Chapter XIII: Part 13

This vast interior, of which the like is not to be found on earth, is the bread basket and meat hamper of the country. The career of the Nation is destined to be shaped largely by the teeming crops of its acres in foodstuffs and clothing wares, and yet more largely by that richer crop produced through union of man and earth, the strong manhood and gracious womanhood and prepotent childhood of the highest type of humanity the world has seen. Yet this consummation will not come without foresight and effort. The resources must be developed conservatively; lower nature must be further subjugated; sun-power must be better directed and water supply better used. The spirit of free citizenship must be fostered and the franchise exercised fully; tendencies of communities against public welfare must be counteracted; transportation must be cheapened by regulation and by proper use of the finest natural system of waterways on earth. Statesmen in sympathy with the people—and in a republic he is not a statesman who lacks that sympathy—must be developed in lieu of pseudo-statesmen serving special privilege. Laws must be enacted and executed in behalf of all the people, and special and class legislation must be checked. Public utilities must be controlled in the public interest and their conduct kept open to the public; corporations must be given opportunity second only to individuals, but must not be permitted to invade individuality, nor must partisan issues be allowed to delude the unwary. These are among the requisites for the continued welfare of this interior and for the perpetuity of this Nation. The duty and the responsibility devolve directly on the people; and it is the aim of conservation to fan and keep aflame the moral light behind the material movement.

President WHITE—Ladies and gentlemen, we are now ready to adjourn the morning session. We want you to be back here with all of your friends and everybody that you can get to come, at two o’clock sharp. The afternoon session is going to be a very interesting one. Everybody should be present. The Secretary of the Interior, Hon. Walter L. Fisher, will speak at 2:30. We stand adjourned.

_EIGHTH SESSION._

President WHITE—Ladies and gentlemen, delegates to the Third National Conservation Congress, we will now come to order. Mr. Coburn will preside this afternoon, and will now take the Chair. (Applause)

Chairman COBURN—Ladies and gentlemen, the meeting will be opened with prayer by the Rev. Dr. Munro, of Kansas City.

INVOCATION.

Our Gracious God and our Father, we thank Thee for the
inexhaustible resources which Thou hast placed at our command.
We thank Thee therefore for the infinite possibilities that
are at our disposal. We pray, therefore, that we may use them
wisely, doing those things that will serve and in themselves
will glorify Thee. Not only do we seek Thy glory but we seek
the betterment of mankind and the advancement of humanity and
the elevation of our much loved land. Direct us therefore in
all that we shall undertake to say or do this afternoon. We
thank Thee that in order to make the best of what we have and
what we are and what we possess, even our very circumstances,
Thou hast sent Thine own dear Son to give His life for us that
we might thus be able to reach the holiest heights. Bless those
who speak to us, and direct us in all our deliberations, we ask
in Christ’s name and for His sake. Amen.

[Here Mr. Bryan entered the room and was received with loud cheers.]

Chairman COBURN—The first number on this program as presented to the Chair is entitled “Practical Methods of Soil Cultivation,” to be treated by Professor A. M. Ten Eyck, the very capable head of the Kansas Experimental station at Hays. I have pleasure in presenting him. (Applause)

[Prof. Ten Eyck’s address will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]

Prof. CONDRA—I have in mind a resolution that I think this Congress, representing more than 1,200 conservation delegates, would like to adopt. There is a man in the far Northwest who has done much, in the way of labor and leadership, for the cause of conservation. Let us send greetings to the Hon. Gifford Pinchot. (Applause)

President WHITE—I second the motion.

Chairman COBURN—You have heard the motion, which has been duly seconded. All of you in favor of its adoption please manifest it by saying aye. The motion is unanimously carried.

Chairman COBURN—Conservation and the National Domain. We are fortunate that this important subject is to be discussed here this afternoon by the Honorable, the Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Walter L. Fisher, whom I now have the pleasure of presenting. (Applause)

Mr. FISHER—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, Delegates of the National Conservation Congress: I am a conservationist who realizes that many of the problems of conservation have not yet been rightly solved, but who has no apologies to make. I am here by a very strenuous effort and the cancellation of a number of important engagements, in order to express my continued adherence to the general principles upon which this movement is founded, and to offer my assistance, officially and unofficially, in carrying those principles into execution. (Applause)

As I said a little while ago at another meeting, my statisticians who are traveling with me tell me I have covered something in the neighborhood of 16,000 miles in an effort to get a little better acquainted with a portion of the Department of the Interior. I presume that many of you would rather hear from me today about that country in the Far North, to which allusion has already been made, and upon which national attention has been so rightly concentrated. I refer to Alaska. However, it is my opinion that in that, as in all other matters, wisest conclusions will be reached when all the facts are known. I have spent a considerable amount of time in traveling through that portion of Alaska in which the most acute problems have arisen. I have been peculiarly fortunate in being able to cover much more territory than I had believed possible. And I think I have reached some general conclusions which, while they may be wrong, nevertheless are the conclusions which I expect to present to the President and to the Nation in proper time and form.

I would be perfectly willing to present them to this audience whose interests in the question I recognize, were it not for the fact that I am waiting for two reports upon the coal situation which I have not yet been able to receive. One of these reports is from the geological survey and one from the director of the bureau of mines, who is just now returning from the largest and probably the most important coal field in that country. I have gone over these matters somewhat in detail with the President of the United States, and am gratified to be able to say to you and to the public that there are no differences of opinion between him and me upon those questions—that he is ready, as am I, to suggest a solution which will at least recognize our obligation for constructive recommendations upon this important matter.

For I believe that the thing which is most important for conservationists to understand is that they cannot shirk their full share of the responsibility for constructive legislation. Criticism is justly levelled at a policy of inaction, and that criticism should be disarmed at once by the conscientious and sincere effort of men who are identified with this movement, to find a way out. (Applause) I believe that conservation in its last analysis means nothing but wise development, in the public interest. (Applause) And I believe that the first public interest is wise development, but that the emphasis should be put on the character of the development as much as upon development itself.

MISUNDERSTOOD AND MISREPRESENTED.

The difficulty with the conservation movement so far has been that it has been both misunderstood and misrepresented. There are those who profess allegiance to the principles for which you stand, and yet are quick to find objection to every concrete suggestion for carrying those principles into effect. There are those who find that the present situation presents many difficulties, but who content themselves with insisting merely upon sitting on the lid. I think the proper place for the conservation movement is with neither of those parties, but with the men who genuinely recognize that when we have worked out those principles under which development can go forward without danger of monopoly and for the public good, the conservation movement should get behind those policies and push them with all the strength that the public sentiment which has already been manifested to be behind this movement can exert. (Applause)

The topic which has been assigned to me, as was first suggested, is “Conservation and the Public Domain.” It is a large subject, and as I have had no opportunity whatever to do more than to make a few casual notes on the train, you will have to pardon the informality and the inadequacy of the address which I shall present.

I will probably make some mistakes in what I say; probably in the wording of some things I shall not be quite as accurate as I would like; but I reserve that right now, which I reserve at all times, to change my mind tomorrow morning if I see things differently then. (Applause)

In the first place, the conservation movement is a thoroughly non-partisan movement, and it should be distinctly so understood. Perhaps the best evidence of that that occurs to me upon the moment is that when the Conservation League of America was formed, at the instigation of Theodore Roosevelt, then President of the United States, he became honorary president, and Mr. Bryan and Mr. Taft became honorary vice-presidents. (Applause) While the position of president fell to me, John Mitchell and Gustave Schwab, perhaps representing the two extremes of industrial interest, were vice-presidents of the organization. In this way I think we presented in the organization of that particular association a thing which I wish to bring home, so far as I can, to the American people, namely, that there is no partisan politics of any kind in this movement, neither industrial politics, nor any other kind of politics, but that it is the interest of the people, and the whole people, and of no one but the whole people, that is at stake.

The national domain naturally divides itself into the great subdivisions of lands, minerals, forests and water. If you will pardon me for a moment I will undertake to present, very candidly, some views of my own upon each of these topics. Of course, the first to which I have referred, that of land, embraces the entire subject, because, broadly speaking, the land is supposed to include the mineral within it, the water which flows over it, and the forests which grow on it. Nevertheless, there are many problems included within the public domain which distinctly relate to land as land, and contradistinguished from the other main subdivisions or topics that I have mentioned.

NOT A NEW POLICY.

Now, there is a great hue and cry, in certain sections, that in some way the Nation has departed from its ancient policies, with reference to land. It is my personal conviction that no change has been made that has not been necessitated by changed or different conditions. For instance, when we started out in this country, the forest area as a whole was not particularly valuable for lumber, but on the contrary it was an obstacle to agricultural development. The forest had to be cleared before the land itself could be put under cultivation, and that related particularly to the most valuable land. It was covered with forests. As we got into the central West that particular problem began to disappear. We had less difficulty in removing forests. We found more prairie and upland ready for the plow, and the result was that the question of forestry, the question of the removal of the timber became of diminishing importance. When we got into the extreme West we found a great subdivision in the character of our federal domain. While we found forested areas in the mountains, and in the more broken country, we found that the great territory lying west of the Mississippi river was in the main free from trees. But we have only recently learned that the land which never had the tree upon it, which has upon it today nothing but the sage brush, is after all the most valuable agricultural land which the Nation has possessed. We have found that the great problem of today in the West is how to get water upon the desert so that it may blossom like the garden and may become the most fertile and most productive portion of our national domain. As a result, the relative importance of the forest from the agricultural point of view has diminished, and the problem in the West today, as I have seen it during weeks of travel through irrigation projects, Indian offices, land offices, is how to get the water on the land, and the settler to follow the water. And I think if our friends who are particularly concerned about excessive forest reservations would devote their attention, first to getting settlers on those lands, which are worth ten times what their forest area is worth for agricultural purposes, the development of the West will go forward more rapidly than in any other way. (Applause) There are, however, many special problems connected with the land question that it is necessary to solve, and I shall pass rapidly to some of them.

Let us take the question of coal. There is a large area of coal reserved in the Western country from present entry. This coal land, under the statute which now prevails, is rapidly becoming available. There is considerable disappointment or disapproval of the policy of withdrawal of coal lands in certain portions of the West. Usually, as I have found by personal contact with the people of those areas, and by discussion at public meetings, the disapproval is on the part of the people who wish to exploit coal by getting it and holding it without present development, in expectation of reaping the unearned increment from the future growth of the country. Recently a letter was written to me, and given wide publicity by a member of Congress, to which I intend shortly to pay some attention, and I think perhaps at this time it would be just as well to discuss one or two of the features that are embodied in this correspondence. Congressman Mondell, of Wyoming, has written a letter in which he complains that the present policy of classifying public coal lands has resulted in increasing the price of coal to the consumer from fifty cents to a dollar a ton; that it has created a monopoly in the hands of the government, and that the prices are prohibitive.

SOME RESOURCE FIGURES.

I think that at this time, perhaps, it would be well to give some figures upon these various points, and I shall take this opportunity to do so. There are estimated to be, west of the 100th meridian, 620 billion tons of anthracite and bituminous coal; 650 billion tons of sub-bituminous, and 720 billion tons of lignite. The valuation which the Department of the Interior, through its geological survey, has placed upon these lands, is based upon the theory that the purchaser, instead of paying a flat rate per acre, pays by the ton for the coal which he buys at values graded according to the character of the coal. For instance, the price of land underlaid by anthracite and high grade bituminous coals is computed at the maximum of three cents a ton, whereas sub-bituminous coal of only moderate fuel value is rated at one-half cent per ton. An exception to the tonnage basis is made in cases of lignite in the lowest grades of sub-bituminous coals. These are valued at the prices fixed by law as the minimum prices at which coal land can be valued. No lignites whatever have been given values of hundreds of dollars an acre, as has been claimed, nor any value better than the minimum, $20, fixed by the statute if within fifteen miles of a railroad and $10 if at a greater distance. The tonnage value for coal sold in the ground, according to the best information obtainable, should be in general from one-fifth to one-half of the royalty value of the same coal if paid for as mined. The classification prices used by the Geological Survey are, in fact, lower—in some cases very much lower. It is plainly impossible that the result of the classification policy has been to increase the cost of coal to the consumer as much as fifty cents on a dollar a ton, as claimed, since the maximum government price is only three cents a ton.

The State of Colorado charges a royalty itself of ten cents a ton for coal mined from the state lands regardless of the quality of the coal. The State of Wyoming fixes royalties for all grades of coal mined from state lands at from three cents to six cents per ton, depending upon the quality produced. Private leases in Wyoming require as high as ten cents, and for small local mines, much higher rates. Fifteen cents, for instance, is the royalty in the Mills City and Roundup districts of Montana, and in the Trinidad and Boulder countries in Colorado it runs from eight to twenty-seven and one-half cents. The government price on federal lands is in no case more than three cents a ton, and the great majority of the Western fields are being classified at from half a cent to two cents a ton. Now, that system of valuation results in prices of which only a comparatively small part are $150 or more. Great areas are valued at the minimum fixed by statute, and other great areas at comparatively low figures. Values running into the large amounts will be found only in the anthracite and the other high grade bituminous fields.

In many of the cases the prices fixed are less than the actual market price of private land of the same character in the same field. For example, coal lands in the Rock Springs field of Wyoming are reported to have been sold from $100 to $430 per acre. The government prices in this field will run from $20 to $465, the high price being for land with greater tonnage than that which would be covered by the $430 price paid by private interests. In the Colorado Springs district of Colorado these private land sales are reported from $100 to $500, while the classified price in that district ranges from $20 to $50. Now, it is true that in some of the cases prices by the acre are greater than the prices fixed for corresponding acreage elsewhere, even in the Eastern field, but the reason will be found to be in all those cases that the extent of the coal, the thickness of the vein and the number of the veins is greater. Land in certain fields of Pennsylvania is selling at $2,000 an acre, on the other hand, whereas the highest price fixed by the government on any of its lands is $600 an acre.

THE CLASSIFICATION POLICY.

It has been said that these prices are prohibitive. I have had a table prepared showing what the results have been in the four fiscal years that have passed since the adoption of the classification policy as compared with the preceding four years, and as a result I find that the sales of public coal land have increased 12½ per cent in acreage and 36 per cent in value, as compared with the four preceding fiscal years.

I am giving these figures, and discussing this somewhat dry question at this time because of the fact that public attention is being attracted to these questions, and that a certain amount of either misunderstanding or misrepresentation is going vigorously on. The truth of the matter is that the government has offered incentive to development along this line greater than prevails in the private field. Why has it not been more vigorous? May I put the question to you, whether it may not be that we are making the mistake which Australia and New Zealand have already recognized and corrected? And that we should put our coal lands where the conservation movement, where the National Conservation Association and the other conservation organizations have advocated placing it, under a rational leasing system? If I am right (applause) the present objections largely disappear.

I was very much interested at the reception which was given to the presentation of some of these facts to the audiences that I addressed in Seattle and in other places, and to find that the suggestions made to them met with hearty concurrence so far as I could judge, when they clearly understood the facts, when they once clearly understood what had been the history in other fields where coal was put under a leasing system. For instance, I find the suggestion made that Canada was proceeding much more wisely and much more profitably and successfully in its coal development policy than the United States. But when I read the statutory law of the Yukon territory, and ascertained that every foot of coal land that is disposed of in that territory now is under a leasing system, I found that the argument went home. So it is with all of these other questions. There are great problems to solve, and it should be up to us to help solve them, although not entirely to us. The gentlemen on the other side, who are complaining of delay, have their share; but the responsibility, gentlemen, is upon us all, and we should all frankly recognize it.

What is the ordinary history of coal lands in this country? What has been the history in the East and the central West? That the coal lands have been originally entered or acquired in one form or another by private owners, and that the original private owner seldom developed the mines. He sold or he leased to someone else. If he sold, the chances are that the purchaser himself leased the land; until you will find that a great part of the coal lands of the United States that are now under development, are being operated under leaseholds of one kind or another. So in the far West. Take the railroad mines. I had the pleasure of riding with the officials of some of these railroads in the West, who have control of the coal lands of the companies. And when I asked them what their policy was for the development of these lands, without exception thus far—there may be exceptions, although I haven’t heard of them—without exception this far, they stated they were developing their coal lands under the leasing system, and regarded it as the only proper way. If that is so we should at least pause long enough to consider whether that policy is not the right one for the Nation, and adopt it if right, and discard it if it is wrong.

After this coal is leased what do we find? We find that unrestricted development, that development which is thrown open to the laws of commercial competition, does not always work wisely. Our coal fields now generally throughout the country, are largely overexploited, with the result that during a considerable portion of the time the coal mines are empty, the miners are idle and depression reigns, and we find what always happens—demoralization and frequently disorder; for it takes, gentlemen, steady work to make steady men. And you have got to get that principle in your coal fields if you are going to be successful with them. (Applause)

THE HISTORY OF THE FORESTS.

Take the history of the forests to which I must hastily turn. When I talk with the lumber interests of the country—and inquire about the real facts as to the condition of the lumber trade—I find that large holdings throughout this country are being held in private hands and undeveloped, uncut, although they admit that much of it is ripe and ready for the ax and the saw. Why? Because of conditions in the market. I find them complaining of the fact that large areas have been thrown open to people without capital who have thought that there was a way to quick and easy wealth, who have made their obligations to the banks, and who have to meet the interest charges, and the minute that the price of lumber goes down the only way they can meet it is by throwing upon the market more lumber, with the result of consequent demoralization of the trade. And all the while the large interests protect themselves by buying at the lower prices and holding out of development as much of their areas as they can. Now, that, it seems to me, is fundamentally unwise. We should wish to dispose of our national resources in such a way that development will be absolutely assured and that holding them for future profit will be absolutely prevented (Applause), because in the last analysis, all of this burden comes back upon the consumer’s shoulders. We never escape it. If we sell the coal land to the individual, and he sells to another at an added price, and he to another, and then finally it is leased to the fourth, who actually operates, we can depend upon it that the consumer is paying the carrying charge upon each of the profits that the first three have successively obtained. If we adopt the policy, as in Australia, that the mine holder cannot hold his lease unless he develops, that he must pay a fixed rental of a certain amount in any event, we will create an automatic check which will work largely to remedy the evil of which both the public and the honest dealer complain. (Applause)

Now, I want to turn for a moment to the irrigation question, because no one can have traveled over this Western territory as I have done and made personal investigation of the work of the Reclamation Service, and of the work being carried on by private interests in the same direction, without being tremendously impressed with the immense public benefit derived from activities of this sort. And yet that service presents certain concrete difficulties. For instance, our reclamation law provides that we must divide our payments into ten annual installments, and that the settler does not obtain title to his land until he has paid all of the installments. It requires continuous residence as well as continuous cultivation.

CHANGES OF LAW NEEDED.

Some examination of the question has convinced me, as I now see the facts, that a modification should be made in both of those directions. I believe that the law should be so changed that the settler upon the irrigated lands who has cultivated his land for a certain period of time, who has lived upon it a sufficient period of time, to be fixed by law, to make sure that he is a bona fide settler, should be enabled to get title to his land and be enabled to borrow money upon it and develop it as any other individual should (Applause), subject at all times to the lien of the government for the unpaid installments. (Applause) I find that that suggestion meets one of the principal, if not the principal objection which has arisen in the West on the part of men who are enthusiastic adherents of the policy of irrigation through the government agencies and who still find that the law has not been completely adapted to their particular conditions. For instance, suppose the law required that a settler should continuously cultivate his land during the first two years, and that he should live upon it the last three years of a five-year period, and should then be enabled on proof of cultivation, continuous and progressive cultivation, and of residence for the time I have mentioned, that he could then acquire title subject to the lien of the unpaid five installments, I believe that it would be to the great advantages of the public and to the settler, to bring about that reform. What will be the result? In many instances the farmer, the settler, would transfer the burden of the debt from the government to the bank. He would go to the bank, make better terms than it would be possible for him to make with the government under the law with regard to the unpaid five installments, and the result would be that the banks would be carrying the burden of the indebtedness, as they should as a part of their legitimate function in the community; while the government would have released to it those installments for use in some other place where the settlers are crying for the advent of the Reclamation Service. These are some of the great questions that come up and which in very definite form impress me as being the most important that we can consider. I believe that we should undertake a solution of problems of exactly that character. I think when we do this that the objection which has been raised in many quarters to conservation as being theoretical will instantly disappear.

WATER POWER.

There is only one other topic on which I wish to speak, and that is the question of water power. I have very little to say about that. At the last meeting of this Congress in St. Paul, I presented in a somewhat brief and compact form my views upon that question. I believe that no solution of the water power question will be worked out in the United States until state and nation are working together at the problem. (Applause) Not only is there no necessary or natural conflict between state interest and federal interest, but those two interests must be coördinated before we reach a right solution. We find a quite general attempt on the part of those who have interests that may not be free from suspicion to arouse a feeling of state pride, of state interest, as against the federal government. I think that those interests can be properly worked out and reconciled. I believe that the natural and legitimate interest of the state, the locality, is in the regulation of the service, and of the rates at which the power is sold. I believe that the interest of the federal government is in the development of the streams as units, and that no other instrumentality can so effectively work out that portion of the problem. Then why not adjust the two? Why not adopt, as the cardinal principle in our water power development, that the federal government shall make the grant subject to the reservation that the grantee will at all times acquiesce in whatever reasonable regulations of service and rates may be made by the state or by any delegated agency of the state. There should be compensation and there should be periodical readjustment of the compensation paid to the federal government, so that every ten years, or whatever the period may be, there will be enforced upon the public authorities, state and national, an inquiry into the condition of the water power grants, and their development. If with this we will adopt the fundamental principle that every dollar of the compensation paid to the federal government, except that necessary for administration, should go back into the development of the stream, and the water shed of the stream, from which the revenue was derived, so far as needed for that purpose, we, in my judgment, will have reconciled and coördinated those two agencies so that they will work together like the best team that any of you men drive on any of your farms. (Applause) And the protection of the public interest, in my opinion, will to some extent be automatic. For what will happen? If the federal government at the end of the first ten-year period wishes to readjust the compensation, it will make an inquiry, and if it finds that that particular grantee is furnishing proper service at proper rates to the community, that the state or its delegated agencies have properly exercised their functions of regulation, there will be neither opportunity nor incentive to increase the compensation. But if, upon the other hand, the state has been derelict in its duty, if it has not protected the public interest, the Nation will be able, by the increase of the compensation, to prevent undue profits and, indeed, to make it to the financial interest of the grantee to see that that situation does not happen again. And always the legitimate interests of the grantee must be adequately protected.

Now, these are some of the concrete questions which come up in the Department of the Interior with regard to the federal domain. They all relate to the general principle for which we stand. They all come back to that fundamental proposition, that the purpose of conservation is to secure wise development in the interest of the public as a whole. (Applause)

Chairman COBURN—The powers that be, and over which I have no control, have seen fit to readjust this program, whereby Mr. Bryan, who was to have addressed us this evening, will speak this afternoon and again to this Congress tonight at eight o’clock. He is with us on the platform this afternoon, and I have asked him to stand up and say a word to you, in order that you might give him the glad hand. I take pleasure in introducing the Honorable William Jennings Bryan. (Applause)

Mr. BRYAN—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen. I did not come to this Congress to speak as an expert. I came merely to testify to my interest in a great and growing subject. When they told me that the time of my speaking was postponed from this afternoon until this evening, I consented on condition that they would appoint others to assist me in entertaining the audience. I was afraid that I might not be able long to satisfy the audience assembled. So they have arranged with two others, with whom I shall divide the time and I know that that may be an inducement to you to come. (Applause)

I feel that it is necessary for me to fortify my invitation with theirs. Now, if this were a subject upon which I had been speaking, I might make it a condition that no one else would be permitted to speak (Applause), for there are a number of subjects upon which I can speak at sufficient length to occupy an evening. But this is not one. I mention it at this time in order to emphasize the fact that as I have insisted that two others shall help me tonight you will understand why I do not attempt to divide my short speech into an afternoon and evening speech. I am afraid that I will have little enough to say if I put it all into one speech, and yet I confess to you that I do not know now how long I shall talk tonight.

I feel the spirit of the meeting taking possession of me (Applause); and by night I may ask my associates to limit their time. (Applause) I find that every time I hear a speech on this subject the subject seems larger. I am gratified that I could hear the speech made this afternoon by the Secretary of the Interior. Whatever others may say on this subject, his speech must of necessity be of paramount interest, because most of us can only advise without any great assurance that the advice will be accepted, but the Secretary of the Interior acts, and we are all interested in knowing the lines upon which he will act. I have been interested in the brief outline that he has given us this afternoon—the conclusions which will doubtless be set forth at more length in his official report. Tonight I want to speak on a little broader line. He has covered conservation as it commenced, conservation as it relates to his department; conservation of land, of the forest, of the water and of water power. These are the things that are in his domain; but I confess that as I have studied the subject it reaches out until it touches all parts of our lives, and that is why I am so uncertain as to how long I will talk tonight. I know the limit of my speaking, the maximum, but I would not attempt to fix a minimum. (Applause) I spoke once, twenty years ago, and more, at a little meeting not far from Lincoln. On the train as I was going out to this place I met a citizen of Lincoln who said that he did not think a man could be interesting on any subject for more than one hour. Well, I was in the habit of talking more than an hour, and it worried me a little to think that anybody believed that I could not be interesting as long as I talked. (Applause) I combated the proposition, but he seemed so fixed in his opinion that I soon gave up the discussion. When I arose to speak in the afternoon he was present, and his presence embarrassed me, and at the end of an hour he arose and left the meeting. (Applause)

I don’t know how many of you entertain his views, and I may hesitate to run beyond the hour. I heard of a man who spoke in Yale, and just before rising to speak he asked the chairman of the meeting how much time he would be permitted to occupy. He was assured that he could speak as long as he pleased, but the chairman said that a very careful examination of the records revealed the fact that no one who had ever spoken at Yale had said anything after the first twenty minutes. (Applause) I do not know how many of you have received your training at Yale. I have a general outline in my mind; I want to sum up some things; I want to speak of the phases of conservation that are most prominently presented, and then I desire to show how this subject is connected with every large thing, with these larger things that underlie civilization itself, and I am afraid to commence on that speech this afternoon, for fear I may become so interested that I will give it to you now and have nothing to say tonight. (Applause)

Mr. WALLACE—A letter from Col. Roosevelt, Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Congress. We have had a great meeting, but we have not had everybody here that we wanted to get. We wanted Gifford Pinchot, but he had to go to Alaska. We wanted Mr. Page, but he was obliged to go into the hands of a doctor instead of starting here. We wanted James Garfield, and he was expected to come until the last moment, and then had to stop. We wanted Roosevelt; I wrote him and he declined. I wrote him that I would not accept his declination, and then he wrote me a letter telling why. Then I wrote him for permission to read that letter here, as that would be the next best thing to himself, and here is the letter.

DEAR MR. WALLACE:

If only you could be in my office and see the numerous letters
I receive requesting me to speak for matters which I regard as
of very great consequence to the welfare of our people, you
would realize, as naturally it is now impossible for you to
realize, that I simply cannot possibly accept the invitation
to speak at the Conservation Congress. I believe with all my
heart in conservation; I believe in the movement against
child labor; I believe in the movement against the white slave
traffic; I believe in every rational movement to promote the
cause of temperance; I believe in the cause of industrial
and agricultural education; I believe in the movement for
playgrounds in every great city; I believe in the movement
for the betterment of rural life conditions; I believe in the
movement to secure workmen’s compensation acts; I believe
in the movement for bettering tenement house conditions; I
believe most emphatically in something being done carefully
to investigate the increased cost of living, and to see just
how much of the increase paid by the consumer goes to the
producer, and how much is absorbed by the middleman, properly
or improperly; I believe in a very great number of similar
movements, all of them of very real importance. Within the
last month, I have had requests to speak for each one of the
movements I have mentioned, and for very many others; and each
body of men who made the requests sincerely felt that their
movement stood on a very different plane from any other, and
that while they entirely agreed with me that I ought not to
speak generally, and that especially I ought not to speak
for the other movements, yet they were perfectly sincere in
their belief that for their movement I must and should speak.
Now, my dear Mr. Wallace, I cannot speak for one unless I
speak for the other movements. After I came back from abroad,
I felt that I ought to try to show my appreciation of what
the American people had done for me in the only way that was
possible—by trying to visit each section, and if possible each
state, and speaking therein for some one of these causes in
which I believe. In different sections and different states,
I have spoken for all of them, and for innumerable others. In
particular, I have spoken again and again for the cause of
conservation, and as a matter of fact have spoken for it far
more frequently than for any other of the great social and
industrial movements for righteousness in which I so thoroughly
believe. I have found by actual experience that every speech
I make simply means that I am asked to make a hundred others,
and that (and this is notably the case as regards conservation)
instead of the fact that I have spoken with all my heart
for any movement and said all I have to say for it, being
accepted as a reason why I should not speak for it again, it is
apparently accepted as a reason why I should keep on speaking,
and keep on repeating these speeches I have already made. This,
however, is not only true of conservation. In Berkeley, last
year, across the bay from San Francisco, I delivered an address
on the three hundredth anniversary of the authorized version of
the Scriptures, and not only did this result in my being asked
to repeat the address in New York, Detroit and Memphis and a
number of other Eastern cities, but I was actually and in good
faith urged to come back, only one month later, and repeat the
address in San Francisco itself!

If I had gone on speaking as my good friends wished me to
speak, I not only should have had to abandon all thought of
doing anything else, and have become practically an itinerant
giver of free lectures, but what would be much more serious, I
should have lost all weight and power to do good to any cause
and this purely by yielding to the demand of good men who wish
me to speak for good causes. If I stop at all I have to stop
entirely—at least for the time being. Now I hate to have to
answer you in this way. If you will come on here to New York
and give me the chance to have the talk with you that I would
so like to have, I will show you a mass of correspondence which
I am sure will make you realize that I cannot answer in any
other way than I am now answering. I am very sorry.

Very sincerely yours,

THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

Chairman COBURN—The next number on this program is by Mr. A. P. Grout, of Illinois, representing the National Soil Fertility League, who will talk to you on “The Rape of the Soil.” I may say in passing that Mr. Grout is one of the biggest farmers in Illinois, and this is he. (Applause)

Mr. GROUT—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am to speak for a few minutes upon a subject or condition that has been developed in the soil management of this country. I speak to you as a farmer, one who has not only had experience as a farmer, but who must plead guilty to the charge of having been, in the no distant past, no better than the rest, for a due regard for truth compels me to admit that I have been something of a soil robber myself. In the course of time my connection and familiarity with the work of the Illinois College of Agriculture, the Illinois Farmers’ Institute, and the constant reading of Wallace’s Farmer and other good agricultural papers, awakened and brought me to a realization of some of the facts or truths regarding soil fertility.

One of my first attempts at reform was with a tenant to whom I had rented a farm, for cash rent, for fifteen years, with full license to manage and farm as he pleased. On the occasion of the renewal of the lease after my awakening, I suggested that I have a part in directing how the land should be farmed, with a view of making a start toward a better conservation of the soil. One of the first things I mentioned was that the straw be put back upon the land and not burned as had been the practice. I was very emphatically informed by the tenant that he would not scatter straw on the land for any man, and so far as I know he kept his word. He is no longer my tenant, for having once been converted to the reform soil conservation movement I had no idea of turning back. From my own experience in farming and from a longer experience in renting lands and in watching the methods of many farmers and the results they obtained, I have formed some very positive opinions in regard to the subject of soil treatment.

The maintenance and increase of the fertility of the soil is paramount to all other industrial problems, and upon our ability to solve this problem and the extent to which corrections can be made in the present ruinous and destructive methods of soil management, depend the future prosperity and welfare of the Nation.

No country in the world has been so favored in those natural conditions and resources which are necessary for the maintenance of an independent and prosperous people. This wonderful heritage has been bequeathed to us, not to dissipate and destroy, but to use and enjoy and transmit unimpaired to our successors.

We are tenants in possession of this vast estate, but the obligation to maintain to the end of our tenancy in as good condition as when entered upon has been given little or no consideration, but has been recklessly disregarded.

We view with alarm the advent of the time when what remains of the forests, the coal, the iron and other valuable minerals and utilities shall become exhausted or come into the possession of purely selfish interests.

THE FUTURE AND ITS NEEDS.

We are solicitous not only regarding our own present wants, but are beginning to think of the future and of the results that will accrue to coming generations.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the conservation of our natural resources has aroused a deep and widespread interest, but the great and most important and far-reaching of all our resources, namely, the fertility of the soil, is the last to receive recognition. While the situation regarding this most important resource, the very foundation upon which is based our national prosperity, is most alarming and fraught with great danger and disastrous results, it is not a new development, but is as old as the hills. It is the culmination of the customs and practices handed down to us from the earliest settlement of the country.

The attempt of a few men to monopolize and profit by the undeveloped resources of the country is an unimportant and trifling matter compared with the wanton depredations of thousands and tens of thousands of soil robbers in every part of the broad domain who are madly striving to mine and forever remove from the soil those natural deposits without which our once rich and fertile lands must become a barren waste.

We are now reaping the legitimate harvest of blindly and persistently following the traditional methods handed down from father to son. Traditions and practices based upon no scientific knowledge, but founded upon the belief that all of agriculture, all of the necessary knowledge and wisdom for its successful practice, is vouchsafed only to him who drives the team and follows the plow.

The fertility of the soil, the most important and valuable asset of this or any other country, is being dissipated, squandered, stolen and carried away to an extent that calls for serious and thoughtful consideration.

It is not an easy matter to discover or to frame an excuse for the dissipation of the thing that is now, and ever has been, the foundation of all our prosperity and upon which we are absolutely dependent for food and clothing as well as the comforts and luxuries of life. Perhaps the most charitable view of the situation is to attribute it to ignorance, to a lack of scientific agricultural knowledge, or to the fact that those who have classed themselves as farmers have been attempting to do business with little or no fundamental knowledge of the business in which they are engaged, and may be denominated only as “near farmers.”

Surely it never was contemplated in the great plan of the universe that the provisions for the support and maintenance of millions of inhabitants should be gradually diminished until starvation and destitution are the ultimate end.

THE WASTE OF RAW MATERIAL.

Science has come to the rescue and demonstrates that the enormous waste and destruction of raw material, of the elements which go to make up what we denominate soil fertility and which should continue unimpaired for the benefit of future generations, is not only unnecessary but fundamentally and perniciously wrong. Who are the conspirators in this wholesale robbery, which sooner or later must result in national calamity? Contrary to every business principle and to every known law of compensation, and almost without exception, every land owner, whether he be a farmer, a banker, a professional or business man, all have been imbued with the idea that the soil is an inexhaustible asset from which they can continue to draw indefinitely and without replenishment.

The banker is accustomed to look upon the ownership of land as a safe investment, and if he can rent it and make a fair per cent on his original investment he is content and takes no thought of any encroachment that may be made by the tenant farmer upon his principle, upon that which constitutes the real value of his land.

The same is true of most business and professional men who own farms. They do not appreciate or understand that every crop requires that certain essential elements must be in the soil for its growth and development, and that the removal of each crop takes away a certain amount of those elements, and the future productive capacity of their farms are thereby lessened. As a rule these men do not profess to have very much knowledge either of the art or science of agriculture, but they are guided in the management of their farms by the methods and customs of those who claim to be farmers and make farming their business.

They are led to do this on the presumption that the farmers know and understand the business of farming just as thoroughly and completely as the business man knows his specialty. They have overlooked the fact of the old prevailing idea that education, preparation, and even very much ability, is not only unnecessary, but a positive detriment to the business of farming.

The renting of land has, by long usage and practice, been construed as a license to rob and pillage without fear or hindrance.