National Conservation Congress

“ Let us concede that Conservation means that we, as a people, should manage all our resources with the intelligence and prudence that an individual should devote to managing his own property. Let us use them profitably, as he would; neither destroying or wasting them unnecessarily, nor giving them heedlessly to anyone who needs them less and will use them less to our advantage. But let us not, during excursions into Constitutional problems, State rights, and other bewildering issues, forget that first of all comes protection from destruction and waste! ”

“ The men who are to conserve our lands and waters and minerals, and perpetuate our forests, are now running around in knickerbockers, or being rocked in the cradles of the Nation. They and their children and their children's children, down along the line of centuries, will carry out the vital precepts and principles of this great Conservation movement—this timely warning cry against careless National extravagance, this imperative codicil to the Declaration of Independence. ”

“ Naturally, too, it is the National Government that must take the initiative in regard to the conservation of the great forests, waterways, waterfalls, and the features in the national parks and reserves.
Carefully drawn laws, both State and National, covering the foregoing will no doubt aid the cause of Conservation. Too much must not be attempted. More good will result from a constant vigilance with regard to the passage of bad laws which give away the heritage of the community, than from attempts now to formulate a general conservation code. ”

“ But I attempted to cover the whole field of Conservation in an address at our first Congress, and will not repeat but, in conclusion, will touch upon that form of Conservation which all will concede to be of supreme importance—the Conservation of the most precious asset of the State: its men, women, and children. If the life and health of citizens is sacrificed, by vicious measures or by simple neglect, no saving of any other of our possessions will at all avail us. ”

“ I am not one of those who believe that the Conservation movement should be confined solely to the technical treatment of the forest and soil and the prevention of material waste. The second article in the platform of the first Conservation Congress provides that "the objects of this Congress shall be broad, to act as a clearing house for all allied social forces of our time, to seek to overcome waste in natural, human, or moral forces." ”

“ 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. ”

“ While Conservation means the same to all people, namely, the perpetuation of those resources and conditions that make a prosperous existence possible, yet each Commonwealth must develop its own best means for bringing this about.
While it is wise for the Federal and State governments to take what steps they may to prevent the wasteful destruction of certain natural resources like our minerals and forests, yet if all this be done and with the thoroughness that the most ardent of us could demand, still the great problem of Conservation taken as a whole would scarcely be touched. ”

“ 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 analysis, this matter of Conservation will be carried out on each and every man's farm. ”

“ We believe in this National Congress of Conservationists. We think it will enter a permanent future of still higher usefulness when it develops a more sectional organization, giving the real workers in every branch opportunity to get the very most out of meeting their own colleagues, and this not only in the technique of application but also in the lagging art of promoting the prosperity insurance of Conservation in terms and policies the public can understand and cannot evade. ”

“ Chairman, Knoxville has empowered me to invite to that city, to the Exposition, the fifth meeting of the National Conservation Congress. The National Conservation Congress belongs to the whole Nation, and the Nation is proud of it. For the past four years, since its birth, it has held its meetings in the North and Northwest. The South needs the Congress, particularly at this time, when it is in a phase of its great industrial awakening, and it earnestly urges that the Congress come within its bounds next year. ”

“ What is needed to properly investigate the conditions and formulate a Conservation policy for the State is a good Conservation Commission. In addition to this, we need more thought, more study, more science, on the part of the public, concerning the natural resources of the State, with less blind devotion to the old ways and means of doing things, which if ever judicious, have long ceased to be so. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The organization is composed of men holding all shades of opinion concerning Conservation. Some think the Federal Government should turn over to the State all the public domain within its borders, together with its natural resources of every kind; that the State should own and control the public land and all it contains. Others hold that these transfers from the Federal Government to the State should be made, but that they should be subject to conditions to be named in the grant, providing adequate protection against monopoly and other objectionable control. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Gentlemen of the Conservation Congress, you have here a movement of National and irresistible sweep, a theme that will endure through successive generations—for if it does not endure the Nation ultimately must perish. The people have grasped this subject spontaneously, and they are ready to study it zealously. Few yet comprehend its scope, fewer still its diversified details; but collectively the people intuitively understand its vital significance. The country has at last awakened to its gross neglect and waste and prodigality. ”

“ Our waterway improvement conventions in this valley have spoken plainly, and the rivers and harbors are faring better than ever before—in fact, our efforts along these lines have done wonders to bring to the people, by acts of Congress, what is justly their own. Will the Conservationists array themselves against all law-makers who have proven recreant by their attitude toward clean-cut legislation in aid of Conservation throughout the United States? ”

“ The State also advanced the well-being of its people by conserving their natural resources, material or acquired, through the creation of a Public Utility Commission, whose work has since demonstrated the need and value of its existence by its influence in behalf of the public of their use and service. We hold here that one of the most effective Conservation measures is that which gives the people the best service at the lowest cost of all the applications of natural resources, as interpreted by science, which nature bestows in the way of power, water, light, and drainage. ”

“ The whole Conservation program as recommended by the Conservation Commission, of which I had the honor to be chairman, is dependent on this amendment of Article 229 of the Constitution. In carrying out the idea of Conservation, as in carrying out any other governmental policy, it is necessary to raise money. In order to introduce a forestry system and to protect your forests from fires, it is necessary to have money to employ persons informed along these lines whose special duty it will be to look after that kind of business. ”

“ 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. ”

“ So long as you stand for having the appropriations for preserving the Nation’s forests from three to twenty times less per acre than the lumberman is spending on his contiguous holdings, or for any congressional attack upon the integrity of the national forest system, your Conservation preachments are going to the wrong address or are not properly spelled in words that look like votes.
There is even greater need of definitions that apply to the situation of our States. Many have done nothing. ”

“ 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 must each share the burdens of Conservation, and we all likewise will share in its blessings.
Conservation is not any one man's opportunity, prerogative, or privilege. It is for the use and benefit of each and all, and can be practiced in any business or occupation as an important aid to success. It is for peasant and prince, rich and poor, and for the Nation as well as for the individuals. We must discover some effectual means to prevent disastrous forest fires. We must restore the fertility of our soils. ”

“ Conservation is comparatively new in the vocabulary of our modern domestic economy, but it is a great word. It has come to be one of the greatest words of the human language from a practical standpoint. It is a continent-wide word in America. Conservation in some aspect of the subject touches every community, every city, every State and every individual. In other words, in a vital degree, it touches the welfare of one hundred millions of American citizens. Its importance is just beginning to be appreciated. Great today, but greater tomorrow in the progress of affairs. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”