessor of a farm where land values have ceased to rise and the
soil has been starved until it no longer can yield in abundance, has a white
elephant on his hands, and the sooner he can be brought to the realization
thereof the better for himself and the entire community.
Where a certain amount of labor should produce thirty bushels of wheat to
the acre, it yields but ten, or even less; and when the farmer cultivates his
corn, working ten hours per day, four hours thereof is spent in vain, because
40 percent of the field has no corn—not to speak of the poor quality of the
corn grown on account of defective preparation of soil, poor tillage, and the
lack of necessary nutritive elements within the soil itself. In addition, he has
no knowledge as to diversified farming, the value of live stock, dairying,
fruit-raising, truck-gardening, and many other means of livelihood which
yield large incomes to the possessor of a well-managed farm, nor does he
appreciate the enormous waste committed by unnecessary exposure to the
elements of farm machinery and buildings.
The young lady faces a similar situation. Every field of employment bids
her welcome at wages from $50 or more per month, and she has already
achieved such abundant success in every line of human enterprise, and at
the same time enjoyed all the pleasures and delights which bring cheer to
the heart of the young, that she cannot afford to even hesitate. Should we
complain if she refuses to stay on the farm and take her chances of
marrying a $25 man and a ruined farm plastered all over with mortgages,
and be chained in matrimonial bonds of lifelong drudgery to a devastated
farm homestead, robbed of everything that contributes to the beautiful and
good and true in a woman's life? (Great applause) There is only one answer,
and its conclusions are just.
Though I have presented a sad picture, it is not pessimistic. The background
is altogether cheerful. Two words express the most simple and effective
remedy: intelligent farming. This will not only make farming profitable, but
it will surround the home life on the farm with so many attractions as to
remove all desire for the deceptive allurements of a city. Intelligent farming
does not merely guarantee good dividends on a farm investment, but it

builds good roads to save cost of transportation, consolidates rural schools
where intelligent farming, industry and home economics can be taught by
precept and example, beautifies the home and its surroundings and fills it
with all the attractions that elevate manhood and womanhood, teaches the
younger generation the dignity as well as reward of farm labor, and inspires
the laborer with the hope of a bright future.
Drainage, farm settlement, good roads, forestry, transportation, industrial
education, minerals, cheap heat and power resources, are all important
factors in the Conservation movement. Minnesota has successfully drained
about 3,000,000 acres in the northern part of the State at an average cost of
two dollars per acre, and converted into meadows, grain and clover fields,
celery and cranberry gardens, what only a year or two since was a rough
wilderness. Every State should have some effective way of making these
results known to prospective settlers through exhibits and judicious
advertising. No State officer is in a position to bring greater returns to the
State than the immigration commissioner, and it is to be regretted that his
work is so often crippled by lack of sufficient appropriations.
In marketing produce, distributing material, fertilizer and machinery, the
farmers of Minnesota haul annually approximately 20,000,000 wagon
loads. Averaging the cost of each load over mostly unimproved roads at
$1.50, the cost of highway transportation in the State aggregates
$30,000,000. Most experts claim that uniformly good roads would reduce
this cost one-half, but conceding for the sake of argument that the reduction
would be only a third, the net saving to the farmers of the State in one year
would be about $10,000,000. However, this is not the most important result.
The building of good roads would build up farm intercommunication and
promote the consolidation of rural school districts by making it possible to
carry the pupils at all seasons of the year some distance over country roads
to the school at a minimum cost.
Several of the north-central border States were the chief shippers of lumber
only a few years ago. Now our great forests are largely depleted, and
scientific deforestation has become an absolute necessity. One of the most
important duties the States as well as the Nation have to perform is the
transformation of this vast stumpage area into forests and farms. Practical
and scientific reforestation should convert the lands unsuited for farming

into forests, so that every acre would produce revenue and furnish some
necessity of life. The dry season of 1910 has particularly emphasized
another important duty in this connection, and that is the protection of our
forests and settlers from fires. It is a well known fact that enough timber has
been destroyed by fire within the last four months to pay for the adequate
protection of all our forests for a period of ten years or more, not to mention
the great loss of human life, which in itself imposes upon States and Nation
the duty of protection. This Congress should be instrumental in stirring
public sentiment to such an extent that the various legislatures and the
Congress will take immediate steps to stop this needless and expensive
waste.
Since mineral wealth is exhaustible, it follows that the interest of the people
in this important resource should be guarded against the encroachments of
greed with the utmost care. Minnesota furnishes now one-half of all the
iron-ore in the United States, and one-fourth of that of the world, exporting
this year about 40,000,000 tons. It is estimated that not less than
2,000,000,000 tons of ore has been definitely located, and that the volume
of the undeveloped properties is enormous. The State is the owner of very
large quantities of ore, and the income from this source alone will increase
the State school fund by at least $100,000,000.
No section of our country could profit more by water transportation than
that tributary to this great mineral wealth. The canalization of the
Mississippi river system with its 16,000 miles of streams would by cheap
transportation bring together the coal fields of the central interior with the
iron ore of the North, and produce in the Mississippi valley the greatest iron
and steel industries of the world, besides opening up the greatest
agricultural and industrial sections to the transportation facilities of the
Panama canal.
No commercial nation can long retain supremacy unless it has unlimited
supplies of cheap heat and power. In the north-central border States are
located peat deposits that should furnish cheap heat and power for untold
generations, Minnesota alone possessing more than 1,000,000 acres; and as
the source of the three great watersheds of the country, with an elevation of
about 1,500 feet over sea and gulf level, there is an abundance of water-
power to turn the wheels of manufacture and commerce.

Time will not permit any consideration of the strictly human side of
Conservation. We have saved millions of dollars annually by guarding
against plant and animal disease, and are just beginning to take note of the
untold millions wasted every month through neglect of preventable and
curable disease, impure foods, defective sanitation and health inspection in
homes and schools, unsuitable playgrounds for children, and the lack of
safeguards against railway, mine and factory accidents, all of which come
properly within the Conservation scope.
The splendid progress made by Minnesota and other States merely
emphasizes the importance of the Conservation movement. Warned by the
decay of older nations, we must act before the crisis of exhausted natural
resources reaches our Nation and commonwealths. Indeed, warned by signs
that are only too plain in our own midst, we must take decisive action
without delay. Fortunately, we have passed the pioneer stage of
development. Our Nation and commonwealths have all experienced many
of the disasters resulting from the skimming of natural resources. Having
discovered the vast mines of wealth which surround us everywhere, we
must now and forever determine that ignorance, selfishness, and greed shall
no longer control our governments and exhaust our resources. (Great
applause and cheers)
The problems before us are not merely of tremendous importance, but they
are also difficult as to solution. They frequently involve sharply conflicting
claims and interests as between the Nation and the various commonwealths.
Every State as well as the Nation itself should have a distinct and separate
department empowered to deal with all these problems. It matters but little
how it should be designated, though it would serve all purposes best to be
known as a Conservation Commission. But it is of vital importance that the
agency should be given sufficient authority and funds, so as to enlist the
strongest and best men in the Conservation service. That such commissions
would have sufficient work, and that from an economic standpoint they
would constitute good investments, there is and can be no question.
Minnesota, as a distinctly progressive State and a recognized leader in the
Conservation movement, heartily welcomes this Congress with its noted
guests and speakers. We have the special honor of entertaining and hearing
the three truly great men who have contributed so much to the actual

achievements of the Conservation movement, and they are the three most
distinguished guests of this Congress, President Taft (applause and the
Chautauqua salute), Colonel Roosevelt (applause and cheers), and James J.
Hill. Minnesota appreciates this honor and will prove herself worthy
thereof. As her Chief Executive, I earnestly hope that the deliberations of
this Congress may bring results far beyond our hopes or expectations. I am
intensely interested in the Conservation of our resources, and will use all
my efforts in securing and enforcing the best possible legislation, believing
firmly that the Conservation movement, as here outlined, will promote the
general public welfare in a far greater degree than any other, and that it is
destined to mark the twentieth century as an era of the greatest industrial
achievement for the benefit of all mankind. The people of Minnesota feel
keenly their duties and responsibilities with reference to their great heritage
of unsurpassed natural resources, and will continue as leaders in the only
movement that can insure the perpetuation of our country as the greatest
agricultural, industrial and commercial nation in the world. On their behalf,
I welcome you to the State. I thank you. (Applause)

President Baker—It is now my pleasure to call upon his Honor, Mayor
Herbert E. Keller, who will welcome you on behalf of the great city of Saint
Paul. (Great applause and cheers)
Mayor Keller—Mr President, Delegates to the Second National
Conservation Congress, and Guests: Upon me, as Chief Executive of the
city where this body will carry on its labors, the honor of welcoming you
devolves. It is a great privilege and pleasure to discharge this duty, and yet
my greeting can but inadequately convey to you the appreciation felt by all
Saint Paul at being selected as the scene of this great Congress, whose
deliberations mark the commencement of a new epoch in the history of our
country. (Applause)
The Conservation to and by ourselves as trustees, and the dedication and
perpetuation to our children and our children's children as beneficiaries, of
the tremendous natural resources of our country is a duty and trust too
sacred and too imperative to be disregarded or lightly considered, once the

situation stands revealed in its true light. It is purely and simply a
proposition of the greatest good for the greatest number, and the sound
judgment of a great people, with the patriotism and unselfish devotion to
duty of the founders of our country ever before them, must and shall
consider the greatest number to be the countless millions of population to
follow after us, and to whom must be handed down a heritage not
diminished or impoverished by us, the temporary executors.
We may be likened to children turned loose in some vast Midas
treasurehouse and told to go where we would and take what we pleased. A
knock at the doors of Congress, a State legislature, or a city council, gives
the magical "Open Sesame!" And behold! the lavishing on some private
interest or individual of a great National or State property or municipal right
or franchise!
The Nation's bounty and generosity has been limitless, for the entire
previous history of the whole world provides no precedent for a guide. But,
fortunately, thoughtful minds began to work, awakened to what was being
done, and the result is the present all-pervasive sentiment and determination
to economize, to check improvidence and waste, and to establish a policy
whereby future generations, as well as the present, may have equal
opportunities to enjoy our natural benefits and advantages; and
Conservation is now more than a mere issue: it is an assured, established,
sane and universal desire to preserve and perpetuate for ourselves and
posterity the treasures of our country.
And so I bid you welcome to the city of Saint Paul. May your labors be
fruitful of great good. I know that your stay with us will be enjoyable. Our
city limits may be somewhat circumscribed for the immense crowds here
this week, but our hospitality and good wishes are as limitless as the ocean.
(Applause)

President Baker—Fellow delegates, I am sure we all extend to his Honor,
Mayor Keller, a hearty vote of thanks for what he has done in preparing for
this Congress.

And now comes a privilege of which I am very proud—as a southern man
all my life—that of presenting to you the President of this great Nation.
(Great applause and cheers, the audience rising)

ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Ladies and Gentlemen: Before beginning my formal address, I should like
to extend to the President and the Managers of this Congress, to Governor
Eberhart, and to the Mayor of the city, my sincere and cordial thanks for the
opportunity to come here and address this magnificent audience, and to
reach the people of the United States on a subject of the utmost interest to
them and to every patriot. (Applause)
Conservation, as an economic and political term, has come to mean the
preservation of our natural resources for economical use, so as to secure the
greatest good to the greatest number.
In the development of this country, in the hardships of the pioneer, in the
energy of the settler, in the anxiety of the investor for quick returns, there
was very little time, opportunity, or desire to prevent waste of those
resources supplied by nature which could not be quickly transmuted into
money; while the investment of capital was so great a desideratum that the
people as a community exercised little or no care to prevent the transfer of
absolute ownership of many of the valuable natural resources to private
individuals, without retaining some kind of control of their use. The
impulse of the whole new community was to encourage the coming of
population, the increase of settlement, and the opening up of business; and
he who demurred in the slightest degree to any step which promised
additional development of the idle resources at hand was regarded as a
traitor to his neighbors and an obstructor to public progress. But now that
the communities have become old, now that the flush of enthusiastic
expansion has died away, now that the would-be pioneers have come to
realize that all the richest lands in the country have been taken up, we have
perceived the necessity for a change of policy in the disposition of our
natural resources so as to prevent the continuance of the waste which has
characterized our phenomenal growth in the past. Today we desire to
restrict and retain under public control the acquisition and use by the
capitalists of our natural resources.

The danger to the State and to the people at large from the waste and
dissipation of our national wealth is not one which quickly impresses itself
on the people of the older communities, because its most obvious instances
do not occur in their neighborhood, while in the newer part of the country
the sympathy with expansion and development is so strong that the danger
is scoffed at or ignored. Among scientific men and thoughtful observers,
however, the danger has always been present; but it needed some one to
bring home the crying need for a remedy of this evil so as to impress itself
on the public mind and lead to the formation of public opinion and action
by the representatives of the people. Theodore Roosevelt (great and
prolonged applause) took up the task in the last two years of his second
administration, and well did he perform it. (Great and prolonged applause)
As President of the United States I have, as it were, inherited this policy,
and I rejoice in my heritage (great applause). I prize my high opportunity to
do all that an Executive can do to help a great people to realize a great
national ambition; for Conservation is National. It affects every man of us,
every woman, every child. What I can do in the cause I shall do, not as
President of a party, but as President of the whole people (enthusiastic
applause and cheers). Conservation is not a question of politics, or of
factions, or of persons. It is a question that affects the vital welfare of all of
us—of our children and our children's children. I urge that no good can
come from meetings of this sort unless we ascribe to those who take part in
them, and who are apparently striving worthily in the cause, all proper
motives (applause), and unless we judiciously consider every measure or
method proposed with a view to its effectiveness in achieving our common
purpose, and wholly without regard to who proposes it or who will claim
credit for its adoption (great applause). The problems are of very great
difficulty, and call for the calmest consideration and clearest foresight.
Many of the questions presented have phases that are new in this country,
and it is possible that in their solution we may have to attempt first one way
and then another. What I wish to emphasize, however, is that a satisfactory
conclusion can only be reached promptly if we avoid acrimony, imputations
of bad faith and political controversy (cries of "Hear, hear," and great
applause).
The public domain of the Government of the United States, including all the
cessions from those of the thirteen States that made cessions to the United

States, and including Alaska, amounts in all to about 1,800,000,000 acres.
Of this there is left as purely Government property outside of Alaska
something like 700,000,000 acres. Of this the national forest reserves in the
United States proper embrace 144,000,000 acres. The rest is largely
mountain or arid country, offering some opportunity for agriculture by dry
farming and by reclamation, and containing metals as well as coal,
phosphates, oils, and natural gas. Then the Government owns many tracts of
land lying along the margins of streams that have water-power, the use of
which is necessary in the conversion of the power into electricity and its
transmission.
I shall divide my discussion under the heads of (1) agricultural lands; (2)
mineral lands—that is, lands containing metalliferous minerals; (3) forest
lands; (4) coal lands; (5) oil and gas lands; and (6) phosphate lands. I feel
that it will conduce to a better understanding of the problems presented if I
take up each class and describe, even at the risk of tedium, first, what has
been done by the last Administration and the present one in respect to each
kind of land; second, what laws at present govern its disposition; third, what
was done by the present Congress in the matter; and fourth, the statutory
changes proposed in the interest of Conservation.
AGRICULTURAL LANDS
Our land laws for the entry of agricultural lands are as follows:
The original Homestead Law, with the requirements of residence and
cultivation for five years, much more strictly enforced now than ever
before.
The Enlarged Homestead Act, applying to non-irrigable lands only,
requiring five years' residence and continuous cultivation of one-fourth of
the area.
The Desert-land Act, which requires on the part of the purchaser the
ownership of a water-right and thorough reclamation of the land by
irrigation, and the payment of $1.25 per acre.
The Donation or Carey Act, under which the State selects the land and
provides for its reclamation, and the title vests in the settler who resides
upon the land and cultivates it and pays the cost of the reclamation.

The National Reclamation Homestead Law, requiring five years' residence
and cultivation by the settler on the land irrigated by the Government, and
payment by him to the Government of the cost of the reclamation.
There are other acts, but not of sufficient general importance to call for
mention unless it is the Stone and Timber Act, under which every
individual, once in his lifetime, may acquire 160 acres of land, if it has
valuable timber on it or valuable stone, by paying the price of not less than
$2.50 per acre, fixed after examination of the stone or timber by a
Government appraiser.
In times past, a great deal of fraud has been perpetrated in the acquisition of
lands under this Act, but it is now being much more strictly enforced, and
the entries made are so few in number that it seems to serve no useful
purpose and ought to be repealed. (Applause)
The present Congress passed a bill of great importance, severing the
ownership of coal by the Government in the ground from the surface and
permitting homestead entries upon the surface of the land, which, when
perfected, gives the settler the right to farm the surface, while the coal
beneath the surface is retained in ownership by the Government and may be
disposed of by it under other laws.
There is no crying need for radical reform in the methods of disposing of
what are really agricultural lands. The present laws have worked well. The
Enlarged Homestead Law has encouraged the successful farming of lands in
the semi-arid regions. Of course the teachings of the Agricultural
Department as to how these sub-arid lands may be treated and the soil
preserved for useful culture are of the very essence of Conservation. Then
the conservation of agricultural lands is shown in the reclamation of arid
lands by irrigation, and I should devote a few words to what the
Government has done and is doing in this regard.
By the Reclamation Act a fund has been created of the proceeds of the
public lands of the United States with which to construct works for storing
great bodies of water at proper altitudes from which, by a suitable system of
canals and ditches, the water is to be distributed over the arid and sub-arid
lands of the Government to be sold to settlers at a price sufficient to pay for
the improvements. Primarily the projects are and must be for the

improvement of public lands. Incidentally, where private land is also within
the reach of the water supply, the furnishing at cost of operation of this
water to private owners by the Government is held by the federal Court of
Appeals not to be a usurpation of power; but certainly this ought not to be
done except from surplus water not needed for Government land. About
thirty projects have been set on foot, distributed through the public-land
States, in accordance with the Statute, by which allotments from the
reclamation fund are required to be, as nearly as practicable, in proportion
to the proceeds from the sale of the public lands in the respective States.
The total sum already accumulated in the reclamation fund is
$60,273,258.22, and of that all but $6,491,955.34 has been expended. It
became very clear to Congress at its last session, from the statements made
by experts, that these thirty projects could not be promptly completed with
the balance remaining on hand, or with the funds likely to accrue in the near
future. It was found, moreover, that there are many settlers who have been
led into taking up lands with the hope and understanding of having water
furnished in a short time, who are left in a most distressing situation. I
recommended to Congress that authority be given to the Secretary of the
Interior to issue bonds in anticipation of the assured earnings by the
projects, so that the projects, worthy and feasible, might be promptly
completed and the settlers might be relieved from their present
inconvenience and hardship (applause). In authorizing the issue of these
bonds, Congress limited the application of their proceeds to those projects
which a board of army engineers, to be appointed by the President, should
examine and determine to be feasible and worthy of completion. The board
has been appointed, and soon will make its report.
Suggestions have been made that the United States ought to aid in the
drainage of swamp lands belonging to the States or private owners, because,
if drained, they would be exceedingly valuable for agriculture and
contribute to the general welfare by extending the area of cultivation. I
deprecate the agitation in favor of such legislation. It is inviting the general
Government into contribution from its treasury toward enterprises that
should be conducted either by private capital or at the instance of the State
(applause). In these days there is a disposition to look too much to the
Federal Government for everything (applause). I am liberal in the
construction of the Constitution with reference to Federal power (applause);

but I am firmly convinced that the only safe course for us to pursue is to
hold fast to the limitations of the Constitution, and to regard as sacred the
powers of the States (great applause and cheers). We have made wonderful
progress, and at the same time have preserved with judicious exactness the
restrictions of the Constitution. There is an easy way in which the
Constitution can be violated by Congress without judicial inhibition, to-wit,
by appropriations from the National treasury for unconstitutional purposes.
It will be a sorry day for this country if the time ever comes when our
fundamental compact shall be habitually disregarded in this manner.
(Applause)
MINERAL LANDS
By mineral lands, I mean those lands bearing metals, or what are called
metalliferous minerals.
The rules of ownership and disposition of these lands were first fixed by
custom in the West, and then were embodied in the law, and they have
worked, on the whole, so fairly and well that I do not think it is wise now to
attempt to change or better them. The apex theory of tracing title to a lode
has led to much litigation and dispute, and ought not to have become the
law, but it is so fixed and understood now that the benefit to be gained by a
change is altogether outweighed by the inconvenience that would attend the
introduction of a new system. So too, the proposition for the Government to
lease such mineral lands and deposits and to impose royalties might have
been, in the beginning, a good thing, but now that most of the mineral land
has been otherwise disposed of—I do not refer here to coal land or gas land
or oil land or phosphate land—it would hardly be worth while to assume the
embarrassments of a radical change.
FOREST LANDS
Nothing can be more important in the matter of Conservation than the
treatment of our forest lands. It was probably the ruthless destruction of
forests in the older States that first called attention to the necessity for a halt
in the waste of our resources. This was recognized by Congress by an act
authorizing the Executive to reserve from entry and set aside public timber
lands as National forests. Speaking generally, there has been reserved of the
existing forests about 70 percent of all the timber lands of the Government.

Within these forests (including 26,000,000 acres in two forests in Alaska)
are 192,000,000 acres, of which 166,000,000 acres are in the United States
proper and include within their boundaries something like 22,000,000 acres
that belong to the States or to private individuals. We have, then, excluding
Alaskan forests, a total of about 144,000,000 acres of forests belonging to
the Government, which are being treated in accord with the principles of
scientific forestry. The law now prohibits the reservation of any more forest
lands in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Colorado and Wyoming,
except by act of Congress. I am informed by the Department of Agriculture
that the Government owns other tracts of timber lands in these States which
should be included in the forest reserves. I expect to recommend to
Congress that the limitation herein imposed shall be repealed (applause). In
the present forest reserves there are lands which are not properly forest
land, and which ought to be subject to homestead entry. This has caused
some local irritation. We are carefully eliminating such lands from forest
reserves or, where their elimination is not practicable, listing them for entry
under the forest homestead act.
Congress ought to trust the Executive to use the power of reservation only
with respect to land covered by timber or which will be useful in the plan of
reforestation (applause). I am in favor of each branch of the Government
trusting the good faith of the other (applause). During the present
Administration, 6,250,000 acres of land, largely non-timbered, have been
excluded from forest reserves, and 3,500,000 acres of land, principally
valuable for forest purposes, have been included in forest reserves, making
a reduction in forest reserves of non-timbered land amounting to 2,750,000
acres. But had we had the opportunity to include reserves in the forbidden
States, the balance would have been otherwise. The Bureau of Forestry
since its creation has initiated reforestation on 5,600 acres. A great deal of
the forest land is available for grazing. During the past year the grazing
lessees numbered 25,400, and they pastured upon the forest reserves
1,400,000 cattle, 84,540 horses, and 7,580,400 sheep, for which the
Government received $986,715—a decrease from the preceding year of
$45,000, due to the fact that no money was collected or received for grazing
on the non-timbered land eliminated from the forest reserve. Another source
of profit in the forestry is the receipts for timber sold. This year they
amounted to $1,043,000, an increase of $307,000 over the receipts of last

year. This increase is due to improvement in transportation to market, and to
the greater facility with which the timber can be reached.
The Government timber in this country amounts to only one-fourth of all
the timber, the rest being in private ownership. Only three percent of that
which is in private ownership is looked after properly and treated according
to modern rules of forestry (applause). The usual destructive waste and
neglect continue in the remainder of the forests owned by private persons
and corporations. It is estimated that fire alone destroys $50,000,000 worth
of timber a year. The management of forests not on public land is beyond
the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. If anything can be done by law
it must be done by the State legislatures. I believe that it is within their
constitutional power to require the enforcement of regulations, in the
general public interest, as to fire and other causes of waste in the
management of forests owned by private individuals and corporations.
(Applause)
Exactly how far these regulations can go and remain consistent with the
rights of private ownership, it is not necessary to discuss; but I call attention
to the fact that a very important part of Conservation must always fall upon
the State legislatures, and that they would better be up and doing if they
would save the waste and denudation and destruction through private greed
or accidental fires that have made barren many square miles of the older
States. (Great applause)
I have shown sufficiently the conditions as to Federal forestry to indicate
that no further legislation is needed at the moment except an increase in the
fire protection to National forests and an act vesting the Executive with full
power to make forest reservations in every State where Government land is
timber-covered, or where the land is needed for forestry purposes.
OTHER LAND WITHDRAWALS
When President Roosevelt became fully advised of the necessity for the
change in our disposition of public lands, especially those containing coal,
oil, gas, phosphates, or water-power sites, he began the exercise of the
power of withdrawal by Executive order of lands subject by law to
homestead and the other methods of entering for agricultural lands. The
precedent he set in this matter was followed by the present Administration.

Doubt had been expressed in some quarters as to the power in the Executive
to make such withdrawals. The confusion and injustice likely to arise if the
courts were to deny the power led me to appeal to Congress to give the
President the express power (applause). Congress has complied. The law, as
passed, does not expressly validate or confirm previous withdrawals, and
therefore, as soon as the new law was passed, I, myself, confirmed all the
withdrawals which had theretofore been made by both Administrations by
making them over again (great applause). The power of withdrawal is a
most useful one, and I do not think it is likely to be abused.
COAL LANDS
The next subject, and one of the most important for our consideration, is the
disposition of the coal lands in the United States and in Alaska. First, as to
those in the United States.
At the beginning of this Administration there were classified coal lands
amounting to 5,476,000 acres, and there were withdrawn from entry for
purposes of classification 17,867,000 acres. Since that time there has been
withdrawn by my order from entry for classification 77,648,000 acres,
making a total withdrawal of 95,515,000 acres (applause). Meantime, of the
acres thus withdrawn, 11,371,000 have been classified and found not to
contain coal, and have been restored to agricultural entry, and 4,356,000
acres have been classified as coal lands; while 79,788,000 acres remain
withdrawn from entry and await classification. In addition, 336,000 acres
have been classified as coal lands without prior withdrawal, thus increasing
the classified coal lands to 10,168,000 acres.
Under the laws providing for the disposition of coal lands in the United
States, the minimum price at which lands are permitted to be sold is $10 an
acre; but the Secretary of the Interior has the power to fix a maximum price
and to sell at that price. By the first regulations governing appraisal,
approved April 8, 1907, the minimum was $10, as provided by law, and the
maximum was $100, and the highest price actually placed upon any land
sold was $75. Under the new regulations, adopted April 10, 1909, the
maximum price was increased to $300 except in regions where there are
large mines, where no maximum limit is fixed and the price is determined
by the estimated tons of coal to the acre. The highest price fixed for any

land under this regulation has been $608 per acre. The appraised value of
the lands classified as coal lands and valued under the new and old
regulations is shown to be as follows: 4,303,000 acres valued under the old
regulation at $77,000,000—an average of $18 an acre—and 5,864,000 acres
classified and valued under the new regulation at $394,000,000, or a total of
10,168,000 acres valued at $471,000,000. For the year ending March 31,
1909, 227 coal entries were made, embracing an area of 35,000 acres,
which sold for $663,000; for the year ending March 31, 1910, there were
176 entries, embracing an area of 23,000 acres, which sold for $608,000,
and down to August, 1910, there were but 17 entries, with an area of 1,720
acres which sold for $33,900; making a disposition of coal lands in the last
two years of about 60,000 acres for $1,305,000.
The present Congress, as already said, has separated the surface of coal
lands either classified or withdrawn to be classified from the coal beneath,
so as to permit at all times homestead entries upon the surface of lands
useful for agriculture, and to reserve the ownership in the coal to the
Government.
The question which remains to be considered is whether the existing law for
the sale of the coal in the ground should continue in force or be repealed
and a new method of disposition adopted. Under the present law the
absolute title in the coal beneath the surface passes to the grantee of the
Government. The price fixed is upon an estimated amount of the tons of
coal per acre beneath the surface, and the prices are fixed so that the
earnings will only be a reasonable profit upon the amount paid and the
investment necessary. But, of course, this is more or less guesswork, and
the Government parts with the ownership of the coal in the ground
absolutely. Authorities in the Geological Survey estimate that in the United
States today there is a supply of about three thousand billion tons of coal,
and that of this one-third, or about one thousand billion, are in the public
domain. Of course, the other two thousand billion are within private
ownership and under no more control as to the use or the prices at which the
coal may be sold than any other private property.
If the Government leases the coal lands and acts as any landlord would, and
imposes conditions in its leases like those which are now imposed by the
owners in fee of coal mines in the various coal regions of the East, then it

would retain over the disposition of the coal deposits a choice as to the
assignee of the lease, a power of resuming possession at the end of the term
of the lease, or of readjusting terms at fixed periods of the lease, which
might easily be framed to enable it to exercise a limited but effective
control in the disposition and sale of the coal to the public (applause). It has
been urged that the leasing system has never been adopted in this country,
and that its adoption would largely interfere with the investment of capital
and the proper development and opening up of coal resources. I venture to
differ entirely from this view (applause). My investigations show that many
owners of mining property of this country do not mine it themselves, and do
not invest their money in the plants necessary for the mining, but they lease
their properties for a term of years varying from twenty to thirty and forty
years, under conditions requiring the erection of a proper plant and the
investment of a certain amount of money in the development of the mines,
and fixing a rental and a royalty, sometimes an absolute figure and
sometimes one proportioned to the market value of the coal. Under this
latter method the owner of a mine shares in the prosperity of his lessees
when coal is high and the profits good, and also shares to the same extent in
their disappointment when the price of coal falls.
I have looked with some care into a report made at the instance of President
Roosevelt upon the disposition of coal lands in Australia, Tasmania, and
New Zealand. These are peculiarly mining countries, and their experience
ought to be most valuable. In all these countries the method for the
disposition and opening of coal mines originally owned by the Government
is by granting a leasehold, and not by granting an absolute title. The terms
of the leases run all the way from twenty to fifty years while the amount of
land which may be leased to any individual there is from 320 acres to 2,000
acres. It appears that a full examination was made and the opinions of all
the leading experts on the subject were solicited and given, and that with
one accord they approved in all respects the leasing system (applause). Its
success is abundantly shown.
It is possible that at first considerable latitude will have to be given to the
Executive in drafting these forms of lease, but as soon as experiment shall
show which is the most workable and practicable, its use should be
provided for specifically by statute. The question as to how great an area
ought to be included in a lease to one individual or corporation is not free

from difficulty; but in view of the fact that the Government retains control
as owner, I think there might be some liberality in the amount leased, and
that 2,500 acres would not be too great a maximum.
By the opportunity to register the terms upon which the coal shall be held
by the tenant, either at the end of each lease or at periods during the term,
the Government may secure the benefit of sharing in the increased price of
coal and the additional profit made by the tenant. By imposing conditions in
respect to the character of work to be done in the mine, the Government
may control the character of the development of the mine and the treatment
of employees with reference to safety (applause). By denying the right to
transfer the lease except by written permission of Government authorities, it
may withhold the needed consent when it is proposed to transfer the
leasehold to persons interested in establishing a monopoly of coal
production in any State or neighborhood (applause).
As one-third of all the coal supply is held by the Government, it seems wise
that it should retain such control over the mining and the sale as the relation
of lessor to lessee furnishes. The change from the absolute grant to the
leasing system will involve a good deal of trouble in the outset, and the
training of experts in the matter of making proper leases; but the change
will be a good one and can be made. The change is in the interest of
Conservation, and I am glad to approve it. (Great applause)
ALASKA COAL LANDS
The investigations of the Geological Survey show that the coal properties in
Alaska cover about 1,200 square miles, and that there are known to be
available about fifteen billion tons. This is, however, an underestimate of
the coal in Alaska, because further developments will probably increase this
amount many times; but we can say with considerable certainty that there
are two fields on the Pacific slope which can be reached by railways at a
reasonable cost from deep water—in one case of about 50 miles and in the
other case of about 150—which will afford certainly six billion tons of coal,
more than half of which is of a very high grade of bituminous and of
anthracite. It is estimated to be worth, in the ground, one-half cent a ton,
which makes its value per acre from $50 to $500. The coking-coal lands of
Pennsylvania are worth from $800 to $2,000 an acre, while other

Appalachian fields are worth from $10 to $386 an acre, and the fields in the
central States from $10 to $2,000 an acre, and in the Rocky mountains from
$10 to $500 an acre.
The demand for coal on the Pacific Coast is for about 4,500,000 tons a year.
It would encounter the competition of cheap fuel oil, of which the
equivalent of 12,000,000 tons of coal a year is used there. It is estimated
that the coal could be laid down at Seattle or San Francisco, a high-grade
bituminous at $4 a ton, and anthracite at $5 or $6 a ton. The price of coal on
the Pacific slope varies greatly from time to time in the year and from year
to year—from $4 to $12 a ton. With a regular coal supply established, the
expert of the Geological Survey, Mr Brooks, who has made a report on the
subject, does not think there would be an excessive profit in the Alaska coal
mining because the price at which the coal could be sold would be
considerably lowered by competition from these fields and by the presence
of crude fuel oil. The history of the laws affecting the disposition of Alaska
coal lands shows them to need amendment badly. Speaking of them, Mr
Brooks says:

The first act, passed June 6, 1900, simply extended to Alaska the
provisions of the coal lands in the United States. The law was
ineffective, for it provided that only subdivided lands could be taken
up and there were no land surveys in Alaska.
I do not like to criticise a coordinate branch of the Government. The
Executive makes mistakes, and so does Congress, but I do not think it
reflects greatly on the intense interest that Congress had in Alaska and
her development that they should go to work and pass a law affecting
the coal lands in Alaska that didn't operate there at all [applause]. The
matter was rectified by the act of April 28, 1904, which permitted
unsurveyed lands to be entered and the surveys to be made at the
expense of the entrymen. Unfortunately the law provided that only
tracts of 160 acres could be taken up, and no recognition was given to
the fact that it was impracticable to develop an isolated coal field
requiring the expenditure of a large amount of money by such small
communities. Many claims were staked, however, and surveys were
made for patents. It was recognized by everyone familiar with the
conditions that after patent was obtained these claims would be

combined in tracts large enough to assure successful mining operation.
No one experienced in mining would, of course, consider it feasible to
open a coal field on a basis of a single 160-acre tract. The claims for
the most part were handled in groups, for which one agent represented
the several different owners. Unfortunately a strict interpretation of the
statute raised the question whether even a tacit understanding between
claim-owners to combine after patents had been obtained was not
illegal. Remedial legislation was sought and enacted in the statute of
May 28, 1908. This law permitted the consolidation of claims staked
previous to November 12, 1906, in tracts of 2,560 acres. One clause of
this law invalidated the title if any individual or corporation at any
time in the future owned any interest whatsoever, directly or indirectly,
in more than one tract. The purpose of this clause was to prevent the
monopolization of coal fields. Its immediate effect was to discourage
capital. It was felt by many that this clause might lead to forfeiture of
title through the accidents of inheritance, or might even be used by the
unscrupulous in blackmail. It would appear that land taken up under
this law might at any time be forfeited to the Government through the
action of any individual, who, innocently or otherwise, obtained
interest in more than one coal company. Such a title was felt to be too
insecure to warrant the large investments needed for mining
development. The net result of all this is that no titles to coal lands
have been passed.

On November 12, 1906, President Roosevelt issued an Executive order
withdrawing all coal lands from location and entry in Alaska. On May 16,
1907, he modified the order so as to permit valid locations made prior to the
withdrawal on November 12, 1906, to proceed to entry and patent. Prior to
that date some 900 claims had been filed, most of them said to be illegal
because either made fraudulently by dummy entrymen in the interest of one
individual or corporation, or because of agreements made prior to location
between the applicants to cooperate in developing the lands. There are
thirty-three claims for 160 acres each, known as the "Cunningham claims,"
which are said to be valid on the ground that they were made by an attorney
for thirty-three different and bona fide claimants who, as alleged, paid their
money and took proper steps to locate their entries and protect them. The
representatives of the Government, on the other hand, in the hearings before

the Land Office have attacked the validity of these Cunningham claims on
the ground that prior to their location there was an understanding between
the claimants to pool their claims after they had been perfected and unite
them in one company.
The trend of decision seems to show that such an agreement would
invalidate the claims, although under the subsequent law of May 28, 1908,
the consolidation of such claims was permitted, after location and entry, in
tracts of 2,560 acres. It would be, of course, improper for me to intimate
what the result of the issue as to the Cunningham and other Alaska claims is
likely to be, but it ought to be distinctly understood that no private claims
for Alaska coal lands have as yet been allowed or perfected, and also that
whatever the result as to pending claims, the existing coal-land laws of
Alaska are most unsatisfactory and should be radically amended (applause).
To begin with, the purchase price of the land is a flat rate of $10 per acre,
with no power to increase it beyond that, although, as we have seen, the
estimate of the agent of the Geological Survey would carry up the
maximum of value to $500 an acre.
In my judgment it is essential to the proper development of Alaska that
these coal lands should be opened, and that the Pacific slope should be
given the benefit of the comparatively cheap coal of fine quality which can
be furnished at a reasonable price from these fields (great applause); but the
public, through the Government, ought certainly to retain a wise control and
interest in these coal deposits (applause), and I think it may do so safely if
Congress will authorize the granting of leases, as already suggested for
Government coal lands in the United States, with provisions forbidding the
transfer of the leases except with the consent of the Government, thus
preventing their acquisition by a combination or monopoly, and upon
limitations as to the area to be included in any one lease to one individual,
and at a certain moderate rental, with royalties upon the coal mined
proportioned to the market value of the coal laid down either at Seattle or at
San Francisco (applause). Of course such leases should contain conditions
requiring the erection of proper plants, the proper development by modern
mining methods of the properties leased, and the use of every known and
practical means and device for saving the life of the miners.

The Government of the United States has much to answer for in not having
given proper attention to the Government of Alaska and the development of
her resources for the benefit of all the people of the country. I would not
force development at the expense of a present or future waste of resources;
but the problem as to the disposition of the coal lands for present and future
use can be wisely and safely settled in one session if Congress gives it
careful attention. (Great applause)
OIL AND GAS LANDS
In the last Administration there were withdrawn from agricultural entry
2,820,000 acres of supposed oil land in California, about 1,500,000 acres in
Louisiana (of which only 6,500 acres were known to be vacant,
unappropriated land), 75,000 acres in Oregon, and 174,000 acres in
Wyoming, making a total of nearly 4,000,000 acres.
In September, 1909, I directed that all public oil lands, whether then
withdrawn or not, should be withheld from disposition pending
congressional action, for the reason that the existing placer mining law,
although made applicable to deposits of this character, is not suitable to
such lands, and for the further reason that it seemed desirable to reserve
certain fuel-oil deposits for the use of the American Navy. Accordingly the
form of all existing withdrawals was changed, and new withdrawals,
aggregating 2,750,000 acres, were made, in Arizona, California, Colorado,
New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Field examinations during the year
showed that of the original withdrawals, 2,170,000 acres were not valuable
for oil, and they were restored for agricultural entry. Meantime other
withdrawals of public oil lands in these States were made, so that on July 1,
1910, the outstanding withdrawals then amounted to 4,550,000 acres.
The needed oil and gas law is essentially a leasing law. In their natural
occurrence oil and gas cannot be measured in terms of acres, like coal, and
it follows that exclusive title to these products can normally be secured only
after they reach the surface. Oil should be disposed of as a commodity in
terms of barrels of transportable product rather than in acres of real estate
(applause). This is, of course, the reason for the practically universal
adoption of the leasing system wherever oil land is in private ownership.
The Government thus would not be entering on an experiment, but simply

putting into effect a plan successfully operated in private contracts. Why
should not the Government as a land-owner deal directly with the oil
producer rather than through the intervention of a middleman to whom the
Government gives title to the land? (Applause) The principal underlying
feature of such legislation should be the exercise of beneficial control rather
than the collection of revenue.
As not only the largest owner of oil lands, but as a prospective large
consumer of oil by reason of the increasing use of fuel-oil by the navy, the
Federal Government is directly concerned both in encouraging rational
development and at the same time insuring the longest possible life to the
oil supply. The royalty rates fixed by the Government should neither exceed
nor fall below the current rates. But much more important than revenue is
the enforcement of regulations to conserve the public interest so that the
inconvenience of the lessee shall specifically safeguard oil fields against the
penalties from careless drilling and of production in excess of transportation
facilities or of market requirement.
One of the difficulties presented, especially in the California fields, is that
the Southern Pacific Railroad owns every other section of land in the oil
fields, and in those fields the oil seems to be in a common reservoir, or
series of reservoirs, communicating through the oil sands, so that the
excessive draining of oil at one well, or on the railroad territory generally,
would exhaust the oil in the Government land. Hence it is important that if
the Government is to have its share of the oil, it should begin the opening
and development of wells on its own property. (Laughter and applause)
In view of the joint ownership which the Government and the adjoining
land-owners, like the Southern Pacific Railroad, have in the oil reservoirs
below the surface, it is a most interesting and intricate question, difficult of
solution, but one which ought to address itself at once to the State law-
makers, how far the State legislature might impose appropriate restrictions
to secure an equitable enjoyment of the common reservoir, and to prevent
waste and excessive drainage by the various owners having access to this
reservoir (applause). It has been suggested, and I believe the suggestion to
be a sound one, that permits be issued to a prospector for oil, giving him the
right to prospect for two years over a certain tract of Government land for
the discovery of oil, the right to be evidenced by a license for which he pays

a small sum. When the oil is discovered, then he acquires title to a certain
tract, much in the same way as he would acquire title under a mining law.
Of course, if the system of leasing is adopted, then he would be given the
benefit of a lease upon terms like that above suggested. What has been said
in respect to oil applies also to Government gas lands.
Under the proposed oil legislation, especially where the Government oil
lands embrace an entire oil field, as in many cases, prospectors, operators,
consumers, and the public can be benefitted by the adoption of the leasing
system. The prospector can be protected in the very expensive work that
necessarily antedates discovery. The operator can be protected against
impairment of productiveness of the wells which he has leased by reason of
the control of drilling and pumping of other wells too closely adjacent or by
the prevention of imperfect methods as employed by careless, ignorant or
irresponsible operators in the same field, which result in the admission of
water to the oil sand; while, of course, the consumer will profit by whatever
benefits the prospector or operator receives in reducing the first cost of the
oil.
PHOSPHATE LAND
Phosphorus is one of the three essentials to plant growth, the other elements
being nitrogen and potash. Of these three, phosphorus is by all odds the
greatest element in nature. It is easily extracted in useful form from the
phosphate rock, and the United States contains the greatest known deposits
of this rock in the world. They are found in Wyoming, Utah and Florida, as
well as in South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee. The Government
phosphate lands are confined to Wyoming, Utah and Florida. Prior to March
4, 1909, there were four million acres withdrawn from agricultural entry on
the ground that the land covered phosphate rock. Since that time 2,322,000
acres of the land thus withdrawn was found not to contain phosphate in
profitable quantities, while 1,678,000 acres was classified properly as
phosphate land. During this Administration there has been withdrawn and
classified 437,000 acres, so that today there is classified as phosphate rock
land 2,115,000 acres.
The rock is most important in the composition of fertilizers to improve the
soil, and as the future is certain to create an enormous demand throughout

this country for fertilization, the value to the public of such deposits as
these can hardly be exaggerated. Certainly with respect to these deposits a
careful policy of Conservation should be followed. Half of the phosphate of
the rock that is mined in private fields in the United States is now exported.
As our farming methods grow better the demand for the phosphate will
become greater, and it must be arranged so that the supply shall equal the
needs of the country. It is uncertain whether the placer or lode law applies
to the Government phosphate rock. There is, therefore, a necessity for some
definite and well-considered legislation on this subject, and in aid of such
legislation all of the Government lands known to contain valuable
phosphate rock are now withdrawn from entry.
A law that would provide a leasing system for the phosphate deposits,
together with a provision for the separation of the surface and mineral rights
as is already provided for in the case of coal, would seem to meet the need
of promoting the development of these deposits and their utilization in the
agricultural lands of the West. If it is thought desirable to discourage the
exportation of phosphate rock and the saving of it for our own lands, this
purpose could be accomplished by conditions in the lease granted by the
Government to its lessee. Of course, under the Constitution the Government
could not tax and could not prohibit the exportation of phosphate, but as
proprietor and owner of the lands in which the phosphate is deposited it
could impose conditions upon the kind of sales, whether foreign or
domestic, which the lessee might make of the phosphate mined. (Applause)
The tonnage represented by the phosphate lands in Government ownership
is very great. But the lesson has been learned in the case of such lands as
have passed into private ownership in South Carolina, Florida and
Tennessee, that the phosphate deposits there are in no sense inexhaustible.
Moreover, it is also well understood that in the process of mining
phosphate, as it has been pursued, much of the lower grade of phosphate
rock which will eventually all be needed has been wasted beyond recovery.
Such wasteful methods can easily be prevented, so far as the Government
land is concerned, by conditions inserted in the leases.
WATER-POWER SITES

Prior to March 4, 1909, there had been, on the recommendation of the
Reclamation Service, withdrawn from agricultural entry, because they were
regarded as useful for power sites which ought not to be disposed of as
agricultural lands, tracts amounting to about 4,000,000 acres. The
withdrawals were hastily made and included a great deal of land that was
not useful for power sites. They were intended to include the power sites on
twenty-nine rivers in nine States. Since that time 3,475,442 acres have been
restored for settlement of the original 4,000,000, because they do not
contain power sites; and meantime there have been newly withdrawn
1,245,892 acres on vacant public land and 211,007 acres on entered public
land, or a total of 1,456,899 acres. These withdrawals made from time to
time cover all the power sites included in the first withdrawals, and many
more, on 135 rivers and in 11 States. The disposition of these power sites
involves one of the most difficult questions presented in carrying out
practical Conservation.
The Forest Service, under a power found in the Statute, has leased a number
of these power sites in forest reserves by revocable leases, but no such
power exists with respect to power sites that are not located within forest
reserves; and the revocable system of leasing is, of course, not a satisfactory
one for the purpose of inviting the capital needed to put in proper plants for
the transmission of power.
The Statute of 1891, with its amendments, permits the Secretary of the
Interior to grant perpetual easements or rights-of-way from water sources
over public lands for the primary purpose of irrigation and such electrical
current as may be incidentally developed, but no grant can be made under
this Statute to concerns whose primary purpose is generating and handling
electricity. The Statute of 1901 authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to
issue revocable permits over the public lands to electrical power companies,
but this Statute is woefully inadequate because it does not authorize the
collection of a charge or fix a term of years. Capital is slow to invest in an
enterprise founded upon a permit revocable at will.
The subject is one that calls for new legislation. It has been thought that
there was danger of combination to obtain possession of all the power sites
and to unite them under one control. Whatever the evidence of this, or lack
of it, at present we have had enough experience to know that combination

would be profitable, and the control of a great number of power sites would
enable the holders or owners to raise the price of power at will within
certain sections; and the temptation would promptly attract investors, and
the danger of monopoly would not be a remote one.
However this may be, it is the plain duty of the Government to see to it that
in the utilization and development of all this immense amount of water-
power, conditions shall be imposed that will prevent monopoly, and will
prevent extortionate charges which are the accompaniment of monopoly.
The difficulty of adjusting the matter is accentuated by the relation of the
power sites to the water, the fall and flow of which create the power.
In the States where these sites are, the riparian owner does not control or
own the power in the water which flows past his land. That power is under
the control and within the grant of the State, and generally the rule is that
the first user is entitled to the enjoyment. Now, the possession of the bank
or water-power site over which the water is to be conveyed in order to make
the power useful, gives to its owner an advantage and a certain kind of
control over the use of the water-power, and it is proposed that the
Government in dealing with its own lands should use this advantage and
lease lands for power sites to those who would develop the power, and
impose conditions on the leasehold with reference to the reasonableness of
the rates at which the power, when transmuted, is to be furnished to the
public, and forbidding the union of the particular power with a combination
of others made for the purpose of monopoly by forbidding assignment of
the lease save by consent of the Government (applause). Serious difficulties
are anticipated by some in such an attempt on the part of the general
Government, because of the sovereign control of the State over the water-
power in its natural condition, and the mere proprietorship of the
Government in the riparian lands.
It is contended that through its mere proprietary right in the site the central
Government has no power to attempt to exercise police jurisdiction with
reference to how the water-power in a river owned and controlled by the
State shall be used, and that it is a violation of the State's rights. I question
the validity of this objection. The Government may impose any conditions
that it chooses in its lease of its own property, even though it may have the
same purpose and in effect accomplish just what the State would

accomplish by the exercise of its sovereignty. That is shown frequently in
leases of houses containing a covenant against the use of the house for that
which under the law of the State is an unlawful use; and nevertheless, no
one has ever contended that that condition, though it be for the stricter
enforcement of the State law, is without the power of the lessor as a
proprietor of the land which he is leasing.
There are those (and the Director of the Geological Survey, Mr Smith, who
has given a great deal of attention to this matter, is one of them) who insist
that this matter of transmuting water-power into electricity which can be
conveyed all over the country and across State lines, is a matter that ought
to be retained by the general Government, and that it should avail itself of
the ownership of these power sites for the very purpose of coordinating in
one general plan the power generated from these Government-owned sites.
On the other hand, it is contended that it would relieve a complicated
situation if the control of the water-power site and the control of the water
were vested in the same sovereignty and ownership, viz: the State, and then
were disposed of for development to private lessees under the restrictions
needed to preserve the interests of the public from the extortions and abuses
of monopoly. Therefore, bills have been introduced in Congress providing
that whenever the State authorities deem a water-power useful they may
apply to the Government of the United States for a grant to the State of the
adjacent land for a water-power site, and that this grant from the Federal
Government to the State shall contain a condition that the State shall never
part with the title to the water-power site or the water-power, but shall lease
it only for a term of years not exceeding fifty, with provisions in the lease
by which the rental and the rates for which the power is furnished to the
public shall be readjusted at periods less than the term of the lease, say
every ten years.
The argument is urged against this disposition of power sites that legislators
and State authorities are more subject to corporate influence and control
than would be the central Government. In reply it is claimed that a
readjustment of the terms of leasehold every ten years would secure to the
public and the State just and equitable terms. Then it is said that the State
authorities are better able to understand the local need and what is a fair
adjustment in the particular locality than would be the authorities at
Washington. It has been argued that after the Federal Government parts

with title to a power site it cannot control the action of the State in fulfilling
the conditions of the deed, to which it is answered that in the grant from the
Government there may be easily inserted a condition specifying the terms
upon which the State may part with the temporary control of the water-
power sites, and, indeed, the water-power, and providing for a forfeiture of
the title to the water-power sites in case the condition is not performed; and
giving to the President, in case of such violation of conditions, the power to
declare forfeiture and to direct proceedings to restore to the central
Government the ownership of the power sites with all the improvements
thereon, and that these conditions may be promptly enforced and the land
and plants forfeited to the general Government by suit of the United States
against the State, which is permissible under the Constitution (applause).
And that by such a provision, in terrorem, the edict of States and of the
legislatures in respect to these lands might be enforced through the general
Government.
I do not express an opinion upon the controversy thus made or a preference
as to the two methods of treating water-power sites. I shall submit the
matter to Congress with all the arguments, and urge that one or the other of
the two plans be promptly adopted.

At the risk of wearying my audience I have attempted to state as succinctly
as may be the questions of Conservation as they apply to the public domain
of the Government, the conditions to which they apply, and the proposed
solution of them.
In the outset I alluded to the fact that Conservation had been made to
include a great deal more than what I have discussed here. Of course, as I
have referred only to the public domain of the Federal Government, I have
left untouched the wide field of Conservation with respect to which a heavy
responsibility rests upon the States and individuals as well. But I think it of
the utmost importance that after the public attention has been roused to the
necessity of a change in our general policy to prevent waste and a selfish
appropriation to private and corporate purposes of what should be
controlled for the public benefit, those who urge Conservation shall feel the

necessity of making clear how Conservation can be practically carried out
(applause), and shall propose specific methods and legal provisions and
regulations to remedy actual adverse conditions (applause). I am bound to
say that the time has come for a halt in general rhapsodies over
Conservation, making the word mean every known good in the world
(applause), for, after the public attention has been roused, such appeals are
of doubtful utility and do not direct the public to the specific course that the
people should take, or have their legislators take, in order to promote the
cause of Conservation. The rousing of emotions on a subject like this,
which has only dim outlines in the minds of the people affected, after a
while ceases to be useful, and the whole movement will, if promoted on
these lines, die for want of practical direction and of demonstration to the
people that practical reforms are intended. (Applause)
I have referred to the course of the last Administration and of the present
one in making withdrawals of Government lands from entry under
homestead and other laws, and of Congress in removing all doubt as to the
validity of these withdrawals as a great step in the direction of practical
Conservation (applause). But this is only one of two necessary steps to
effect what should be our purpose. It has produced a status quo and
prevented waste and irrevocable disposition of the lands until the method
for their proper disposition can be formulated, but it is of the utmost
importance that such withdrawals should not be regarded as the final step in
the course of Conservation, and that the idea should not be allowed to
spread that Conservation is the tying up of the natural resources of the
Government for indefinite withholding from use, and the remission to
remote generations to decide what ought to be done with these means of
promoting present general human comfort and progress (great applause).
For, if so, it is certain to arouse the greatest opposition to Conservation as a
cause, and if it were a correct expression of the purpose of conservationists
it ought to arouse such opposition. (Applause)
Real Conservation involves wise, non-wasteful use in the present
generation, with every possible means of preservation for succeeding
generations; and though the problem to secure this end may be difficult, the
burden is on the present generation promptly to solve it and not to run away
from it as cowards, lest in the attempt to meet it we may make some
mistakes (applause). As I have said elsewhere, the problem is how to save

and how to utilize, how to conserve and still develop; for no sane person
can contend that it is for the common good that Nature's blessings should be
stored only for unborn generations. (Applause)
I beg of you, therefore, in your deliberations and in your informal
discussions, when men come forward to suggest evils that the promotion of
Conservation is to remedy, that you invite them to point out the specific
evils and the specific remedies; that you invite them to come down to
details in order that their discussions may flow into channels that shall be
useful rather than into periods that shall be eloquent and entertaining
without shedding real light on the subject (prolonged applause and cheers).
The people should be shown exactly what is needed in order that they may
make their representatives in Congress and the State legislatures do their
intelligent bidding. (Great and prolonged applause)

President Baker—The Congress is now adjourned to reassemble at 2
oclock this afternoon.

SECOND SESSION
The Congress was called to order by President Baker at 3 oclock p.m.
President Baker—It gives me a great deal of pleasure to announce that
Governor W. R. Stubbs, of Kansas, has kindly consented to preside at this
session. Ladies and Gentlemen, Governor Stubbs. (Applause)
Governor Stubbs—Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am very grateful
for your liberal recognition. And I present to you a man who knows much
about the laws pertaining to land in the United States, one better fitted to
speak on this subject than any other, Senator Knute Nelson, of Minnesota. I
take great pleasure in introducing him. (Applause)
Senator Nelson—Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I could not help
thinking this forenoon as I looked at the magnificent audience how every
delegate and visitor from abroad must conclude that in one respect
Conservation in Minnesota has been a success—Conservation of our
prosperous and growing humanity.
I am here to speak briefly of our public-land system, past and present, in the
hope that we may derive some lessons from the mistakes of the past and
have something to guide us in the future. I shall say little of Conservation in
general. My aim will be to draw attention to what I deem of importance for
the legislative branch of the Government to do in the future, and I shall do
so only in general terms, seeking—on account of my position as Chairman
of the Senate Committee on Public Lands—to avoid all matters that will
lead to controversy.
As those know who have had experience in public affairs, particularly in
legislation, all reforms are matters of compromise. Legislation is largely
experimental and those who are most progressive and advanced in seeking
reforms for the future often find themselves handicapped by those who
would make no change; and the result is oftentimes a compromise in which
the reformers get only half a loaf.

The natural resources of our country should be conserved by the individual,
by the State, and by the Federal Government. For each there is an
appropriate field. The farmer must conserve the resources of his farm; the
State the resources of its lands, its forests and its waters; and the Federal
Government the resources of its mines, its forests, and its lands with all
their appurtenances. When the several forces act in harmony, beneficial
results of a far-reaching and permanent value will be attained for the
preservation and utilization of our resources. Practical and beneficial
Conservation of natural resources on the part of the Federal Government
and the State should include and provide for due and efficient utilization of
the same for the benefit of the masses of the people. The mere conservation
and retention of ownership, the mere securing of a larger price for the
resource, may prove burdensome rather than a benefit to the public. The
ultimate question is not so much how to hold and conserve as how to
properly utilize our resources. The mere holding, or the mere securing of a
higher price seems to me to be entirely futile (applause). The aim should not
be so much to secure a higher price for the Government as to secure lower
price for the consumer and to prevent monopoly (applause). Hence, in the
disposal of a resource, care should be taken to prevent combination and
monopoly in restraint of trade in respect to the same; and the right, as in the
case of railway rates, to regulate the price to the consumer should be
retained; in other words, care should be taken and provision should be made
that the consumer can obtain the product of the resource at a fair and
reasonable rate. To merely conserve and hold at a high price retards
development and enables those who have already secured a large share of a
resource to monopolize the market and to secure an exorbitant price for the
product of the resource. (Applause) The ultimate object of the conservation
of a resource should be to utilize it for the best advantage of the consumer.
True Conservation means beneficial use—means utilization.

The close of the Revolutionary War found our country with an empty
treasury and a large public debt, but possessed of a large quantity of
valuable public lands northwest of the Ohio river and elsewhere, ceded by
Great Britain, supplemented by a cession from Virginia and some of the

older States, from which were afterward carved great States, though the
public domain was at that time regarded chiefly as an asset from which the
Government could obtain revenues for its wants and needs.
The first general land law of a public nature for the disposal of our public
lands was passed in 1796. This law, after prescribing a system of surveying
the public lands, substantially the same as has been since adhered to,
provided for the sale of the lands at public auction to the highest bidder,
partly for cash and partly on credit.
By the Act of 1800 the minimum price was fixed at $2 an acre, and land not
sold at public auction could be bought at private sale at that price.
The Act of 1820 abolished sales on credit and fixed the minimum price at
$1.25 per acre, at which rate it has since remained. Lands offered at public
sale became known as "offered land," and if not sold at public sale could be
obtained at private sale or entry at the minimum price.
The result of this system was that, owing to the great scarcity of money in
the country at that time among the masses of the people, large blocks of
land were purchased by speculators and held by them indefinitely for an
excessive profit, and the masses of the people—the settlers, the real home
builders—had to purchase the land from these speculators instead of
securing it from the Government. The Government got but scant return for
its valuable public land. The chief profit was made by the middlemen, those
speculators who bought it up in large blocks; they reaped a rich harvest. But
in the midst of this system the settlers pressed on to the frontier. They were
without money, but they settled on the public lands, squatted there without
authority of law; and finally the Government, to help these settlers, to
relieve them and give them a little breathing time, in 1841 passed what was
known as the general Preemption Law. Under this law the head of a family,
a widow, or a single person over twenty-one years of age who was a citizen
or had declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States, could
secure 160 acres of public land by settling upon, improving and cultivating
it, and by paying for and entering the same within from one to three years
after settlement, the time of payment in each case depending on whether the
land was offered, unoffered, or unsurveyed. This law (the Preemption Act
of 1841) was clearly intended to help the pioneers and the settlers, and it

proved of great advantage to them; but owing to the lax procedure that
prevailed (under which a man could go on a preemption claim, make a few
limited and pro forma improvements, and at the end of six months appear in
the land office and prove up and have his final entry made and ultimately
get a patent), the Preemption Law itself became a great instrument in the
hands of speculators and land grabbers, and in consequence Congress
concluded to repeal the law.
The law allowing lands to be secured at private entry was repealed in 1889;
the law allowing public sales was repealed in 1891, and the Preemption
Law was also repealed the same year. These laws were repealed none too
soon, because by that time they had got to be the instruments by which
those who were seeking valuable coal lands, timber lands, and other lands
would hire a lot of people to go and make preemption claims, and then, as
soon as they obtained title, secure the title, whereby thousands and
thousands of acres of the most valuable timber and mineral lands, coal
lands, and other lands passed into the hands of speculators for little more
than a dollar and a quarter an acre, and sometimes even less, for there were
various kinds of scrip issued—agricultural college scrip and other scrip to
which I will call attention later—put on the market and sold. That scrip
would be used instead of money in paying for and entering land; and
through it much valuable land passed into the hands of speculators at a cost
of even less than one dollar an acre. You who have lived here have all
observed that the low price at which the lumbermen secured timber in those
early days under the Preemption Law, by cash entry, and under agricultural
and other scrip, did not help much to get cheaper lumber. The result was to
enable owners of large bodies of pine land to hold them indefinitely for the
purpose of securing a higher price for their stumpage.
In 1874 an Act was passed "To encourage the growth of timber on the
western prairies." The purpose of this Act was laudable and had it resulted
in supplying the prairies with timber the gift of the land would have been
amply compensated for. But in its practical operations the law proved a
failure. Only a comparatively few of the many claims entered were ever
successfully forested, or ever became real timber land. A large share of
them were merely taken and held by speculators with no real purpose of
complying with the law in respect to the planting, culture, and care of
timber. Claimants would secure these claims, enter them under the timber-

culture law, make the first entry, and then hold them just as long as they
could, waiting until some land-seeker came around, when they would tell
him, "I have a timber claim here, and might relinquish it so you can take it
as a homestead; how much will you give me for my relinquishment?" And
for a time under this law there was a great speculation in the sale of what
we call timber relinquishments. No timber was raised. Speculators had held
the land for four or five, maybe six, years as a timber claim. Then when a
real settler came along, why, for a consideration of one, two, three, four or
five hundred dollars, or whatever the settler was able to pay, the holder
would relinquish his timber claim to the Government so that the real land-
seeker could secure the same under the Homestead Law, or under the
Preemption Law, while that was in force.
In 1862 an Act was passed giving to each State 30,000 acres of land for
every senator and representative in Congress for the purpose of establishing
and maintaining agricultural and mechanical colleges. In States where there
was a sufficient quantity of public lands the State was required to select the
land from the public lands in the State, but in States where no such lands
could be secured land scrip was issued in place of the land. This resulted in
placing an enormous amount of land scrip on the market, which was sold by
the State in many instances in bulk to speculators at a greatly reduced price,
netting the States from fifty to one hundred cents per acre—perhaps the
average did not exceed seventy-five cents per acre. The scrip could be used
in entering land or in paying for land under the Preemption and Homestead
Laws at the rate of $1.25 an acre. So far as the States to which the scrip was
issued were concerned the grant was a wasteful one. It would have been
much wiser and better for the Government to have appropriated $1.25 per
acre in cash to the States instead of giving them the scrip, and reserving the
lands which could be entered with the scrip for actual settlers under the
Homestead Law. In addition to this college scrip, we have had from time to
time various kinds of other scrip, Chippewa half-breed scrip, Sioux half-
breed scrip, and Supreme Court scrip, and others that I cannot at this
moment recall. Most of this scrip, fortunately, is now about exhausted; very
little of it is still afloat and at large. There was also what we called "soldiers'
additional" scrip of which there was a great deal; a soldier could take a
homestead of 40 or 80 or 120 acres, and if he had no more in his homestead
entry, he could take the residue and make up 160 acres anywhere on the

public lands of the United States, without residing on the land; and he could
dispose of his interest by power of attorney, by which speculators
succeeded in getting that. And the records of our soldiers' homes will show
how land speculators have been searching among the veterans for this kind
of scrip. Why, I got a letter some years ago from a gentleman in Missouri—
I can't recall his name—reminding me of the fact that I had had a
homestead; and he told me that I was entitled to forty acres more under my
right, in addition to the 120 acres, and that he was willing to buy the land of
me. He had hunted up the records, and found a man by my name, but
unfortunately the homestead and all the rest transpired and existed in
Wisconsin.
In 1878 Congress passed the so-called Timber and Stone Act, originally
limited to four western States, but by the Act of 1892 extended to all the
public-land States. Under this law land unfit for cultivation and chiefly
valuable for timber and stone could be secured in tracts of 160 acres for
each entry-man at a price of $2.50 per acre. Under the law the purchaser is
prohibited from buying the land on speculation or in the interest of any one
but himself. On its face this law seems fair, harmless, and just, but in its
practical operation it proved the means of a good deal of fraudulent land
speculation. In the first instance, valuable agricultural land fit for
agriculture was entered under the law on the theory that it was only good
for the timber or stone on it. In the next place—and there was where the
great iniquity occurred—speculators would hire men and women in
different parts of the country to go and enter stone and timber claims,
furnishing them money through outside friends, and then as soon as they
had secured title get a transfer of the land to themselves by paying a bonus
of one or two hundred and in some cases up to five hundred and a thousand
dollars. Why, I remember how, in a city not a thousand miles away from
Saint Paul, one year some twenty-five or thirty school teachers entered
stone and timber claims in the State of Oregon! This law finally proved
simply a source of speculation to the men who were trying to secure large
bodies of timber; and under it a large share of the valuable timber lands now
in private holdings were secured. The law should have been repealed
immediately; but while the Senate passed a bill repealing it some five or six
years ago, the bill failed to pass in the House of Representatives. Since then
the Secretary of the Interior has come to our relief to some extent. The

Stone and Timber Act said that this land could be sold at not less than $2.50
an acre; and up to 1908 the Government had always treated that as the
price, and never exacted any more. In 1908 the Interior Department adopted
the rule of appraising the lands for the timber and stone on them and selling
them at the appraised value, and the result of that policy has been to stop
speculation in those kinds of lands. A very limited amount of timber and
stone lands have been entered since for now it does not pay big lumber
operators or land speculators to hire anybody to go and enter these lands
because under this rule they have to pay pretty nearly what the land is
worth. But while this administrative order has given us some relief, I am
clearly of the opinion that the law should be entirely repealed to the end that
we can make suitable provision for the disposal of our stone and timber
land under more appropriate legislation and at a fairer rate, both to the
purchaser and to the Government. (Applause)
In 1862 Congress passed the Homestead Law, with the general provisions
of which most of you are familiar. This law makes a gift of 160 acres to
each settler and home-builder who will occupy, improve, and cultivate his
claim for a period of five years. Of all our public land laws this has, on the
whole, been the most beneficent and productive of the best results. Under
its provisions hundreds of thousands of poor and industrious men and
women have carved out happy homes for themselves and their children,
relieved the pressure of labor in our large cities and great industrial centers,
and rapidly laid the foundation for and built up great States in the middle
and far West. Judged by results, it is doubtful whether the Government ever
received a better return for any of its lands than it has received for these
lands given as a free gift, under the Homestead Law, to our farmers and
settlers. A happy, prosperous, and industrious rural population will ever
prove to be the sheet-anchor of our industrial, social and political well-
being, and will ever afford a solid foundation for the integrity and
perpetuity of American institutions. The Homestead Law, with all its
blessings, had one defect which has, to some extent, marred its usefulness. I
refer to the privilege of commutation—the privilege of proving up and
paying for the land at $1.25 per acre prior to the five-year period for final
free entry. Originally and for many years after the law was passed, the
privilege of commutation could be exercised after the lapse of six months
from date of entry. This period was extended to fourteen months some years

ago and this fourteen months' period is still the law. The vice of allowing a
homestead entry to be commuted as stated, consists in opening the door to
the speculator, who, in the space of fourteen months can secure title to the
land on scant and temporary improvements and then move away and hold
the land for merely speculative purposes, leaving the surrounding settlers to
enhance the value of his land by their continuing and permanent
improvements. When they have erected dwellings, barns, school houses,
and churches, and have laid out roads and organized school districts, the
petty speculator and commutator, who has done nothing to build up the
country, stands ready to sell his land at a greatly enhanced price to an actual
home-builder and settler. The commutation privilege should not have been
included in the law, and should be repealed, in my opinion, as soon as
practicable. None but permanent and bona fide settlers should be permitted
to secure land under the Homestead Law.
In 1872 Congress enacted a law for the location, purchase, and entry of land
containing gold, silver, copper, and other precious metals, commonly called
the mining law of the United States, which became a part of the Revised
Statutes. Mining claims are of two classes: (1) lode or quartz claims, and (2)
placer claims. Both are initiated by discovery, staking out on the ground,
and filing notice of location. After these preliminary steps have been taken,
claims can be held indefinitely without purchase as long as $100 worth of
work is done each year on each claim; and as a matter of fact, only a small
proportion of mining claims, especially placer claims, are ever purchased
from the Government. Placer claims are soon worked out and exhausted,
while good lode claims are workable and profitable for many years. There
is a difference in the size and in the price of lode and placer claims. Placer
claims are larger in area and can be purchased at $2.50 per acre, while lode
claims cost $5 an acre.
In 1873 Congress passed a law for the purchase and entry of coal lands,
which also became a part of the Revised Statutes. Under this law every
person above the age of twenty-one years, who is a citizen or has declared
his intention to become a citizen of the United States, may purchase and
enter 160 acres of coal land; and an association of such persons may
purchase and enter 320 acres, and an association of not less than four such
persons, if they have first expended not less than $5,000 in working and
improving a coal mine on the land, may purchase and enter not to exceed

640 acres in one claim. The price in each case is not less than $10 per acre
where the land is situate more than fifteen miles from a completed railroad
and not less than $20 per acre if the land is within fifteen miles of a
completed railroad. Only one entry can be made by the same person or
association of persons; and no association or any member of which shall
have taken the benefit of the law either as an individual or as a member of
any other association, shall enter or hold any other lands under the
provisions of the law; and no member of any association which shall have
taken the benefit of the law shall enter or hold any other land under the
provisions of the law. A preference right of entry for the period of one year
is given to any person or association that has opened and improved a coal
mine on the public lands. The provisions of the law as to the acquisition and
holding of more than one claim are clear and stringent, and have been
applied and enforced in the courts in several instances where great
corporations have sought, through dummies and otherwise, to acquire vast
holdings of coal lands. It is conceded, too, that the minimum price fixed by
statute is, in many instances, altogether too low and much below the real
value.
In 1907 the Interior Department cured this defect by adopting the policy of
classifying and appraising the coal lands and selling them at the appraised
value, a value in most instances far in excess of the minimum statutory
price. This new policy is continued, and under it something over 100,000
acres of coal lands have been entered. Further legislation is urgently needed
in respect to the disposal of our coal lands. If the policy of selling the land
is to be continued, not only should the system of appraisal now in vogue be
adhered to, but provision should be made to protect the people—the
consumers—against the monopolies and combinations in restraint of trade
and against unreasonable and exorbitant prices. Many good men, however,
who have given the subject great consideration, favor a well-guarded
system of leasing instead of sale for coal lands. Their contention is that
under a leasing system more careful and less wasteful methods of mining
will be pursued and that better protection can be thereby secured for the
miner, the consumer, and the Government. I am not prepared to take issue
with this contention. A leasing system is clearly preferable where the
surface of the land is disposed of for agricultural purposes, for under such a
system the conflicting interests of the miner and the farmer can be best

adjusted, regulated, and controlled. Perhaps it would be wise to adopt both
sale and leasing systems, leaving it optional with the Government to select
the mode of disposal in any given case; for there may be cases where the
one method would be preferable to the other.
In 1900 Congress passed an act extending the coal-land laws to Alaska, but
the act proved of no value as only surveyed lands could be purchased and
entered under the general law, and there was no surveyed land in Alaska,
and no provision was made in the act for surveys. By the act of April 28,
1904, the general coal-land laws were extended to Alaska in a more
effective and rational manner. Under this act any person or association,
qualified to make entry under the coal-land laws of the United States, who
opens and improves a coal mine on the unsurveyed public lands in Alaska
can locate the land on which such mine is found by staking the same out on
the ground, and by filing notice of location in the recording district and in
the land office of the district in which the land is situate, within one year
after staking out the claim. After these preliminary steps are taken, the
locator must cause a survey and plat of the land to be made by a deputy
United States surveyor, and thereafter, within three years from date of the
location notice he must make application for a patent of the land, prove a
compliance with the law, and pay the price of only $10 per acre for the land.
Aside from these provisions all other provisions of the general coal-land
law apply to coal lands in Alaska. Under this law between eight and nine
hundred coal-land locations have been made, but of these only about thirty-
three cases (perhaps a few more) have passed to final entry at the local land
office. The time for making entry and securing patents on the other
locations has, in most, if not in all instances, lapsed, and they cannot be
relocated owing to the fact that by executive orders of November 12, and 27
and December 17, 1906, and by a recent executive order of President Taft,
all coal lands in Alaska are withdrawn from location, sale, and entry. This
withdrawal was no doubt made in pursuance of recent legislation by
Congress and for the purpose of giving Congress an opportunity to enact
better coal-land laws for Alaska than those now in force; and such
legislation, to my mind, is clearly and urgently needed, and I am in hopes
that Congress will take steps at its next session to enact suitable coal-land
laws for Alaska in order that the people there may have an opportunity to
utilize the coal that is within their own boundaries. (Applause)

By the Act of March 3, 1877, amended in 1891, provision was made for the
entry and reclamation by irrigation of desert or arid land in the Pacific coast
and mountain States and Territories. Under the original act 640 acres could
be entered in one claim, but since the act of 1891 was passed only 320 acres
can be entered in one claim under this law. Water for irrigating the land
must be secured and the land must be reclaimed and cultivated by means of
such water for the period of four years after the preliminary entry, and the
price of $1.25 per acre must be paid before patent can be secured for the
land. This law has not proved very effective or beneficial, especially on
account of the difficulty, in many instances, of securing the necessary water
supply by a single entryman. In many instances the conditions of the law
have not been complied with, and as a whole the law may be said to have to
some extent failed of its purpose.
In view of the comprehensive character of the general Reclamation Act of
1902, which makes due provision for securing a water supply and provides
for limited homesteads under a qualified homestead law, the desert law
referred to, could well be repealed. The Federal reclamation system is more
certain and effective than reclamation by individuals in isolated cases.
Under the so-called Carey Act of 1894, desert and arid lands are granted to
certain States, in limited quantities, for reclamation and cultivation by
means of irrigation, this to be done under the auspices and direction of the
States to which the grants are made. This law has in some respects proved
more effective and of more value than the general desert law, but it cannot
be regarded as equal in value and efficiency to the general Reclamation Act
of 1902, and therefore it seems to me it is not advisable to make any more
grants of this nature to any of the States.
No effective or systematic effort was made to preserve the forests on the
public domain until March 3, 1891, when an act was passed giving the
President the power to set apart and reserve, from time to time, public lands
for forestry purposes. This was supplemented by the act of June 4, 1897,
providing for the administration and care of the land so reserved and set
apart, which lands are now termed National Forests of the United States.
Under this law nearly two hundred million acres of public lands in various
States and Territories, including Alaska, have been withdrawn and set apart
for forestry purposes and are now embraced, most of them, in our National

Forests and their administration and care has been placed on a sound,
workable, and safe basis through the initiation, prudence, and wisdom of
our great forester, Mr Pinchot (great and prolonged applause), who has laid
the foundation and is the father of our forestry system. This legislation and
administrative action came none too soon. Had there been more delay, our
timber lands would, long before this, have passed into private ownership
and there would have been nothing left for the Government to conserve
(applause). No land legislation in recent times has been productive of such
beneficent and far-reaching blessings and results as our forestry legislation.
While occasionally there has been a little grumbling and friction on the part
of settlers and cattlemen as to the administration of the law in some of its
details, yet it can be fairly said, when it is borne in mind that it is a new
system, that there has been little, if any, valid ground for serious criticism or
complaint. The conduct of a few over-zealous forest rangers and a few over-
strenuous settlers and cattlemen ought not to militate against the value and
usefulness of the forestry system as a whole and in its entirety. (Applause)
Under the act of March 3, 1891, as amended by the act of January 21, 1895,
and May 11, 1898, the Secretary of the Interior is authorized, under general
regulations to be fixed by him, to grant, without exacting compensation,
permits for right-of-way on the public lands for canals and reservoirs which
may be used for furnishing water for domestic, public, and other beneficial
uses, and for the development of power. Several valuable water-power sites
have been secured under these laws as well as under the homestead and
timber and stone laws. To put a stop to such practice the Interior
Department, in the later part of 1908 and in the early part of 1909, withdrew
all power sites from every form of disposal under our land laws and these
sites have remained thus withdrawn ever since, except during an interval of
a few days or perhaps a few weeks in the spring of 1909; and during that
interval no power sites were secured or disposed of. Most of these power
sites are of considerable value, and they ought not to be disposed of under
any of the existing land laws. Adequate provision should be made by law
for the utilization of these water-power sites to the end that the Government
may receive fair compensation for the same, and to the end that the public
may receive the beneficial use to be derived from the development of any
water-power in connection with such sites, at fair and reasonable rates
(applause). The problem under our dual system of Government, State and

Federal, is not free from embarrassment, as it is the opinion of men versed
in the law that while the general Government may own the power site, with
all the rights of a riparian owner, the water in the streams, except for
purposes of navigation, belongs to the State, and that the State may allow its
citizens to appropriate such water for their beneficial use and thereby render
the power site of no value; for without a sufficient supply of water the
power site will not be worthy of improvement or development. It seems to
me (though perhaps I may err) that the problem of developing and utilizing
water-power in such cases can be properly solved only by the cooperation
of the State and the Federal Government (applause): the one owning the
power site and the other the water in the stream, it strikes me that
cooperation is essential and furnishes the only practical solution. And some
plan should be devised by which the Federal and State Governments could
act in harmony and in unison in such cases. Of course, when the State owns
both the water and the power site, the problem is of a less complex
character, and is one exclusively for the State to solve except as to the
question of navigation. And I may also add in this connection that
Congress, at its last session, passed a general law to regulate the
construction of dams across navigable waters, by which ample provision is
made for protecting the interest of the general Government in all such cases.
Most of our remaining public lands, suitable for agricultural purposes, are
within the arid or semi-arid parts of the country. These lands can be
successfully farmed only by means of irrigation or by so-called dry farming
methods. To aid in developing and successfully farming these lands, the
Reclamation Act of 1892 was passed setting apart the proceeds of the sales
of public lands within the arid and semi-arid States for the construction of
dams, reservoirs, canals, and ditches for the impounding and distribution of
water. A considerable number of irrigation projects have been entered upon
under the act. A few of them have been completed, but the majority of them
are still in an incomplete condition; and there being an insufficiency of
funds available for their speedy completion, Congress, at the last session, in
order to expedite the work on the incomplete projects, provided for a loan
of twenty million dollars, to be immediately available, and to be
reimbursable out of the future income of the reclamation fund (applause).
This will hasten the completion of the projects and will aid the homestead

settlers of whom there are many, to secure a supply of water on their claims
at an early day.
For the purpose of promoting the farming of arid or semi-arid lands by dry-
farming methods or otherwise, where no water supply for irrigation is or
can be found available, Congress, by the Act of February 19, 1909,
provided for enlarged homesteads of 320 acres of non-irrigable lands. The
theory on which such legislation was based was this, that such lands to be
farmed must be summer-fallowed, so that a crop could be raised only every
other year, and therefore a larger quantity of land was needed, as only one-
half of the cultivated land could be cropped each year.
Investigations by the Geological Survey have shown that considerable areas
of public lands suitable for agricultural purposes are underlain with more or
less valuable beds of coal. Such lands, on account of their mineral character,
are not technically subject to entry under any other than the coal-land laws
of the United States. A considerable number of homestead settlers had
settled upon such lands and had made the preliminary homestead entries of
the same without any previous knowledge of their mineral character. For
the relief of such settlers Congress passed the Act of March 3, 1909, which
provides that such settlers may enter and receive a patent for the surface of
such land, reserving to the general Government the coal underlying the
same to be disposed of under the coal-land laws of the United States. This
was supplemented by Congress at its last session by the Act of June 22,
1910, which permits the entry of the surface of coal lands under the
Homestead Law, the Reclamation Law, the Desert Law, and the so-called
Carey Law, reserving to the Government the coal beds underlying such
lands, to be disposed of under the general coal-land laws in existence or to
be passed in the future, and authorizing the exploration of the same.
One of the most important of our late land laws and which will prove to be
the key to future reforms in our land system is the Act of June 25, 1910,
passed at the last session of Congress. This act authorizes the President, in
his discretion, to withdraw from settlement, location, sale, or entry any of
the public lands of the United States and reserve the same for water-power
sites, irrigation, classification, or other public purpose. There was some
difference of opinion before the enactment of this law as to the power of the
President to make such withdrawals in all cases. This act removes all doubt

and controversy on the subject and enables the President to examine,
classify, and appraise the lands and to reserve them for necessary and
appropriate legislation by Congress. Many of our lands and their
appurtenances are of such a character that they ought not to be disposed of
under any of our existing land laws. Good laws are needed for the disposal
of our timber and stone, our water-power sites, and our coal, oil, asphalt,
and phosphate lands. There was considerable opposition to the passage of
this act in both Houses of Congress, and at one time it seemed as though it
would not pass, and it would not have passed but for the active, continued,
and persistent help of President Taft (applause). He labored for its passage,
in season and out of season, to my certain knowledge, and but for his help, I
can say with all truthfulness that that important law would never have
passed (applause). And since its passage the President has availed himself
of it by making new withdrawals, and rewithdrawing many lands which had
been withdrawn before but in respect to which some question was raised as
to the validity of the withdrawal.
I have not called attention to the various grants of land that have been made,
first for wagon roads and canals, and afterward for railroads, nor to the
large grants of land that have been made to the several States for
educational and other purposes, for the reason that such grants are not likely
to be repeated in the future. Provision has already been made, with ample
land grants for the admission into the Union of our two remaining
Territories, Arizona and New Mexico; and it is not probable that any grants
of public lands, except for right-of-way, will be made to any railroad in the
future, especially the railroad grants, may seem to have been prodigal and
too lavish; but to the legislators of those early days, who were anxious for
the speedy settlement and development of our great West, they seemed
justified and called for. And it is evident that, in consequence of these
grants, the country was more speedily settled and the settlers afforded
transportation facilities at a much earlier period than otherwise would have
been done. The grants made to the States, especially for educational
purposes, have from every point of view been fully justified, and have been,
and will continue to be, of great help in maintaining ample and liberal
educational facilities in the several States.
In conclusion: I have given you this brief summary and outline of our
public land laws, past and present, obsolete and subsisting, in order that

from a consideration of the same we may avoid the mistakes of the past,
and gather inspiration and instruction for our future guidance. In view of the
diminishing supply and rapidly increasing demand it behooves us to
husband, with discrimination and care, all our natural resources, beginning
as promptly as possible, and this work must be done by legislation, by
administration, and by individual effort. (Applause)

Chairman Stubbs—If there are any pessimistic citizens in the United States
they should hear the Senior Senator's story of the lavish management of
public affairs in the past, and the splendid change made under that great
leader—the greatest man on earth today—Theodore Roosevelt (applause
and cheers) and Gifford Pinchot (renewed applause).
I now take great pleasure in presenting to you a typical southern gentleman,
Governor Noel, of Mississippi (applause).

Governor Noel—Mr Chairman, Brother Governors, Delegates, Ladies and
Gentlemen: Some months ago I received an invitation to attend this
Congress, which I promptly accepted; also an invitation to deliver an
address, which I immediately declined. Since entering the hall this
afternoon I have been informed of my selection for the first address on my
State—each Governor speaking for his State in succession—and my State's
views on questions pertaining to our natural resources.
Of course the greatest natural resource of every city and county, as of State
and Nation, is the productive energies of its people. Their development,
through proper training of mind and heart, should be the chief aim of all
people and of the Government. In those resources, however, our interests
are the same as those of all other parts of the country, and they open too
broad a field for me to enter.
When we take up the question of the natural resources pertaining to our
domain, Mississippi occupies a widely different attitude from that of some
States in the Northwest whose Governors are here to speak for them. We are
an agricultural people. Not a city in Mississippi will much, if at all, exceed
30,000 inhabitants; more of its population and its wealth, proportionately,
than of any other State in the Union are engaged in agriculture. We have no
mines, no minerals except some clays and stone, no oil, no gas, no coal. We
acquired agricultural lands, and our natural resources are from those lands
as agricultural soil and standing timber.

Before the question of Conservation was understood, or at least before it
had become of any force in State or Nation, both Mississippi and the
Federal Government had parted with their lands and with their forests.
Much to our regret now, it is a question of the past, and has to be handled
by individuals and by corporations, to whom our lands and timber chiefly,
almost entirely, belong. We are interested; we try to regulate our resources
in some measure, within the powers of the State Government; but our
interest is largely confined to our public lands. We have no coal or metals,
our streams are sluggish, and there are few water-power sites. We have little
beyond the surface values of the timber and the soil. We are interested in
coal because it is necessary for our industries; we are interested in oil
because we need it; we are interested in all the elements of the soil spoken
of this morning, phosphorus and all the rest. We are greatly interested in all
these things notwithstanding the land which contains them happens to be in
other States. We have not lost interest in them on that account; and,
speaking for our State—which has stood for State rights as it understood
them, and stands for State rights still—our only way of securing these rights
we believe to be through the Federal Government (applause); our only
voice must be through Congress and the President, and we do not care to
surrender that to which the Government is now properly entitled. If the
choice goes to the State we know how it will go, for past experience has
taught that lesson well—local interests will control, and the general good
will be subordinated to personal pride and local considerations. We have
learned much and suffered much in that line. The Government gave to us,
as to others, the sixteenth section of land in every township, one-thirty-sixth
of the whole State. We put it in the power of a majority of the householders
and patrons of schools in each township to vest the school lands by lease,
thinking that local interests, being circumscribed and vitally concerned in
education, would at least prevent spoliation of this magnificent donation to
the school children; but we were mistaken. In a great many instances a few
who were shrewd and sharp and designing used a law by which a lease
could be made from one year to ninety-nine years, and until that law was
repealed leased the lands for the largest possible term.
We know that the smaller the area the greater the influence of personages,
and of local and private considerations. Therefore, as we look on this
question of the Conservation of our natural resources, it is a question of

rights, and how those rights can best be maintained and perpetuated; the
means, whether through State or Federal Government, is but a minor
consideration; and believing that our rights can best be preserved and
utilized, now and for all time to come, without waste and without
destruction, both for the present and in the future, we think it can best be
done under Federal supervision (applause). The only rights we have in coal
and oil and metals must be exercised through the Federal Government.
We may not fully understand the water-power problem. It has been said to
be only a local issue anyway. We do not understand it that way. The river
which rolls by this city smiling, smooth, and clear, after it is joined to the
Missouri is muddy, deep, and uncertain; not only all of your waters but all
of the waters east of the Rocky Mountains roll past our western boundary.
While at some seasons the water is low, at others it is over fifty feet higher,
and more than one-sixth in value of the land in our State is subject to
overflow. Your waters, which through proper forestation and proper
handling by dams and other means would give us a more equable flow
throughout the year, come down upon us at a time when we do not need
them, and in a degree greatly in excess of any possible need at any time,
and we have to bear the sins of deforestation and all of the other evils that
come from the wholesale spoliation and destruction of your forest lands
(applause). We are vitally interested in that question. We believe in forest
reservations; we are sorry we cannot furnish the basis for it in our own
State, but so far as the Government lands we have can be availed of for that
purpose, we would be more than glad to see the Government take hold of
the matter and set our people an example of how forests should be handled
and preserved for the present and for the future.
When it comes to water-power, to me, at least, and to many of us, the
question of conflict between State and Federal Governments, about which
so much has been said—especially with a view of eliminating the Federal
Government—we hardly understand that view of it. We trace our title
through the Federal Government (applause). As a lawyer of more than thirty
years' practice, whenever I have been given a question for investigation
pertaining to the title of land, the first thing I have done was to examine the
tract-books to see whether the Federal Government had ever parted legally
with its title. If it had not, the question was ended; if it had, then we could
proceed to deraign to those properly entitled to it. So when the Federal

Government owned the lands and was the source of title, we do not
understand how, even though the lands may be within the State, its right as
a land-owner is less on a river bank than it is in the interior, or when the
Federal Government, as the owner of the lands, should not exercise riparian
rights which any other owner tracing title through it might exercise.
Now, we would like cooperation of the States, but we would like the
Federal Government to retain where it still possesses them those rights of
which the people could not be robbed through control of State legislatures
or local authorities (applause). You may say, What interest have we, who
are not a manufacturing people, in the mines and the water-powers of other
States? Why, we are all in a common country. State lines may be changed;
they are accidental; they are artificial; but the national boundary is fixed.
When we look for coal or iron, or commercial or industrial products which
we do not manufacture, we must look, primarily, within the bounds of the
United States. It is within the power of the Government and beyond ours
practically, through tariff legislation, to exclude the minerals from outside.
We have but one open field, we have but one certain route to any natural or
manufactured product, and that is within the boundaries of the Union itself;
and we do not want, through monopolization of either coal or oil or water-
powers, to be hampered in the protection of the country as a whole so that
as consumers we shall have to bear the brunt of evils from which the
National Government, through the little influence we might have with it,
might protect us, and of which our State government, in the past at least,
has been very neglectful. Hence we stand for State rights and Federal
control in cooperation (applause). But if it is within the power of the
Federal Government, through leasing or otherwise, to retain control of its
mineral and coal lands and its water-power sites, to put them beyond the
possibility of handling by a State and its legislature, to regulate
corporations' rights so as to prevent monopolization, and at the same time to
prevent the Nation as a whole from being deprived of any productive
agency in our midst, we want the benefit of it. (Applause)
Our patriotism on this score may be of that questionable type described by
Artemus Ward, who said that during the Civil War, when the stress was
great, he listened to a magnificent speech from an orator on the subject of
enlistment, and became so enthused that when the call for volunteers came
he, with others, went up to sign the roll; but when he observed that the

orator had not signed nor was likely to sign, because his province was
simply that of speaking while other's would be fighting, his own ardor was
somewhat cooled, and when he reflected that the orator's eloquence had
carried his hearers where he would not go himself, it became cooler and
cooler. Still, his patriotism did not entirely vanish, for when his time came
to sign the roll for enlistment, he signed it with the name of his mother-in-
law and offered her as a sacrifice to his country (laughter). Yet we are not
exactly in that category, though we may seem to view the situation from a
local standpoint. But knowing of our own condition, knowing of the rights
which the Federal Government conferred upon the school children of our
State—the sixteenth section and other lands of which you heard in Senator
Nelson's address today,—and remembering how in a great many instances,
through local influences, legislative or otherwise, the intended beneficiaries
were largely deprived of the benefactions intended for them we really think,
What has gone is gone, except as a lesson to us; and so far as we are
concerned, we shall stand for the right of the people as a whole for the
enjoyment of its great resources of coal, of oil, of water-power and other
natural wealth, and we want to be protected in such a way that no State or
local influence shall be able to take it from us forever (applause). That is
our position on this question.
In regard to the water-power question. A while ago I spoke of the
Mississippi rolling by; we have never been jealous of the Federal
Government's dealings with that river, not a bit (laughter). We are not now.
So far as we are concerned, we would be delighted if the Federal
Government would acquire the riparian rights, with all the liabilities, from
one end of the State to the other (laughter). The county in which I live, that
part of it in the Delta, as well as six or seven other counties, have had to
keep up, without Federal aid until this year—and then only incidentally for
the protection of navigation against some caving banks—for five years
more than 200 miles of levee, and it has required an acreage tax of from
three to five cents, an ad valorem tariff of about ten mills, and a cotton tax
besides; and while some of this is among the finest agricultural land in the
world, it is almost wrecked by the taxes on it. Missouri has fared better. Her
levees are not as extensive as ours; her people put them in good condition,
and the general government afterward took charge of them in the interest of
navigation; and if the Government will relieve us of the whole burden from

the waters which you send down upon us from the North and from east of
the Rocky Mountains, and will take the riparian rights from end to end and
preserve and use them for the benefit of the whole Nation, all the people of
our State will greatly rejoice (applause), and not a voice will be raised on
the question of State rights as to any use for the people as a whole to which
the Government may put those lands.
So, as we come to voice our wishes, our interests, our desires, they are for
cooperation of State and Federal Government, but of absolutely no
relinquishment on the part of the Federal Government either of its water-
power sites, its coal lands, its phosphate lands, or of any of those other
natural resources to which the people of the whole country are looking for
future development and prosperity (applause). We are in the country, we are
a part of it; not merely a part of the Government of the States but a part of
the Government of the whole Union (applause), and all that concerns the
Union, or any part of it or any of its people, affects us to a greater or less
degree. And speaking for our share and our part in the national destiny
which invitingly presents itself before us, we say that we stand for
Conservation of natural resources by all governmental agencies, State and
Federal, which will not only develop now but protect in the future for the
proper use and progressive benefit of the people of the whole country to
whom they now belong and from whom they should never depart.
(Applause)

Chairman Stubbs—Ladies and Gentlemen: I am very glad indeed to
introduce to you as the speaker to follow our distinguished friend from
Mississippi, the only other democratic Governor in the Congress, Governor
Norris, of Montana. (Applause)
You will see whether the views of the southern democrat and the northern
democrat are the same after the two get through speaking. (Laughter)

Governor Norris—Mr Chairman, and Ladies and Gentlemen: A feeling has
prevailed in the West, or did a few days ago, to the effect that no enlarged
opportunities were going to be given to express ideas here which were
contrary to those held by the program committee of this Congress
(laughter). However, I am pleased to note that such is not to be the case, and
whether the conference of the Northwestern Governors at Salt Lake City,
recently held, has had anything to do with it or not I don't know. Anyhow,
we are thankful for small favors. If it had been the intention and had been
carried out, it would have been a mistake, for the reason that the
Conservation movement is national in scope, and is a part of no section and
no State alone. The Conservation movement—in other words, the public
conscience—received its awakening some two years ago, and Theodore
Roosevelt did the awakening (applause); and I am pleased to note that the
sentiment created by President Roosevelt has ripened into practical action
by President Taft (renewed applause). I resent the insinuation that Montana
and the Northwest, and in fact the entire West, is opposed to Conservation;
in fact, I insist that the Northwest is the leader of the Conservation
movement (applause), and that the first practical act in Conservation was
taken by a western State, Montana (applause). I am proud of the fact that
the first Conservation commission, either State or National, was appointed
by me, in the State of Montana (applause). I am further proud of the fact
that the first Conservation law, comprehensive in extent, was, under my
recommendation, passed by the Legislature of Montana; and in that respect
we have led the National Government in the Conservation movement
(applause). Therefore, just for a moment, and not desiring to be personal,
permit me to state what we have done. And in every respect we have kept
step with the National Government and in the majority of cases we have led
the National Government, and you can come to us for a lesson as to how to
properly conserve the natural resources of the country (applause).
The Legislature which assembled in Montana in 1900 enacted a law
conserving the resources possessed by us in our public lands, so generously
given us by the Government on our admission. That measure provided for
the disposition of the land to actual cultivators of the soil, in 160-acre tracts
where irrigated, in 320-acre tracts where it is suitable for dry farming, and
in 640-acre tracts where it was only suitable for the raising of hay or for
grazing purposes—that is, in the high altitudes, in the mountains. So in that

respect we have gone hand in hand with the Government in the passage of
the 320-acre homestead act, applicable to entries where irrigation could not
be had. In that same law, passed in 1909, some eighteen months ago,
Montana forever reserved from sale, and in every patent on every acre of its
lands that might thereafter be issued retained the coal rights, and provided
for the leasing of those rights from time to time and for periods not
exceeding five years (applause). So today, when President Taft says he
hopes Congress will do the same with the Government coal lands, we say,
Mr President, we are with you and hope Congress will do this (applause),
and if you wish an illustration proving that the title to coal lands can be
retained and the coal rights leased from time to time, providing for the right
to mine the coal at not less than 121/2 cents per ton, come to Montana and
we will show you half a dozen coal leases with such provision which have
been in force for the last sixteen months (applause). Have we lagged behind
the National Government? Oh, no! In fact, we have led the National
Government in the matter of Conservation. (Applause)
And as to the metalliferous ores of the mines—the same laws are applicable
to State lands that are applicable to Government lands. As to the forests: in
the making of those laws, I corresponded, and our commission
corresponded, and we made those laws with the consent of, and they were
afterward approved by, Mr Gifford Pinchot (applause). There is but one
provision which we made then differing from those of the Government. We
provided in that law, passed eighteen months ago, that lands more suitable
for agriculture than for reforestation should be used for agricultural
purposes and not for reforestation purposes. President Taft described this
morning how the Government had in the last few months been doing the
same thing, so it seems that, after awhile, the Government will catch up to
Montana in that respect (laughter and applause).
Now, then, on the water-power question: That same commission is now
operating, and it is going to prepare suggestions for submission to the next
Montana Legislature with reference to adequate provisions for conserving
the waters of the State of Montana, and I have no doubt that the
recommendations of the commission will, at the next session, be adopted.
We would have done that two years ago except we cannot do all these
things at once; our session only lasted sixty days, while Congress is in
session all the time (laughter and applause). If we had even six months

instead of two years for it, we would have had those water resources
conserved long ago (laughter). Is Montana entitled to take a place in the
kindergarten class in the school of Conservation? And are we who have
conserved our resources to be distrusted as Governor Noel says you must
distrust the Legislature and the people of the State of Mississippi?
(Applause) I thank my God that I can trust the people of Montana to protect
their own! (Applause) And let me tell you one thing: the whole can never be
greater than the sum total of its parts, and the Federal Government can
never adequately preserve its resources until you get at least a majority of
the people in a majority of the States to so agree, because it takes a majority
for the Federal Congress or the Federal Government to act (applause). You
start at the wrong end. You have got to start with the people of the State and
build up.
Now, are we capable of passing legislation to preserve our water resources?
I think we are; and let me tell you some of our plans. In the first place, the
water and the land, during the territorial days of each State, belonged to the
Federal Government. When the State was admitted, the lands were reserved
by the federal Government, but the waters flowing in the streams of the
State passed into the control of the State. You heard Senator Nelson, an able
lawyer, refer this afternoon to the fact that that was the law. Now, they tell
us that you cannot trust the States, you must trust the Federal Government;
and yet I listened for nearly an hour to one of the ablest presentations I ever
heard of how the Federal Government for a hundred years wasted its
resources with all the prodigality of a drunken sailor (applause). Trust the
Federal Government! Why, the Federal Government has been the greatest
sinner in that respect. I am glad the Federal Government has awakened and
is going to preserve its resources, but Montana, at least, woke up a little
before (applause). In this matter of the water-power: The most valuable use
that water can be put to, or, in other words, the most valuable function that
water can perform, is not the development of electrical power; in the semi-
arid States it is the applying of that water to irrigation and the reclamation
of the arid lands of the West (applause). So bear that in mind.
In the State of Montana—and what is true in that State is true largely in
every other State in the West—not one-third of the arable lands that can be
irrigated have as yet been reclaimed; less than 2,000,000 acres have been
reclaimed in Montana, while there are 6,000,000, in fact there are

10,000,000 acres that can be reclaimed. In other words, there are from six to
ten million acres yet to be reclaimed by use of the water that flows in the
streams of the State, and that is largely Government land. So that when you
talk about conserving the water for water-power purposes, we say conserve
it for reclamation purposes (applause); for the reclamation of Government
land, too (applause), that may make homes for settlers who will come in
and take it under the Homestead Act. There is the reason why we say that
the Federal Government must not by its superior power step in and insist
upon using the waters of the streams of the West for power purposes, unless
when it so does it makes provision that the rights for irrigation purposes
shall forever remain inviolate; otherwise, what does it amount to, the
building of a dam across the stream? When the Government conveys the
right to build a dam across a stream, it means that the amount of water
flowing over that dam will determine the amount of power that may be
developed; hence, when that dam is built the Government, if it conveys
anything of value, must convey the right to the use of that water, and the
right to the use of that water flowing over that dam must accrue as of that
date, and forever thereafter the franchise-holder will have the right to
demand as a concession from the Federal Government that the same amount
of water, all the natural flow of that stream, must go over that dam forever.
You thereby absolutely prevent the diversion of any water on that stream
above that point for irrigation purposes. The use of water for irrigation
purposes does decrease the amount flowing in the stream. That is the reason
we object to the Federal Government coming in and taking charge of our
water-power and giving it out—we do not care so much about the little
income that may be received: that is the reason we are insisting upon the
rights of the State.
Now, remember this: In the first instance, there is no contention but what
the regulation of water for irrigating purposes is absolutely vested in the
State, and that the Federal Government cannot acquire that right; hence a
number of irrigators have already appropriated a part of the flow of the
stream. The Federal Government grants the right of franchise for the
building of a dam. Suppose we assume, for the sake of argument, that it can
grant the right to the remaining flow of a stream; it not only thereby forever
thereafter prohibits the use of that stream above that point for further
reclamation purposes, but the rights of every irrigator, either before or after

appropriation is made, comes in conflict, or may come in conflict, with the
Federal franchise-holder? In other words, you transfer from the State courts
and from the State forum the right of every irrigator to use the waters of a
stream to the seat of power of the Federal Government at Washington. In
other words, you practically stop irrigation in the arid West when you insist
upon having that power (applause). Is that Conservation? True
Conservation demands that every acre of land shall be used for its highest
purpose and be made to serve its highest productive function (applause),
whether in a forest reserve or out of it. Therefore, in order to serve its
highest productive function in the West, water must be applied to the land.
Now, take the 6,000,000 acres of land that may be reclaimed in Montana. If
you do not insist upon the Federal Government taking charge of the water-
power and preventing its further reclamation, it means 6,000,000 acres of
land reclaimed. It is fair to say that each year those reclaimed lands will
produce a total of $25—yea, and if I did not want to be ultra-conservative, I
would say $50—per acre; and at $25 per acre, you have an annual income
from those 6,000,000 acres of land of $150,000,000. Isn't that worth
thinking about? Isn't that a resource worth conserving? Why, the 6,000,000
horse-power that might be developed in Montana is not worth one tithe of
that. You say, Give to the Federal Government the right to the water-powers
of the State and forever prevent the further reclamation of our land? Why,
you are asking of us the most priceless gift that we have to convey—far
more priceless than our mines yielding $50,000,000 yearly, possibly the
richest in the world—because you ask us to surrender not $50,000,000 a
year but the opportunity to make $150,000,000 a year. Has the Federal
Government this right? We insist, as a matter of law, that the Federal
Government has no authority to grant any right to the use of water on any
power site that it may have. If the power site is situated along a stream, the
title to the power site rests in the Federal Government and it can grant the
right to erect a dam on that site, but the water that flows down the stream by
that power site belongs to the State, and unless the State gives you the right
to appropriate and take water you will develop no power by a dam-site!
(Applause)
Now, is the State ready to surrender any rights that it may have in the
waters of the stream to the Federal Government? The State of Montana is
not ready to so do, for the reasons I have given. The State of Montana will

insist upon every right it has. Let the Federal Government have that which
of right or in law belongs to it, but let the State keep that which of right or
in law belongs to it (applause). So sure am I that the State has the right to
use of its water that I think the next Legislature of Montana will pass a law
to regulate the use of water, making its use for power forever subordinate to
its use for irrigation purposes, and then say to the Federal Government, You
own your power site, but you do not own the water; we own the water, but
we do not own the power site. Your site is worth nothing to you because it
is valuable only for power in connection with the use of water. We cannot
develop power on that site, but we can go a little farther down the stream
and divert that water for the irrigation of land, and it is valuable to us. Now,
that is what we mean by the rights of the State in and to the waters of the
State. You cannot trust the State? Why not? If you cannot trust the people of
Montana to conserve its resources, if you cannot trust the State of Wyoming
to conserve its resources, can we trust the State of Maine, or the State of
Florida to conserve them for us? What reasons have we to assume that the
people of the State of Massachusetts or the State of Louisiana are more
patriotic in that respect than are our own people?
The creation of the forest reserves was the greatest act ever performed in
recent years. We would not have that act repealed. We have a double
purpose in supporting the forest conservation policies. You think of it as
valuable for the timber that it will grow. That timber is worth just as much,
and will shelter just as many people, in Montana as it will in the Mississippi
valley, but we desire it for a further purpose. The forests of these mountains
are Nature's reservoirs, builded there by an Omnipotent Creator, and can
better conserve the waters that fall in the form of rain and snow than these
artificial reservoirs that men may build (applause). We want those waters.
The water that comes from our mountains and is conserved under those
forests is the very life-blood of the State of Montana. Would you take the
water away and stop the reclamation of the arid West? I know you would
not; yet you would do so did you not at the same time that you were saving
the timber make a provision that the rights to water for power purposes
should forever be subject to the rights for irrigation purposes.
Bear this in mind, also. The doctrine of riparian rights does not prevail in
the arid West; therefore the owning of the soil on each side of the stream
does not convey the right to have the water flow down that stream

undiminished in quantity or quality. In other words, the first appropriator is
the first in right. I think there has been a misunderstanding as to the position
of the West in this respect, as to why we are insisting upon the rights of the
State. We insist upon the right of the State to control the waters of the State,
not the water-power particularly. There is a decided difference between the
waters and the water-power. The waters will irrigate land, the water-power
will develop electricity. Such is the position the West takes. Will you not
help us in that, and so help develop the land and make it productive? Do
you know it is your own salvation to do so? Ye people of the populous East,
where is the produce to come from to feed the ever-increasing millions,
unless it be from the reclamation of the arid lands of the West? The time
will soon be here, and it is not over four years removed, when we will cease
to be a wheat-exporting nation, and in only a few years it must come that
the children will cry for bread, and the land must be made to produce it.
Therefore we must husband our resources and conserve our water for use
for the purpose which will permit the growing of something that will feed
human beings; and pine trees do not do it (applause). You of the Mississippi
valley who for years have wept great crocodile tears that your lands have
been cleared, suppose those lands had not been cleared, whence would
come the produce to feed the millions of today? So bear these things in
mind that when you come to conclusions you will take all these questions
into consideration. And I want to say to you that in the future, as in the past,
Montana will not lag in the Conservation movement, but will continue to
lead the Federal Government (applause).

A Delegate—Mr Chairman, are the propositions advanced by the
Governors to be discussed? I see no reference in the program to such
discussion, and ask for information.
Chairman Stubbs—The understanding of the Chair is that this afternoon
was turned over to the Governors. The intention is to give them an
opportunity to relieve their minds this afternoon (applause) and get the way
clear for the greatest man you will hear talk in thirty years—Theodore
Roosevelt (applause). We are clearing out the brush and getting ready for
the real thing that you will have tomorrow. (Laughter and applause)

You can readily see that they have too much water in the South and not
quite enough water in the Northwest, judging by the views of the last two
speakers.
I now have the pleasure of introducing one of the greatest Governors in the
United States, and of one of the greatest States in the Union, Governor
Deneen, of Illinois (applause).

Governor Deneen—Fellow Delegates, and Ladies and Gentlemen: The
Governors here have been somewhat confused regarding this program. I
was invited by my good friend Governor Eberhart, of this State, to prepare a
speech. I have it concealed about my person like a deadly weapon, and I
have been wondering whether I dare read it; for if I do, those who follow
me will, I fear, have no audience to address, while if I do not follow the text
already given to the printer there will be the traditional print-shop "devil" to
pay; but I have concluded to talk rather than read, and I hope that my good
friends the reporters will publish what I should have said rather than what I
shall say. I will follow the example of a very distinguished statesman in our
State, who on a great occasion handed his speech to the reporters and said,
"Now, having given my speech to the reporters, I shall proceed to ramble;"
and so he did. (Laughter)
It is a pleasure to follow the two distinguished gentlemen who have
preceded me, the Governor of Mississippi and the Governor of Montana. It
is a pleasure to note how the conditions have reversed the attitude of their
States regarding State rights (laughter and applause). I am interested in both
States. A year or more ago I purchased a farm in Montana where the three
rivers join to form the Missouri river, and I discovered after the spring
freshets that I now have a farm scattered all the way from Montana to
Mississippi (laughter). I am interested in all the States because of that,
because I now own property in all. But I cannot quite agree with my
distinguished predecessor about the Legislature—we, too, have a legislature
(laughter), and whatever value it may have had at one time it is not
considered at par at present. (Laughter and applause)

We have a water-power proposition, too, strange to say, even in the flat,
level, horizontal State of Illinois. Some time ago when the Government was
considering the matter of the Lakes-to-Gulf Waterway, our State
supplemented the investigation of the Government in considering the by-
products of that great channel which was to be built (and I hope will be
built), and we proceeded on the theory announced by the President this
morning; instead of going from agitation to legislation, we considered it
better to go on this theory: investigation, then agitation, and later
legislation. So our State appointed a very distinguished commission to
investigate some of the by-products that would accrue to Illinois by reason
of the Lakes-to-Gulf deep waterway.
We soon found we had several questions. First, the matter of reclamation.
We have the problem they have in Mississippi, of too much water for too
much time out of the year; an even 5,000 square miles of our State is under
water too much of the time—an area larger than the State of Connecticut or
the island of Porto Rico. We worked out a plan by which, as an incident to
the great waterway, we expect to reclaim land which has been estimated to
be of the value of $150,000,000 to the State.
Then we found that in part of that waterway (in 621/2 miles of it from
Lockport to Utica) there is a fall of 106 feet, and that water-power can be
created to the amount of about 130,000 horsepower, worth about
$2,500,000 or $2,750,000 a year to begin with, and our engineers estimated
that by availing ourselves of that power we would be able to contribute to
the Government the entire expense of the waterway between Lockport and
Utica, and could afford to expend $20,000,000 in doing so by reason of the
by-product that would come to us; and that we would be able, if the
Legislature did as it should do, and the Governor did as he should do, and
the commission to be appointed would do as it should do—to repay that
vast expense in fourteen years as a minimum period, and that in fact we
could loan our credit and have the water-power pay for the bonds as they
matured. The question was submitted to the people, and after an exhaustive
discussion they approved the plan by the largest majority ever registered on
any issue in Illinois or in any State in the Union, a majority of nearly
500,000 (I believe it was 497,345 to be exact). Then we presented it to our
Legislature. Now, this is the point. When we presented it to our Legislature,
what do you think has happened? Why, nothing happened. (Sensation) We

have talked, and talked, and talked, but we haven't acted. We have had
several sessions, regular and irregular (laughter), on this subject, general
and special, but we have failed to act. After the failure of the regular session
to act, on December 14 last I called an extra session to determine the State's
part in this water-power and waterway subject. It adjourned on March 2
following (I want you to keep these dates in mind because they are
significant); the Legislature was in a deadlock—I am not blaming the
republicans for this, although Illinois is a republican State, and I am not
blaming the democrats; the fact is that a band of republicans and a band of
democrats joined to repudiate the pledges of both parties, and they did it,
effectually did it. They adjourned on March 2; on April 29 following (this
year) a little corporation with a huge name was formed in our State—the
Illinois Valley Gas, Light & Electric Power Company, I believe is the name
—you are nearly compelled to take a vacation to pronounce the name all at
once—with a capital stock of only $1000; a huge name for small capital.
Then, on May 12 following—thirteen days later—the organizers of the
corporation met, and decided they had made a mistake in capitalizing at
$1000; so they made the capital accord with the dignity and length of the
name and increased it from $1000 to $6,250,000. Since that time they have
acquired fifty-year franchises in the following cities: Joliet, Morris, Seneca,
Ottawa, Wilmington, Streator, Dwight, Odell, Gardner, Pontiac, Plainview,
Yorkville, Coal City, and Bridgewood. Now that has been doing a good deal
of work in a warm, humid atmosphere, such as we have in the summer time
in Illinois (laughter). They have not only done that, but they have also
acquired the other corporations that have had to do with the developing of
water-power in Illinois; and not only that, but they have reached out and
acquired certain riparian rights necessary to develop fully the power at
Marseilles. Now, what will happen? Our sanitary district of Chicago has
already expended $53,000,000 on this channel, and will expend
$20,000,000 more in its full development, and our State will spend
$20,000,000 on its part. In other words, Illinois will contribute
$100,000,000 to this Lakes-to-Gulf Deep Waterway, and a corporation
which has not expended one dollar to create this power comes along and
puts a toll-gate across it and collects the toll. Bear in mind that none of this
power is created by the surface or drainage water of the State; all of it is
created by diverting the waters of Lake Michigan to the Illinois and the
Mississippi. What would be thought, for instance, if our State should

expend $100,000,000 in building a road from Chicago to Saint Louis and
then some one who had not expended a dollar would throw a toll-gate
across it and collect a toll of every person and vehicle that passed, and then
when he tried to buy our own road back, charge us $100,000,000 for it?
That would be going some, even in these days of "frenzied finance,"
wouldn't it? Yet that is exactly what they are doing with the water-power
situation in our State. For several reasons (fancied or otherwise; it doesn't
take much of a reason to occasion debate) there is a strong effort being
made to prevent the State from acting, and our State is in the situation (and
Chicago will be in the same situation soon) where we will be compelled, in
order to acquire the riparian rights, to condemn them at their market value,
and you can see, from the array of towns I read you, that the market value is
steadily increasing (I collected their names about two weeks ago, and had
not time this morning to wire inquiring whether it was up to date, but give
you the list as an indication).
The point I want to make is that our State is a good deal like other States:
we are neither abnormally good nor abnormally bad—just an average.
Sometimes we are attending to things in such a way that we would prefer to
have no metropolitan newspapers to circulate and mislead us; at other times
we do things in a grand style in that great State, and we are then very glad
that we have such means of disseminating knowledge about what is being
done.
In regard to the Conservation movement: I sympathize very strongly with
my good friends here from the West. It has been a delightful pleasure to
meet them on a number of occasions, on the waterway trip down the
Mississippi from Saint Louis to Memphis, then at New Orleans, and again
at Washington, where we were all together at the Conservation Conference
in Washington called by Theodore Roosevelt. I believe that the Government
should not interfere to prevent the full development of the States. A long
time ago it was said that he was a benefactor who made two blades of grass
grow where only one had grown before, and the man who can put two acres
in cultivation where only one was cultivated before is certainly a friend of
mankind. So I think we want all the acres put in cultivation by irrigation or
dry farming. But the general Government owns certain things: it owns coal
lands, oil lands, gas lands, phosphate lands, and forest lands. We heard the
President say this morning that the Government owns about a third of the

forests that we must have in the north in order to allow the Mississippi to
have enough water. The Government owns about a third of the coal, and if I
recall correctly, about a third of the phosphate lands, which will become
more and more necessary as we develop our agricultural resources. Now the
Federal Government should not permit itself to be put in a position where
these great natural resources could be wasted (great applause); it ought to
be in a position to develop the States by irrigation, and in all possible ways,
but it should not permit itself to be put in the position where a Legislature
of a State would take from it power to control some of the very necessities
of advanced civilization (applause). They can have a crop of corn every
year, they can turn on and off water-power every year, and the rains will
come again; if by lack of attention the forests are burned or removed, they
can be grown again; but the great Creator provided there should be just one
crop of coal for all time, and provided, so far as we know now, that there
would be just a certain amount of phosphate lands, and they are for all time
and all men. These crops are not growing in Montana just now, they are not
growing in other States; and because they were meant for us all, this great
continental Republic ought to be able to conserve them so they shall not be
abused. We all have the right to use them now, and the Government, in my
judgment, should see that there is no possibility of abuse.
It seems very likely that, so far as water is concerned, the State and the
Nation will have to cooperate and work together (applause). The State may
own the water in Montana because the streams are not navigable, and I
assume this is so in Wyoming and Idaho and the other mountain States. The
Government at present owns much of the land. The Federal Government
may not say to the State, "You cannot use the water because you cannot get
in my backyard," and the State may not say, "Water is valueless without the
use of the land that is situated adjoining;" so they will have to work
together, and they should work together. That is the way it ought to be, and
that is the way it will be; and I believe that we here in the West, and in the
East and in the South, who have had our States developed by a vast
expenditure of these natural resources and vast waste, will have patience
and consideration for the views of these men who are somewhat fearful lest
we do not permit them to develop their own resources. I believe the Nation
will permit them not only to develop the resources, but will encourage them
in that development (applause).

Now, just a word about Illinois: I have told you so many bad things about
our State that it is not proper to cease speaking without saying some good
things. I was delighted with the statements made by Governor Norris about
Montana. It is a proud record. It has set a good example to the Government.
Our State has done something, too (laughter). Our State, a long time ago,
before we heard of this Conservation movement, had at least six or eight
commissions out doing this very work. We have an agricultural experiment
station that has explored every foot of our land, I may say, in a phenomenal
way; the fact is we are laying off our State in ten-acre plats, and the
University of Illinois is surveying each ten acres and making a record
indicating the kind of soil, later to give advice as to the development of
each ten acres; and the gentleman under whose supervision that is done is a
Delegate to this Congress and likely to address you. He is a specialist on
soil. And we have had a geological commission that has taken stock of all
of our minerals, and although we are a prairie State we are the third in the
Union in our mineral output. We are not only locating and taking stock of
our coal but showing how to mine it, how to send it by freight, how to store
it, and how to burn it—for nine-tenths of its energy is wasted before you get
it to the place where you should apply it. We have made a survey of our
rivers, studying the fishery question; Illinois river is the second in its output
of food products in the United States, being only exceeded by Columbia
river in the remote West; it has more than doubled in the last eight years.
We have a commission on floriculture and horticulture; and we have an
internal improvement commission that is studying every stream in our State
and giving the information to our counties and districts for the purpose of
forming drainage districts so that the land may be drained and more of it
cultivated. In every department—water, soil, minerals—our State has made
a most careful investigation, so that we feel we have a complete stock of
our resources; we believe, too, in their development, and we are developing
them. All the departments of our State work are going along as they should,
and our resources are being well conserved.
I have dwelt on a disagreeable feature only because I believe that the
example of Illinois should be beneficial elsewhere. We are having trouble in
attending to our public utilities, as other States will. Illinois will have
expended a hundred million dollars in the making of a water-course that
creates water-power, and you are all familiar with the disgraceful story as to

how the State has tried to cope with that water-power monopoly through its
Legislature and conserve to us what we created ourselves. It is likely that
we shall be compelled to see certain corporations or private individuals
sowing where they didn't reap, and levying a toll upon a vast expenditure of
money made by our commonwealth; and other States may profit by our
experience. (Applause)

Chairman Stubbs—I am very glad indeed to have the opportunity of
introducing Governor Hay, of the great State of Washington (applause).

Governor Hay—Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I desire to take this
opportunity to thank the good citizens of Saint Paul for seeing to it that the
Western States were given representation at this Congress (applause). It was
not, and never was, the intention of the managers of this Conservation
Congress to allow those who differed with them in opinion to be heard at
this meeting, as I know by long correspondence myself with the
management. In reading the numerous papers published here in the East
relative to the "wild and woolly western men" and their ideas on
Conservation, I said to my wife, before leaving home, "It looks to me that I
am going down to Saint Paul to get the most glorious spanking a white man
ever got." My wife said, "Go down and take it" (laughter). But since
arriving here, I am pleased to say that I have found innumerable people who
look upon this Conservation question exactly the same way as do the
majority of the people of the Pacific Coast.
All that is needed to solve the problem of conserving our natural resources
is common sense and the application of the square deal (applause). It is
because of a departure from these two essential elements in the
consideration of Conservation, that an unsound, unjust, and impracticable
policy has been advanced in this country. Common sense has given place to
humbug and fairness to intolerance. Instead of calm, dispassionate, logical
discussion of the subject, we hear and read on every hand exaggerated

statements, misrepresentation, false accusation, dire prophecy, and
passionate appeals to prejudice, avarice, and lawlessness. This has given
rise to a wholly perverted notion of true Conservation, and has brought
about a condition hurtful to the West, and one that, if persisted in, is bound
to prove injurious to the Nation. The only sane and sensible kind of
Conservation is that which permits the fullest and freest development of our
natural resources under provisions that will perpetuate those resources that
can be renewed, and that will obtain the greatest economic good from those
that cannot be replaced. But to many of us of the Pacific Coast and Rocky
Mountain States, Conservation, as practiced, means to tie up and not to
utilize. It signifies to us the letting of our waters run unfettered to the sea
for fear some one might develop their power and turn their energy to the
benefit of mankind in this generation. To us it means the locking up of our
vast forests that they may go to decay or become the prey of the fire king. It
means that, to please some bureaucrat, the people of our section are held up
to allow the timber trust to secure a profit of a few extra millions each year.
It means that our vast coal areas must go undeveloped, and that we be
compelled to spend our money with foreign mine owners for fuel,
importing the coal at no small expense for the item of transportation alone.
It means that the State of Washington is robbed of the use of 500,000 acres
of land that the Federal Government granted to it for educational purposes
at the time it was admitted to the Union. Conservation as practiced in the
past developed into a vast profit-making scheme for certain southern land
grant railroads, which under it were given scrip in place of worthless desert
land included in forest reservations, treeless since time began and bound to
remain treeless to the end of time. And we have seen this scrip brought
north and placed upon our timber lands that will cruise from 5,000,000 to
50,000,000 feet per section, and are worth from $20 to $100 per acre. This
brand of Conservation means to us that 271/4% of the total area of the State
of Washington paid a paltry $16,000 into the public coffers in 1909. It
means we are called upon to expend large sums each year for policing these
Federal reserves, which contribute practically nothing to the cost of State
government, while at each session our State Legislature is compelled to
appropriate large sums to build roads through Federal reserves. Last year
we appropriated $205,000 for this purpose. To us, Conservation means that
settlers within forest reserves who have taken up homesteads in good faith
are harassed, browbeaten, and often forced to abandon their claims and lose

the fruits of the labor of years. As an illustration of this, permit me to read a
letter I received recently from a fellow citizen of mine who, by the way, is a
prominent logger, and while a very wealthy man and a large timber owner,
is one of that kind of men who came up from the bottom; he started in at
day's wages in the State of Washington a little over thirty years ago. This is
what he says:

Speaking for myself and from a selfish standpoint, the present
Conservation by our National Government suits me fine, but in the
interests of the poor settlers who make our country, a change should be
made. Four-fifths of these settlers come out here from Eastern States
and endeavor to take up homesteads, but they are so harassed and
driven from their homesteads through technicalities and forest rangers
under orders that are absolutely foreign to the best interests of our
country and the settler, that instead of making good citizens the
Conservation laws have made anarchists, and if the thing is kept up,
everything that will burn I expect to see burned within the next ten
years. You cannot drive a man from his home, with a wife and from
one to six children, penniless and hungry and the children in rags,
while the land that would support them lies idle and wild just to gratify
the theory of some man who may be honest but who is ignorant of the
conditions of the frontier. I will name a case of a man I met in
Aberdeen, who told me that he tramped forty miles three times to
make proof on his claim. He had lived with his family on his
homestead for seven years and endeavored to make proof, coming out
with witnesses and spending money he needed for his family, only to
be told the last time he came out that his hearing was indefinitely
postponed. This man came out a good, loyal, American citizen; went
back a fire-eater. I know another case on the head of Nooksack river
where a man endeavored to take up a homestead on meadow land, and
after he made application it was set aside for forest rangers' quarters
No. 1. He then tried to take a second homestead and it was set aside for
Forest Ranger No. 2; he then endeavored to take a third, and that was
set aside for Forest Ranger No. 3. The land is fertile beyond
description, but there is nothing living on it, and it is supporting no
one.

On the head waters of Skagit river there are tracts of land that will
support from three to four hundred homesteads. This is purely meadow
land with brush and worthless scrub timber, like all our western
Washington meadows. Any five acres of this land will sustain a family
in comfort. This land is held in the forest reserve, absolutely worthless
so far as sustaining people is concerned, or paying taxes to the State. If
our State is to give up one-third of its taxable property and carry on its
government with two-thirds, she has very little interest, if any, in that
portion of the State reserved by Conservation, and naturally will not
aid in the preservation of the same as she would were the revenue from
these resources to become the revenue of the State. Up on Quinault
river, ten years ago, there was a flourishing settlement with every
prospect for opening up the country. Since this Conservation law has
been in force, many of these settlers have left their homesteads, others
have been driven off and gone to British Columbia. The United States
Government does not build a road into the settlement, and the people
are too poor to build out. Take it up in the Northern Peninsula (the
greater portion covered by forest reserve), the land would sustain
hundreds of thousands of comfortable and independent homes; but
today it is a howling wilderness, and the meadow land is as wild as it
was a hundred years ago. The people are too poor to build roads in and
across the forest reserve, and the Government does not.
I sincerely hope and trust that the people of the East who are not
acquainted with the conditions in the State of Washington will permit
this State to control and conduct her own Conservation, both water,
timber, coal and oil, if necessary, to the best interests of the State and
Nation. We have a State that has upwards of ten million horse-power in
our waterfalls going to waste every minute. With proper State laws this
could be utilized, and so protected that monopoly could not control it.
We have millions of tons of cheap anthracite and bituminous coal on
our coast. Still, the people of Alaska are buying British Columbia coal
and shipping it up to themselves two thousand miles, while the coal is
sticking out of the mountain-sides of Alaska and cannot be touched.
We are shipping hundreds of thousands of tons of Maryland coal to our
navy on the Pacific Coast, in foreign ships, while we, of the State of
Washington, are prohibited from shipping our cheap lumber to our

own people on the Atlantic Coast, and are compelled, if we ship at all,
to ship it by rail to New York and the thickly settled portions of the
East at a freight rate that is prohibitive. The only people receiving the
benefit of our lower grades of lumber and cheap prices are the Chinese
and Japanese. If we were permitted to ship our lumber in foreign
vessels from Washington to New York or other ports on the Atlantic
Coast, we could give them lumber that they all need and that we would
be glad to sell at a very reasonable figure. It is the fool laws that are
oppressing the people, both of the East and the West, and many of
them have been made in the interest of monopoly and many through
ignorance.

The West is not here to fight Conservation, for, properly directed, it is one
of the greatest movements inaugurated in this country since the abolishment
of slavery. Our former President instituted many reform movements that,
properly directed, mean happiness and prosperity for our people; and of all
the movements started by him, in my opinion none means more to the
financial welfare of ourselves and our children than Conservation, as
vouched for by President Roosevelt (applause). The complaint we have is
not against the principle of Conservation, but against the prostitution of that
great movement to the impractical ends of certain men out of sympathy
with our institutions. They would disregard the rights of the people of the
Western States to regulate affairs within their borders; they would retard
development of the younger States; they would compel the citizens of the
Western States to contribute annually large sums of money to the timber,
coal and power companies operating in those sections. While these
bureaucrats claim to be working in the interest of the people, they could not
better serve the Special Interests if they were employed by them. In the past
they laid unusual burdens upon the Western States, and have ruthlessly
crushed and brushed aside the honest homesteader who did not have funds
to fight or carry his case to the highest court. They are attempting to bottle
up and make useless the natural resources of our Western States, and have
our local affairs administered through an irresponsible bureau located 3,000
miles away. All the people of the West ask is a chance with the older
communities and an honest shuffle—a square deal above the table—and a
show to develop our resources and build up prosperous communities made
up of innumerable happy homes. I believe the people of the West are as

good citizens, and are just as true and loyal to the interests of the Nation as
are the citizens of any other locality. As States we do not like to be looked
upon as provinces or colonial possessions to be exploited for the benefit of
the other sections of this Nation. I have faith enough in the fairness of the
citizens of the other sections of this Nation to believe that they do not covet
or desire to rob us of what rightfully belongs to us. We believe the profit
arising from the development or exploitation of the natural resources of
each State should be applied to the benefit of and to the cost of government
of that State.
Let me get this fact set in your minds: 951/2% of the national reserves are
located within the eleven Pacific Coast and Rocky Mountain States, and
271/4% of the total area of the State I have the honor to represent is taken up
by forest reserves, an area in which could be placed the States of Maryland,
Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, and the District of Columbia, with
room enough to spare to accommodate another Rhode Island. The extreme
Conservationist argues that the people of the Western States are not
competent or qualified to manage the natural resources within their borders
and that a guardian in the shape of a Federal bureau should be appointed to
handle them for us. This is a gratuitous insult to the intelligence and
integrity of the people of the West. Almost the worst kind of government
that can be placed upon a people is a bureaucracy. Let me call your
attention to the fact that practically all of the land, mineral, coal, timber, and
power-site steals perpetrated upon the people were made when these titles
were vested in the Federal Government.
Now, let us deal a little with common-sense Conservation: The people of
the State of Washington started a practical system of Conservation long
before Conservation became a national issue. The Governor of Montana has
said that Montana was the first State in the Union to practice Conservation.
Evidently the Governor of Montana is not up on the laws of the State of
Washington or he wouldn't have made that statement (laughter). One of the
great natural assets of our State is our fisheries. Because of over-fishing it
became evident to our people some years ago that, unless proper steps were
taken, our fishing industry would be ruined. Laws were passed regulating
the taking of fish, and numerous hatcheries were established throughout the
State. We are now putting more salmon fry into salt water than is the
Federal Government, and today the State of Washington stands first in the

Union in the value of the products of its fisheries, all because our people a
few years ago started a practical system of Conservation. The expense of
enforcing our laws regulating fisheries and the cost of maintaining and
operating hatcheries is assessed against that industry. We cannot bring
ourselves to consent to turn over the management of this industry to the
Federal Government. In fact, so opposed are the fisher-folk of Puget Sound
to Federal control of the fishing industry, which is threatened because of the
proposed treaty with Great Britain, that they are fighting the ratification of
the treaty by the United States Senate.
Let us now take up the question of the national forest reserves as
administered in the western States. I doubt that there is a thinking man who
does not love the trees, the deep woods and vast forests of our land; but a
tree, like everything else that grows, has its youth, its maturity, its old age
and death. A tree not used at maturity decays, falls, and becomes a fire-trap
and is a serious menace to standing timber. I believe that when a tree
reaches its maturity it should be used and not allowed to go to decay
(applause). Failure to make use of our natural resources which are going to
waste is the antithesis of Conservation. I believe that all non-forested lands
adapted for agricultural purposes should be opened to settlement and
homesteaders allowed to file upon them. Within the national forest reserves
are vast areas with not a stick of timber on them, and on which timber can
never be made to grow profitably. These tracts should be thrown open to
settlement. It is people we want in the West, not game preserves (applause);
it is happy, prosperous communities, not idle wastes. I would not advise the
acceptance of homestead filings upon timbered areas until after the timber
is removed and it is found the land is suitable for agriculture. If it is
valuable only for timber raising, then the land should be turned over to the
State for reforestation. It is the duty of the State to all the States to start a
system of reforestation. At the last session of our Legislature, an
appropriation was made to start a survey and have maps made showing the
areas of our State better adapted for timber-growing than for any other
purpose. This work is now well under way. A commission composed of
twelve of our leading citizens, interested in forestry, have been appointed to
draft a forestry bill to be submitted to the coming Legislature, when,
without doubt, the State will start in upon a plan of reforestation; something
which every State of the Union should take up. It is the duty of the States to

attend to the growing of forests within their borders, and not the duty of the
Federal Government. I am not in favor of abolishing the Federal forestry
department. This department should stand in the same relation to the State
forests as the Department of Agriculture stands to the farming interests of
the Nation (applause). We would hardly expect Secretary Wilson to go
around the country, preparing the ground, planting and harvesting our crops,
and collecting the revenue therefrom, and we do not expect the Federal
Government to go inside of the State and start a system of reforestation
where it is absolutely the duty of the State itself to undertake that work
(applause).
The greatest infringement upon the rights of the State to handle their own
internal affairs is the attempt on the part of the Federal Government to gain
control by indirection of our water-power for the purpose of supervising
and deriving the revenue from any possible development of the powers.
This, by the way, is a policy particularly waged by the National
Conservation Association, an organization which is making of this
Conservation question a cult, which has practically set up a dogma, and
whose members are now quarreling over their claims to orthodoxy. So far
about all it has done has been to play into the hands of the power monopoly,
which the first apostles of Conservation claim to fear so greatly.
Of all the lame arguments I have heard, the one that the people of the
country have not the brains or authority to regulate the charges of any
public service corporation, is the worst. We have two means of reaching
them: by regulating the rates, and by taxation. No State in the Union was
probably ever more troubled than was the State of Washington a few years
ago with a railway lobby. In the year 1905 the Legislature of the State of
Washington passed a railway commission law, and placed the regulation
and control of railroads under this commission. Three years this
commission studied the conditions in the State. It was one of the first States
in the Union to make a physical valuation to determine the cost of these
plants. In 1909 the railway commission of Washington placed an order into
effect that saved to the farmers of the State, in the hauling of wheat and
other grains alone, $750,000. At the same time they placed an order
reducing the general distance tariffs of the railroads, which cost the
railroads of the State $75,000, and the railroads have never appealed from
its decision and those rates are in effect today. In 1909 the railway

commission traveled over every mile of road in our State, visited every
station, held hearings, and as a result of that trip they made 250 orders
ordering new stations, enlargement of waiting-rooms and train facilities; all
those things that the people complained about they remedied, and of the 250
orders put into effect—which cost the railroads hundreds of thousands of
dollars—they never have appealed from but 16, and 234 have gone into
effect; so the argument that the States cannot control affairs within their
own borders, it seems to me, is very fallacious (applause). If we are not
competent to handle affairs within our own borders, if we are not competent
to regulate corporations, then let us surrender our Constitution and go back
to territorial days and let the Federal Government administer our affairs for
us. (Applause)
Now, with reference to the water-power bill: The bill before Congress
introduced by Senator Smoot, of Utah, and a similar bill introduced by
Senator Jones, of Washington, are perfectly satisfactory to the people of the
Coast, so far as I know. Governor Norris has explained to you that the beds
and banks of all streams, up to the limit of medium high tide and medium
high water, belong to the States; they do not belong to the Federal
Government. That property is just as much ours as is the jack-knife in our
pockets. Senator Smoot's bill provides that all the interest the Federal
Government has in this is that it owns the sites. We own the water, we own
the power. There is no question about that. The Supreme Court has passed
upon it time and time again. The Government owns the sites. The Smoot
bill provides that the sites in the Federal reserves shall be turned over to the
State government, but that in no instance shall the State pass the fee-simple
title to the land, and no lease shall be longer than fifty years. This is
perfectly satisfactory, and the people of the State of Washington have no
objections to that form of relinquishment to the State.
The high-handed manner in which a Federal bureau attempted to hold up
the development of the western States was the result of a false conception
of the principles upon which the Government is founded, and a dangerous
assumption that honor and efficiency existed nowhere but in one self-
appointed guide, philosopher, and so-called friend of the people. I believe it
is the intention of those now in authority to administer the natural resources
of the West according to law and with some respect for the welfare of the
State in which the resources are located. But outside of governmental and

administrative circles, an element composed of faddists, dreamers, and
enthusiasts is striving to bend popular sentiment to certain impractical and
unfair policies of applying Conservation, and it is against this element that
the West has taken arms. We want Conservation that benefits all the people,
not a Conservation that plays into the hands of a few. Conservation that
does not make use of resources rapidly going to waste is Conservation gone
daffy. I have noticed that there are some States down here shouting loud for
Federal control of our natural resources. I want to say that those Governors
who are here shouting the loudest for Federal control are from the States
that have the least amount of natural resources. It is the desire of these
people that the revenue received from these natural resources shall be
surrendered to the Federal treasury. That is what the western States certainly
object to. Some people and papers here are charging that "the interests,"
whatever you may call them, are favoring State control of the natural
resources. I want to say to you that "the interests" are always against local
control in any case, and always prefer that monopoly of all kinds shall be
placed in the Federal Government and as far away from the people as it is
possible to get it.
The address made here by President Taft this morning is in line with the
western idea of Conservation as I understand it, and I believe those of us
from the West who look at this question as I do endorse the same safe
statement that has been made by our great President (applause). Let western
men, using up-to-date western methods and familiar with western
conditions, deal with and manage western matters. I thank you. (Applause)

Chairman Stubbs—Professor Condra will make an announcement before I
introduce the next speaker.

Professor Condra—Mr Chairman, and Ladies and Gentlemen: You know
that we have State Conservation Commissions and associations
representing various States. We have recently perfected an organization of

these with a view to cooperation among States and with the Federal
departments. The Federal representatives forming our national committees
have thought it better not to issue any suggestions to the State delegations,
preferring to leave this duty to the committee of the interstate organization,
of which I have the honor to be Chairman, as the more democratic method.
We propose that the chairman of each State Conservation Commission or
Association call his State delegation together at some stated time and place
(in the absence of the chairman the secretary or some other commissioner
may act) to organize the delegation and select representatives to serve on
the resolutions committee and any other committees, to the end that we may
have fair discussion and full representation of all our States.

Chairman Stubbs—I now take pleasure in introducing Governor Brooks, of
Wyoming. (Applause)

Governor Brooks—Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: It has been my
good fortune to visit nearly every State in this great Union, and to spend
considerable time in nearly all the larger cities, though, strange to say, this
is the first time I have ever visited this particular spot; and yesterday, while
enjoying a beautiful ride through the Twin Cities and around the great parks
and other resorts, I felt that my education had been sadly neglected
(applause). This is certainly one of the garden spots of the Union, and I
think the people here showed the proper spirit when their Governor in his
address this morning stated that a State convention on Conservation had
been held, at which the attendance numbered some 7,000 people, to
consider the proper conservation of the soil and to bring about increased
production of the farms. I know that the State of Minnesota is on the right
track—that is the important thing, after all. (Applause)
A few days ago the western Governors held a meeting at Salt Lake City, and
spent two days discussing this question of Conservation. After full and
complete discussion they adopted, unanimously, a brief set of resolutions,

which I think express their views in this important matter. Colorado, Utah,
California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming were
represented; and since the resolutions, which have been published in all the
western papers, have met with unqualified public endorsement, and as it
will only take me about a minute, I am going to read them, as embodying
the views of the western Governors—and, I might add, of 95 percent of the
citizens of the great western States:

Resolved, that the Governors of the Rocky Mountain and Pacific Coast
States affirm as a platform of principles to be urged upon the National
Conservation Congress to be held at Saint Paul, September 5-9, 1910
First, that in legislatively solving the problem of Conservation the
National Congress adhere to the doctrine of Abraham Lincoln that the
public lands are an impermanent national possession, held in trust for
the maturing States.

Right on that point, I wish to refer to the splendid paper read here at the
opening of this afternoon's session by that brilliant, honest, and patriotic
statesman, Senator Nelson (applause), outlining the public land laws. I call
your attention to the fact that at the beginning of this great Nation of ours
the Federal Government acquired, by cession from the States, by treaties
with the Indians, and by purchase and conquest, all this vast public-land
territory, the early idea being that this public domain was to be sold for the
payment of the Revolutionary War debt and for the running expenses of the
Government; though that early idea was quickly transformed and changed,
owing to the insistent demand of the settlers, and the pre-emption laws
(with which you are all familiar) followed as the second step. They were a
sort of settlement and revenue measure combined; but still the insistent
demand of the settlers would not stop, and gradually we reached that stage
where the homestead law was passed, and signed by Abraham Lincoln in
1862, giving the settlers 160 acres of land as the result of settlement and
cultivation, doing away entirely with the old revenue idea; and under that
one law this great State of Minnesota, and every other State in this central
country, has developed to a degree unparalleled in the history of human
progress (applause). Now, all the West asks is an even break; all the West
asks is an equal opportunity. How can we educate our children, how can we
maintain good government and good law, how can we do all those

necessary and essential things to maintain a high state of civilization and
progress, if over one-half of the State is to be held permanently as a Federal
resource, giving no taxation or revenue whatever to the support of our State
governments? (Applause) It is utterly impossible. We of the West are just as
bitterly opposed to monopoly, just as bitterly opposed to any misuse of the
natural resources of this country as any of you gentlemen here assembled
(applause); but we do believe that the States themselves can in a great
measure work out the safest and best conservation. I might get started here
and go on talking, and I do not want to do it; I want to read the other
resolutions:

Second, that State government, no less beneficently than National
Government, is capable of devising and administering laws for the
conservation of public property; and that the National and State
governments should legislatively coordinate to the end that within a
reasonable period of time the State governments be conceded full and
complete administration of such Conservation laws as may be found
adaptable to the varying conditions of the several States.

The idea being that conditions vary so tremendously—just as you have
heard from the Governor of Mississippi and the Governor of Illinois, the
latter of whom told you about a monopoly stepping in and stopping the
State development of the water-power along one of their streams. Such a
condition is absolutely impossible in the West, because that old law of
riparian rights does not apply; there is no law in the West whereby we are
compelled to allow the water in the streams to flow by your property
undiminished in quantity and undefiled in quality. In the West the law of
appropriation applies, the law of use. Under the Constitution of Wyoming,
granting twenty years ago, we were given all the water of the State,
everywhere and every place; we cannot part title with it, we hold it, and we
will always hold it. Talk about monopoly! How absolutely impossible,
under the laws of Wyoming! We have used this water wisely and well. I
picked out of a paper this afternoon a certificate of appropriation for power
granted in 1900, ten years ago: "Whereas, F. V. Andrews has presented to
the Board of Control of the State of Wyoming proof of the appropriation of
water from Sand creek, tributary to the Redwater territory, for enlargement
of Beulah flouring mill ditch, under permit 517 (enlargement for power and

milling purposes), now, know ye, that the Board of Control under the
provisions of Division 1, Title 9, Chapters 10 and 14 of the Revised Statutes
of Wyoming, 1899, has, by an order duly made and entered on the 28th day
of December, 1909, in order record No. 4, page 287, determined and
established the priority and amount of such appropriation as follows: name
of the proprietor, F. V. Andrews, postoffice, Beulah, Wyoming; amount of
appropriation, 145 cubic feet of water, date of appropriation, April 6, 1900.
Said ditch so located, the right to use water herein defined, shall not at any
time exceed the volume of 145 cubic feet per second, and the right shall at
all times be subject to any future regulation and restriction that may be
placed on the same by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming." (Applause)
It is absolutely impossible to get a monopoly of water-power in the State of
Wyoming, and such an instance as referred to by the Governor of Illinois
would be impossible. The State of Wyoming could simply refuse to allow
that company to use one drop of water; they have the power to do it, it is so
provided for in the Constitution, just as the State of Wyoming, if it chose,
could absolutely refuse to permit the general Government itself to use one
drop of water for power purposes. We have never had any power monopoly
in the State of Wyoming, and we do not intend to have.

Third, that experience of the Conservation States demonstrates that
dispositions of public property made under existing National
Conservation laws and regulations have tended to intrench monopolies
and interests menacing the common welfare; and that modifications of
such laws and regulations should be promoted by the Conservation
Congress.

Our great President this morning stated a great truth, and it came right to the
hearts of the western people. You can't understand it here, perhaps, but we
realize the importance of Conservation; but we have been talked to death on
it. What we want is action! We want the people to get busy; we do not want
all these things bottled up in cold storage; we want them used for the
generation of today. That is the important thing. As it is now in Wyoming,
every big coal company in the State is adding an increased price to its coal
to the consumer, who is already burdened beyond the point of endurance,
simply because there is no further development in these coal lands as they
stand today under the withdrawals; every ranchman in the State of

Wyoming is paying ten dollars a thousand more for his lumber than he had
to a few years ago—ten years ago, five years ago—owing to the fact that
development has ceased. The only monopolies that we are troubled with out
there are those that are unable to appraise their capital at present simply
because competition cannot come up and meet them on the markets under
present conditions.

Fourth, that the elimination from the forest reserves of all homestead
and untimbered grazing lands is immediately expedient.
Fifth, the use and control of all water-power inheres of right in the
States, within restrictions insuring perpetual freedom from monopoly.
Sixth, that the privilege of American citizens to seek and develop
mineral wealth wherever it may be found should be fully amplified and
secured by laws.
Seventh, that the idea of deriving Federal revenue from the physical
resources of the States is repugnant to that adjustment of constitutional
powers which guarantee the perpetuity of the Union. (Applause)

And with only one thought more I leave you: If the western States, never
having had the opportunity so far to develop their great natural resources as
you people of the East have, as Minnesota and the Atlantic States have, are
now to be changed entirely from the time-honored policy that has made
these States great and powerful; if now we are to be taxed, as we have been,
$150,000 a year for the forest-reserve grazing privileges, when that same
money is used in the great Empire State for forest protection free of cost,
then we of the West have a hard row to hoe. We simply ask the same fair
treatment as accorded every central and eastern State of the Union. It is not
right to tax the West for anything which you would not apply in one of the
great eastern States. We want our resources protected, we want them
safeguarded for our children and our children's children, but we want the
opportunity to make our young States grow and be prosperous, so that we
of the West will have those things of which we can be as proud as you
people of Minnesota are when you take a gentleman to your magnificent
State Capitol, to your great Agricultural College, and to your other great

schools—we want the same for our children and our children's children,
without Federal interference. (Applause)

Chairman Stubbs—I want to say a word here about a suggestion made by
the Montana Governor. I would like to ask Governor Norris if it is not a fact
that the Federal Government has led in irrigation in Montana?
Governor Norris—Has led?
Chairman Stubbs—Yes sir. Haven't they done a great deal of work to
develop your irrigation projects?
Governor Norris—For the last three or four years, yes.
Chairman Stubbs—Well, it is within the last three or four years that this
Conservation idea has been spreading out, taking root, and going out from
Washington; they didn't get started until Theodore Roosevelt got hold of it
(applause). As to the Federal Government undertaking to dominate the West
and discriminate against the West, I don't believe that it is in the heart or
mind of Gifford Pinchot or Theodore Roosevelt or anybody else to do that
(applause); but Gifford Pinchot has stood like a rock and fought like a tiger
to keep the thieves out of the Alaska coal fields (applause), and you ought
to build a monument to his memory for keeping the Cunningham claims off
the statute books and from legalizing by Congress, for it would have been
an everlasting disgrace to the American Nation to have millions and billions
of tons of coal stolen there. What did President Taft say this morning? He
said, "We believe in leasing those lands out there in Montana and in
Wyoming and all over this country." He does not believe in selling those
things; he doesn't believe in turning them over to the State, either. He said
as much here this morning (applause). He says, "Lease them for the benefit
of the people they belong to."
I tell you this Conservation idea, when it is put on the right sort of basis, is
the biggest thing that we have struck in a financial way in a long while; and
I tell you right now (I do not know how it happens, but it is a matter of fact)
I do know that the great syndicates and the great corporations that want to

gobble up all these coal lands and control these power sites, every bloody
one of them, want State control. (Applause, and cries of "Right, Right!")
And the reason they want State control is because the meshes are too small
in the national net; the Federal Government has given them genuine
supervision and genuine control of national resources, and I thank God for
it, too (applause). I want it to keep coming right along. I would not stand for
one minute to see the West discriminated against; I do not believe in taxing
Montana or Wyoming for anything that you would not tax New York or
Pennsylvania for; neither does Theodore Roosevelt, for he grew up out in
that country and he is one of them and his whole heart is with them; he
wouldn't see one iota of discrimination, and nobody else would; but I say to
you that it is the great electric power organizations and combinations—it
centers down to four or five or six fellows—that are trying to monopolize
all the power sites in the United States! That's what's the matter now; and
those fellows think if they could get the whole thing in the hands of State
legislatures they could dicker and trade with them (applause and cheers).
They know they cannot do it at Washington. That is all there is to this whole
problem; and I say to you today that the American people ought to build a
monument to Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot for the work they
have done in this line (great applause), to say nothing about the other great
work that has been done. I would like to see those Alaska coal thieves sent
to jail (laughter and applause), and for my part I do not take any stock in the
Ballinger idea of running things up there, either (tremendous applause). If I
were President of the United States, I'd kick Ballinger out of that Cabinet in
five minutes, that's what I'd do. (Great and enthusiastic applause) We might
as well tell the truth about it, too. I say to you that this work has started, and
it has started along broad, decent, National lines; the States have plenty to
do right now if they will attend to business; they have seventy-five percent
of the forests now in private hands with only about twenty-five percent
under Federal control, and two-thirds of all the great coal interests of this
country in private hands with only one-third vested in the Federal
Government; I'd like to see the Federal Government look out for these
power sites, and when the contract is made, let it be made in such a way as
they can control it. Taft made some good suggestions this morning, and I
want to give him credit for it (laughter and applause).

I did not mean to make a speech; I meant to introduce Governor Vessey.
(Laughter and applause, and cries of "Go on, go on") We have great men
here that are ready to talk, and I must close in a few minutes. Governor
Vessey, of South Dakota. (Applause)

Governor Vessey—Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: You can readily
see by the color of that man's hair (indicating Governor Stubbs) that he
wears the Kansas emblem on his head (laughter and applause) and is not
afraid to say something.
Now, in regard to Conservation, I am a good deal like John was the
afternoon he was out riding with Mary. For some reason or other he wanted
to know whether Mary thought enough of him to marry him, and yet he
wasn't quite ready to make her his wife. But he put the question anyway,
and she immediately accepted him. They rode along for some distance in
silence. Finally she asked, "John, why don't you say something?" He
replied, "There's been too much said already!" (Great laughter and
applause) And there have been lots of good things said today.
South Dakota is in a peculiar position. It is not in the southern part of the
United States, neither is it in the extreme northwestern part; it doesn't even
join Kansas (laughter), though it has some of the same kind of spirit
(applause). The eastern part of South Dakota is a strip of country two
hundred miles square, and there is no richer, no more uniform, no better
farming land in the United States than that part of South Dakota; the
western part of the State goes into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. In
this western part is a great forest reserve; and I want to say I believe that in
the State of South Dakota the National Government is doing the best work
in preserving the natural forest done anywhere in the United States. Still
you find in the western part of our State a great deal of the same spirit that
you find in Wyoming, Montana, and Washington. Why? Because of local
interests. You see this is largely a local question; and what suits Kansas or
Mississippi, somehow or other does not suit Wyoming. It is like the tariff
question; and it will probably never be settled until it is settled by an expert
commission which will deal with the matter as a whole. (Applause)

I believe largely—very largely, indeed—in State rights. I believe the State
should control and own the water-power of streams that are not navigable
and that it should be within its province to provide that the waters should
first be used for the soil and secondarily be used for furnishing water power
to turn the wheels of industry and thereby make the State richer. For we
must admit—just as your great Governor of Minnesota has said—the first
duty of the people of the United States is to preserve the soil (applause),
because the crop that comes annually from the soil yields the greatest
revenue that the United States will ever have; and we must have it, and
must have it increased if we expect to support the increasing population of
the United States at a reasonable cost so that they can work at reasonable
wages and support homes—possibly not of luxury, but of all the comforts
that citizens are entitled to.
I appreciate the position that has been taken in the conservation of coal; I
appreciate the conservation of timber, of phosphate lands, of oil, and of gas;
but I want to say that the same conditions that have been referred to upon
this platform with reference to the disposing of power from water-power
plants at the lowest minimum cost should apply in the same way to these
other natural resources—yet you will notice that in the report of the
National Forester it is shown that we have been selling stumpage at market
prices. They propose to sell the coal and the gas and the oil, and possibly
the phosphate, at market prices. If that is true, it is not real Conservation in
the interest of the consumer; because if we only own one-third of the coal
and the private individuals who own two-thirds fix the prices, and if the
Government follows them in fixing the prices, where does the consumer
derive any benefit (applause). The same rule should apply to timber. I can
show you, in our own State, where there are parts of the national forests that
are ripe and should be cut into lumber, and that lumber should be building
homes on our broad prairies. But the price the Government has fixed on the
stumpage is too great for mill-men to buy it and manufacture it and sell it,
even at the high price of lumber out in that country. Now, who is suffering?
The men that are endeavoring to build homes on that prairie. I think we
ought to be intelligent on those things. I think we ought to use the timber,
and we ought to use the coal, and we ought to use the phosphates, in the
upbuilding of this country, and give it to the consumers, if possible, at a

price at which they can use it, and not at a price that may be set by the large
combinations or trusts that control these products. I thank you. (Applause)

Chairman Stubbs—We were expected to get through here at 5 oclock and it
is now ten minutes after 6. I regret that there is not time to allow a dozen or
fifteen mighty fine men to continue this discussion. The session is
adjourned.

THIRD SESSION
The Congress convened in the Auditorium, Saint Paul, on the morning of
September 6, 1910, and was called to order by President Baker.
President Baker—Ladies and Gentlemen. We have a few minutes before
our honored guest Colonel Roosevelt arrives. We shall occupy that time in
routine business. At Seattle, where this Congress was formed, the
organization was left to an Executive Committee and a Board of Directors.
They are now prepared to submit a report; but the first and most important
question relates to credentials, on which the Congress at large may properly
act.
A Delegate—Mr Chairman, I move that the Chair be authorized to appoint
a committee of five on credentials.
President Baker—Gentlemen, you have heard the motion. Is it seconded?
(The motion was seconded) If there is no discussion, the motion will be put.
All those in favor of the motion will signify their pleasure by saying aye.
A Voice—What is the question?
President Baker—The motion is that the Chair be authorized to appoint a
committee of five on credentials. All in favor will say aye. Contrary nay. It
is a unanimous vote.
The Chair will appoint on that committee Edward Hines, of Chicago,
chairman (and will ask him to call his committee together as soon as
possible); George K. Smith, of Saint Louis, R. W. Douglas, of Seattle,
Charles H. Pack, of Cleveland, Lynn R. Meekins, of Baltimore.
The next important business will be consideration of a Constitution and By-
Laws, which Professor Condra will read.
Professor Condra—Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am asked to
read the draft of a constitution that you may know that it comes from the
State organizations. Your various State committeemen met and adopted the

draft submitted to us by the Executive Committee; therefore the proposed
Constitution has the approval of two bodies, one State and one National.
(Professor Condra proceeded with the reading of the Constitution as
submitted; after reaching Article VI—)
A Delegate—Mr President, as the time is late, and as the Executive
Committee have passed upon Constitution and it has been approved by the
representatives of the States in the form presented, I move that the further
reading be suspended and that the Constitution be adopted. (Applause)
President Baker—Is the motion seconded? (Several voices seconded the
motion) All in favor will say aye; contrary nay. Carried without dissenting
voice. (Applause)
Some announcements will now be made by the gentleman from Nebraska.
Professor Condra—Ladies and Gentlemen: In order that there may be
proper representation of the various delegations in the Committee on
Resolutions, it is again urged that all members of each delegation meet and
select their representatives. If chairmen of delegations will give us the place
and time of meeting we will gladly announce it from this platform. Thus far
we have not heard of time and place for meeting of delegations from New
Hampshire, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Minnesota,
Kansas, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, or Nevada.
[Several announcements of meetings of delegations were here made.]

President Baker—We will now listen to an address from Honorable John
Barrett, a man known around the world as the Director of the Bureau of
American Republics. (Applause)

Mr Barrett—Ladies and Gentlemen: If I had the fascinating capacity of
Governor Stubbs, of Kansas (applause), I might be able to do justice to this

occasion; but I have been sitting in yonder corner, behind three noble
Governors each ready to speak, beside the representative of the British
government—which today is watching with great interest this gathering—
not expecting for a moment that I would be called upon today; and it is only
that I may be true to my New England birth and my western training that I
rise in response to the suggestions of your Chairman. (Applause) If any
reason renders it at all fitting that I should say a word, it is because perhaps
I have the honor of representing here today some twenty nations as showing
their interest in this great Conservation movement which is sweeping over
the wide world (applause). I want to tell you that as this movement grows,
under the splendid leadership of the men who are blazing the way, it will
become the policy of every American country from Alaska and Canada on
the north to Argentina and Chile on the south (applause). We shall hear not
only from the United States but from our sister nations of Mexico, Brazil,
Argentina, and Chile in this effort to make the world realize that if we are to
provide for ourselves and for all men who are to come, we must be minute-
men—the minute-men of the present day.
Ladies and Gentlemen, all the world is listening to what was said yesterday,
on this platform, and all the world will listen, even more earnestly, to what
is said today (applause and cheers); and these two great pronunciamentos
on Conservation will be read in every corner of the globe, and you and I
will be proud that we have participated in this great movement. (Applause)

[Numerous calls were made for Governor Stubbs.]
Governor Stubbs—Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: It gives me great
pleasure to be here this morning in anticipation of hearing a great speech
from the greatest American and the greatest citizen of the world.
(Vociferous applause) I am proud of our country; I am proud of her
achievements; I am proud of the great State of Kansas, the greatest State in
America (great applause), and I am proud to tell you that we won't meet in a
bar-room today (laughter and applause), and that we do not have bar-rooms
to meet in down in Kansas (great applause and cheers); and I want to tell
you that in Kansas the idea of letting men spend their money for shoes and

clothes and schools and homes has proved a blooming success (laughter and
applause and cheers) as compared with the fellow who works by the week
and makes ten or twenty or forty dollars and spends it in a saloon Saturday
night. (Renewed applause)
You have come here today to consider one of the great problems of the age
and you will hear from a master mind, from the great leader of this
movement, the policies and the plans and the propositions by which the
work will be carried forward. I do not propose to take up your valuable time
this morning in any discussion of a question of such splendid proportions
that I would not have time to get started nor time in which to stop.
(Applause)

Ex-President Roosevelt here entered the hall amid cheers and rousing
enthusiasm and mounted the platform.

President Baker (when silence was restored)—Reverend Doctor J. S.
Montgomery, Pastor of Fowler Methodist Episcopal Church, Minneapolis,
will now offer an invocation.
Invocation
Almighty God, Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Thou art the
source of all mercy, love, and blessing. Lift upon us all the light of Thy holy
countenance.
From the beginning Thou hast never been without a witness in the world,
and Thou hast never left us comfortless. Give unto us, O God, the Source of
all wisdom, a great measure of Thy wisdom, truth, and blessing. We
recognize in Thee the source of every good and perfect thing in all the
world. Thou hast opened up this new great world; and on this auspicious
occasion, look Thou upon us in mercy. Bless our great land. Grant that
every source of material blessing may be conserved to serve all the people;

grant that our citizenship may be blessed and directed from border to
border. Remember our country; remember the great Southland, the great
Northland; bless the great East and the great West; and may all of our
people everywhere have bread enough and to spare, and may we recognize
that our supremest duty is not to build up institutions fit for man but to build
up man fit for institutions.
Bless Thou the Governors of all the States. Remember our great
Government, its legislative, its judicial and its executive branches.
Remember in mercy the President of these United States; and bless Thou
our most distinguished guest and most conspicuous citizen in all the world,
who is with us this day. Look upon him in mercy, guide him and direct him
in wisdom, and grant that no peril may come nigh him.
Bless Thou our flag; may it float on until all nations see the blessings of our
great Republic; may it float on until all selfishness dies out of the world's
heart; may it float on until all ignorance shall be gone; may it float on until
the nations of the earth shall be united in a brotherhood around and about
which are wreathed the blessings and the wisdom of Thy holy and undying
self.
Be Thou in the deliberations of this great body; grant that wisdom and truth
may be uppermost in the minds of all who are here. Accept Thou our
gratitude for thy abiding mercy, and at the last, O Lord, gather us all into
the haven of eternal rest. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, we ask it. Amen.

President Baker—Ladies and Gentlemen: It is now my pleasure to present
that citizen of our country who in three continents has evoked the greatest
enthusiasm, and who has done for this country no greater service than in
forwarding and extending the work of Conservation to protect the natural
resources and in carrying out the principles of fair dealing between man and
man; our most honored citizen, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. (Great
applause and cheers for many minutes)

ADDRESS BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Mr Chairman, and Governor; Governors, and fellow-guests; Men and
Women of Minnesota: It is a very great pleasure to me to be here in
Minnesota again, and especially to come here to speak on this particular
subject of "National Efficiency." (Applause)
Minnesota is one of the States that almost always takes the lead in any great
work (applause), and Minnesota has been one of the first to take hold of the
Conservation policy in practical fashion; and she has done a great work and
set an admirable example to the rest of us (applause)—a work representing
a policy well set forth in your Governor's address yesterday—and I am glad
that this Congress is held in such a State, where we can listen to such an
address made by a Governor who had the right to make it. (Prolonged
applause)
Much that I have to say on the general policy of Conservation will be but a
repetition of what was so admirably said on this general policy by the
President of the United States yesterday (great applause); and in particular
all true friends of Conservation should be in heartiest agreement with the
policy which the President laid down in connection with the coal, oil, and
phosphate lands (applause), and I am glad to be able to say that at its last
session Congress finally completed the work of separating the surface title
to the land from the mineral beneath it. (Applause)
Now, my friends, America's reputation for efficiency stands deservedly high
throughout the world. We are efficient probably to the full limits that are
permitted by the methods hitherto used. The average American is an
efficient man; he can do his business. It is recognized throughout the world
that that is his type. There is great reason to be proud of our achievements,
and yet no reason to think that we cannot excel our past (applause).
Through a practically unrestrained individualism, we have reached a pitch
of literally unexampled material prosperity. The sum of our prosperity in the
aggregate leaves little to be desired, although the distribution of that
prosperity, from the standpoint of justice and fair dealing, leaves a little
more to be desired (laughter and applause). But we have not only allowed
the individual a free hand, which was in the main right; we have also
allowed great corporations to act as though they were individuals, and to
exercise the rights of individuals, in addition to using the vast combined
power of high organization and enormous wealth for their own advantage.

This development of corporate action is doubtless in large part responsible
for the gigantic development of our natural resources, but it is also true that
it is in large part responsible for waste, destruction, and monopoly on an
equally gigantic scale. (Applause)
The method of reckless and uncontrolled private use and waste has done for
us all the good it can ever do, and it is time to put an end to it before it does
the evil that it well may (applause). We have passed the time when heedless
waste and destruction and arrogant monopoly are longer permissible
(applause). Henceforth we must seek national efficiency by a new and a
better way, by the way of the orderly development and use, coupled with
the preservation, of our natural resources; by making the most of what we
have for the benefit of all of us, instead of leaving the sources of material
prosperity open to indiscriminate exploitation (applause). These are some of
the reasons why it is wise that we should abandon the old point of view, and
why Conservation has become a great moral issue, and become a patriotic
duty.
One of the greatest of our Conservation problems is the wise and prompt
development and use of the waterways of the Nation (applause). There are
classes of bulk freight which always go cheaper and better by water if there
is an adequate waterway (applause), and the existence of such a type of
waterway in itself helps to regulate railroad rates (applause). The Twin
Cities, lying as they do at the headwaters of the Mississippi, are not on the
direct line of the proposed Lakes-to-Gulf Deep Waterway, and yet
Minnesota, with its vast iron resources and its need of abundant coal, is
peculiarly interested in that problem (applause); and the Twin Cities,
therefore, have their own real personal concern in the deepening and
regulation of the Mississippi to the mouth of the Missouri and on to the
Gulf. (Applause)
Friends, I have spoken on how progressive Minnesota is and how
progressive these Twin Cities are, but there are other progressive cities in
the West, too (applause). I have just come from Kansas City (applause)—
it's a pretty live proposition (laughter), and there the merchants themselves
have undertaken, by raising over a million dollars, to start the improvement
of the waterway lying at their doors so that they shall be able to benefit by
it. It is sometimes said that the waterway projects are only backed by people

who are delighted to see the Government spend its money but who are not
willing to show their faith in the proposition by spending their own. Kansas
City is spending its own (applause). The project for a great trunk waterway,
an arm of the sea extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes
should be abandoned (applause). Of course, before any project is entered
upon, an absolutely competent and disinterested commission should report
thereon in full to the Government so that the Government can act in the
interest of the whole people and without regard to the pressure of special
interests (applause), but subject to the action of such a body the Lakes-to-
Gulf Deep Waterway, and the development of the rivers which flow into it,
should be pushed to completion vigorously and without delay. (Applause)
In nearly every river city from Saint Paul to the Gulf the waterfront is
controlled by the railways. Nearly every artificial waterway in the United
States, either directly or indirectly, is under the same control. It goes
without saying that (unless the people prevent it in advance) the railways
will always attempt to take control of our waterways as fast as they are
improved and completed; and I do not mention this to blame them in the
least, but to blame us if we permit them to do it. (Great applause and
cheers) If Uncle Sam can't take care of himself, then there is no particular
reason why any railroad man should act as his guardian. (Great laughter and
applause) If he attempted the feat he would merely find himself lonely
among other railroads (laughter), and Uncle Sam wouldn't be materially
benefitted. Uncle Sam's got to do the job himself if he wants to be protected
(applause). We must see to it that adequate terminals are provided in every
city and town on every improved waterway, terminals open under
reasonable conditions to the use of every citizen, and rigidly protected
against being monopolized (applause); and we must compel the railways to
cooperate with the waterways continuously, effectively, and under
reasonable conditions. Unless we do this, the railway lines will refuse to
deliver freight to the boat lines either openly or by imposing prohibitory
conditions, and the waterways once improved will do comparatively little
for the benefit of the people who pay for them.
Adequate terminals, properly controlled, and open through lines by rail and
boat, are two absolutely essential conditions to the usefulness of internal
waterway development. I believe, furthermore, that the railways should be
prohibited from owning, controlling, or carrying any interest in the boat

lines on our rivers (applause), unless under the strictest regulation and
control of the Interstate Commerce Commission, so that the shippers'
interests may be fully protected.
And now here another word in supplement: You are the people; now don't
sit supine and let the railways gain control of the boat lines and then turn
around and say that the men at the head of the railroads are very bad men
(laughter and applause). If you leave it open to them to control the boat
lines, some of them are sure to do so, and it's to our interest that the best and
ablest among them should do so. But don't let any of them do it, excepting
under the conditions you lay down (applause). In other words, my friends,
when you of your own fault permit the rules of the game to be such that you
are absolutely certain to get the worst of it at the hands of some one else,
don't blame the other man; change the rules of the game. (Laughter and
applause and prolonged cheering)
Take the question of drainage, which is almost as important to the eastern
States as irrigation is in the western States: Where the drainage of swamp
and overflow lands in a given area is wholly within the lines of a particular
State, it may be well, at least at present, to leave the handling of it to the
State or to private action; but where such a drainage area is included in two
or more States, the only wise course is to have the Federal Government act
(applause); the land should be deeded from the States back to the Federal
Government, and it then should take whatever action is necessary
(applause). Much of this work must be done by the Nation, in any case, as
an integral part of inland waterway development, and it affords a most
promising field for cooperation between the States and the Nation
(applause). The people of the United States believe in the complete and
well-rounded development of inland waterways for all the useful purposes
they can be made to subserve. They believe also in forest protection and
forest extension. The fight for our National forests in the West has been
won, and if after winning it we now go on and lose it, that is our own affair;
but we are not going to do it! (Applause) After a campaign in which her
women did work which should secure to them the perpetual gratitude of
their State, Minnesota won her National forest, and she will keep it
(applause); but the fight to create the Southern Appalachian and White
Mountain forests in the East is not yet over. The bill has passed the House,
and will come before the Senate for a vote next February. The people of the

United States, regardless of party or section, should stand solidly behind it
and see that their representatives do so likewise (applause). Because our
ancestors didn't have sufficient foresight, the Nation is now obliged to
spend great sums of money to take responsibilities from the States. We, the
people of the East, our State Governors—I have been a Governor of an
eastern State myself (applause)—showed that the States in the East couldn't
do the work as well as the National Government and we are now getting the
National Government to take, at large cost to itself, these lands and do the
work the public good requires (applause). When we are now doing that in
the East, it seems to me the wildest folly to ask us to start in the West to
repeat the same blunders that are now being remedied (applause and
cheers). My language shall at least be free from ambiguity.
If any proof were needed that forest protection is a National duty, the recent
destruction of forests in the Rocky Mountains by fire would supply it. Even
with the aid of the Army added to that of the Forest Service, the loss has
been severe. Without either it would have been vastly greater. But the
Forest Service does more than protect the National forests against fire. It
makes them practically and increasingly useful as well. During the last year
for which I have figures the National forests were used by 22,000 cattlemen
with their herds, 5,000 sheepmen with their flocks, 5,000 timbermen with
their crews, and 45,000 miners. And yet people will tell you they have been
shut up from popular use! (Applause) More than 5,000 persons used them
for other special industries. Nearly 34,000 settlers had the free use of water.
The total resident population of the National forests is about a quarter of a
million, which is larger than the population of some of our States. More
than 700,000 acres of agricultural land have been patented or listed for
patent within the forests, and the reports of the forest officers show that
more than 400,000 people a year use the forests for recreation, camping,
hunting, fishing and similar purposes. All this is done, of course, without
injury to the timber, which has a value of at least a thousand million dollars.
Moreover, the National forests protect the water supply of a thousand cities
and towns, about 800 irrigation projects, and more than 300 power projects,
not counting the use of water for these and other purposes by individual
settlers. I think that hereafter we may safely disregard any statements that
the National forests are withdrawn from settlement and usefulness
(applause).

Conservation has to do not only with natural resources; it has to do with the
lives of those who enable the rest of us to make use of those natural
resources. The investigations of the Country Life Commission have led the
farmers of this country to realize that they have not been getting their fair
share of progress and all that it brings. Some of our farming communities in
the Mississippi valley and in the middle West have made marvelous
progress, and yet even the best of them, like communities of every other
kind, are not beyond improvement, and those that are not the best need
improvement very much. As yet we know but little of the basic facts of the
conditions of rural life compared to what we know about the conditions, for
instance, of industrial life. The means for better farming we have studied
with care, but to better living on the farm, and to better business on the farm
—I mean by that, having the farmer use the middleman where it is to the
farmer's advantage and not be used by the middleman chiefly to the
middleman's advantage (applause)—scant attention has been paid. One of
the most urgent needs of our civilization is that the farmers themselves
should undertake to get for themselves a better knowledge along these lines.
Horace Plunkett, an Irishman, for many years a Wyoming ranchman, has
suggested in his recent book on "The Country Life Problem in America" the
creation of a Country Life Institute as a center where the work and
knowledge of the whole world concerning country life may be brought
together for the use of the Nation. I strongly sympathize with his ideas. Last
spring, while visiting the capital of Hungary, Buda-Pesth, I was immensely
impressed by the Museum of Country Life, which contained an
extraordinary series of studies in agriculture, in stock-raising, in forestry, in
mining. It was one of the most interesting places I ever visited, and the
exhibits were not merely interesting and instructive, they were of the utmost
practical importance; and I felt rather ashamed that I, a citizen of what we
suppose to be a very go-ahead country, should be in Hungary and obliged to
confess we had nothing at all like that in our own country. I wish we had
such a museum in Washington, and some of your farmer congressmen
ought to get a detailed report of this Buda-Pesth museum to be printed for
distribution as a public document (applause). I would like to see a study
made of such museums, so that we may take what is good in them for our
own use here in America. (Applause)

As a people we have not yet learned the virtue of thrift. It is a mere truism
to say that luxury and extravagance are not good for a Nation. So far as they
affect character, the loss they cause may be beyond computation. But in a
material sense there is a loss greater than is caused by both extravagance
and luxury put together. I mean the needless, useless and excessive loss to
our people from premature death and avoidable diseases. It has been
calculated that the material loss to the Federal Government in such ways is
nearly twice what it costs to run the Federal Government.
One of the most important meetings in our recent history was that of the
Governors in the White House in May, 1908, to consider the Conservation
question (applause). By the advice of the Governors, the meeting was
followed by the appointment of a National Conservation Commission. The
meeting of the Governors directed the attention of the country to
Conservation as nothing else could have done, while the work of the
Commission gave the movement definiteness, and supplied it with a
practical program. Now, my friends, so far, I have had nothing but praise to
speak of Minnesota; but I cannot continue to speak only words of praise. At
the moment when this Commission was ready to begin the campaign for
putting its program into effect, an amendment to the Sundry Civil Bill was
introduced by a congressman from Minnesota, with the purpose of putting a
stop to the work so admirably begun. (Sensation) Congress passed the
amendment. Its object was to put an end to the work of a number of
commissions which had been appointed by the President, and whose
contributions to the public welfare had been simply incalculable. (Voice:
"Now, what do you think of Tawney?" and laughter) Among these were the
Commission for Reorganization of the Business Methods of the
Government, the Public Lands Commission, the Country Life Commission,
and the National Conservation Commission itself. When I signed the
Sundry Civil Bill containing this amendment, I transmitted with it, as my
last official act, a memorandum declaring that the amendment was void
because it was an unconstitutional interference with the rights of the
Executive and that if I were to remain President I would pay to it no
attention whatever (enthusiastic applause and cheers). The National
Conservation Commission thereupon became dormant. The suspension of
its work came at a most unfortunate time, and there was serious danger that
the progress already made would be lost. At this critical moment the

National Conservation Association was organized. It took up work which
otherwise would not have been done; if it had not done it we wouldn't have
had this meeting here (applause), and it exercised a most useful influence in
preventing bad legislation, in securing the introduction of better
Conservation measures at the past session of Congress, and in promoting
the passage of wise laws. It deserves the confidence and support of every
citizen interested in the wise development and preservation of our natural
resources (applause) and in preventing them from passing into the hands of
uncontrolled monopolies (applause). It joins with the National Conservation
Congress in holding this meeting. I am here by the joint invitation of both.
(Applause)
When the Government of the United States awoke to the idea of
Conservation and saw that it was good, it lost no time in communicating the
advantages of the new point of view to its immediate neighbors among the
nations. A North American Conservation Conference was held in
Washington, and the cooperation of Canada and Mexico in the great
problem of developing the resources of the continent for the benefit of the
people was asked and promised. The Nations upon our northern and
southern boundaries wisely realized that their opportunity to conserve their
natural resources was better than ours, because with them destruction and
monopolization had not gone so far as they had with us. So it is with the
republics of Central and South America. Obviously they are on the verge of
a period of great material progress. The development of their natural
resources—their forests, their mines, their waters, and their soils—will
create enormous wealth. It is to the mutual interests of the United States and
our sister American Republics that this development should be wisely done.
Our manufacturing industries offer a market for more and more of their
natural wealth and raw material, while they will wish our products in
exchange. The more we buy from them, the more we shall sell to them.
Thank Heaven, we of this hemisphere are now beginning to realize, what in
the end the whole world will realize, that normally it is a good thing for a
Nation to have its neighbors prosper (great applause). We of the United
States are genuinely and heartily pleased to see growth and prosperity in
Canada, in Mexico, in South America (applause). I wish we could impress
upon certain small Republics to the south of us, whose history has not
always been happy, that all we ask of them is to be prosperous and peaceful

(laughter and applause). We do not want to interfere, it is particularly the
thing that we dislike doing; all we ask of any Nation on this hemisphere is
that it shall be prosperous and peaceful, able to do reasonable justice within
its own boundaries and to the stranger within its gates; and any Nation that
is able to do that can count on our heartiest and most friendly support.
(Applause)
It is clear that unless the governments of our southern neighbors take steps
in the near future by wise legislation to control the development and use of
their natural resources, they will probably fall into the hands of
concessionaires and promoters, whose single purpose, without regard to the
permanent welfare of the land in which they work, will be to make the most
possible money in the shortest possible time. There will be shameful waste,
destructive loss, and short-sighted disregard of the future, as we have
learned by bitter experience here at home. Unless the governments of all the
American Republics, including our own, enact in time such laws as will
both protect their natural wealth and promote their legitimate and
reasonable development, future generations will owe their misfortunes to us
of today. A great patriotic duty calls upon us. We owe it to ourselves and to
them to give the other American Republics all the help we can. The cases in
which we have failed should be no less instructive than the cases in which
we have succeeded. With prompt action and good will the task of saving the
resources for the people is full of hope for us all.
But while we of the United States are anxious, as I believe we are able, to
be of assistance to others, there are problems of our own which must not be
overlooked. One of the most important Conservation questions of the
moment relates to the control of water-power monopoly in the public
interest (applause). There is apparent to the judicious observer a distinct
tendency on the part of our opponents to cloud the issue by raising the
question of State as against Federal jurisdiction (applause). We are ready to
meet this issue if it is forced upon us (applause), but there is no hope for the
plain people in such conflicts of jurisdiction. The essential question is not
one of hair splitting legal technicalities (applause). It is not really a question
of State against Nation, it is really a question of the special corporate
interests against the popular interests of the people. (Tremendous applause
and cheers) If it were not for those special corporate interests, you never
would have heard the question of State against Nation raised (great

applause and cheers). The real question is simply this, Who can best
regulate the special interests for the country's good? (Voices: "Theodore
Roosevelt!" and prolonged applause and cheers) Most of the great
corporations, and almost all of those that can legitimately be called the great
predatory corporations (laughter), have interstate affiliations: therefore they
are out of reach of effective State control, and fall of necessity within the
Federal jurisdiction (applause). One of the prime objects of those among
them that are grasping and greedy is to avoid any effective control either by
State or Nation; and they advocate at this time State control chiefly because
they believe it to be the least effective (applause). If it grew effective, many
of those now defending it would themselves turn around and declare against
State control, and plead in the courts that such control was unconstitutional
(applause). I had my own experience (applause and laughter); I'll give you
an example of it. When I was Governor of New York, there came up a bill
to tax the franchises of certain big street railway corporations. As originally
introduced, the bill provided that the taxation should be imposed by the
several counties and localities in which those corporations did business.
Representatives of the corporations came to me and said that this would
work a great hardship upon them, that the State authority would be more
just, that the local authorities (especially where a railroad ran through two
or three towns or counties) would each endeavor to get the whole benefit of
the taxation for their own locality, and that, in the name of justice, I ought
to agree to have the State and not the localities made the taxing power. I
thought their plea just, and recommended and sanctioned the change. The
bill was made a law; and those same corporations instantly entered suit
against it on the ground that it was unconstitutional (laughter and applause)
to take the power of taxation away from the localities and give it to the
State (renewed laughter and applause); and they carried the suit up to the
Supreme Court of the United States where, during my own term as
President, it was decided against them. (Applause)
In the great fight of the people to drive the special interests from the
domination of the Government, the Nation is stronger, and its jurisdiction is
more effective than that of any State (applause). I want to say another thing,
which the representatives of those corporations do not at the moment
believe, but which I am sure that in the end they will find out; because of its
strength, because of the fact that the Federal Government is better able to

exact justice from them, I also believe it is less apt, in some sudden gust of
popular passion, to do injustice to them (applause). Now, I want you to
understand my position—I do not think you can misunderstand it. I will do
my utmost to secure the rights of every corporation. If a corporation is
improperly attacked, I will stand up for it to the best of my ability; I'd stand
up for it even though I was sure that the bulk of the people were misguided
enough at the moment to take the wrong side and be against it (applause). I
should fight to see that the people, through the National Government, did
full justice to the corporations; but I don't want the National Government to
depend only upon their good will to get justice for the people. (Great
applause) Now, most of the great corporations are in large part financed and
owned in the Atlantic States, and it's a rather comical fact that many of the
chief and most zealous upholders of States' rights in the present controversy
are big business men who live in other States (applause). The most effective
weapon is Federal laws and the Federal Executive. That is why I so strongly
oppose the demand to turn these matters over to the States. It is
fundamentally a demand against the interest of the plain people, of the
people of small means, against the interest of our children and our children's
children; and it is primarily in the interest of the great corporations which
wish to escape effective Government control. (Applause)
And I ask you to consider two more things in this connection: Waters run;
they don't stay in one State (laughter and applause). That fact seems
elementary, but it tends to be forgotten. I have just come from Kansas.
Practically all the water in Kansas runs into Kansas from another State, and
out of it into other States. You can't have effective control of a watershed
unless the same power controls all the watersheds (applause and cries of
"Good"), as the water runs not merely out one State into another but out of
one country into another. One of the great irrigation projects of Montana
has been delayed because the Waters that make the Milk river rise in
Montana, flow north into Canada, and then come back into Montana. You
can't settle that matter excepting through the National Government
(applause); the State can't settle it. So much for what we see here. Now, take
the experience of other Nations—of the little Republic of Switzerland. It
actually tried what some of our people ask to try; it actually tried the
experiment of letting each Canton handle its own waters, and a conflict of
jurisdiction arose, and the squabbling and the injustices became such that

about nine years ago the National Government of Switzerland had to
assume complete control of all the waters of Switzerland, on the explicit
ground that all of the waters belonged to all the citizens of the Swiss nation
(great applause). Now, I am not asking that we go ahead recklessly; I am
only asking that we do not go backward where other countries have gone
ahead. (Applause)
As the President yesterday pointed out, one of the difficulties that we have
to meet, in connection with the fight for Conservation, is that our aim is
continually misrepresented—that the effect is constantly made to show that
we are anxious to retard development. It has been no slight task to bring
ninety millions of people to understand what the movement is, and to
convince them that it is right. Much remains to be cleared up in the minds
of the people, and there are many misunderstandings to be removed. For
example, we find it constantly said by men who should know better that
temporary withdrawals, such as the withdrawals of the coal lands, will
permanently check development. Yet the fact is that these withdrawals have
no purpose whatever except to prevent the coal lands from passing into
private ownership until Congress passes laws to open them under
conditions just alike to the public and to the men who will do the
developing (applause). And, now understand me; if there is any doubt
whether the conditions are liberal enough to the men who are to do the
developing. I always solve the doubt in favor of liberality to those men; I
want to give them every chance, I want to give them every opportunity to
do well for themselves, but I want to see that in doing well for themselves
they also do well for the rest of us. (Applause)
In spite of these difficulties, most of which are doubtless inevitable in any
movement of this kind, the cause of Conservation has made marvelous
progress. We have a right to congratulate ourselves on it, but there is no
reason for believing that the fight is won. In the beginning the special
interests, who are our chief opponents now, paid little heed to the
movement, because they neither understood it nor saw that if it won they
must lose. But with the progress of Conservation in the minds of the people,
the fight is getting sharper. The nearer we approach to victory, the bitterer
the opposition that we must meet and the greater the need for caution and
watchfulness. Open opposition we can overcome, but we must guard
ourselves; and you of this Congress must especially guard yourselves

against the men who are really corporate agents but who pose as
disinterested outsiders (applause). Now I heartily approve the action of any
corporation which comes here openly because it is interested in the
deliberations of a meeting such as this, and by its openly accredited agents
presents views which it believes the meeting should have in mind
(applause); I approve of the corporation that does that, and I would despise
any of our people who feared instantly to give the most ample and
respectful hearing and real consideration to any such plea thus put forward.
(Applause and cries of "Good!") The corporation through its agents not
only has a right to be heard, but if it did not volunteer you ought to
endeavor to see that its views were presented. My protest is not against the
man who comes here openly as the corporation agent, but against the man
who comes here openly as something else and really as the corporation
agent. (Laughter)
It is our duty and our desire to make this land of ours a better home for the
race, but our duty does not stop there. We must also work for a better
Nation to live in this better land (applause). The development and
conservation of our national character and our free institutions must go
hand in hand with the development and conservation of our natural
resources, which the Governors' Conference so well called the foundations
of our prosperity. Whatever progress we may make as a Nation, whatever
wealth we may accumulate, however far we may push mechanical progress
and production, we shall never reach a point where our welfare can depend
in the last analysis on anything but the fundamental qualities of good
citizenship—honesty, courage, and common sense (applause). The homely
virtues are the lasting virtues, and the road which leads to them is the road
to genuine and lasting success.
What this country needs is what every free country must set before it, as the
great goal toward which it works—an equal opportunity for life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness to all of its citizens, great and small, rich and poor,
great and humble, alike. (Tumultuous applause and continuous cheers)

FOURTH SESSION
The Congress reassembled in the Auditorium, Saint Paul, after luncheon,
September 6, and was called to order by Vice-President Condra.

Professor Condra—Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen: President Baker has
asked me, as one of the vice-presidents, to preside pending his arrival.
We are to be congratulated in that we are to hear from many distinguished
speakers on many interesting topics this afternoon. We are especially happy
in that the first speaker is one who has done much, not only in Washington
but throughout the world, for conserving human life through the work of the
Red Cross. I have great pleasure in presenting to you Miss Mabel
Boardman, of Washington. (Applause)

Miss Boardman—Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: Of what value
would Conservation be without human life? For the benefit of man's life are
given all these energies which are devoted to the Conservation of our
natural resources. So at the very foundation of Conservation must lie the
preservation of that for which Conservation exists.
It is in this principle of Conservation of human life that the Red Cross has
its being. Though first inspired by Florence Nightingale in the Crimea, it
was born on the bloody battlefield of Solferino, more than fifty years ago,
when Henri Dunan witnessed the terrible waste of human life because of
the lack of medical and nursing care. The Red Cross has become one of the
great conserving forces of all the world. It acts under the only universal
Conservation treaty in existence. One after another all the nations of the
world have signed this Treaty of Geneva, first drafted in 1864, revised in

1906, and its provisions extended to naval warfare by the Treaty of The
Hague.
The opening words of the Geneva Treaty read: "Officers, soldiers, and other
persons officially attached to armies, who are sick and wounded, shall be
protected and cared for, without distinction of nationality, by the belligerent
in whose hands they are. The belligerent in possession of a field of battle
must search for and protect the wounded, and may grant immunity to those
inhabitants who have taken into their homes the disabled men. The
neutrality of hospitals and ambulances with their personnel, who cannot be
made prisoners of war, must be respected, and, for humanity's sake, lists of
the dead and wounded must be exchanged for transmission to the families
of these men by the authorities of their own country." This wonderful treaty
provides its own insignia, and wherever throughout the world the grating
doors of the Temple of Janus open wide their terrible portals it flings to the
winds of heaven its merciful banner of Conservation of the sick and
wounded, the flag of the Red Cross.
The treaty provides, moreover, protection for the volunteer aid societies
which have received official authority from their respective governments.
These are the three great Red Cross Societies. Recognizing two facts, first,
that no medical service of any nation can be adequate to the demands of
war, and second, that at such times the humanity and patriotism of a people
become deeply stirred into active life and that this activity should be
utilized in such a systematic way as to be of real value in the saving of life
for the sake of humanity and for the sake of the country, the members of the
original Geneva Conference recommended to the signatory powers the
formation of these volunteer aid societies. Thus, the Red Cross had its
origin in the purpose of conservation of human life in time of war. How
efficiently it has carried out this duty where well organized is shown by a
glance at the remarkable statistics of the work done by the Red Cross of
Russia and Japan during the late war in the Far East.
I am tempted here to dwell for a moment on one or two facts connected
with the Japanese Red Cross. It has today more than 1,522,000 members,
and its annual revenue in 1909 amounted to more than $2,000,000. In spite
of the late war which was such a serious drain upon the resources of the
country, the Japanese Red Cross never depleted by a single yen its

permanent fund. The report for 1909, just received, gives this permanent
fund as more than $5,000,000, and it has besides in other funds more than
$2,000,000 on hand. By 1913 it plans to have increased its permanent fund
to $7,500,000; and knowing what Japan has already done, we cannot doubt
the carrying out of this expectation.
But though since the beginning of history wars have been from time to time
the misfortune of mankind, the great forces of nature bring a far more
frequent need for such assistance as the Red Cross is able to render.
Because of this ever recurring need of organized aid the Red Cross reached
out its strong and well-trained arms into this broader field to succor the
victims of great disasters.
The charter granted by Congress to the American Red Cross, and which
created it the officially authorized Red Cross of our Government, provides
that it shall not only "take charge of the volunteer relief in time of war" but
that it shall "carry on a system of national and international relief in time of
peace, and apply the same in mitigating the sufferings caused by pestilence,
famine, fire, floods, and other great calamities, and to devise and carry on
measures for preventing same." Under this charter our own American Red
Cross is not a private association of certain people, but an officially
authorized agency of our Government, responsible to the people, and whose
existence Congress may at any time cancel by annulling the charter. Its
accounts are audited by the War Department. The chairman and five
members of the Central Committee, representing the Departments of State,
Treasury, War, Justice, and Navy are appointed by the President of the
United States. The State Department is represented because of participation
in international relief. The Treasury provides the National Red Cross
treasurer, the Department of Justice, the counselor, and the army and navy
have their reasons for representation not only because of war association
but because, during National disaster relief as at San Francisco, Hattiesburg,
and Key West, the Red Cross has the heartiest and most invaluable aid of
our army, while in international relief, as in Italy after the earthquake and at
Bluefields, Nicaragua, it receives the equally hearty and valuable aid of our
navy. Briefly, then, of what does the American Red Cross organization
consist? Since its reorganization in 1905, William Howard Taft, now
President of the United States, has been yearly elected as its president, and
largely to his constant interest, wise counsel, and valuable assistance is its

success due. It has, besides the other usual officers, a national director Mr
Ernest P. Bicknell, whose particular duty it is to proceed immediately to the
scene of any serious disaster and take charge of or advise in regard to the
Red Cross relief work. It has a central committee of eighteen, which elects
an executive committee of seven. Under this committee the work of the Red
Cross is segregated into three departments for war and for national and
international relief, each under a board of fifteen members. The chairman
and vice-chairman of each board are members of the central committee.
The war relief board, of which the surgeons representing the army and navy
on the central committee are respectively chairman and vice-chairman, has
prepared a complete list of every coastwise vessel suitable for a hospital
ship, so that such a ship could be chartered at a moment's notice. It has
moreover drawn up a complete and detailed list for the equipment of such a
ship with estimates of the cost of this equipment and the necessary
transformation for hospital purposes. It is studying the questions of civil
hospital accommodations for war-time need, of hospital trains, of field
hospitals, rest stations, the use of private automobiles for ambulances, and
other kindred subjects. A sub-committee, six of whom are members of the
board and nine of whom are representative women of the trained nursing
profession, and whose chairman is Miss Jane Delano, Superintendent of the
Army Nurse Corps, has systematized the Red Cross nursing service,
prepared uniform regulations, organized State and local committees, and is
fast enrolling the best trained nurses in the country for active service in time
of need. These splendid nurses at such times not only undertake the most
difficult work under frequently severe hardships, but when on this active
duty accept from the Red Cross only half of their usual salary. This Red
Cross nursing committee will later take up the plan of providing courses for
women in simple home nursing of the sick.
Another sub-committee of the war relief board is the First Aid Committee,
the chairman of which, Major Charles Lynch, of the Army Medical Service,
is detailed for this particular duty by the Surgeon-General. The work of this
committee is the organizing of courses in first-aid instructions throughout
the country. On this committee such men as Mr John Hays Hammond
represent the mine companies; Mr John Mitchell, the miners; Mr Julius
Kruttschnitt, the railroad companies; Mr W. G. Lee, the trainmen; Dr D. A.
Mansfield, the sailors' interests; Dr J. A. Holmes, the U. S. Bureau of

Mines. The Y. M. C. A. is also represented on the committee, as it now
gives all its first-aid courses in collaboration with the Red Cross. Dr M. J.
Shields is employed as the agent to organize these courses among miners. It
is expected this autumn that a special car will be donated by the Pullman
Company for the purpose of sending with Dr Shields a traveling first-aid
equipment and safety-device exhibit. A number of railroads have already
most kindly consented to transport this car free of expense to the Red Cross.
I may say that in every case of a great calamity, the railroad companies,
express companies, telegraph and telephone companies, have placed their
services free at the disposition of the Red Cross in a most helpful and
generous spirit.
The first-aid courses will soon be extended to trainmen and employees of
large industrial concerns, as has been done by the British and German Red
Cross. Major Lynch has prepared for the Red Cross a most excellent general
text-book on first-aid, also a special book for miners and trainmen, and
another, at its request, for the Bell Telephone Company. Furthermore,
valuable and inexpensive anatomical charts have been printed for these
courses, and small metal boxes hermetically sealed containing first-aid
bandages and a leaflet of directions have been made for the society, as well
as a larger box for railroad stations, mines, factories, etc. Competitions in
first-aid have been held, and prizes and medals awarded. More than sixty
thousand posters calling attention to precautions to be taken to prevent
personal injury on railroads, and over thirty thousand of a like nature for
trolley cars, have been issued by the Red Cross and are distributed on
application from various companies.
To spread abroad throughout the country the knowledge of first-aid among
our industrial classes, in fact, among all classes of our people, is the aim of
this department of Red Cross work. Not only in time of war or disaster will
such knowledge prove of great value, but in all of the frequent accidents of
daily life will this training be of help. (Applause)
The second board, that of the national relief, has to do with the study,
planning and overseeing of relief after national disaster. It is not possible,
nor would it be wise, for the Red Cross to maintain a corps of trained
workers for active duty after disaster, when such duty comes only from time
to time; so to provide itself with an experienced personnel, it has created an

institutional membership consisting of the best charity organization
societies of the country. These associations in accepting membership
consent to utilize their personnel under direction of this board and of Mr
Bicknell, the national director, for active relief duty. For example, Mr
Logan of the Atlanta organization, went on Red Cross orders to Key West
last September, systematized relief work so as to avoid imposture,
unfortunately prevalent at such times, advised with the Mayor and
commanding officer of the army post there, arranged that the contributions
be mainly expended in rehabilitating the fishermen who had lost their little
boats, their only means of earning their livelihood. As each boat was
completed, the owner who had been provided with material for his boat and
paid a daily wage while building it, was again on his feet, able to support
himself, and his name was taken from the list of those being aided.
At the time of the Cherry Mine disaster, Mr Kingsley of the United
Charities of Chicago, went immediately to the scene of the disaster,
remaining until Mr Bicknell could arrive. Then for several months, at the
request of the Red Cross, his assistant and two good women who could
speak Italian and Polish to the poor distracted miners' widows, remained at
Cherry while Mr Bicknell's plan for permanent relief could be perfected and
accepted. By this plan, which is now being carried out, the generous funds
contributed by the people of Illinois, by its State Legislature, and by the
miners' unions, amounting to about $300,000, have been consolidated and
are being administered by a joint commission so that a pension can be paid
to each widow and minor child until the children are of an age to become
wage-earners themselves and the fund is exhausted. (Applause)
The national relief board has also had charge of the little Red Cross
Christmas stamp—next year to be called a "Christmas seal"—placed on the
back of letters out of deference to the wishes of the post office department,
which has suffered from a multiplicity of stamps issued by others because
of the success of the Red Cross stamp. That stalking spectre of pestilence,
tuberculosis, had laid its devastating hand on every nation; it invades the
palace as well as the hovel, and the youth of the people are its surest prey.
With a weapon tinier than the stone in David's sling, the Red Cross sends
forth this little seal to do its part. In the last two years it has netted more
than $350,000 with which to war against this grim destroyer. Here again the

Red Cross carries out its principle, the conservation of the human life.
(Applause)
The third board is that of international relief with a representative of the
state department as its chairman. Two maps hang on the walls of the Red
Cross office at Washington, one of the world, the other of the United States
with its insular possessions. Starred over these large maps are little red
crosses marking the fields of its noble labors for Conservation. Not alone
within our own borders lies its merciful service. Far away in Russia, China,
and Japan, when famine claimed its thousands of tortured victims, went the
Red Cross, aided by the Christian Herald of New York, with food for the
starving multitudes: when earthquakes in Chili, Jamaica, Italy, Portugal, and
Costa Rica brought destruction and desolation, when floods in Mexico,
France, and Servia devastated the land, when massacres in Armenia brought
suffering, misery, and even death to thousands, when internal war in
Nicaragua left regiments of wounded, naked, and starving boy prisoners,
our American Red Cross stretched out her helping hand to these, her sister
nations in distress (applause). If in Conservation lies thought for men yet
unborn, thought must also be given for the men who live today, and the Red
Cross recognizes its duty toward the conservation of all human life.
(Applause)
But a moment more on its organization: In over thirty States, boards of
representative men, with the Governor in each State as president of the
board, have already been appointed, and before the end of the year the
boards for all of the other States and for the insular possessions will
probably be completed. The duty of such a board is to act as a financial
committee for the receipt of contributions of the people of the State in case
of war, local, national or international disaster. The Governor being
president of the board, may issue an appeal to the people of the State when
in his judgment a disaster of sufficient magnitude within the State justifies
such an appeal. On the occurrence of disasters without the State, appeals are
issued only on advice from the National officers. The Governor or State
board may, in case of any disaster within the State of sufficient magnitude,
request of headquarters the assistance of the National body. Chapters of the
Red Cross may exist in any town, city or county where there are five or
more members who pay the annual dues of one dollar. It is the duty of these
chapters to respond promptly and vigorously to any request for action on

the part of the Red Cross in time of war or disaster at home or abroad.
Appeals issued by the president of the State board or from Washington will
state the needs for money or supplies, or both, which the chapter should at
once begin collecting. In case of a serious local disaster, the chapter acts as
the supply agency for the National director and institutional member, when
such member is present. In case no institutional member is at hand, it is
expected to take prompt relief measures pending the arrival or instructions
of the National director. This, then, in brief, is the organization of the Red
Cross for active service: National officers, a central committee, relief
boards with their sub-committees; State hoards, chapters, and institutional
members.
It seems impossible in a non-military country like ours to obtain and retain
a large supporting membership with small annual dues, as is done in other
countries. When reports of great calamities fill the papers, our people give
with wonderful generosity, but the minor disasters, whereby small
communities suffer greatly, receive but little notice from our public. If
Japan plans to increase its Red Cross permanent fund to $7,500,000, could
not the people of this country raise for our American Red Cross a
permanent fund of $2,000,000? I, for one, believe they will, for New York
City alone has already promised nearly quarter of that amount, and this
autumn endowment committees of prominent men, appointed by the
President of the United States, will make an appeal to our people all over
the country to raise this permanent fund for the American Red Cross.
And, last, may I say a word or two for some of the by-products of
Conservation in Red Cross service? In the work of the Red Cross first-aid
department lies the far-reaching results of conservation of the life of the
wage-earner of the family as well as the labor-producer of the country, or in
case of his death in disaster, as at Cherry, the administration of the relief
funds so that the unfortunate widows can keep their little children at home
(applause),—a by-product, the conservation of the family.
The preservation of life in time of war has not only its humane feature but
its patriotic reason. In fact, the Japanese Red Cross puts this principle first.
The saving of one of the most important assets of any country, that of its
young manhood, becomes a by-product of Conservation for the sake of
patriotism.

Another by-product is the conservation of communities. Whether some little
hamlet or some large city suffers from the overwhelming calamity of fire,
flood, storm, earthquake or pestilence, or the still more pitiful disaster of
widespread famine settles over a great province or empire, its people are
brought down to desolation and despair. Their neighbors suffer as well and
there are none at hand to help. Without aid they must die or drift away from
their homes like unmoored boats after a storm, to be swamped at sea or
wrecked upon the rocks of unknown shores. It is then to these communities
as well as to the individual that the Red Cross comes. It calls to the
disconsolate "Comfort ye, my people, build again your homes. Sow again
your fields; the strong arms of the Red Cross are here to aid you, held up by
your brothers of the Nation, yea, by your brothers of the world, if there is
need" (applause). On a beautiful silver tablet, presented by an Italian relief
committee to the American Red Cross, are engraved in Latin the words of
an old Roman historian, "Your bounty has repaired the catastrophe not
merely of individual citizens but of entire cities."
And there is one more by-product of Conservation not having so much to
do with things material but for the well-being of the world. Is there not need
of a conservation of higher things? Above the passion of war, amidst the
desolation of terrible disasters, in the dangers of the daily occupations so
many of our fellowmen must undergo to earn their livelihood, does not the
Red Cross conserve, protect, and extend the great bond of human
brotherhood, and, touched by sorrow, make the whole world kin?
Strangely taking its inception on the field of battle, this great international
organization of the Red Cross for the conservation of human life was born,
has passed from infancy into a strong and noble maturity ever ready to
protect and preserve human life, for which the Conservation of all material
things has its reason and its purpose. (Applause)

Chairman Condra—We shall now have the privilege of hearing the
Commissioner of Corporations, called to that responsible duty by President
Roosevelt, and continued in his responsibilities by President Taft,

Honorable Herbert Knox Smith, whom I have great pleasure in introducing
(applause).

Commissioner Smith—Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: My text is
that superb word "power"; and it has no more appropriate place for
enunciation than this center of gravity of imperial power, the Mississippi
valley.
In our complex civilization there are many things that are necessaries of
life. Control over any of them represents a power that is essentially
governmental. This is plainly true of basic necessaries like food, clothing,
transportation, heat, and light; it is true also of the natural resources that are
back of these. It is no less true of the mechanical power that produces and
delivers them. Private control of any one of these, unrestrained either by
business competition or by governmental authority, means that irresponsible
individuals hold a command over the daily life and welfare of the citizen
which the men of our race have never willingly granted to any except their
own representatives chosen by them.
For us of our generation, mechanical power is a basic necessary. Our daily
existence is borne on its current, and our power demand steadily increases.
Our chief present sources of power supply—coal, petroleum, and natural
gas—although at present ample, are absolutely fixed in quantity and cannot
be replaced. Water-power is the one important source of mechanical power
now practically available which is self-renewing. Its importance, therefore,
to our present vision, must steadily increase.
Effective restraint, imposed by competition on its control, is becoming more
and more improbable. There has been a marked concentration of water-
power control in private hands, and this process is advancing rapidly. Public
regulation of water-power, the only other alternative, therefore, becomes a
necessity.
Electric transmission has worked this change within the last decade. As now
commercially practicable, such transmission allows a given water-power to
reach a market area of at least 80,000 square miles. It has raised water-

power from purely local work, and made it the vital energy for great
communities and distant enterprises. It has brought our water-power
resources suddenly within the sweep of great economic forces.
Within these market areas just described, there are strong practical reasons
for consolidation of water-powers—what is known as "coupling up." A
power plant must be constructed to meet the highest point of its expected
demand—the "peak of the load." The nearer the "load" (the power demand)
approaches that peak for all the time, the more fully will the entire fixed
investment be earning a return. Suppose there are two independent power
plants in two neighboring communities where the demand in one
community is mainly for power during the day time, and in the other at
night. These plants can advantageously combine, throwing the surplus of
their joint power by day to one place and by night to the other, thus bringing
their normal load in each case up nearer to the peak. Similarly, such
coupling up is obviously advantageous in two neighboring watersheds
where the excess water-power occurs at different times. In general such
combining of varying conditions to produce a closer parallelism of supply
and demand is in itself an entirely proper industrial development. We have
no reason to oppose it if accomplished by fair methods; we must simply be
prepared to regulate such monopolistic power as may result therefrom.
The investigation of developed water-powers now being made by the
Bureau of Corporations shows that up to date 18 concerns or closely allied
interests control over 1,800,000 horsepower of the water-power developed
or in process of construction, and, in addition, over 1,400,000 horsepower
of undeveloped water-power. As to undeveloped powers, this information
was secured merely as an incident to our main work, and certainly much
understates the case. As it stands, however, it makes a total water-power
controlled by these 18 groups of over 3,200,000 horsepower. The total
water-power in use in the United States in 1908, as estimated by the Census
and Geological Survey, was only 5,300,000. And this total includes a very
large number of small powers which the Bureau did not include, as it dealt
almost wholly with powers of over 1,000 horsepower. The total now
commercially capable of development is variously estimated at from
30,000,000 to 60,000,000 horsepower, the smaller figure being the
preferable one. The great bulk of both developed and undeveloped water-
power lies on the Pacific Coast, in the Northwest and Northeast, and in the

South Atlantic States. Our power demand as measured by the total
unduplicated capacity of all prime movers—steam, water, and gas—is now
at least 30 million horsepower.
It is obvious that a local monopoly of power covering simply one market
area is nevertheless as complete in its effects on the inhabitants of that area
as if it covered the entire country. Conditions in separate sections are
therefore important. In California, for example, four principal hydro-electric
companies dominate the water-power industry. They have a total developed
horsepower of 259,000, with probably 500,000 additional undeveloped, and
a very strong hold on the most important power markets. And between these
four concerns there is also evidence of considerable harmony. This is not a
unique case. Conditions somewhat like this exist in the Puget Sound
territory, in the southern peninsula of Michigan, in Colorado, in Montana,
and in the Carolinas. In each of these sections, one, or at most two concerns
are predominant in their control of water-powers, public-service companies,
and power markets.
The horsepower figures do not fully represent the extent of actual
commercial control. The best powers have of course been developed first.
These will always hold a disproportionately dominant position over later
developed and less favored powers, because of their lower operating cost
and prior hold on the important power markets.
There is also going on a concentration of a wider sort—a process of deep
significance, but as yet little recognized. There is a marked progress toward
a mutuality of interests among public service companies generally, electric
light, power, gas, and street railway concerns. The significant identity of
officers and directors in a large number of such companies throughout the
United States is very remarkable. This is due in part to specialization by
financial houses in given lines of investment; in part to the common
employment of certain eminent engineering firms; and in part to relations
with certain leading equipment companies. Electric equipment is usually
supplied by one of a few great equipment concerns and frequently paid for,
at least in part, in the securities of the proposed project. Thus the equipment
company acquires interests in widely separated power and light concerns.

Take a single example, the General Electric Company, the most powerful
electric equipment concern in the world. Men who are officers or directors
of the General Electric Company, or of its three wholly controlled
subsidiary companies, are also officers or directors in many other
corporations. These other companies, with their subsidiaries, and the
General Electric with its subsidiaries, make thus a group interconnected by
active personal and financial relationship. This one group includes 28
corporations that operate hydro-electric plants, with at least 795,000
horsepower developed or under construction, and 600,000 undeveloped in
16 different States, a total of 1,395,000 horsepower (equal to more than 25
percent of all the developed water-power in the United States in 1908). This
group includes also over 80 public-service corporations, not counting their
minor subsidiaries; more than 15 railroads; 6 companies that use their
power in the manufacture of cotton goods, with 35,000 hydraulic
horsepower developed; and over 50 banks and financial houses, many of
them in the first rank of importance. This remarkable financial connection
in itself is very significant. Fifty-three General Electric men, in all,
constitute this chain of connection. Nor are these men, as a rule, of the
figurehead type; their presence on a directorate means something. Of course
these facts in no sense always mean identity of control. They certainly do
mean a striking degree of non-conflicting interests and personal relationship
which makes further concentration easily possible.
This wider concentration is still in a formative stage, developed almost
wholly within the last decade. The forces compelling thereto are still
operative. It is like a physical solution of chemical elements which is still in
suspension but which a single jar may precipitate into crystallization.
Water-power, being naturally allied with public-service business, will be
included in any movement that affects that business generally. So wide is
this interrelationship, and so comparatively few are the constantly recurring
names in the directorates, that a few brief conferences, given the necessary
impetus, might conceivably at any moment concentrate into definite legal
form a sweeping control over the dominant water-powers of the country, as
well as their related public service interests.
Here, then, is the present situation of the hydro-electric industry:

(1) It deals with a basic necessary, and its importance inevitably increases
as the fixed supply of other sources of power decreases.
(2) Substantial control of mechanical power means the exercise of a
function that is essentially governmental in its effect on the public.
(3) Driven by underlying economic and financial forces, concentration of
control of water-powers in private hands has proceeded very rapidly. It is
doubtful if anything can arrest this process, and a swift advance to a far
higher degree of concentration is entirely possible.
(4) Any chance, then, of restraint by competition is rapidly disappearing,
certainly over given sections, and public regulation is therefore an imminent
necessity.
The extent of such regulation will depend mainly on constitutional
limitations. A State, roughly speaking, can at any time exercise a high
degree of control over power companies as quasi-public servants. The
jurisdiction of the Federal Government covers a wider range geographically,
but involves some difficult constitutional questions. Over water-powers on
the public lands it has full control. I concede no merit to doubts as to the
Government's unlimited jurisdiction there.
As to powers on navigable streams not in the public domain, there is an
undetermined constitutional question. It is well settled that no power dam
can be maintained on a navigable stream without the consent of the Federal
Government. Nearly everyone admits that the Government may impose
upon such grants any desired time limitation, and may thus require
readjustment of terms at any desired period. But some hold that the Federal
Government, in exercising its arbitrary power as grantor, may also impose
any further conditions it chooses upon such grant, as, for example, that the
grantees shall pay a rental for the power acquired. Others hold that the
Federal Government can only impose such conditions as are directly
connected with the Federal power over interstate commerce, such as
navigation. Even this view would apparently at least permit a rental charge,
if applied to navigation improvement. Personally, I am strongly inclined to
the former and broader view that any conditions whatsoever may be
imposed (applause), both on general principles and on well-established
legislative precedents. In numerous bridge and dam acts Congress has used

the broad power and imposed conditions in no way related to interstate
commerce. In the California Debris Commission Act, operative since 1893,
Congress imposed a straight charge on placer miners for the privilege of
emptying their refuse into the streams.
The scope of the Federal jurisdiction is of first importance, because the
water-power problem is, in the main, a National one. Much of the power is
transmitted across State lines, or is used by interstate carriers. The bulk of
the capital that is developing our most important powers comes from
interests outside the States where the powers are located, and from the brief
survey I have already given of the interrelationships existing between
public-service companies it is obvious that State lines and State jurisdiction
have no practical relation whatsoever to the sweep of these forces
(applause). The hydro-electric industry has been largely nationalized by
those who are foremost in it.
The Nation and the State will have to use their full powers to meet the
water-power situation. The most effective time to use them is before, not
after, private rights accrue. The one certain method is for the State or the
Federal Government, to retain its interest, or impose its conditions, at the
inception, as a part of the grant. Then public control and private rights go
together, as they must if we are to safeguard the public interest in water
power. (Applause)
Let there be no unnecessary hampering of hydro-electric development, but
let the public be in on the ground floor at the start: for at the start the public
must grant the power and for all time the public will be the party chiefly
interested in its use. (Applause)
As President Taft very justly said yesterday, when a man talks to you about
conservation, you have the right to ask him to specify what steps he desires
to take. I am going to specify.
(1) The status quo of all water-power still controlled by the Nation or State
should be maintained until we know what we have, and can act intelligently
thereon.
(2) No water-power grant should be made except for a fixed period, with at
least the reserved right to readjust terms at the end thereof. That period,

however, should be long enough to permit adequate financing and complete
development.
(3) Complete publicity of accounts and transactions should be required, as
well as a record of cost, and the real relation of investment to stock and
bond issues.
(4) Power to revoke the grant for breach of conditions should be lodged in a
specified public authority. Otherwise there will always be the possibility of
protracted litigation to determine the status.
(5) So far as is possible, direct provision should be made against excessive
charges and monopolistic abuse.
(6) Public authorities should reserve such constitutional compensation or
rental as will establish the principle of underlying public interest.
(7) All public easements of navigation, fisheries, etc., should be
safeguarded.
(8) In the case of new grants, all these provisions should be made
conditions of the grant.
Finally, the purpose and probable effect on the public of any water-power
grant should first be fully ascertained and carefully considered, in order to
determine whether public interest justifies beyond a reasonable doubt the
surrender by the public of even a part of its power over this great public
resource. Where reasonable doubt exists, the surrender should not be made.
(Applause)

[During the delivery of the address President Baker arrived and resumed the
Chair.]

Honorable John Barrett—Ladies and Gentlemen: President Baker has
requested me to announce that Professor George E. Condra, of Lincoln,
Nebraska, has been appointed chairman of the Committee on Credentials in
lieu of Mr Edward Hines, of Chicago. (Applause)
Governor Pardee has an announcement to make in regard to the Committee
on Resolutions.
Governor Pardee—Simply that the Committee on Resolutions will meet at
the Saint Paul hotel this evening at 8 oclock, in Room 534.
President Baker—The program in your hands announces that an address
entitled "Safeguarding the Property of the People" will be delivered by
Honorable Francis T. Heney, of California. He is prevented from being here
this afternoon, but will arrive later.
We have now the opportunity of hearing from one whose name has been so
closely associated with the work of Conservation that he is regarded as one
of its greatest and ablest advocates; I have great pleasure in introducing, to
speak on "The Federal Government's Relation to Conservation," Honorable
James R. Garfield, of Ohio. (Applause)
Mr Garfield—Mr President and Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen
(renewed applause): I appreciate your applause at this time very much, for I
fear me at the end of what I have to say it may not be forthcoming.
The subject I have chosen is one that affects very directly what may not
merely be talked about but can actually be done by the people of this
country in connection with Conservation problems. It was often said a few
months ago that Conservation was an enthusiasm—that it was an idea, or
perhaps an ideal, and that those who were urging Conservation were not
practical men and looking forward to practical work-a-day solutions of their
own problems. So I chose to speak on the relation of the Federal
Government to Conservation—a very practical subject, one on which we
have been working, as well as talking, for a number of years.
There are two good reasons why the Federal Government is directly
interested in Conservation. In the first place, it is the largest land-owner in
this country; and, in the second place, it has high duties to perform for the
interests of all the people of this country. For these reasons, the Federal

Government comes directly in touch with the practical questions of
Conservation in dealing with what is left of the natural resources of our
public domain. The value of these resources cannot be measured in mere
terms of acres. Some 700,000 acres of our public lands remain; but that
means nothing unless we know what is contained in or on the land
represented by the mere statement in figures. Now we are learning that this
great area, both on the mainland and in Alaska, is filled with priceless
treasures in the resources needed for the lives of the people of our country;
and it is in the handling of these resources—either disposing of them or
providing for their use or development—that the Federal Government must
deal practically with the problems of Conservation. Only as we know this
tremendous area and its priceless treasures do we realize that we must, in
the practical handling of these resources, make as few mistakes as possible,
and constantly keep in view the interest of all the people as a guide in the
solution of any given problem.
Now, we meet with serious difficulties in attempting to decide how best to
use the property owned or held by the United States Government as trustee
for all the people. We have under our system of government a dual
jurisdiction, or rather, two jurisdictions—that of the Nation on the one hand,
and that of the State on the other. Yet between these two jurisdictions there
is no real conflict; there ought to be no insuperable obstacle to such
cooperation between States and Nation as will make possible a wise
solution of all questions in which both jurisdictions have duties to perform.
We hear much about States' rights, as though the problems of Conservation
have brought to life again an old doctrine, as though in some way the
Conservationist is endeavoring to take something away from the States. The
very opposite is true. There is no effort on the part of the Conservationist to
interfere with any duty that the State ought to and can perform. Those duties
devolving on the States should be performed by the States; and the people
of each commonwealth should see to it that their State representatives not
only do what is wise and necessary each year but exercise foresight in
dealing with all resources subject to their jurisdiction (applause). That,
however, does not mean that the Federal Government is debarred from
proper use of the public domain within the areas of the several States; it
likewise has great duties devolving on it in so administering its property as
to safeguard the interests and the rights of all the citizens of the country.

The State lines are merely accidental in many instances. The States of the
old Northwest and the States of the Middle West today were carved out of
public territory simply by drawing of lines; they were not political entities
in the first instance, but a few people got together and agreed that so many
square miles of territory would be made into a State, and whether that State
line was drawn here or a hundred miles over there should not determine
how we are to deal with the public resources contained within the area.
In the early period of our development there was but little need of giving
heed to the questions that are now uppermost in our minds in relation to the
public domain. There was land enough and to spare; and the early purpose
of the Federal Government was to provide easy methods for getting the
public domain (which in those days was considered chiefly useful for
agriculture, as it is in the middle West) into farms, and building up
commonwealths that are now theatres of agricultural industry. But today the
conditions are very different. The remaining agricultural land that can be
used without irrigation or drainage is very little in comparison to the needs
of our people; and in handling what is left of the public domain it becomes
the duty of the Federal Government to see to it that not one acre of land that
can be used for agricultural settlement and development is directed to any
other purpose—and likewise to see to it that land capable of mineral
development or of water development is not stolen from the public domain
under the guise of homestead entries. (Great applause)
In order to understand exactly what the Federal Government can do in
relation to the use of the public domain, let us keep clearly in mind the
powers granted to it under the Constitution, and the laws enacted in
accordance with the Constitution by Congress. The Constitution provides
that—

The Congress shall have power to dispose of, and make all needful
rules and regulations respecting the territory and other property
belonging to the United States.
The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States
of America.
* * * he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.

Now, in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, the Congress
has enacted the following laws affecting the public domain:

The Secretary of the Interior is charged with the supervision of public
business relating to * * * the public lands, including mines.
The Commissioner of the General Land Office shall perform, under
the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, all executive duties
appertaining to the surveys and sale of the public lands of the United
States, or in anywise respecting such public lands.
The Commissioner of the General Land Office, under the direction of
the Secretary of the Interior, is authorized to enforce and carry into
execution by appropriate regulations, every part of the provisions of
this title [the public land laws] not otherwise specifically provided for.

Congress, acting under these general provisions, has from time to time
enacted laws affecting portions of the public domain. It has provided the
Homestead Act, the Timber and Stone Act, the Mineral Entry Act; provided
for the creation of the National Forests; enacted laws relating to the use of
the public domain for reservoir sites, for pipe-lines, and for transmission
lines; and as the needs of each generation have been made known,
Congress, acting for the interests of all the people, has enacted direct
legislation for the purpose of providing method for the disposition and use
of the public domain.
Meantime, the Executive on his part has performed the duties devolving on
him under the Constitution—duties few in number and easily expressed,
though of great importance to the public welfare. They are, in brief, to see
to it that the laws of the United States are faithfully executed; and he is
granted all the executive power that could have been given by the use of the
English language. There is no limitation. It is simply "executive power";
whatever that may be was granted to the President of the United States.
One of the great objects for which this Nation was created was to promote
the "general welfare." That object was not only stated in the preamble of the
Constitution, but was likewise written into the body of the instrument; and
the power was specifically granted to Congress to provide for the general
welfare of the United States. That was not an idle phrase. The founders of

the Republic recognized that it was impossible for them to foresee all the
things that it might be necessary for the Federal Government to do; it was
not possible for them to define in specific language all the powers that were
to be exercised, nor was it possible for them to indicate to what extent these
powers, once granted, might properly and wisely be used; and this welfare
clause has made it possible to carry out by both the Legislative and the
Executive branches of the Federal Government the beneficent purposes of
the founders in ways which they never contemplated or could have
contemplated in detail. Fortunately, during the early days of our National
existence we had at the head of the Supreme Court a master mind. Marshall
was as profound a statesman as he was a great jurist. He recognized with
that great far-seeing insight that amounts almost to inspiration, that it would
have been to sound the death-knell of the Republic if he, as the chief law
interpreter from the judicial seat, should so interpret the Constitution as to
tie the hands of the Government and prevent the people from doing the
things necessary to make themselves a great and permanent Nation. In one
of the earliest decisions involving interpretation of the Constitution
(McCullough vs. Maryland. 4 Wheaton 315) Marshall used this language:

Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the Constitution,
and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that
end, which are not prohibited but consistent with the letter and spirit of
the Constitution, are constitutional.

Another sentence in the same opinion sets a standard for judging existing or
proposed law; he says—

But where the law is not prohibited, and is really calculated to effect
any of the objects entrusted to the Government, to undertake here to
inquire into the degree of its necessity would be to pass the line which
circumscribes the judicial department and tread on legislative ground.
This court disclaims all pretensions to such a power.

Clearly, Marshall saw at that time that if the Supreme Court endeavored to
prevent Congress from exercising to the full a power granted under the
Constitution, it would at that very moment overstep its legitimate ground
and interfere with the functions granted to the legislative body; and in
dealing with the powers granted to the Executive, exactly the same rule of

interpretation applies. Now, it is most interesting to notice how from
generation to generation Marshall's interpretation has made possible the
doing of the things that have been done by our people. In those days it was
impossible for men to conceive of the commercial development that has
taken place during the hundred years. They could not have realized that
within a hundred years we would be a great manufacturing Nation, and that
our commercial relations would not be confined to the thirteen colonies but
would spread broadcast throughout the entire world.
A striking example of the application of this wise interpretation arose in
dealing with the questions of the Philippine government. We there had an
entirely novel proposition. The forefathers of the Republic had never
contemplated the acquisition by us of territory in the Pacific, or islands
elsewhere. Yet when we faced that problem, we found that under Marshall's
interpretation, our Constitution was broad enough and big enough, and the
powers granted therein were great enough, to permit us to fulfill the
Nation's duty to the islands and islanders. President Taft, discussing our
work in the Philippines, used this language three years ago:

It is said that there is nothing in the Constitution of the United States
that authorizes National altruism of that sort. Well, of course, there is
not; but there is nothing in the Constitution of the United States that
forbids it. What there is in the Constitution of the United States is a
breathing spirit that we are a Nation, with all the responsibilities that
any Nation ever had, and therefore when it becomes the Christian duty
of a Nation to assist another Nation, the Constitution authorizes it
because it is part of National well-being.

That interpretation of the power of both the Executive and the Congress is
exactly in line with the power that is exercised by both in dealing with this
question of the public domain and the welfare of our people (applause). It
would be a childish interpretation of the Constitution to hold that we as a
Nation could act for the people in the Philippine Islands as was best
necessary for their well-being, and yet within our own confines as a Nation
would be prohibited from doing that which is necessary for the well-being
and the welfare of our children and their children. (Applause)

The interpretation by Marshall gave vigor to the young Nation. He was not
afraid of great responsibilities. He recognized that great responsibilities
likewise meant the possibility of great mistakes, but that did not deter him
from so interpreting the Constitution as to make possible the doing of the
things that have been done. He was not of that class of timid folk who fear
to exercise great power lest they may make a mistake. He was not that type,
either as statesman or jurist, who because they do not see plainly written in
the Constitution specific authority for the doing of every act necessary,
therefore hold back and maintain that no such authority exists. This is the
type of mind that prevents all progress. The timid man is often side by side
with the dishonest man, because the timid man refuses to act from fear
while the dishonest man raises the cry, "There is no power," in order to gain
for himself that to which he is not entitled, or to escape Governmental
jurisdiction or evade governmental regulation of any character. (Applause)
But we are not left simply to academic discussion as to whether the Federal
Government has power to deal with the National domain. The Supreme
Court has held, over and over again, that the Federal Government, acting
through both the Legislative and the Executive branches, has the power to
do what is best for the people's interests in handling the public domain. The
Court has wisely and properly held that the power granted under the
Constitution to dispose of the public domain carries with it every lesser
power (applause)—that because Congress has the right to provide for the
sale or the gift of land, it can likewise provide for the lease of land under
such conditions and regulations as it may prescribe or as it may permit the
Executive to prescribe. Therefore, the way is clear for the Federal
Government to do whatever may be wise and necessary to protect the
interests of the people in the use of the public domain.
Let us take another view of Executive authority. The chief Executive, above
all other officers, is recognized and properly held as the great steward, the
immediate custodian of the public property and of the people's rights. He is
single-headed. He is one upon whom responsibility may be fixed. He is
constantly at his desk; he is ever vigilant; he is constantly in touch with the
things that interest the people and their rights therein; and as the custodian
and guardian of the people's interests, it is to him that we must look for the
protection of the public domain. It is not enough that the Executive shall
simply carry into effect the specific language of a statute. He must go

farther than that; he must be as aggressive in his vigilance as are those who
would take the public property without conforming to the law (applause).
The Executive is required to see to it that the laws are enforced. Now, in the
enforcement of law he often finds that while the paper record presented to
him or to his subordinates by those who seek to acquire the public domain
is perfect (there is no difficulty about making a land title good on paper) his
duty is only partially fulfilled unless he goes behind the paper record; and
when the last Administration took hold of the question of the land frauds,
the Executive decided that there was but one way to enforce the law, and
that was to see to it that the paper record conformed to the facts in every
case presented (great applause). The greatest land frauds that have been
perpetrated against the people of the United States were perpetrated because
the public officers in years past did not make that direct, careful
investigation of the facts and of the condition of the lands which would
have enabled them to save for the people hundreds of millions of dollars of
valuable property that in the last generation has gotten illegally into the
hands of the big interests. (Applause)
The founders of our Republic recognized and understood the vital need of
giving ample power to the Executive. It is well to recall what Hamilton
wrote when defending the Constitution:

Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good
government. It is essential to the protection of the community against
foreign attacks; it is not less essential to the steady administration of
the laws; to the protection of property against those irregular and high-
handed combinations which sometimes interrupt the ordinary course of
justice; to the security of liberty against the enterprises and assaults of
ambition, of faction and of anarchy.
There can be no need, however, to multiply arguments or examples on
this head. A feeble Executive implies a feeble execution of
government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad
execution, and a government ill-executed, whatever it may be in
theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.

Thus the Executive must be held responsible for much that is done in
connection with the administration of our laws. Congress enacts the laws;

they may be faulty; if so, they may be amended. If they are faulty, it is the
duty of the Executive to carry them into effect, but to recommend their
amendment, alteration, or repeal; but under no circumstances is he fulfilling
his duty if he sits supinely by and allows the public domain to be despoiled
because the law is not as efficient as he thinks it should be. (Applause)
Much has been said in recent years regarding Executive usurpations. It has
been held by those who objected to the new order of things—those who
objected to that change in methods by which the public frauds were stopped
—that the Executive was usurping powers not granted to him under the
Constitution. Now, if it be usurpation to so enforce the law as to prevent
dishonesty, fraud, and theft, then there has been usurpation (applause). But I
as yet have failed to have presented to me a single instance of actual
usurpation. The Executive is as much subject to the courts of the United
States as is the ordinary citizen. If the Executive has transcended his power,
if he has in his execution of law gone beyond what someone thinks is his
power, then the Executive can be haled into court; and over and over again I
have said to complainants who came to me when I was in office "All you
have to do is to go into the courts of the United States, and if the Executive
power that is being exercised is improperly exercised, there in that
jurisdiction you can bring us to account." But no one has yet seen fit to
bring such an action; and the reason is that there has been no usurpation of
executive authority. (Applause)
There is a wide difference between simply being within the law and
executing the law. A man may be within the law and yet do absolutely
nothing to further the spirit of the law; like an engineer, he is on the track
whether he is standing still, going backward, or going forward; but I take it
that what we want in executive office is an engineer who stays on the track
yet is constantly driving forward the engine (applause). We may rest
assured that those who are seeking to acquire the public domain will not be
idle if the Executive is standing still. (Applause)
That brings me again to a subject mentioned a moment ago, namely the
relation of the Nation to the States; and the Executive here plays an
important part. An example will show how the executives of both the
Nation and the States should cooperate in working out any given problem:
A great water course is a natural entity; the water-shed must be considered

as a unit—otherwise the people within that water-shed will not have equal
justice done them in their right to the water. For example, the waters of the
Rio Grande rise in Colorado; they cross the line into New Mexico; they
then become the dividing line between Mexico and Texas. If we admit for a
moment that the power to use and control all the water of the Rio Grande
shall be left solely with Colorado because it rises in the great mountains of
that State, then we instantly jeopardize the rights of all the people who live
south of the Colorado line (applause). If the Chief Executive of the Federal
Government had feared to exercise his power to prevent water-power sites
and reservoir sites in Colorado from being taken exclusively by Colorado
people; if he had been unwilling to exercise the power granted him by the
Constitution, then the people below would have had just cause for
complaint that the Executive instead of obeying the law was in effect a
party to a violation of law in jeopardizing their rights. The only way in
which that matter could properly be handled was for the Executive of the
Federal Government to withdraw certain lands from sale or entry; and by so
doing he made it possible for the people of New Mexico and Texas, and of
the Republic of Mexico in conformity with the treaty made by the Federal
Government, to have their fair share and just proportion of the use of that
water.
The best way to deal with conflicting water rights between States is for the
Federal Government to continue to hold every acre of public land capable
of use in water development pending agreement with the various States as
to how the lands shall be used, to the end that the rights of all the people of
each water-shed, rather than the special interests of a few, shall be protected
in the use and disposition of that great resource. (Applause)
What I have said in relation to water applies equally to the development of
our coal, our phosphates, and our timber. The phosphates recently
discovered in the West lie in four States. When the matter was first called to
my attention by the report of the Geological Survey and the special report
of Dr Van Hise, I was astonished to learn the conditions then existing in our
country. Practically all of the mineral phosphates known in the United
States were held by one great corporation, and over 40 percent of the
products of the Southern mines were being shipped abroad to be used on the
fields of Europe; and the same men were already endeavoring to get hold of
the phosphate deposits in the West. Therefore I instantly made a

recommendation to the President, and he instantly acted on it and withdrew
the phosphate lands (applause). Now that withdrawal was not an
interference with the rights of the people of any of those four States, nor
was it an act of usurpation, or an improper extension of Executive authority.
It simply meant this: that we would hold, prevent the acquisition of those
lands under laws not adapted to them, report the matter to Congress, and
hold the lands until Congress provided a method for wise disposition of
them (applause). And my recommendation was that the phosphate deposits
of the country should be disposed of only under lease and with such
conditions as would prevent export to foreign lands (applause). We need
every ton of our phosphates for our own use. (Applause)
So, if you trace the actions of the Executive and of Congress in dealing with
the public domain, you will find that wherever there has been a vigorous
execution of law coupled with recommendation of further legislation
looking to the welfare of all of our people, there we have made advance
along lines that will promote the development of our country in future
years; and that wherever there has been laxity in the enforcement of law,
wherever we have allowed the interference of big business interests to
interrupt the enforcement of law as it should be enforced, land frauds there
have crept in and in those conditions we have found the big interests getting
control of more than their fair share of the resources of the public domain.
Sometimes we have been accused of being unfair to the big interests. We
have been accused of assailing these interests simply because they were big;
and we have been charged with raising ghosts to frighten the people, and
naming those ghosts water-power trusts, timber trusts, land trusts, or coal
trusts, when in reality there was no danger of trust development or of
monopolistic holding of these resources. And yet, my friends, if you trace
back the history of the acquisition of the public domain you will find that in
every instance where there has been a failure to strictly enforce the laws the
special interests have slipped in and have gained control of the resources of
the public domain. They have never been idle. We ourselves have been
indifferent, we have been negligent; and it is not for us now altogether to
blame the beneficiaries of our neglect, but we must blame ourselves—and
must blame our representatives in office now if by any chance they permit a
return to the old conditions. (Applause)

The power of the Executive and of Congress is ample to do all that is
necessary to protect the public welfare and the common good. There must
be no backsliding in what has already been so splendidly started. We must
see to it that our representatives, both in the Senate and in the House, are
men who will take a long look into the future—men with imagination. Men
with enthusiasm? Yes! Nothing great has ever been accomplished without
enthusiasm and without imagination (applause). And we want practical men
who will lead us, as I said in the beginning, step by step, to better things.
Thus and thus only will the Federal Government exercise to the full the
powers granted under the Constitution, and thus and thus only will the
people of this country safeguard their property rights, their personal and
their political rights as well, and hand down the great heritage that has come
to us not only unimpaired but in better condition than we received it. (Great
and prolonged applause)

President Baker—Ladies and Gentlemen: Now that this subject has been so
ably opened by Mr Garfield, we are going to call upon another man who
has been militant in the work of Conservation—an Ex-Governor who is
even more active as an ex than he was as Governor, a sort of characteristic,
these days, of prominent men (laughter). I am sure you will have great
pleasure in hearing from Ex-Governor George C. Pardee, of California.
(Applause)
Ex-Governor Pardee—Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I hope the
Chair will forgive me if I differ from him very radically in one statement
that he made, to the effect that all of us who have been things (laughter) are
now more active than we were when we were things. (Laughter)
I sat here today in this vast Auditorium and saw thousands of men and
women and children, gathering to do honor to the man whom we, in
common with the rest of the world, consider to be the greatest American
now alive (great applause). When I saw those thousands of people filling
this great Auditorium, row on row and tier on tier, until the heads of those
standing in the topmost row touched the very roof, I thought to myself that

the activities of him who was in office are being only continued since he
left the office which he filled to our entire satisfaction. (Applause)
I come here this afternoon to discuss the very able paper so well presented
to you by him who was once Secretary of the Interior, in the cabinet of the
President of the United States (applause); and I hope you will not consider
it presumptuous that I should attempt to discuss that very able paper. Mr
Garfield was good enough to furnish me with a copy of his address several
days ago, and I am free to confess to you that I have given it prayerful
consideration and that I can find nothing in it to discuss (applause), because
it calls a spade a spade and a thief a thief (applause); and with both of those
propositions I have no doubt the ladies and gentlemen here assembled will
thoroughly and totally agree. (Applause)
Every now and then we hear of some poor, miserable fool sent to the
penitentiary for crimes and frauds against the land laws; but will any one be
kind enough to mention to me the name of any principal in such crimes and
frauds who, with shaved head and striped suit, is looking through the bars
of the penitentiary today? I take it that you will agree with me that the time
has come when the rights and duties of the plain American citizen should be
again placed within his grasp, and that the rights and duties of the very
meanest of us should be regarded as equal to those of the most powerful
and the richest and most influential. Our representatives have too often
forgotten the fact that they represent the great mass of the people, and that
they represent unborn generations of American citizens—that they are
plowing legal furrows and building legal fences and making things ready
for the coming generations of Americans who will fill this great land of
ours.
So when I speak of my own State of California, and say that its people have
been robbed and plundered and pillaged; when I say that its government has
been debased and corrupted; when I say with shame and with blushes that
my native city of San Francisco has been humbled and shamed into the very
dust by the corrupting influences of men and public-service corporations
who, with us as their benefactors, have turned and stung the breast that
warmed them into life; when I say these things I have but to call to your
attention conditions which have existed in almost every large city, in almost
every State of this Union. (Applause)

Like Mr Garfield, I do not find it in my heart to blame the men who have
taken advantage of our laxness; I cannot find it in my heart to blame the two
men who own each over a million acres of the best timber land in the State
of California for having taken advantage of the laxness in administration of
the law in times past—not of the law itself, for the law has been good, and
if it had been administered as it should have been administered these two
men could not have owned a million acres apiece of the best timbered land
in the State of California (applause). But who of us has not heard—in times
past more than since the time of Theodore Africanus (laughter)—who of us
has not heard those who, perhaps with a selfish interest, have sneered and
said, "Well, we're all a little crooked, and why should we take exceptions to
the man who is a little more crooked?" when the question of frauds against
the land laws was in discussion? I take it that the officials who had those
matters in charge should be, as Mr Garfield has so well said, ever vigilant
within the law to do those things which the law does not prohibit and not
wait for the prods and stings of outraged public opinion that compel them to
do the things which they should, in common honesty to the people whom
they represent, perform and do for the protection of you and me and your
children and my children. (Applause)
I listened yesterday afternoon with mingled feelings to the statements of the
gentlemen who four short years ago I would have hailed as brother
governors. I heard some most violent utterances concerning the feeling of
the people of the Pacific-coast States in regard to State rights. One good
brother governor said that 95 percent of the people of the Pacific Coast
were in favor of State rights. We had in California on the 16th day of
August (less than a month ago) a direct-primary election. At that election
there was nominated as the republican candidate for Governor of the State
of California Hiram W. Johnson. Out of something over 200,000 votes cast
he received over 100,000 votes. His next nearest opponent received 55,000
votes. Mr Johnson's campaign was made on a platform containing three
principal planks—Roosevelt, Pinchot, and Conservation. (Great applause)
If it be necessary, I can read a telegram from Mr Johnson in which he
assures me that he has not yet recanted from his old Rooseveltism, his
Pinchotism and his Garfieldism, or his Conservationism (applause); so I
think I am safe in saying that instead of 95 percent of the people of at least
one Pacific-coast State being in favor of State rights, I am entirely within

the bounds of conservative statement if I say that 80 percent of the people
of California have not forgotten the Civil War and remember that the ghost
of State rights was laid so many fathoms deep at that time that no ingenious
argument of any Governor from the Northwest, the Southeast, or any other
portion of this country can revive it and make it walk. (Great applause) If
necessary, I could read from this little packet that I have in my hand a
portion of a letter from the Grand Master of the Patrons of Husbandry (that
is the Grange) of the State of Washington (applause), whose Governor
addressed this Congress yesterday afternoon and declared himself and his
State as both being entirely in favor of State rights. In that letter the Grand
Master of the Patrons of Husbandry of the State of Washington, whose
Governor addressed this Congress yesterday afternoon, says that he
represents 19,000 of the people of Washington, and that no man has the
right to represent them upon the floor of this Congress and say that they are
in favor of State rights (great applause). And in this little packet I also have
a telegram from the Conservation Association of the State of Washington,
signed by its president, which says that its membership in the State of
Washington is not in favor of State rights (applause). So, our good southern
brethren having forgotten the bloody past (as my Yankee blood has
forgotten it), having come again into the Union and declaring themselves
loyal sons marching under the American flag and having forgotten the
obsolete doctrine of State rights, I think I am safe in saying that the people
of the North and Northwest have not changed places with them, but that
they believe that the Federal Government should keep and administer the
things that belong to all the people of the country. (Applause)
We have in California, my fellow-citizens of other States, a great deal of
your property. We have several millions of acres of National forests that
belong to you. They cannot belong exclusively to the people of the State of
California until the people of the United States, to whom they belong, give
them to us. And I thank God that the National Government, representing the
people of other States, has not given those millions of acres of National
forests in the State of California to the State of California. For if it had, just
as sure as you are sitting here, those acres would have been given over into
private ownership, just as thousands and hundreds of thousands of acres of
the public lands which were given to the State of California have been
squandered with a prodigal hand and given to men who have not obeyed

either the letter or the spirit of the law conveying and granting to them those
hundreds and hundreds of thousands and millions of acres of the public
lands. (Applause)
Let me instance one case. The Oregon and California Railroad begins at
Portland and runs south toward California. The California and Oregon
Railroad begins at Sacramento and runs north toward Oregon. They meet
somewhere north of the Oregon line. They are both adjuncts of the Southern
Pacific. When those roads were contemplated, the Government, by an act of
Congress, donated to them 6,000,000 acres of land, much of it covered with
as fine timber as grows out of doors—I bar none. In the act of Congress
donating that land it was specified that the land should be sold in 160-acre
tracts for $2.50 per acre to all actual settlers who might apply therefor. Was
any of it sold to actual settlers? A very few acres of it. Half of the 6,000,000
acres was sold, however, in large tracts to land speculators, to timber
corporations, and to people of that kind and class, for $5.00, $10.00,
$15.00, $20.00, $30.00, $50.00 an acre. And when the Southern Pacific was
brought to bar and asked why it hadn't lived up to the letter and spirit of the
law, it said it had. And then we asked, "How do you make that out?" And it
said, "Why, only a few actual settlers have applied for the land." And we
asked, "Haven't people gone there and attempted to buy that land of you in
order that they might settle upon it?" "Oh, yes, but they are not actual
settlers." "Why not?" "Because we construe the words 'actual settlers' to
mean those persons who had actually settled in that country before the act
of Congress was passed." (Laughter and applause.) And when, at the
Sacramento session of the National Irrigation Congress, Mr E. H. Harriman
was asked why his company was holding 3,000,000 acres of that land grant,
he said, "For future generations." And everybody laughed.

Now, let that sink into you. The absolute arrogance, the indecent indecency
of that kind of a proposition ought to make the blood boil in the veins of
every American citizen who is face to face, or who was seven or eight years
ago face to face with the proposition whether or not the American people
were to rule themselves or whether they were to continue to be ruled by the
"big interests," as Jimmie Garfield puts it. (Applause)
The sun rises every morning, three hundred and sixty-five days in the year,
in California; it reddens the cheeks of our girls; it makes our boys strong
and healthy; it brings the gold to the oranges that hang upon our trees. And
for all these years we have been thanking God for the rising of the sun in
California. "The gentle rain from heaven" has fallen alike upon the just and
the unjust out there in California—upon those who deserve to be rained on
and those who do not deserve to be rained on (laughter). And all these years
we have been thanking God for the gentle rain that falls from heaven. But
yesterday as I sat here in this great Auditorium and listened to the Governor
of Montana tell what Montana had been doing for this Nation, I began to
think (I do not wish to be irreverent in saying it) that we were under no
obligations in California to God for the rising of the sun or the falling of the
rain; but that we were under great obligations to Montana (laughter and
applause) for all the good things that belong to California and Californians.
And as my good friend, Governor Norris (to put a name to him) was telling
his lurid history of Montana's great doings, I couldn't help but think that as
an American citizen some of the things that lie in the State of Montana
belong to me, belong to you, belong even to those who live on the hook of
Cape Cod or away up in the northeastern corner of Maine or down on the
tip of Florida; that those things which belong to the people of the United
States even in Montana belong to us all, and that Montana has no exclusive
right to them until our representatives in Congress give them to that State,
and I am one of those who pray God that it will be a long time before the
State of Montana gets from us the exclusive right to, and ownership of,
those things that are ours. (Great applause)
Some time ago a good friend of mine, who has never denied when I have
charged him with receiving $20,000 per annum (and by the way, he is a
delegate from California to this Congress) as the chief counsel of one of the
power trusts of California, said to me, "Oh, how the President is usurping

the powers of the Government! Isn't it awful?" But I never could see
anything very awful about it when Roosevelt and Garfield and Pinchot and
the rest of them were hustling around trying to keep my friend's corporation
from stealing from us of California the few things we have left (laughter
and applause); nor have I forgotten that, before the time of Roosevelt,
Garfield and Pinchot, the corporations represented by my friend did not
believe in State rights. But since the time of Roosevelt, Pinchot and
Garfield they have begun to sing a different song. That song is State rights.
Nor have I forgotten that my friend used to be and still claims to be one of
the most hide-bound republicans that mortal man ever looked upon
(laughter and applause). Now he says that the rights of the people of the
States are being pillaged and plundered and robbed away from them. I
speak again for my State of California when I say that if there is anything in
the State of California that the National Government has not nailed down
that has not been stolen, I would like to know what it is. (Great laughter and
applause)
There are, as you heard Mr Herbert Knox Smith say here on this platform
an hour ago, four great power corporations in the State of California. That is
so; but there are practically only two power trusts in the State of California.
When the Government declared its intention to hold on to the few power
sites that are left in the State of California in the National forests, all of a
sudden these power trusts wanted all the water-power of California
developed in the interests of the people; and they can't say it fast enough or
often enough (laughter and applause). But, as you heard Mr Smith say, they
have developed and are using only half of the power that they already have
in their possession. So when they get gay around where I am, I generally
say, "Well, that's all right, but go on and develop all the power you have got
now; and after you have got that developed, then we'll talk about giving you
some more; because I know just as sure as you fellows get an opportunity to
lay your hands on any of those power sites in the National forests you'll
steal them and put them in cold storage, and you'll make my children and
their children, so long as there are any children in the State of California,
dig up the last dollar that they have to pay you for the necessary electric
current to do their business during the next century and the century after
that until the end of time in California" (applause). And I, for one, as I say
to them, while I am somewhat hardened and calloused by being robbed

myself, don't want my children or their children to be robbed into the poor-
house and the penitentiary by anybody's power corporation (applause).
Therefore I hope and pray that those gentlemen who are so apprehensive
that the people of the country will not get, unless they get it through the
States, the right to use the things that belong to all the people of the country,
will pause until the State of Montana, the State of California, the State of
Washington, and all the Pacific-coast States, at least, if not the rest of the
Nation, are governed by the people of those States and not by the public-
service corporations. (Great and prolonged applause)

Christopher G. Horr—Mr Chairman: The State of Washington having been
mentioned, I wish one minute to speak in behalf of that State.
President Baker—Is the Gentleman a Delegate from the State of
Washington?
Mr Horr—Yes. It has been stated from the platform that the State of
Washington believed in State rights. I want to contradict that. As one of the
Delegates of the State of Washington, I want to declare my belief that not
only the Granges of the State of Washington, as Brother Pardee has stated,
but the majority of the citizens of that State, will repudiate any such
sentiment coming from anyone in this Congress (great applause and
cheers). I want to say that the State of Washington is peopled in part by
25,000 former residents of the State of Minnesota, and that they have full
confidence in the National Government—they have full confidence in
President Taft, they have full confidence in your Senators Nelson and
Clapp, and in Congressman Stevens and the other congressmen of the
United States; and I consider it an insult to the Congress and the President
of the United States to say that they will not treat the people of the State of
Washington as they should be treated. I want to say to you, Ladies and
Gentlemen, that the State of Washington will keep step to the music of the
Union. (Great applause)

President Baker—After the next address on the program, any further
discussion of the subjects presented will be welcome.
It was gratifying to hear from California through the voice of Ex-Governor
Pardee. One of the fortunate features of this Congress is the presence of
men of prominence and influence from all sections of the country. Not
merely the North and the East and the West are represented, but the sunny
South; and we will be pleased to hear from a representative of the great
State of Louisiana, who has always been deeply interested in Conservation,
and is no less competent to speak on the subject now than when he wielded
the power of Governor of that commonwealth. I have great pleasure in
introducing Ex-Governor Newton C. Blanchard. (Applause)
Ex-Governor Blanchard—Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the
Congress: I am not on the program for a formal address, but I am here to
supplement and endorse and support the admirable address delivered you a
little while ago by Ex-Secretary Garfield. (Applause)
The times change, and men's opinions seem to change with them. On
yesterday, in this Auditorium, I listened to a number of western Governors
preaching the doctrine of State rights. For many years prior to the fateful
year of 1861, and for four memorable years following it, the question of
State rights was forcefully discussed in the forum of the Republic, and
afterward practically settled on the battlefield (applause); and we of the
South, who went down in that struggle to determine whether these rights of
the States were paramount to the authority of the Federal Government,
accepted the situation in good faith (great applause)—and we are now
marching side by side with the North and the East and the West in that
grand procession of progress that makes for the might and power of our
great Republic. (Renewed applause)
It seems strange to a southern democrat like myself (applause) that "a voice
should come out of the West" (laughter) telling us that this movement for
Conservation must be abandoned by the Federal Government and relegated
to the tender mercies of the western States (laughter and applause).
Gentlemen of the Congress, was the question of State rights, the real,
genuine doctrine of State rights, behind that demand? No; everyone of you
know that it was not. It was a mere pretext; and the history of all nations is

full of examples where strong men, having risen to ascendancy and ruling
power and wanting to do something not exactly right (some usurpation of
power or act of tyranny), first sought a pretext to justify it (applause). Why,
then, does this voice come out of the West—a country that in the time
preceding and following 1861 was known as "the wild and woolly West,"
and out of which at that time came not a whisper in advocacy of State
rights? Why, now that the "wild and woolly West" has gone and
magnificent commonwealths are there, now for the first time comes from
the West, in former renegade garb or present robe of splendor, the cry that
State rights must dominate the Conservation of the natural resources of the
country? Gentlemen, some years ago a great citizen and soldier of our
Republic was the candidate of a political party for the high office of
President of the United States at a time when the tariff was the dominant
issue, and becoming involved in the intricacies and embarrassing problems
of the tariff, he declared, "the tariff is a local issue." Listening to the
western Governors last afternoon, I perceived the same idea arising again,
only in a different form; for the western Governors would make State rights
a local issue.
The natural resources of the United States belong to all the people
(applause), not alone to those who happen to live in the States where what
is left of the public domain is principally situated today; you and I have just
as much concern and interest and proprietorship in the natural resources on
and in and springing from the public domain in Wyoming, in Montana, in
Idaho, and in other western States, as have the people of those States
themselves (applause). Gentlemen, as has been well said already during this
Congress, the smaller the community the easier it is for special interests to
control it; and that is the reason for this demand that the Conservation of the
natural resources in the western States should be turned over to the States
themselves. If you want Conservation to amount to anything—if you wish it
to go forward in the fullness of development so that what is left of the
public domain, of the coal lands, the phosphate lands, the oil and gas lands
and the forests belonging to the United States may be preserved and
conserved and utilized without present waste and handed down to our
children and children's children without exhaustion, then I say the power
that should lead in this movement is the mighty power of the Federal
Government. (Applause)

When the distinguished and able gentleman who occupies the executive
chair in the State of Montana was speaking yesterday, he claimed for his
State "the earth and the fullness thereof" in respect to the Conservation of
natural resources. He claimed that the movement there had antedated
anything done by any other State or by the Federal Government, and to hear
his eulogy of what Montana had done in this respect and his absence of
expression as to what the Federal Government had done there, one might
think, to use the vernacular of the day, that Montana was "the whole
cheese" (laughter) in matters of conservation. And yet, when I met the
gentleman today and asked him if the Federal Government had not been
doing considerable work in Montana and expending large sums of money to
irrigate the arid regions of that State, he admitted that it had. I asked him if
the Federal Government had not expended many times more money in
doing just that kind of Conservation work in his State than Montana had,
and he admitted that it had. I asked him if what the Federal Government had
already done in the way of irrigating the arid regions of his State and the
projects now under way would not when completed yield to the farmer and
the husbandman many hundreds of thousands of acres of valuable land, and
he admitted it would and that the aggregate would be more than 600,000
acres (applause). That is what the Federal Government has done and is
doing in one western State; and yet that same Governor, and others from the
West, advocate that in the matter of Conservation the Federal Government
should take a back seat, and permit the States to take the lead in
Conservation.
Gentlemen, you heard today from the lips of Theodore Roosevelt a truth
that struck me most forcibly, and that was this: It is not so much the
question as to who shall take the lead in the matter of Conservation,
whether it be the power of the States or the authority of the Federal
Government, but which of these powers is best equipped and most able to
keep what remains of the public domain and the natural resources from
falling into the hands of the special interests and the monopolists
(applause). Some of those western Governors, when the imputation was
made that if the natural resources were turned over to the States in the
manner proposed by them the special interests might handle their
legislators, grew virtuously indignant; and yet all of us remember that it has
been charged time and time again—and I think no one will have the

temerity to deny it—that powerful interests with unlimited money have put
forward their own selections for the high office of Senator of the United
States and elected them (applause). That has been done repeatedly in the
past; and is anyone here bold enough to say that even now there does not sit
in the Senate of the United States men from the western States who owe
their election to that position through the instrumentality of money?
(Applause) No; that is true; and everyone of you knows it is true. If the
Legislatures—and I do not mean to imply or to charge that the Legislatures
of those particular western States are any more corrupt or more subject to
the blandishments of corporations and men of means than the Legislatures
of other States, whether they be North or South or East or West—can be
induced through those instrumentalities to elevate men to high position,
then I say those Legislatures can be controlled by the same means in other
respects; and all of us know that special interests have always out a
grabbing hand for what there is in the way of coal lands, in the way of
water-power sites, in the way of phosphate lands and oil and gas lands. So I
say, gentlemen of the Congress, we had better leave this matter of
Conservation in the hands of the Federal Government to lead in this great
work wherever the Conservation relates to the natural resources springing
from the public domain. I am here to advocate that first; and I am here to
say that in other respects, where the State authority finds jurisdiction, there
should be cooperation between the States and the Federal Government.
(Applause)
We have heard much from these western Governors in their speeches last
afternoon relative to the waters in the rivers of their States, and the position
was taken that the waters belong to the States. Flowing through the public
domain, the land and the water-power sites would belong to the Federal
Government, and where that is the case there is good ground for
cooperation; but I am far from admitting that those waters belong to the
States. There are some decisions of the Supreme Court that so declare, but
such decisions were made by the courts under peculiar circumstances and
facts differing from the circumstances and facts set before us in the matter
of Conservation. Take the great Mississippi; to whom does the Mississippi
river belong? Do its waters belong to the States through which those waters
flow? Why, don't you know that every drop of water precipitated from the
clouds, except that which is taken up by evaporation, every drop of rainfall

from the top of the Alleghenies to the summit of the Rocky mountains finds
its way through the innumerable channels and smaller streams to the great
main trunk that we call the Mississippi river? Don't you know that it is the
receptacle for the drainage of half of this great Republic of ours, that much
of even the waters that fall in the western part of the great State of New
York find their way into the channel of the Mississippi? All of the water
thus gathered into the main channel flows by the cities of all the States from
Minnesota down to Louisiana, my own State; and all of that water flows
through the State of Louisiana to find lodgment at last in the Mexican Gulf.
Now, does all the water thus garnered from this immense watershed to flow
through the State of Louisiana belong to the State of Louisiana? If so, we
don't want it! (Laughter and applause) It fell on these great western States,
and too much of it comes down upon us, and we have had a great struggle,
extending through many years, to keep that water off our land (laughter). I
have known one great flood in Louisiana to cause destruction to the extent
of ten millions of dollars. The State of Louisiana alone has expended, by
State taxation and levee district taxation, more than thirty millions of
dollars since the War in keeping the waters that fell upon your territory off
our fertile lands (applause); and not being able to perform the herculean
task ourselves, we have appealed, in season and out, to the Federal
Government for aid, and a liberal hand has been extended to us. (Applause)
I was for years in Congress from Louisiana and for years a member and
chairman of the committee on rivers and harbors of the House of
Representatives, and I had to deal with this question. When I went first to
Congress the idea prevailed there that the Federal Government had no
constitutional authority to appropriate and expend money on Mississippi
river except in aid of navigation; it was admitted that could be done under
the commerce clause of the Constitution, but Congress denied that it owed
any other duty to the river. Myself and others from the lower Mississippi
valley, the lands of whose constituents were flooded every now and then by
the great river, contended that Congress owed a two-fold duty to the river:
to improve its navigation, and to prevent the waters from remaining a terror
to those who lived in its lower valley (applause). Congress admitted it owed
the first duty, but asked where there was any constitutional authority for the
appropriation of public money to redeem private property from the flood
and ravages of the river; and it took the representatives and senators from

the lower valley States many years—I know I worked at it myself for ten
years, in season and out, as a member of Congress—to demonstrate that the
Federal Government owed it to the great river to prevent its floods as well
as to improve its navigation. In answer to the demand for constitutional
authority we cited a principle of law, recognized alike by the civil law
system and by the common-law, which long antedated the Constitution of
the United States, a principle embodied in a Latin maxim, "Sic utere tuo ut
alienum non laedas"—so use your own that it shall not become an injury to
others (applause). And we asked in that connection, "Who owns the
Mississippi river? Does the Federal Government own it? If so, it is its
property as a great feature of our country; and if the proprietorship of the
river is in the Federal Government, then should not the Government so
regulate and control its own that it will not injure or prove a detriment or
damage to those who live in the lower valley?" (Applause) And that
argument won.
Prior to 1892, large appropriations were made by Congress for the
Mississippi river, all of them with a proviso that none of the money should
be expended for the purpose of preventing the floods of the river; and not a
dollar was available for the repair and construction of levees. That was the
situation in 1882 and on down to 1892, when the argument that the river
belonged to the Federal Government and it must so regulate and use it that
it should not be a damage and a hurt to us in the lower valley prevailed; and
in the river and harbor bill of 1892, at a time when I was chairman of the
committee, the Secretary of War was authorized to expend $10,000,000 on
the lower Mississippi from Cairo to the Gulf, and the restrictions and
provisos that had hampered the Mississippi River Commission theretofore
in the expenditure of money for the two-fold purpose of improving
navigation and preventing floods were removed (applause). We wrote these
limitations all out; Congress had been educated up to the point where it
recognized the second duty it owed to the great river in preventing its
floods. The bill passed, and the Mississippi River Commission allotted
$6,000,000 of the $10,000,000 for levee construction and repairs
(applause). We followed this two years later by another bill using the same
phraseology and appropriating $9,000,000 more, and these two great bills,
carrying $19,000,000, with no restrictions on the expenditures for the
prevention of floods in the river, have given us along the lower river the

greatest and finest levee system ever known in any age or on any river in
any country—1350 miles of levees that stay the floods of the Mississippi so
that a general flood in the river is a thing of the past; and on every mile of
our 1350 miles of levees on the two banks of the river is the stamp of the
Federal Government. (Applause)
And yet they tell you that these waters do not belong to the Federal
Government? They admit that they belong to the Federal Government for
purposes of navigation. Congress is committed already to the principle that
the waters of the river belong to the Federal Government, because Congress
has undertaken to help us to keep those waters off of our lands. But I go
further than that; I agree with my distinguished friend Mr Garfield that the
jurisdiction of the Federal Government extends, where the navigable
waterways of the United States are concerned, far beyond the point to
which they are navigable; it extends to the headwaters of those rivers, and
for the very good reason that if the jurisdiction of the Federal Government
did not so extend, then where these rivers take their rise some of these
western States might undertake to divert from the great Mississippi channel
the water needed to supply that river with enough water for navigation
purposes. Every river, therefore, must be treated as a unit (applause). That is
the view we take of it in the South; and in taking that view we hold to the
National idea that water, being one of those natural resources which needs
conservation in respect to its greater and wiser use, ought to be controlled
by the Federal Government. Water is one of those natural resources that
man can do nothing to add to or diminish in quantity; the snows and the
rains are the result of great cosmic action—and fortunate it is that such is
the case, for past experience in this country shows that if man could
diminish the supply he would long since have done so by his neglect and
his wastefulness. (Applause)
I have spoken long enough. I wanted to supplement, from the standpoint of
the South, the admirable remarks made by the distinguished Governor of
Mississippi on last afternoon. We of the South are hand in hand with the
Federal Government in this great question of the Conservation of the
natural resources; and we look to the Federal Government to lead in that
movement (applause). At the same time I repeat that this great movement,
so auspiciously inaugurated by Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot
(applause), needs for its full consummation and for the realizing of the

greatest benefits possible the cooperation—with the Federal Government
leading—of the Federal Government, the States, and all the people
(applause). When we shall have brought these three great agencies into
harmonious action looking to proper Conservation, then will our country
grow greater even than it is now in all that goes to make up the might and
glory of a great nationality of the earth; our country will then continue to
present the example of a great continental republic possessed of every
variety of climate and production, whose people are as one again, loyally
devoted to the perpetuity of the Union, fearing no foreign foe, following the
pursuits of peace, serving God according to the dictates of conscience and
solving practically the great problems of self-government. (Great and
prolonged applause)

[In the course of the foregoing address, President Baker surrendered the
Chair to Professor Condra.]
Chairman Condra—Ladies and Gentlemen: Before continuing the program,
a few announcements will be made.
Ex-Governor Pardee: I again announce that the Committee on Resolutions
will meet at the Saint Paul Hotel this evening at 8 oclock in Room 534.
Those having resolutions will please write them out, sign them, and hand
them in.
Several announcements were made on behalf of State delegations.
Chairman Condra: In place of Honorable B. A. Fowler, of Phoenix,
Arizona, who was to speak on "Water as a Natural Resource," I call upon a
man who has done much for the advance of irrigation, and who organized
the first National Irrigation Congress, Mr William E. Smythe, of San Diego,
California.
Mr Smythe—Mr Chairman, and Ladies and Gentlemen of the Congress: I
am called upon at very short notice to speak for our distinguished president
of the National Irrigation Congress on water as a natural resource. I need
not remind you how valuable this resource is. Some years ago I went to the

White House in company with a cabinet officer to confer with the then
President of the United States concerning a mooted irrigation question.
Secretary Moody presented me to President Roosevelt, saying that I was a
democrat interested in the subject of water; whereupon the President turned
to me with a smile and said, "What! a democrat interested in water?"
(Laughter) "Yes, Mr President," I said, "for democrats have sense enough to
know that in a country where it seldom rains water is too valuable to drink."
(Laughter)
Water is so valuable that we want to guard it carefully as a natural resource.
I have but a moment at my disposal, and I am glad to take the advice of the
President of the United States who yesterday told us to come out of the
clouds, get down to brass tacks, and talk business. He asked us to say what
we mean by Conservation, to tell what are the evils that we want to remedy,
and explain how we propose to remedy them (applause). In a word, the evil
that we want to remedy in the arid States of America is the great evil of
permitting men to make merchandise of the melting snow and the singing
brook (applause). I stand here to say that no man can possibly be good
enough to own the water which another man must use in order to live
(applause). It may be that private enterprise can be employed in the form of
a construction company to build the reservoir and the means of distribution;
but in that case, after our people have paid for the work, and paid for it once
and twice and three times, then the Nation should answer our prayer, "Let
my people go."
We should have joint ownership of land and water. Today we have a
magnificent construction company at work in the seventeen States and
Territories of arid America; the name of it is "The United States of America,
Unlimited." (Applause) That construction company turns the work over to
the people at actual cost, with ten annual payments, and without one dollar
of interest (Applause). If the National Government can do that with
irrigation, it can do so just as wisely with power; and if it doesn't seem wise
for the National Government to do it as a matter of public enterprise, then
give us a form of construction company; but in the end, in the day of our
children and our children's children and our remote descendants, in the
name of God and in the name of humanity, let the people own the water
which is essential to their existence. (Applause)

Just one word further. I stand here to endorse what has just been said by one
of the few real men whom California ever had the good fortune to put into
her Governor's chair (great applause). California is not for State rights; that
doctrine was trampled to death fifty years ago under the feet of a million
armed men. Yesterday it raised its head and stretched out its weird arms
seeking to grasp the remnant of the natural resources and turn them over to
exploitation by private monopoly. But that will not be permitted. I am here,
my friends, to say to you, as Governor Pardee has said, that in this great
controversy—the most momentous which has arisen in this country since
the close of the Civil War—California and the Pacific slope, and I believe
all the splendid States of the Rocky mountain region, stand with that fine
young American statesman who during the past few months has thrilled this
nation in his fight to save the resources of the people to all the people for
the benefit of all the people; that young man who said at Denver the other
day that it is more important to help the small man make a living than to
help the big man make a profit; that man, who has sounded the highest
notes since Lincoln, who has declared that he is in favor of Government by
men for human welfare and against Government by money for profit—we
stand first, last, and all the time with Gifford Pinchot. (Great applause)

Colonel T. H. Davidson (Delegate-at-large from Minnesota)—Mr
Chairman: I noticed scattered through the program of this great Congress
the words "General Discussion." We have not limited the time to be
occupied by speakers. I now move you, sir, that under the head of "General
Discussion" a delegate shall be entitled to occupy only five minutes, and
shall not speak a second time on the same question.
Chairman Condra—The rule adopted today fully covers the point, though it
has not been put in effect this afternoon. We have two days, perhaps three,
for full discussion, and the time will be limited under the rules which will
govern tomorrow.
The last speaker on the formal program is one who has been greatly
interested in this movement and closely associated with Mr Pinchot. I have
pleasure in introducing Mr Walter L. Fisher, a Vice-President of this

Congress and of the National Conservation Association and President of the
Conservation League of America.
Mr Fisher—Mr Chairman, and Ladies and Gentlemen: I would not take any
of your time this afternoon were it not that I, too, have felt the appeal of
President Taft for concrete and practical suggestions as to how to solve
some of the more difficult of the problems of constructive statesmanship
presented in the Conservation movement. The particular point on which I
wish to make a suggestion is the relation of the States and the Federal
Government to the question of water-power grants.
This question, it seems to me, has been allowed to assume a phase entirely
unjustified by the facts. There is, in my judgment, not only no necessary
conflict between the interests of the State and the Nation, but there is every
incentive for practical cooperation between State and Nation on this matter
(applause); and in my opinion the question can never be rightly settled until
there is just that cooperation. (Renewed applause)
The Federal Government is the natural agency to which we must look for
many of the things which are essential to a solution. There are two phases
of the problem, one involving a question of law and the other a question of
public policy. As to the strict legal right, it must be apparent that on any
stream where the Federal Government owns the riparian property, or on any
stream which is navigable in fact or in law, the consent of the Federal
Government is absolutely necessary as a pre-requisite to the construction of
any water-power works. For myself, I believe that the power conferred by
the Constitution upon the Federal Government with relation to interstate
commerce absolutely carries the power to make such conditions in any
permit to erect a structure in a navigable stream as the Federal Government
may believe it wise policy to insert. The power to make or to withhold the
permit, under all the decisions of the courts which have in any way touched
that question, implies the power to impose conditions to the permit. There
are, I know, those who disagree as to this proposition; but even they will
agree on the broader question of public policy which underlies the whole
subject. When the Federal Government undertakes the improvement of a
navigable stream, it rarely if ever happens that it does not thereby either
create water-power or increase potential water-power already existing. It is
evident, therefore, that those riparian owners who own existing water-

power grants are directly benefitted by the improvement in the navigable
water. Whenever the Federal Government protects the headwaters and the
water-shed on which the stream depends, it is conferring a direct benefit
upon the owners of water-power property along the line; and so with all the
other improvements.
You have heard the eloquent Ex-Governor of Louisiana explain what the
interest of that State is in the intervention of the Federal Government in the
regulation of the Mississippi river. There are few places throughout this
country where the owners of water-power grants and those who are
interested in all the other uses of flowing water have not appealed to the
Federal Government for financial aid or for assistance not financial which
that Government alone can effectively render. It must be apparent that in
rendering that assistance the Federal Government creates property of value,
or enlarges the money value of property already existing. No hardship, then,
is done if the owners of this property are required to contribute to the
original cost. Not only so, but there can be no justice in the proposition
which requires the taxpayers of the United States as a body to pay the cost
of the improvement or the protection of any stream when as a matter of fact
the people who own the property immediately along the stream will get, in
direct money value, a larger benefit than the cost of the improvement.
There are many reasons besides these why the Federal Government must, in
the very nature of things, be the effective agency to do many of the things
which the States can never effectively do, no matter if the whole subject
were turned over to them this afternoon. On the other hand, I wish to call
attention to the fact, which I believe to be established by experience, that
whenever a local community is once aroused to an intelligent appreciation
of its interests and its rights, that local community will better and more
effectively regulate local service and local rates than any more remote
governmental agency whatever. Herein lies the advantage of local home
rule. Now, I am not talking about railroad rates connected with interstate
commerce, or about other things which affect more than the local
community, but about those things which affect merely particular localities.
If a water-power company starts in alongside of a great industrial
community and that community is built up so that its industries depend on
it, that community itself, once thoroughly aroused and intelligently
educated upon the question, will far more effectively regulate those rates in

the interests of the public, while at the same time dealing fairly with the
corporate or private interests involved, than would the State or the Federal
Government. That seems to me a broad, practical proposition which
experience has justified.
Now, let us apply the principle to the water-power situation. And my whole
purpose in speaking is merely to call the attention of this Congress to a
method of treating this question, which will, in my opinion, meet both
situations. It is not a novel suggestion; in one of the very last of the water-
power grants made by Secretary Garfield, the essential provisions of it were
at least hinted at and a preliminary provision made. In my humble opinion,
the Federal Government should control the water-power grants on streams
that are navigable or where the Government itself controls the riparian
property. It should make grants for definite periods of time and should
provide for compensation. That compensation as a broad, general rule
should be applied to the improvement and protection of the stream and the
watershed from which the water-power has been derived, or to other
streams and watersheds of like character, for all uses of the water, whether
for irrigation on the one hand or for water-power on the other. There should
be periodical readjustments of the rate of compensation. In the beginning,
and especially in an experimental enterprise, the rate of compensation
should be exceedingly low. There should be, as President Taft himself said
here in his speech, a readjustment of the rate, say every ten years; and the
person or the corporation invited to invest money should be given proper
protection in that readjustment. Capitalist and industrial pioneer should be
treated not only fairly but liberally, that vigorous development may result.
On the other hand, such a grant should contain this provision, or be subject
to this fundamental legal limitation, that the grantee, by acceptance of the
grant, acquiesces and will acquiesce in any reasonable regulation of the
service and of the rates which may be charged the public that may be
provided by the State or by any delegated agency of the State. In that way,
the thing in which the local community (the State, its municipalities or
minor communities) has the greatest interest will be amply protected and
left free to act in its own interest.
Now, what will be the result practically? At the end of the first ten-year
period the question of readjusting the compensation will arise. If the local
government has not adequately protected private interests, if it has not

regulated the rates so that the people are obtaining power upon fair terms
and the corporation restrained from making extortionate profits, all the
Federal Government will have to do will be simply to increase the
compensation. If, on the other hand, the fundamental question is being
taken care of and the community in which the water-power is generated and
distributed is receiving it at fair terms, the compensation can be left where it
is or only slightly increased, depending entirely on the situation.
And this has another side? The Federal Government may possibly at times
not be looking after some public interests in particular localities as well as it
should, for these same Federal officials who are elected by the method
suggested by our friend from Louisiana are the men who are going to
control a large part of the regulation of the rates by the Federal
Government; so anyone who believes that the delegation of this question to
either Federal or State authority is a final solution is equally mistaken in
either case. But the method which I suggest will work automatically,
because if either State or Nation is alive to the people's interests they will be
protected either by the imposition of proper compensation or by the
appropriate reduction of the rates. (Applause)

Chairman Condra—Fellow-Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen: In taking
note of the remarkable representation from all over the country in this
Congress, we should not forget that our President, Mr Bernard N. Baker, is
from Baltimore, right on the Atlantic coast and in a southern State; and I
desire to say, with a great deal of satisfaction, that a large part of the success
of this Congress is due to his unflagging efforts. (Applause)
We shall close our formal program for the day with a brief address by
Colonel James H. Davidson, whom I now have the pleasure of introducing.
Colonel Davidson—Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I shall only
detain you a few minutes to make some suggestions which seem to me
pertinent.
Many delegates in this Congress seem to have it fixed in their minds that
Federal control would settle the questions before us, and other delegates,

from the Far West, seem to claim that the States should control absolutely;
and to my surprise and great pleasure, I find that the representatives of
southern States, like Louisiana and Mississippi, are favoring Federal
control. I say to you, Mr Chairman and Delegates to this Congress, that this
question is large enough and broad enough to enlist all the statesmanship in
the Federal Government and in all the States composing the Union
(applause). Reference has been made to that great struggle of nearly fifty
years ago, in which I took part for nearly five years from private soldier to
brigade commander as a full colonel (being one of but five who advanced in
rank from private soldier to a full colonelcy); and I cannot stand up and ask
as an American for State rights as against the Federal Government
(applause). But it seems to me, Gentlemen, that there is enough for each
and all of us to do; and if we, as States, neglect the duties that devolve upon
us under the police powers, which all the States have, of regulating internal
affairs, including these manufacturing corporations and monopolies, we are
weak and are not making full use of the great privileges conferred upon us.
I was interested very much in the discussion by Ex-Governor Pardee; and
he pointed out a fact which indicates to my mind that Federal control alone
is not sufficient. He says that 6,000,000 acres of the most valuable timber
lands that ever grew on this continent were conveyed to the Southern
Pacific Railway, in a certain sense in trust, to be conveyed to actual settlers
at not less than $2.50 per acre, but that no actual settlers ever went upon
that land. It is not charged that the State of California was in any way
responsible. There was a case where the Federal Government, and the
Federal Government alone, was involved; and yet that valuable property
passed into the hands of that railroad which is the imperial controller of
almost everything in California. In the course of the discussion yesterday in
reference to the regulation of oil and gas lands it was stated that in
California alternate sections had been conveyed to that great organization,
and was out of the control of the Federal Government. That is another case
where, if California, a sovereign State, had dealt with those things at the
proper time and at the inception, it might have been saved some of the great
burdens that now rest upon the people of that State.
They speak of four great water-power companies in California, and two
water-power trusts. I thoroughly investigated that subject, spending over six
months on it three years ago, and I found that water was king in California,

yet the water is owned by these four imperial companies. One-half of my
life and of my most valuable treasure is my son and his family, now in the
San Joaquin valley; and every crevice and cañon, in the mountains, almost,
has been pre-empted by these great water-power combinations, and it costs
fifty dollars per horsepower per annum for the use of it for pumping or for
any other purpose. If the State of California had been alert, and had had
proper regulation, it would have seen to it that these monopolies could not
take possession of all these cañons and control the water-power against the
interests of the people. A board of most distinguished army engineers
reported two or three years ago that the cost of generating one electrical
horsepower at the falls of Saint Anthony—within ten miles of where I stand
—was less than $6 per annum, and that in the city of Minneapolis to
generate one horsepower by steam costs $42. Is there any reason why these
great monopolies that can generate horsepower by water at an expense of
from five to six dollars—and I think in California at less—should put it to
the people at fifty dollars per horsepower? I hope that one of the results of
this Congress will be earnest cooperation between the States and the
Federal Government. Let each one be alert.
When the Civil War broke out and President Lincoln called for 75,000 men,
the Governors of the different States in the North did not hesitate, nor the
Governors in the different States in the South; they immediately began
calling for volunteers, making all arrangements to take care of the soldiers,
and not an hour was lost. Governor Alexander Ramsey, of Minnesota,
tendered a regiment to President Lincoln within an hour after the firing
upon Fort Sumter (applause). It was a day for the earnest cooperation of all
the States with the Federal Government. And we are confronting a
condition of that kind, commercially and legally, today; and it needs
cooperation, without bickering and without lack of confidence, in the most
earnest manner, to pass such State laws as are proper and right, and to pass
such laws of Congress as will (so far as the General Government has not
parted with its rights) control the streams, the lakes, the waters, and the
various natural resources in the West. (Applause)

Chairman Condra—It is now long after six oclock; and the Congress is
adjourned, to reassemble tomorrow morning at 9.30.

FIFTH SESSION
The Congress was called to order in the Auditorium, Saint Paul, on
Wednesday, September 7, 1910, at 9.30 a.m.
President Baker—Ladies and Gentlemen: The State Delegations are
requested to hand the Secretary, soon as possible, the names of their
nominees for Vice-Presidents of the Congress.
The Committee on Resolutions are anxious to have all resolutions
submitted to them at the earliest possible moment in order that they may
receive full consideration.
It has been arranged to renew the Call of the States tomorrow afternoon.
The first Call of the States was made on Governors' Day (the Second
Session), when preference was given to the Governors. Delegations are
requested to have a speaker from their State prepared to respond to the call
at the Thursday afternoon session.

Now that Delegations are assembled, the Right Reverend Samuel Cook
Edsall, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church for Minnesota, will ask
the blessing of our Heavenly Father.
Invocation
O, Almighty and everlasting God, Who art the giver of every good and
perfect gift, we render unto Thee our most humble and hearty thanks for all
the blessings which Thou hast vouchsafed unto our country, for our
resources of soil, forest, mine, and stream, which Thou hast given into our
hands; and we humbly beseech Thee that Thou wilt give unto the President
of the United States, the Governors of our States, our legislators in
National Congress and in State Legislatures, and unto all those who are in
authority, as well as unto all the people whether in public or in private

station, the graces of unselfishness and wisdom; that they may rightly use
these bounties to Thy honor and glory and for the good of all mankind; and
that Thou wilt so bless and guide the deliberations of this Congress that by
all that may be here said and done our minds may be illumined and our
hearts stirred to righteousness and obedience to Thy law—through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.

President Baker—Ladies and Gentlemen: We have with us today a truly
representative man of our Southland, Mr W. W. Finley, President of the
Southern Railway Company, who will address us on "The Interest of the
Railways of the South in Conservation." (Applause)

Mr Finley—Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen: The interest of the
Railways of the South in Conservation and the interest of the people of the
South in Conservation are identical. I will go farther, and state my
unqualified conviction that any economic or governmental policy that is, in
the last analysis, to the best interest of the people of any community is to
the best interest of the railways by which that community is served.
Conversely, my conviction is equally strong that any economic or
governmental policy that is harmful to the railways is harmful to the
communities served by them.
Therefore, Mr President, in all that I say on the topic assigned to me—"The
Interest of the Railways of the South in Conservation"—I must be
understood as presenting what I believe to be the interest of the southern
people.
I am not sure that the expression "Conservation of natural resources" is
everywhere understood in its broadest sense. I think that to some minds it
conveys only the narrow idea of the withdrawal from present use of some
part of those resources. However important that kind of Conservation may
be in some localities and under some circumstances, I do not believe there

is much occasion for its application in the part of the United States for
which I am expected to speak—the States south of the Ohio and Potomac
rivers and east of the Mississippi. I would define the type of "Conservation
of natural resources" that should be applied in that section as being the wise
use of those resources. In some cases it may involve a measure of present
self-denial, as when, in the case of an owner of forest lands, it impels him to
cut only the matured timber and leave standing immature trees that have a
present market value; but, in that case, it leaves him with an asset which
increases in value with each year's growth of the standing timber. In some
cases Conservation may mean the use of resources so as to obtain the
maximum present profit, as in the case of soils; for I believe that I am
supported by the best scientific and practical authority in saying that soils
not only preserve, but increase, their productivity when so handled, in the
application of fertilizers, the rotation of crops, and the growing of live
stock, as to yield the maximum present profit.
The South is interested in the application of Conservation to the wise use to
its soils, its minerals, its timber, and its streams. Notwithstanding the
wonderful industrial development of the South since 1880, it is still pre-
eminently an agricultural section. It is a section, therefore, in which the
conservation of the soil is of the highest importance. There is a prevalent
belief that the productivity of the soils in those parts of the United States
that have been longest under cultivation has been seriously impaired.
Statistics do not confirm this belief. Estimates of productions of staple
crops per acre have been compiled in the United States only since 1867,
and, as there are often wide fluctuations between successive seasons—due
to differences in rainfall and temperature—the period covered has not been
long enough to afford a basis for definite conclusions. There is also the fact
that all available figures are estimates, and consequently are not exact. On
their face, however, they do not prove a decline in productivity. This may be
illustrated by comparing the production of wheat per acre for ten-year
periods since 1867. In the decade from 1867 to 1876 the average for the
United States was estimated at 12 bushels; from 1877 to 1886, 12.5 bushels;
from 1887 to 1896, 12.7 bushels; from 1897 to 1906, 13.8 bushels, and for
the three years since 1906, 14.6 bushels. So far, then, as these figures can be
relied upon, they tend to show an increase in productivity, especially as an

analysis by groups of States shows the larger and more uniform increases to
have been in some of the older sections of the country.
Similar figures for corn do not show an increase for the United States as a
whole, but they show very little decrease. From 1867 to 1876 the average
production of corn per acre was estimated at 26.2 bushels; from 1877 to
1886, 25.1 bushels; from 1887 to 1896, 24.1 bushels; from 1897 to 1906,
25.4 bushels, and for the three years since 1906, 25.8 bushels. It is proper to
note, in connection with the apparent decline in the fourth decade as
compared with the first, that the poorest yield in the entire period was in
1901, when abnormal weather conditions brought the estimated average for
the United States down to 16.7 bushels, thus pulling down the average for
the entire decade. It is also proper to note that Dr Whitney, Chief of the
Bureau of Soils in the United States Department of Agriculture, in
discussing these figures, expresses the opinion that, on account of a
readjustment of the basis of the Department's estimates in 1881 as a result
of the reports of the census of 1880, the figures before that year, both for
wheat and corn, were relatively too high.
Estimates of cotton yield per acre have been made by the United States
Agricultural Department since 1866. Ten-year averages for the full decades
up to 1905 are as follows: 1866 to 1875, 176.4 pounds of lint cotton per
acre; 1876 to 1885, 171.4 pounds; 1886 to 1895, 175.9 pounds; 1896 to
1905, 182.6 pounds, and for the four years since 1905, 183.1 pounds. These
figures are subject to the same question as to their accuracy that apply to the
estimates of wheat and corn production, but, on their face, they do not
indicate any impairment of the productivity of the cotton soils of the South.
It is noteworthy that the larger and more uniform increases in yield per acre
shown by the Department's figures are in the older cotton States.
While statistics of crop yields in the United States do not cover a sufficient
period to be of great value in determining the effect of long use on soil
productivity, some light is thrown on the subject by comparing yields per
acre in the United States with those in other countries where lands have
been under cultivation for centuries. Thus, for the ten-year period from
1897 to 1906, inclusive, the average yield of wheat per acre in the United
States was 13.8 bushels, in France 19.8 bushels, in Germany 28 bushels,
and in the United Kingdom 32.2 bushels. In Germany, statistics are

available from 1883 to 1906, inclusive, showing increases in the average
yields of wheat from 18.2 to 30.3 bushels, of rye from 15.4 to 25.1 bushels,
and of oats from 27.6 to 55.7 bushels. Similar figures might be cited for
other European countries, but perhaps the most conclusive statistics are
those collected by Kellerman, a German student of this question, who gives
the yield per acre for a large number of German estates, covering long
periods of time. I shall cite but one of these—a Schmatzfeld estate with
records extending back to 1552. In the period between 1552 and 1557 the
annual yields reduced to bushels per acre, were, wheat 12.5, rye 13.2,
barley 14.2, and oats 14.8. In the period from 1897 to 1904 these yields
were, wheat 45.1, rye 34, barley 50.4, and oats 69.1.
Taking all these figures together, I believe the conclusion is inevitable that,
while abuse of soils may impair their productivity, their wise use increases
it, and the longer they are properly used the more productive they become.
Proper use, such as conserves and increases soil productivity, involves the
most approved cultural methods, the application of such fertilizers as may
be required for varying soil conditions, the raising of live stock, and, above
all, the scientific rotation of crops. There can be little question that the most
unwise use to which a soil can be subjected is the raising of the same crop
for a long series of years. Some very interesting experiments in continuous
cropping and crop rotation, covering a period of sixty-five years, have been
carried on at Rothamsted, England. On one plot potatoes were grown for
fifteen years. At the end of that period the soil was in such condition that it
would not grow potatoes at all. It was then planted in barley, and produced
an excellent yield. Another crop followed the barley, and the soil was then
in condition to grow potatoes again. On this same experimental farm wheat
has been sown for fifty years on the same land without fertilizers, and the
yield has gone down from 30 bushels to 12 bushels. On another tract wheat
has been grown continuously for fifty years with the use of a complete
fertilizer, and an average yield of about 30 bushels has been maintained. On
another tract wheat has been grown for fifty years in rotation with other
crops and an average yield of 30 bushels has been maintained, showing
that, for growing wheat on that particular soil, rotation was equivalent to
fertilization. As might be expected, the Rothamsted experiments show the
best results where fertilizers are used in connection with rotation, and

justify the conclusion that under continuous use, with proper rotation and an
intelligent use of fertilizers, soil productivity can be largely increased.
This is a matter of particular interest to the South, because with our
advantages of soils and climate we have an ideal region for soil
conservation through crop rotation and intensive farming. There is a quite
general impression throughout the North that, except for a few localities in
which early fruits and vegetables, tobacco, and sugar cane are grown, the
South is a one-crop region devoted exclusively to cotton. This is entirely
erroneous. There are many localities in the southeastern States where cotton
is not grown at all, and every acre of land in the cotton belt is suited for
growing other crops as well. Cotton will continue to be the great staple crop
of the South, and with the ever-increasing demand for cotton goods of all
kinds, its cultivation will become increasingly profitable, but the southern
cotton planter is learning the value of crop rotation; diversified farming and
live-stock raising are becoming more general, and the increased supply of
cotton demanded by the world will be produced by increasing the average
productiveness of each acre as well as by increasing the acreage.
Other things being equal, the conservative use of a raw material, whatever it
may be, consists in its manufacture, in the locality of production, through
all the stages of preparation for the final consumer. Manufacturing in the
South has reached its present growth and is being still further developed on
the basis of this kind of conservation of raw material. Industrial
development in the South on a large scale may be said to date from about
1880, prior to which time only relatively a small proportion of the raw
materials available in that section were advanced through even the first
stages of manufacture before being shipped to other localities. It is natural
that, at first, only the coarser, and what may be termed the preliminary,
processes should have been undertaken. This was the first step in the
conservation of raw materials by their manufacture near the source of
supply. The South has gone far in that direction, and has already started on
the second step, which is the use of the products of primary manufacturing
as the raw materials for secondary industries. But a large proportion of
southern cotton mill products, lumber, pig-iron, and other commodities,
advanced through the first stages of manufacture, are still shipped out of the
South to serve as the raw materials of industries in other localities which
convert them into articles ready for the final consumer; and southern coal is

shipped to serve as the raw material for power and heat in other parts of the
United States and, to some extent, in foreign countries. This is a waste of
energy which, under ideal conditions of Conservation would be avoided;
and I am glad to be able to say that the present tendency of industrial
development in our section is in the direction of its elimination. Substantial
progress has already been made in the building up of secondary
manufacturing along some lines, and I believe that the most noteworthy
progress of southern industrial development in the immediate future will be
in this direction, carrying with it an increase in the volume of primary
manufacturing through broadening the market for its products.
One of the most valuable of the natural resources of the South is its timber.
It is also a resource of which the intelligent conservation will benefit,
directly and indirectly, the largest number of people. We have in the
southeastern States large and growing industries which use wood alone, or
wood in combination with iron, steel, and other materials, as their raw
materials. Some of these industries, such as the manufacture of furniture,
have enjoyed a phenomenal growth in the past 30 years. There is every
reason to expect that this growth will continue and that the variety of wood-
working industries will be increased, with the result that they will require an
increasing supply of raw materials. As the timber consumption of the
United States is now in excess of the annual growth, and as other sections
are drawing on our southern forests, it is obvious that if these southern
wood-working industries are to survive and are to be handed down to future
generations, immediate and effective steps should be taken for the
conservation of southern forests. This is the more important for the reason
that the same steps taken to insure a perpetual supply of raw material for
our wood-workers will tend to stream and soil conservation by increasing
stream-flow in periods of drought and by lessening the destructiveness of
floods which erode the soil of the upper watersheds and deposit gravel and
silt on overflowed lands and in the beds of the navigable parts of the
streams.
If we were thinking only of the present time, there would be no occasion for
us to concern ourselves with the conservation of our timber supplies. We
have ample for the present generation. It is because timber is a crop of slow
growth, requiring more than a lifetime to mature most of the species, that
timber conservation, if it is to be effective and is to provide for the needs of

those who come after us, must be handled along exceptional lines. It is not
the duty of a private owner of forest lands to conserve them unless it is at
least as profitable for him to do so as to clear all the timber off of them; but
it is the duty of the Government to consider the welfare of future
generations as well as of that now living.
The conservation of southern timber supplies is a matter that concerns not
only the people of our own section, but those of the entire United States as
well. It is a matter of National concern, as, owing to the depletion of their
forest resources, the people of other parts of the country must look to the
South for an increasing proportion of their timber supplies. It is a
recognition of this National interest in the southern forests that has
strengthened the support of the proposition for the acquisition by the
Federal Government of large tracts of lands in the Appalachian region to be
converted into National forests (applause) from which the timber shall be
marketed under a system that will result in the perpetuation of the forests. It
may be that our Federal Government has no power, under the Constitution,
to acquire lands for the purpose of forest conservation; but it is charged
with the supervision, improvement, and conservation of our navigable
streams (applause), and the evidence as to the effect of forests on stream
flow was so conclusive as to lead the House of Representatives, during the
last session of Congress, to pass a bill providing the establishment of
National forests for the protection of the watersheds of navigable streams.
This bill is to be voted on in the Senate on the fifteenth of next February.
Whether this plan or some other may be adopted, I think it is of the utmost
importance that the campaign of education as to the necessity for the speedy
and general adoption of the most approved methods of scientific forestry,
which is being so ably carried on by the National Forest Service, should be
continued (applause). This is quite important, if the best results are to be
attained, because, whatever may be done by the Federal Government, much
will remain for the States and for private owners of forests and woodlots to
do. If the States and private owners are to do their share, the owners of
forest lands, the users of forest products, State legislators, and the people
generally should be educated as to the dependence of our future supplies of
timber on wise conservation.
The private investor in forest lands buys them with the expectation of
making a profit on his investment. He naturally wants to make the largest

possible profit, and to do it as soon as possible. Heretofore, partly as a result
of prevailing systems of taxation and the lack of efficient fire protection,
self-interest has impelled the investor in timber lands to clean up his
holdings to the last dollar's worth of merchantable timber, and to get off the
denuded land as quickly as possible, selling it for whatever it might bring.
In the early years of our history, when, except in the prairie regions, lands
for cultivation could be obtained only by clearing them of timber, this
wholesale cutting was more justifiable, and, in some cases now, in locations
where the value of the land for agricultural purposes is greater than its value
for timber production, it may be the proper method. We have reached the
point, however, when, especially with reference to our mountain forests, it
may seriously be questioned whether, as a matter of dollars and cents, this
method is the most profitable to the forest owner. In view of the present
prices of lumber and the practical certainty of advancing prices in the
future, I am disposed to believe that we have now reached the point where it
will pay the private owner of any considerable body of timber on land
having relatively a low agricultural value to adopt conservative methods of
forestry (applause). A case in point is that of the University of the South, at
Sewanee, Tennessee, which owns 7,000 acres of forest land. In 1899 it was
proposed to sell all the marketable timber on this tract, and an offer of
$3,000.00 was obtained. This was rejected, and the University undertook to
manage the forest conservatively and market the mature timber from time to
time. The result is that, at the end of nine years, instead of having realized
only $3,000.00 from this tract, the University has received from it net
profits amounting to over $18,000.00 above all expenses (applause),
including the cost of fire patrol; and instead of having 7,000 acres of cut-
over land of relatively little value, it has a continuously productive forest.
(Applause)
Whatever may be the decision of our National Legislature as to the
proposition for the conversion of our Appalachian woodlands into National
forests, I believe it would be a wise and patriotic policy for our State
lawmakers to encourage conservative forestry by private owners in every
reasonable and proper way. One of the reasons assigned for the failure of
private owners to adopt conservative forestry is that in some localities the
rate of taxation on timber land is so high as practically to compel every
owner to cut the timber as quickly as possible. Another reason assigned is

the general lack of an efficient fire patrol, and the danger that, even if an
owner goes to the expense of preventing fire on his own property, his
timber may be destroyed by a fire starting on the property of some neighbor
who has taken no such precautions. These are matters that come within the
province of our State legislators, and I would suggest their consideration of
whether it might not be possible to devise a system of taxation that would
differentiate between timber lands so managed as to insure the perpetuation
of a great National resource and those so managed as to hasten its
exhaustion (applause). I would also suggest consideration of the enactment
of proper fire laws and the establishment of an efficient patrol, possibly
with the expense apportioned among owners of timber lands, as I
understand is done in some western localities at a very low annual cost per
acre. I would further suggest consideration of the practicability of
encouraging the planting of trees on lands of little or no agricultural value.
Even under the most encouraging conditions, however, planting of forests
by private land owners must, almost necessarily, be on relatively a small
scale. As a general rule, therefore, private planting will be limited to the
establishment of woodlots on the waste lands of farms; and if reforestation
is to be undertaken on a larger scale, it must be done by some
Governmental agency. (Applause)
The problem of stream conservation in the southeastern States is very
closely connected with both timber conservation and soil conservation. The
ends to be sought are a diminution of the volume of water carried by the
streams in their flood stages, and an increase in their volume during their
low stages. Everything, therefore, which tends to retard the flow of the
rainfall into the streams is a conservative agency. Undoubtedly the most
effective of these is the natural forest with its soil, composed of porous
humus, covered by a blanket of decaying leaves, branches, and fallen trees,
and often with a dense mat of underbrush growing among the trees. Such a
forest will absorb a large amount of water during a rain-storm, and allow it
to seep down gradually into the streams instead of running off in torrents,
overflowing the banks of the streams, destroying growing crops and other
property, and scouring the soil from the watersheds to be deposited in the
lower levels of the streams or at their mouths, shoaling channels or forming
bars in harbors. Generally speaking, therefore, every step taken in the
conservation of forests is of value in stream conservation; but, if the best

results in the regulation of stream flow are to be attained, other things may
be done to advantage. The growth of underbrush having no marketable
value is of no benefit to a forest, in fact it may choke out or retard the
growth of young trees of valuable species. Such a growth is of great value,
however, in retarding water flow, and preventing soil erosion, and, unless
cut-over mountain sides are to be reforested, I believe that the growth on
them of such species as laurel and rhododendron should be encouraged.
(Applause)
Each farmer, especially along the headwaters of the streams, can contribute
to a greater or less extent to stream conservation. He can do this by
establishing permanent woodlots on those waste lands that are to be found
on almost every farm in rolling or mountainous country, and especially on
those lands that are liable to erosion. He should, of course, take every
precaution to prevent the washing of gullies in his cultivated fields, and
where such gullies have already been formed he should so manage as to
prevent further erosion. The farmer on the headwaters of a stream cannot be
expected to do these things in order to aid in the prevention of flood
damages below him. He should be educated to an appreciation of their
benefit to himself individually. He will not only be lessening, in some
degree, the amount of silt carried down by flood waters, but will be
conserving his own soil; and his woodlots will, in a few years, become
increasingly valuable as stores of fire-wood and fence-posts, and,
eventually, of larger timber. The effect of but a single farmer on an
extensive watershed adopting these methods would, of course, be
inappreciable, but if thousands of farmers could be led to do so as a matter
of self-interest the good results would soon become apparent.
Another method of stream conservation that I believe may be practiced to
advantage in some locations in the Appalachian region is the impounding of
flood waters in artificial ponds or lakes, to be let out gradually during
periods of low water. This is not everywhere practicable, and, I believe,
should only be practiced where the benefit will be greater than the damage
that will result from overflowing the land included in the reservoir. It would
manifestly be unwise to locate such a reservoir at a point where it would
submerge a fertile agricultural valley, or where it would render inaccessible
a valuable deposit of coal or ore.

One of the great economic advantages of the South is the abundance of its
opportunities for the development of hydro-electric power for the operation
of its factories, the propulsion of its trolley cars, and the lighting of its cities
and towns. If this cheap and efficient power is to be used most
advantageously, it is important that the stream-flow by which it is generated
should be, as nearly as possible, uniform at all seasons of the year. It is in
this connection that reservoirs for impounding flood waters would be of
great value. Some of the sites where these reservoirs might be located are so
situated that a great and powerful fall of water may be attained. The power
plants would often have to be situated at points not suited for the location of
industrial establishments, but the power can be carried by wire to factories
many miles distant. Where such reservoirs are established the primary
purpose will be the generation of power, but they would also serve a highly
useful purpose in diminishing the flood level of the streams which they
feed.
Your invitation to address this Congress was very gratifying to me, Mr
President, not simply because of the high honor which it conferred upon
me, but chiefly because the invitation and the suggestion of my topic
conveyed a recognition of the interest of the railways of the United States in
the Conservation of our natural resources and in all that concerns our
national welfare. (Applause) They are interested in soil conservation,
because it means prosperity to the farmer and an increase in the volume of
farm products to be carried, and also an increase in their tonnage of
agricultural machinery and implements and of all kinds of merchandise
which a prosperous farmer will buy. They are interested in the conservation
of forests and mines, because it means the perpetuation of sources of supply
of raw materials which, either in their crude or manufactured state, must be
carried to market, and which, in their production and manufacture, bring
prosperity to many thousands whose consumption of commodities produced
in other localities calls for transportation. They are interested in the
conservation of water powers and navigable streams, because cheap power
means the development of industrial communities and, while economically
efficient waterways mean a loss to the railways of some kinds of traffic,
they also mean an increase in general prosperity in which the railways have
a share. (Applause)

Conversely, Mr President, the people are interested in the conservation and
development of their transportation systems. We have seen that one of the
elements of conservation is the manufacture of finished products at or near
the sources of supply of raw materials. It is this that enables the people of a
community to devote their energies chiefly to those industries for which
their locality is best suited and to exchange their surplus production for
commodities that can be produced more advantageously in other localities.
Transportation makes this specialization of industries possible. Without
efficient transportation facilities each community would have to be, to a
larger extent, self-supporting, and many of its people would have to engage
in the production of commodities which, with our existing facilities for
transportation, they can buy more profitably elsewhere. The scale of living
would be much more restricted, and many things which are now looked
upon as being almost necessaries of life would either be unattainable or
would be luxuries which only the wealthy could enjoy.
I am glad of the opportunity, Mr President, to speak of the South and for the
South before this representative national assembly (applause). Our section
is a region of unsurpassed economic strength. Our climate and our soils
invite to diversified agriculture, in which there can be produced profitably
all the products of the temperate zone and many of those of the tropics.
Beneath our soil are stores of coal, iron and other ores, marble and stone for
the builder, and clay for the potter and brickmaker. Our forests are sources
of great present profit and, under wise conservation, can be perpetuated as
sources of wealth for future generations. Our streams flowing from the
wooded mountains of the Appalachian region carry the force of millions of
horsepower capable of being utilized along their banks or carried in the
shape of electrical energy to wherever it can be used to best advantage. The
intelligence, energy, and enterprise of our people are attested by the
splendid social, agricultural, and industrial structure they have erected on
the ruins left by the Civil War. The progress that has been made is but the
promise of what will be. The South is a land of present-day opportunity, and
its people invite the man seeking an opportunity to work with hand or brain,
or the man with money to invest to come to this favored land of busy
factories and thriving towns—a land of fertile valleys, forest-clad
mountains, and storehouses of mineral wealth. (Applause)

President Baker—Ladies and Gentlemen: You will no doubt gladly permit
interruption of the formal program for a few moments now and then by
reports of committees. Professor Condra, Chairman of the Credentials
Committee, is now ready to report.
Professor Condra—Mr President and Delegates: We have examined the
credentials of all Delegates to the Second National Conservation Congress,
and find that the duly accredited Delegates entitled to vote in accordance
with the Constitution of the Congress number thirteen hundred fifty-one
(1351), and that the number of duly accredited Delegates from each State
are as follows:
Alabama 1, Arizona 3, Arkansas 4, California 13, Colorado 7, Columbia
(District of) 10, Connecticut 5, Delaware 1, Florida 4, Georgia 6, Idaho 10,
Illinois 67, Indiana 15, Iowa 78, Kansas 13, Kentucky 4, Louisiana 17,
Maine 1, Maryland 8, Massachusetts 3, Michigan 19, Minnesota 631,
Mississippi 8, Missouri 25, Montana 20, Nebraska 22, New Hampshire 1,
New Jersey 4, New Mexico 1, New York 27, North Carolina 1, North
Dakota 77, Ohio 17, Oklahoma 2, Oregon 15, Pennsylvania 16, Rhode
Island 1, South Carolina 3, South Dakota 53, Texas 12, Utah 2, Vermont 2,
Virginia 3, Washington 26, West Virginia 5, Wisconsin 84, Wyoming 5;
total, 1351. Foreign: Canada 2, Mexico 1.
Respectfully submitted to the Congress:
[Signed] G. E. Condra, Chairman
Lynn R. Meekins
Geo. K. Smith
Edward Hines
R. W. Douglas
A Delegate—Mr Chairman: I move that the report be adopted and the
committee be dismissed.
The motion was put, and was carried without dissenting voice.
President Baker—Professor Condra will report an action by the Committee
on Resolutions.

Professor Condra (reading)—A motion was made and carried by the
Resolutions Committee that resolutions presented to the Congress or to the
Committee cannot be received after 5 oclock p.m. Wednesday. All
resolutions should be headed with the subject of the resolution and should
be signed by the person offering same.
The Resolutions Committee has not yet received the names of the members
from Alabama, Delaware, Nevada, North Carolina, South Dakota and
Virginia; and the Committee urge that the Delegations from those States act
at once. The next meeting of the Committee will be held at 5 p.m. today,
Room 534, Saint Paul Hotel.

Mr George B. Logan (Secretary of the Resolutions Committee)—Mr
Chairman: The Resolutions Committee suggest that resolutions should be
grouped under the heads of Land, Water, Forests, Minerals, and Vital
Resources; and if those who submit resolutions will simply place the proper
heading on each, it will greatly aid the Committee.
President Baker—Professor Condra will make another announcement.
Professor Condra—Ladies and Gentlemen: There is a strong demand for
practical consideration of Conservation problems in various States, and for
the purpose of discussing these subjects a meeting will be held this evening
at 8 oclock in the Saint Paul Hotel. All members of State Conservation
Commissions and State Conservation Associations are invited to attend this
meeting.
President Baker—Here is another announcement just handed in: Technical
men in attendance are requested to meet in the lobby of the Saint Paul Hotel
on the adjournment of the morning session of this Congress. The call
includes civil, electrical, mining, mechanical and hydraulic engineers,
architects, educators in these sciences, and also geologists and chemists.
Senator Beveridge, of Indiana, will now address us on a subject which
ought to be very near the heart of every father and mother—"The Young
Man's Idea." I have the pleasure of introducing Senator Beveridge.

[The band here played "The Star-Spangled Banner," while the audience rose
and greeted Senator Beveridge with tremendous applause.]

Senator Beveridge—Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: The United
States IS. (Applause) The American people are a Nation (applause)—not
forty-six Nations. (Applause)
In war we fight under one flag (applause) for our common safety; in peace
let us strive, under one flag, for our common welfare. (Applause)
Our history is the story of the struggle of the National sentiment of all the
people, which special interests for their selfish purposes sought to
discourage, against the provincial sentiment of some of the people, which
special interests for their selfish purposes sought to encourage. (Applause)
The parent of the provincial idea in American Government was the British
crown. The British kings believed that if they could keep the colonists
separated by local pride, local prejudice, and local jealousy, the British
policy would be easier. They knew that if the colonists were united by
common interests, common sentiment, and a common purpose, the British
policy would be harder; and that British policy was to permit the special
interests of the United Kingdom to exploit the people of the divided
colonies (applause). And so from King James to King George the British
crown sought to keep the people of the Colonies divided—separated by
geography for the convenience of the English government; they sought to
keep them separated in spirit for the interests of the British manufacturers.
Every British law which forced the Revolution was a law to enable the
special interests of the United Kingdom to monopolize the markets of the
people of the Colonies. Our Revolution was nothing more than the war of
the people, for the moment united, against the special interests of the
Colonies which had kept them divided.
Now, such is the origin of the provincial idea in America. Washington and
his Continentals were the infant National idea in uniform, and manning the
shotted guns of liberty (applause). The British and their Hessian and Tory
allies were the full-grown provincial idea behind the bayonets of

oppression. Our first attempt at Government was a failure because the
British provincial idea still was powerful. The local pride, prejudice, and
jealousy of the separate Colonies reasserted itself, after their common
danger was past. The result was the Articles of Confederation. Washington
said that the Government thus formed was contemptible, and yet it was the
provincial idea carried to its logical conclusion; and so it fell. The cruel
necessities of the people forced the reassertion of the National idea, and the
Constitution of the United States was that idea's immortal child (applause).
The Articles of Confederation said, We, the States, form a Government: the
Constitution says, We, the People, form this Government for our general
welfare (applause). And yet into this great "ordinance of our nationality," as
Chief Justice Marshall calls our Constitution, there crept defects which the
statesmen of that day could not prevent, defects which have caused most of
our trouble since, and nearly all of them are due to the provincial idea. For
example, few men remember that when the Constitution was adopted,
"State rights" was not mentioned in that instrument. Washington had been
elected President. The Congress of the United States was in session. The
National Government was under way. The Tenth Amendment was adopted
to quiet those who were preaching the paradox that the general Government
of the people would oppress the people. Noisiest of these was Patrick
Henry, then Governor of Virginia, who refused to attend the Constitutional
Convention, opposed the ratification of our fundamental law, and was
against its adoption. Upon the embers of provincialism he heaped the
inflammable brush-wood of excited rhetoric. Being in the Constitution, the
State rights provision is as valid as any other amendment. But such is its
origin and spirit, and no misinterpretation of the provincial idea of State
rights must be permitted to impair the American people's general welfare,
waste their resources, plunge the Nation into war, or impede our general
progress as a people (applause). Now, as always, the danger has been, and
is, not so much that the Nation will interfere with the rights of the States as
that the States will interfere with the rights of the Nation. (Applause)
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 Washington put 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
Nation did stop 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 Nation exercised the 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 lines when 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 strengthened by 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 and their children 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 to all of 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—that is 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 Government which 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 save all of 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 who first
succeeded 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 so much 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!

President Baker—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)

President McVey—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 made are to be accepted in any serious way. The title of the
address assigned emphasizes a rational system; 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 carry the 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 tax lies in the fact that value found in the
ground is distinctly a product of nature, which an ad valorem tax 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)

President Baker—Mr J. B. White, Chairman of our Executive Committee,
will discuss the question of taxation, especially in relation to woodlands.
(Applause)
Chairman White—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.

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,
the Government 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)

President Baker—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).

Mrs Welch—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 back as 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, the Federation 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).

President Baker—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.

Mrs Hoyle 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; and third, 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
INTERIOR
BUREAU OF
EDUCATION
WASHINGTON

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,