Proceedings of the Second National Conservation Congress at Saint Paul Part 8

(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 Const.i.tution and By-Laws, which Professor Condra will read.

Professor CONDRA--Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am asked to read the draft of a const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution has the approval of two bodies, one State and one National.

(Professor Condra proceeded with the reading of the Const.i.tution as submitted; after reaching Article VI--)

A DELEGATE--Mr President, as the time is late, and as the Executive Committee have pa.s.sed upon Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution 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 n.o.ble 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 p.r.o.nunciamentos on Conservation will be read in every corner of the globe, and you and I will be proud that we have partic.i.p.ated 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 inst.i.tutions fit for man but to build up man fit for inst.i.tutions._

_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 grat.i.tude 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 repet.i.tion 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 t.i.tle 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. .h.i.therto 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 pa.s.sed 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 cla.s.ses 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.