Proceedings of the Second National Conservation Congress at Saint Paul Part 34

Delegate VON TOBEL (of Montana)--Montana has filed a report.

Professor CONDRA--For Nebraska, I will speak briefly:

I have had the very great privilege and honor of being connected with a Nebraska State Commission for eighteen or twenty years. We have a great variety of resources, mostly agricultural. He who says Nebraska is a poor agricultural spot does not know; he who thinks Nebraska is a sand-hill region does not know. In Nebraska there are four great soil regions. Some of them are very fertile; some 40,000 square miles are unusually fertile, the land values ranging from $100 to $200 per acre.

We have 18,000 square miles of land worth from $1.00 to $5.00 per acre.

I am not going to take the time to tell you just how good and how bad Nebraska really is; there is enough of it that is especially good.

We have a number of problems that should be taken up in the way of Conservation, and we have undertaken to do it. We have irrigation, dry farming, forestation of sandhills and the like; also conservation of soil fertility, and the conservation of lands. Our Commission is non-political; and I believe all States taking up Conservation problems should have non-political commissions. We have in Nebraska, working with the Commission, some ten or twelve committees, with 30 to 40 men at work, studying the problems of the State. We believe in cooperation and thorough investigation, and we believe, further, in contributing that which is suited to those who wish our contributions.

We held a State Congress not long ago in which it was the sentiment, and was declared by the President of the Congress, "We want at this time that there may be made no reference to the controversy now waging in the Nation." And no man on that floor spoke one word pertaining to the controversy. It was said further that, "We wish at this time that our work be non-political, that no man will stand here and talk that he may gain favor, or gain notice in the State, for political purposes;" and with but one exception no man undertook so to talk, and that man was stopped immediately (applause). It was also asked that no man take the floor unless he had a message and facts for the others, such facts as would be worth something to those attending and those at home.

Such is the spirit of Nebraska. We are not the only State, we cooperate with others. We have good features and bad; but we want to learn to do practical things worth while to the farmers, worth while to those who are laboring, and worth while to all the people in the State. One of our committees is working on vital resources. We realize that while we grow wheat and corn for man and beast, we are working chiefly for the elevation of man; and in Nebraska one thing we will see to is that the conditions are suitable for crops, for animals, and for man--and we propose to do our part in conserving the public health, and in looking to better living conveniences and better water supplies in the State.

I have spoken three minutes, but I ask, since I happen to represent the a.s.sociation of Congresses of the various States, that you join with those commissioners who were in the meeting last night in practical work in the States, and in the United States, so that when we rea.s.semble we will have reports from men who are doing practical work. We ask for reliable cooperation to the end that our investigations will serve as a basis for action of use to the practical people of our country, especially the farmers. I thank you. (Applause)

A DELEGATE (from New York)--In the absence of our chairman, the Delegation from New York would say, in a word, that we are making progress; that we are with this movement first, last and all the time, and that we hope at the next Congress there may be opportunity, as suggested by the gentleman from Indiana, to draw out fuller information regarding resources from the Delegations who have come from all over the country. Many of the Delegations have come here at great expense.

Perhaps no one has listened with greater interest to the able speeches that have been made here than have the Delegates from New York, but we felt, in a representative organization like this, much in the position of the man who, in a legislative body, said that whenever they began to make speeches he went to the committee-room and went to work. We believed that with combined action (as the Chairman has announced) at our next meeting we shall have the speeches and at the same time draw out the resources of the people, and so get down to work and make rapid progress right along. (Applause)

Delegate R. A. NESTOS (of North Dakota)--Mr Chairman: North Dakota has the honor of sending the largest number of Delegates to this Congress with the single exception of Minnesota, which shows that it is very much interested in the movement of Conservation. North Dakota has more coal conserved than any other State in the Union. We have thousands of acres of coal, in seams varying in thickness from 5 to 32 feet of solid coal.

All of our resources, with the exception of coal, are in private hands.

Our great coal fields, during the last Administration, were put in the hands of the Government, and hereafter no settler can get anything more than a surface right to those coal fields. The coal belongs to the Government. Of course we haven't very much use for coal up there, but we are keeping it. Whenever you get chilly, just raise your hand and we will send down all kinds of coal for all of the hundreds and thousands of our people.

Our chief resource is our soil, which, when properly conserved and developed, can produce one-tenth of the food for this entire Nation with the present population (applause). We have a larger area perhaps of fertile soil than any other State. This is all in the hands of private owners. There is simply one way to conserve our natural resources, and that is to educate the farmer (applause). There is nothing so cheap as education, and nothing so costly as ignorance. If our State will put half a million dollars into the Agricultural College at the next session of the Legislature, and extend its aid among the different educational inst.i.tutions of the State, this money will come back in a hundredfold.

It is in this direction that we must expect to conserve our resources.

The interests of this Nation that lie in private hands are enormously greater than those controlled either by the State or by the Federal Government, and it does not seem to me right that we should spend so much time talking about the rather meager resources of the State and Nation and neglecting the manifestly greater resources that are in the hands of private citizens, because, in the last a.n.a.lysis, this matter of Conservation will be carried out on each and every man's farm. You talk about establishing a National Forest in North Dakota, and already the Government has planted a few acres in the Bad Lands; but forests in North Dakota mean the planting of 10 or 20 acres of quick-growing timber on each man's farm (applause). In that way North Dakota and similar States will carry out their part of the movement for Conservation.

Mr GEORGE W. LATTIMORE (of Ohio)--Ohio, with characteristic modesty, has nothing to say.[5] (Applause)

Mr BENJ. MARTIN (of Oklahoma)--Mr Chairman: I appeared for Oklahoma and reported this morning to the Chairman, and I ask that the report be printed in the record.

Mr A. W. KRUEGER (of South Dakota)--Mr Chairman: All of our members who are speakers have left, and there is no one here from South Dakota except myself. I am not an orator, so I will not attempt to make a speech; but when I heard from other States I could not help feeling that I come from a State that has the richest resources in the world. Our greatest resources lie in our inexhaustible soil and its fertility. We have people from most of the States in the Union, and when I have asked our citizens from several of the eastern States, and other rich States like Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Illinois, "Why are you here?"

they said, "Because we have bettered our condition through the State of South Dakota." So I have come to the conclusion that we must have about the best State in the Union (laughter). They tell us that we have more money per capita for our schools than any other State in the Union--but I do not want to make a speech, for I can't do it (laughter), only to say that I have had the pleasure and great honor to talk Conservation in our State, and the longer I am here the more I am convinced that South Dakota is in hearty accord with the doings of this Congress (applause).

I have not been instructed to say this, but from what our State is doing, I cannot see how any true and patriotic American citizen who loves his country, home, and fireside, and who wants to leave them to his descendants none the worse because he lived in the world, can help most heartily endorsing the Conservation of our natural resources, such as forests, natural waterways, water-powers, minerals, coal, oil, and phosphates by the Federal Government. (Applause)

Mr GEORGE H. EMERSON (of Washington)--Ladies and Gentlemen: I come as the calm Pacific instead of the cyclone that at times has swept over this audience. I came prepared with a paper that it was proposed to have placed before you, but it is not propitious at this late hour, neither is the temper of the audience such as to receive it, nor is the time that is allowed me sufficient. I ask, therefore, your permission to file the same.

The CHAIRMAN--Permission will be given. Washington was called this morning but the representative was not present, and Ex-President Baker tells me it was also called again this afternoon.

Two DELEGATES--Mr Chairman--

Chairman WHITE--The Gentleman who addressed the Chair first is recognized. This Gentleman from Washington (indicating).

Mr WILLIAM DOUGLAS JOHNS (of Washington)--Mr Chairman: I would ask of the Delegates here three minutes.

The CHAIRMAN--There are just three minutes left, and you can have them.

Mr JOHNS--Mr Chairman: I wish to tell the Delegates here, for the purpose of showing the necessity of Federal control, how the water-power sites of the State of Washington--the greatest of them--have pa.s.sed from the hands of the State within a few months, under the administration of Land Commissioner Ross, who has made himself so prominent here this evening. Two corporations have filed on the lower waters of the mighty Columbia, a railroad and water corporation with steamboats plying 100 miles above and carrying freight and pa.s.sengers, and an irrigation corporation below, using half of the waters of Columbia River, and all the State of Washington got was filing fees; and Governor Hay wants us to give the balance to him in the same way--the other half of those great waters of the mighty Columbia. The lands secured by the railroad corporation within a few months on the sh.o.r.e--lands worth millions of dollars--were sold by Governor Hay and Land Commissioner Ross for $10,000, and Governor Hay wants us to turn over more to him for the same purpose. The waters of Chelan River in the Cascades James J. Hill secured (125,000 horsepower) by paying filing fees to the State. No wonder, in his speech, he favored State control! (Applause)

A few days before I left Washington a dispatch came from Port Townsend to the Seattle papers--making a glorious spread--saying that the water-power company, capitalized at a million or two, was going to put in a 6,000 horsepower plant to supply Port Townsend and the neighboring country--and then boasted of the country to show what a good thing it was to invest in. They said the company had secured every water-power site on the river, right up to its eternal glaciers, and that they had been twenty years in securing those sites. Were they doing it for development? Never! They were going to take one lower fall and develop it, and sell the power at a high price. They had secured all the other sites along that river--and for what purpose? To prevent compet.i.tion until the country grew up by paying taxes simply, holding a water-power site that amounted to nothing until the people were prepared to pay an immense revenue to them. So much for their plea of Governor Hay that he wanted the State developed. The Olympia National Forest, reserved by President Cleveland, was opened in response to a similar complaint as that made by Governor Hay, "You are driving settlers to British Columbia." It contains some of the richest timber lands in the State of Washington and on the Pacific coast. What was done with it? Part of it was covered by scrip, a few quarters were taken by war settlers, the balance by speculators. They sold at from $600 to $800 per quarter, a few holding on until within the last few years; and the result was that it has pa.s.sed into the hands of the corporations. Since the Milwaukee built out there, they burned up much of it; and today you can go into great tracts of that land (I have been through it) and you would never know that a human foot had stepped there--it is as wild as it was before Vancouver sailed along the coast on his voyage of discovery. If the National Forests of the State of Washington were turned over by the United States Government to the State of Washington and its officials, and the tender mercies of Land Commissioner Ross, they probably would go just exactly as the Olympia Forest went--into the hands of speculators, not to be settled up, not to bring wealth and people and glory to the State, but to be held until timber is valuable, to be kept in primeval wilderness. Gentlemen, I thank you. (Great applause)

A DELEGATE--Mr Chairman: I wish to correct the Chair in his remark that no one was here this morning to present the report from Washington. I happen to be chairman of the Delegation. I know all about the meeting behind closed doors in the Saint Paul Hotel; I am sorry I couldn't tell about it here; but I filed my report this morning at 8 oclock, and explained that Mr Emerson would speak for our State.

Mr ROSS--The State of Washington has been exhausted--

The CHAIRMAN--It has not been exhausted. We will give you a few minutes.

Mr ROSS--Under the heading of personal privilege. I am not going to take your time to rehash any controversies referred to in the eloquence from the State of Washington. I will take sufficient time, however, to tell you one or two things. The Gentleman, so far as the Delegation from the State of Washington is concerned, speaks for himself and for no one else.

Mr JOHNS--Thank G.o.d, I do not speak for you! (Applause)

Mr ROSS--The Gentleman who has just spoken sounded the only discordant note in a meeting of 500 citizens of Seattle where, to a man, they endorsed Richard Ballinger! (Hisses from the house)

He is the only man in the city of Seattle--

Mr JOHNS--The only thing done in Seattle was what Mr Ross did.

Mr ROSS (turning toward Mr Johns)--I quit and allowed you your three minutes, although you were not ent.i.tled to appear here at all. Now that you have aroused me to some extent, and since they have kindly consented that I may be heard for a few moments. I wish to tell this vast audience that the State of Washington--and I speak solely in my official capacity, and I am not ashamed of any act I have ever performed--I wish to say that I served the State of Washington as a.s.sistant Attorney-General for four years, from 1901 to 1905, all the time dealing with our State lands. The people of the State of Washington, on my record there, elected me Commissioner of Public Lands two years ago, and during the four years that I was Commissioner of Public Lands, I made the same fight for the State of Washington that I am making now. I made it in the Navigation Congress, in the Forestry a.s.sociation--and G.o.d knows how many things there are going on that a busy man cannot keep track of--and the people of the State of Washington, every man, woman and child, knew E. W. Ross; they knew his record; they knew his fight; and in spite of all opposition from everybody in the State, like the Gentleman who has just spoken, they nominated me by a popular vote two years ago, and I was--(Commotion in the house, many Delegates leaving).

He says we have given away the water-powers. The State of Washington commenced her Conservation policy prior to November 11, 1889, when we were admitted into the Union. We have one provision in our Const.i.tution relative to water-power that I would rather have in the interests of the common people than all the discretionary powers you vested in all the presidents and all the public officers of the National and State governments. We have a provision in our Const.i.tution like this: the use of water for irrigation and the like shall forever be a public utility.

You heard Theodore Roosevelt say that it was the intention of the National Government, upon easy terms, to let the water-power out to private corporations so that the people of the States could have cheap electricity and cheap power furnished by these corporate inst.i.tutions.

And let me say to you, you heard the statements made by Governor Hay, of my State, as to the accomplishments of the Railway Commission in regard to the railway companies. In my State, the State Railroad Commission fixes the proper rate, and that ends it (applause). Our objection to the movement is this: We are not fanatics; we have conserved beyond the possibility of any human agency, State and National governments; we have conserved the people's rights, so that when they need protection of the law it is vested in our Const.i.tution, and all the people have to do is to rise up and enforce it (renewed commotion). That is why we do not wish to surrender those powers to the National Government, or to the discretion of any man.

Take the power proposition which has been mentioned by the Gentleman: Neither the State of Washington, the Board of State Land Commissioners (of which Board I have the honor to be chairman), nor the members of the State Tax Commission had anything to do with the taking of a site by the Hanford Irrigation and Power Company--not a thing. Let me tell you what it was. On Columbia River, some 40 to 60 miles above Kennewick, is what is known as Priest Rapids. The War Department of the United States Government is supposed to control Columbia River. It is navigable for all sorts of crafts both below and above Priest Rapids. By virtue of an act of the Legislature of 1905, the State of Washington conferred upon the Reclamation Service of the United States express authority to appropriate, for its own purposes and the purpose of irrigation, all the waters of Columbia River and every other stream in the State. The Reclamation Service, in compliance with that act, filed upon the waters of Columbia River at Priest Rapids, and, in one particular year, filed an express relinquishment and abandonment of that project. They stated, in cold type, that they would never undertake it. And what next? They consented, in writing, that the Hanford Irrigation Company might have and enjoy it. The Hanford Company went to the War Department of the United States, and obtained a permit to build a concrete dam in Columbia River at Priest Rapids to a.s.sist irrigation, and the War Department consented; and outside of that the Hanford Irrigation and Power Company has acquired nothing whatever from the State of Washington. But supposing that the Hanford Irrigation and Power Company is using the waters of the State of Washington for irrigation and power purposes--whenever the people of the State of Washington are convinced that the Hanford Irrigation and Power Company is charging an unjust or unreasonable price for power, or for water for irrigation, or for the annual maintenance fee, thank G.o.d we have it vested in the Const.i.tution of the State of Washington that the people can fix the price. That is our style of Conservation, and that is why we object to Federal control.

I represent the people of the State of Washington (laughter), and I don't care who says to the contrary, and I am proud to oppose the surrendering of absolute control by the people in favor of the discretion of any man.

Mr E. H. FOURT (of Wyoming)--Mr Chairman, it is now very late. I was not able to attend this morning and submit a report or an address. I will present this report, and move the Congress that it be printed in the record as a report from Wyoming.

The CHAIRMAN--The paper will be received, if there is no objection. (The paper was handed to the Secretary.)

Mr B. A. FOWLER (of Arizona)--In answer to the call for Arizona, I want to say that at present Arizona is a Territory. One year from now, at the next Conservation Congress, we hope that Arizona will be a State (applause), and that at that time we will make a State report of which you will not be ashamed. (Applause)

Mr G. M. HUNT (of the District of Columbia)--Mr Chairman: I simply want to announce the fact that the District of Columbia is on the map (applause). Lots and lots of folks are under the impression that the District of Columbia only exists from the second Tuesday after the first Monday in December until Congress adjourns (laughter); but, on the contrary, the District of Columbia is on the map 365 days in the year.

Further than that, we have a Chamber of Commerce that is working 24 hours a day during that 365 days. Still further, this Chamber of Commerce has authorized and directed me to present an invitation to this National Conservation Congress to hold its next annual session in the District of Columbia. Washington, D. C., is the capital of the Nation; it is your home; it is _your_ capital; you have helped to make it what it is, and it is time that you should get there and see how we have spent your money. The Far West has been converted to Conservation, and with the setting of tomorrow's sun the Middle West will have been converted; and we feel that we of the East need conversion, and we want you to come to Washington in 1911 and convert us. I thank you.

(Applause)

Mr HENRY A. BARKER (of Rhode Island)--I think, at this late hour, it is not right to take very much time of the Congress. I take pleasure in filing the report of the Conservation Commission of the State of Rhode Island.

About three weeks ago the Legislature of Rhode Island established the Conservation Commission on a new and more efficient basis than that which previously existed. Of course I might spend a great deal of time in telling you that Rhode Island, like every other State that we have heard from so far, is by far the grandest and most splendid of all the States of the Nation (laughter and applause); but I think, under the circ.u.mstances, I will confine myself to reading the last paragraph of the report, I will file in order to show you the position Rhode Island occupies in certain matters. "Rhode Island has awakened to vital things, but even if it had only an indirect interest in Conservation it would still feel that it owed its moral influence to the country as a whole, and that it is not a selfish little 2-cent Republic all by its lonesome, but a part of a great Nation that prefers to be governed from Washington"--I mean Washington, D. C. (laughter)--"rather than from Wall Street. It prefers to belong to a Nation whose prosperity and power and glory need the cooperation and loyalty of every one of its citizens." I thank you. (Applause)

The CHAIRMAN: It has just been called to my attention that several Delegates who have spoken for their States have not handed in their names; they will be privileged to hand their names and addresses, with the remarks that they have made, to the Secretary.

Professor L. C. WHITE (of West Virginia)--West Virginia has been overlooked; it is on the map. I will not take much of your time, Gentlemen; only enough to say that West Virginia has so far fought a losing game on the question of Conservation with reference to our oil and gas resources. The great corporations have wasted natural gas in West Virginia to the value of from $200,000,000 to $300,000,000, and this is still going on at the rate of a quarter of million of cubic feet daily. Our late Governor Dawson appointed a Commission on Conservation, and it made an able report; but the legislators, who are largely controlled by the corporations, have taken no notice of it whatever. The only thing actually done in the way of Conservation was the establishment of a State game and fire warden, who has some power in the way of stopping the forest fires--thanks to one great Conservationist, Mr Gifford Pinchot (applause), through whose great influence we have made some advance in the preservation of our natural resources. And the State of West Virginia also owes a debt of grat.i.tude to Dr Joseph A.

Holmes, whom the President recently appointed Director of the Bureau of Mines; at his instance an expert was sent from the great laboratory at Pittsburg to the mines of West Virginia to investigate the causes of mine explosions--through whom we learned that the dust of the mines would explode,--and that expert sacrificed his life in a West Virginia mine. The former method of mining has now been entirely abolished, and during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1910, out of the sixty or seventy thousand miners of West Virginia not a single human life has been lost as the result of dust explosion (applause). And now that Dr Holmes is at the head of that great bureau (placed there against the wishes of some of the members of the cabinet of President Taft), we are sure that other discoveries in certain lines will be made in West Virginia for the conservation of human life. (Applause)

Mr E. L. WORSHAM (of Georgia)--Mr Chairman, I want to report that Georgia, too, is on the map. I am not going to take your time in an attempt to make a speech or even a report. There are a number of problems I wanted to discuss, but in view of the fact that I know all of you have had more Conservation than you can digest in one evening, I forbear. I do want to say, however, that the West and the Northwest are not the only sections of the country which are interested in Conservation. Coming from one of the oldest States of the Union (one of the original thirteen) I can say that there is a greater demand for systematic Conservation in our section of the country than there is in any other. We can appreciate the value of Conservation. Nature has been exceedingly kind to this section of the country in the distribution of natural resources. Georgia was originally the chief gold-producing State of the Union. She still has rich mineral resources. She has water-power enough to run all the mills in the Southern States and then have some to spare. I can appreciate thoroughly what the water-power proposition means, because we are up against that same proposition now, wherein the large corporations are trying to gobble up the water-power sites: and that is one of the main problems of Conservation which confronts the people of Georgia today and will be fought before the State Legislature; and I want to a.s.sure you, right now, that we are going to depend upon the National Government for aid in propositions of this kind. (Applause)

We are interested in Conservation, but our time is too valuable to be wasted in the discussion of States' rights, because our people fought out that question forty-five years ago (applause). My father spent four long years fighting on that problem, and we consider that it has been solved to the satisfaction of the great majority (applause).