Chapter XVIII: Part 18

Do not think for one moment that this is a subject that does not concern the farmer. I can prove by facts and figures that the percentage of injuries among farmers is greater than in the industries, and easier prevented. If you want to convince yourself go to the nearest insurance office. You will find the accident insurance rates for the farmer higher than for the carpenter or machinist.

Some European countries have evolved compensation schemes by which $78 of every $100 paid for accident insurance is paid to the injured wage worker. Under our liability laws, only about $30 out of every $100 reaches the injured worker. What would you think of your neighbor if he were trying to run a machine with 30 per cent efficiency in competition with yours of 78 per cent efficiency? He would not last very long.

We ask your help in establishing sound, safe and efficient schemes in all the states of the Union. The first part of the problem will have to be solved by legislation, the second by coöperation, and it can be done only by a combination of all the progressive elements of society. It must be done as quickly as possible, bearing in mind all the time that he who starts out well prepared for a race is in better shape to win than he who hurries on without due preparation. We must have facts and figures before us and we must select the best men in the various states to act as investigation commissioners.

So-called reformers do not always appreciate this. A short time ago I addressed the governor and the legislature of one of our Middle Western states. The governor, a man of many fine qualities, asked me during the progress of my arguments why I had gathered such a mass of facts and figures from European sources. I asked him in return how he would settle it without statistics, and he replied, “We need no facts and figures, all we need is the right kind of a gizzard.” Of course there is no sense in arguing with such a man. He misunderstands the issue. Americans do not need, and do not want charity; they want justice.

We in the United States will eventually have the best system for preserving the best resources of our country, the health and well-being of our people, the self-respect and earning capacity of our wage-workers, the lives and limbs of our toilers, but it will take the combined energy and wisdom of all of us to bring this about.

REPORT OF THE AMERICAN HUMANE ASSOCIATION.

BY WM. O. STILLMAN, _President_.

The American Humane Association, during the past year, has been actively engaged in promoting the development of humanitarian work in the United States, and has also been useful in promoting a similar work in many foreign lands. During October, 1910, there was held under the auspices of this association, in the city of Washington, D. C., and under the Honorary Presidency of William H. Taft, the President of our country, the first American International Humane Conference. There were present representatives from thirty foreign countries. The addresses, papers and topics which were heard were of great value. There was also held, in connection with the International Conference, the first international exhibit of objects of humane interest. This was shown in the New United States National Museum building, where the conference was also held. The exhibition, which lasted a week, proved phenomenal in extent and interest.

As a direct and acknowledged result of the Washington conference, there is to be held, during June, 1912, in London, England, a similar international congress, which it is believed will greatly assist the spread of work which we represent.

The result of international meetings of this description is to promote the spread of humanitarian doctrines everywhere. Representatives were present at Washington from Japan, China, India, Persia, Turkey, Russia, Australia, and almost every section of the globe. We believe that the choicest asset which any nation possesses is its childhood. Our anti-cruelty societies are seeking all over the world to protect childhood from influences which are prejudicial to health or morals. This means a better standard and average in childhood, and the elimination of great masses of the youth which, under present conditions, inevitably become recruits of the armies of vagrancy and crime.

The other great field of humane endeavor is to promote the conservation and protection of animal life. The livestock of a country constitutes one of the most valuable assets, in an intrinsic sense, which a country like ours can possess. As pointed out in our report last year, efforts which may readily be made would result in the saving of hundreds of thousands of horses and cattle for longer and more useful service.

The American Humane Association intends to ask Congress for relief of transportation conditions which are responsible for great injury and loss of livestock, by requesting that a minimum speed bill be enacted. This proposition has been heartily endorsed by the Department of Agriculture in Washington and by humanitarians generally. Various other reforms are contemplated and will be pushed to a conclusion in the near future.

We feel that our work is a thoroughly practical one, and that in its largest sense it stands for better citizenship and the promotion of the moral interests of the commonwealth as well as its commercial ones. We trust that the Third National Conservation Congress will approve of the work in which we are engaged, which represents a membership of much over one hundred thousand persons and an expenditure of more than a million and a half dollars annually.

CONSERVATION OF BIRD LIFE.

BY DR. GEORGE W. FIELD, _Representing the National Audubon Society_.

I want to call your attention to one phase which has hardly been touched upon—importance of the conservation of our bird life. When you realize that the insect places a tax upon every one of us twice as great as we are called upon to pay to our towns, cities and states, a tax of at least five per cent on every agriculturist and consumer of food in this nation, we realize the work of the National Audubon Society, which is organized for the purpose of protecting the wild insectivorous birds. The resources of this association last year were about $35,000. Over against that was this damage to our agricultural interests of over one million dollars. So you can see therefore that we have been able to do but very little relatively. When we compare the condition in this country with that of Germany, where they have one hundred times as many birds to the square mile as we have in this country, we realize the importance of the work which this association is carrying on. We ask your support, every one, in every way, to assist the activities of this National Audubon Society. (Applause)

I also represent the National Shell Fish Association. Now, the purpose of this association is to issue, so to speak, a sanitary insurance to every person who consumes oysters, clams, lobsters and that type of sea food. In other words, we want to make it possible that when you in Kansas, Missouri, and in the interior of the country, eat from your table, or in your hotels, oysters brought from the seacoast of both sides of this nation, to be certain that there is no chance of infection, of typhoid fever, or other disease. To do that we are asking every state in the Nation to realize the enormous waste of material in the form of sewage and manufacturing waste which is pouring into our streams and into our coastal waters. To take one concrete illustration, the city of Boston, in Massachusetts, spent five or six millions of dollars for the purpose of putting the sewage into the ocean. It did that, but when it did it destroyed annually the potential capacity of that water to develop shell fish food. In other words, it was precisely the same as if so many thousands of acres in your farming country were utterly destroyed forever for all farming purposes. It was reduced merely to a desert, whereas, if that material had been placed on the land, where it belonged, there would have been enormous benefits arising to the farm, and it would have been possible to cultivate that land under water for raising food. Now, we are demonstrating, acre for acre, that the land under water can raise more food—nitrogenous food, the most expensive type of food for man—at a less expense in time, in capital, and in labor, than the very best acres in your boasted river bottoms, a type of food material which can be raised nowhere else than on the coasts of our country, on both the Atlantic and Pacific and the Gulf.

ADDRESS.

BY W. J. RUSHTON, _President American Association of Refrigeration_.

I desire to thank the Congress in the name of the members of the American Association of Refrigeration for the invitation to be represented here by official delegates.

We consider it especially fitting that our association should participate in the deliberations of this Congress, because it stands for the conservation of the perishable foods of the people in the broadest sense.

In order that those who are not already familiar with the objects of our Association and with the methods it employs in carrying these into effect, and to illustrate how well our work meshes with the purposes of this National Congress, I will call your attention to several statements taken from the statutes by which our organization is governed. Among our objects are:

“To institute investigations, experiments and tests for the
purpose of demonstrating, correct solutions of scientific,
technical and industrial problems pertaining to the art of
refrigeration.

“To inspire confidence in the public mind, and appreciation
of the beneficial effects of refrigeration upon perishable
food products, both in transit and when stored for the purpose
of conservation, by collecting and disseminating authentic
information on the subject.

“To encourage the expansion of American trade, commerce and
transportation of perishable agricultural products, and to
assist the commercial and industrial interests affected by
mechanical refrigeration, both at home and abroad.

“To further its purposes and extend its influence by
publications, meetings, conferences and courses of lectures,
and by encouraging the introduction in educational institutions
of regular courses in refrigeration.

“To coöperate with the International Association of
Refrigeration in the organization of international commissions
for the discussion of questions of international import, and in
the determination of correct basic data pertaining to the art
of refrigeration.”

The conservation of the natural resources of the country is now recognized by all thinking persons as a vital factor in our national life, both as an obligation to posterity and because of its immediate influence on the material welfare and the health of the people.

The influence of this Congress, as it is felt more generally over the country, must result in strongly stimulating thrift and economy as well as respect for law among the people. The exercise of these qualities is essential to the conservation of the waters, the forests, the lands and the minerals, as well as all of the vital resources of the country.

Our people—in fact, the people of all the civilized countries of the world—are now confronted with serious problems due to the high prices of the necessaries of life, principally their food supplies.

It is believed that these conditions largely grow out of neglect to properly conserve and market perishable foods and to lack of adequate means for promptly collecting and transporting them in sound condition from regions capable of ample production to the thickly populated centers; also to insufficient means for preserving such supplies from seasons of overproduction to periods of scarcity.

It is certainly a very necessary and laudable mission, to concentrate the intelligence and energy of a body of men such as compose this Congress for the conservation of the forests, lands, waters, minerals and vital resources of the country. Our association is very much interested in all of this, because lumber, minerals and water are very necessary to the refrigerating industry, while the conservation of the soil is of paramount importance as the source of the fuel of the great human engine through the operation of which all of the other resources are harnessed to the world’s work.

We are, therefore, here particularly to emphasize the necessity of conserving the perishable foods of the people by refrigeration, that much misunderstood and often misrepresented natural mode of preservation.

However productive the soil may be made, and however ample the supply of highly nutritious food may be, unless such food is made available for use when and where it is needed, and where it must be supplied at prices the people can afford to pay, the conservation of the soil will have failed of extending the fullest measure of its possible benefits to the people.

Our organization has made an especial study of the subject of the production, the transportation and the conservation of perishable foods, and of the laws and proposed laws applying to the subject. The hearings before the Senate committees on manufactures of the Sixty-first and Sixty-second Congresses, the reports of which are published by the National Government, abound in evidences of the activity of our committees and individual members.

Therefore, if it is in order and otherwise agreeable, I would like to propose that, in furtherance of the purposes of this Congress, and in order that its opportunities for doing good may be realized in the fullest measure, a standing committee on food be added to the present standing committees. Such committee to be composed of persons best qualified to render the most efficient service in the study of the questions involved in the production, collection, transportation, preservation and marketing of perishable foods, and to report to the Fourth Congress. Such report to be made the basis of measures to conserve the perishable foods of the people, to improve their quality, increase their production, and to promote such relations between the producer and consumer as will bring about lower and more nearly uniform prices throughout each year.

WILD LIFE PROTECTION.

WILLIAM EDWARD COFFIN, _Vice-President Camp Fire Club of America, Chairman Committee on Game Protective Legislation and Preserves._

The Camp Fire Club of America was founded as an organization of big game hunters, with the protection of wild life and forests as its great objects. Dan Beard once characterized the club as a “Society of Criminals for the Suppression of Crime.” Big game hunters have always been active in game protection, indeed in all conservation measures, and that because their touch with the woods keeps the problem alive.

To the sportsmen of America are due nearly all the existing game protective laws.

Among the Camp Fire Club’s members are Dr. W. T. Hornaday, whom all honor as the Washington of wild life protection; Ernest Thompson Seton and Dan Beard, who by their work with the boys are doing more for the future of conservation than any men living with but two exceptions: Irving Bacheller, A. W. Dimock, Dillon Wallace, Gifford Pinchot—God bless him—and many others, who with pen, time and money are laboring ceaselessly for the great cause of conservation which is so near your hearts and mine.

The club may fairly claim for less than two years’ work: Yeoman service in the defeat of the bill permitting the sale of wild bird plumage in New York; the defeat of a bill authorizing spring shooting of ducks on Long Island; in securing the $20,000 appropriation for the starving elk in Wyoming; in enlarging the Waterton lake, park and game preserve now being formed in Southwestern Alberta.

To the Camp Fire Club belongs the sole credit, outside of Congress, for defeating the proposed twenty-year renewal of the Fur Seal Killing lease on the Pribilof Islands. Much of the credit for that public opinion which forced the treaty stopping pelagic sealing. When the fur herd is, through complete protection, restored to something like its old numbers, the country will have the Camp Fire Club to thank for fairly snatching that herd from the jaws of complete annihilation.

To Dr. Hornaday, our great leader, is due the famous Bayne-Blauvelt bill—the greatest single piece of game protective legislation ever enacted by any state or country. Think of it; that bill absolutely prohibits the sale of all wild game in the State of New York. The lion’s share of the campaign work incident to its passage was done by members of the Camp Fire Club. How well it was done you will realize when I state that the bill passed with only one dissenting vote in the whole legislature; and how it was done when I say that upwards of 30,000 letters were written asking senators and assemblymen to support the bill. The passage of that bill was the turning point of the war between the army of destruction and the army of preservation in New York state.

I must not leave this subject without a tribute to Governor Dix of New York, without whose hearty coöperation and steadfast support we would have been helpless.

In spite of great pressure by selfish interests he stood like a rock and has fully redeemed the ante-election pledges of himself and of his party. Let his name be written in the Conservation Temple of Fame.

So much for the past. For the future: 1st. We propose to keep everything we have gained. 2d. We have arranged for Gifford Pinchot and Overton Price to visit the Adirondack Mountains, study the situation and make a report which will make possible sound, seasonable legislation for “Scientific Fire Protection,” “Scientific Reforestation,” “Scientific Care of Existing Forests.” Legislation which combines sane utilization with sound conservation.

I wish you all could have seen the cheerfulness with which Pinchot and Price responded to the request of the club that they undertake this work.

The club is, at the request of the New York State Conservation Commissioners, to coöperate in a complete codification of the state game laws.

This we hope will result in a series of stringent but reasonable laws; simple, plain, readily enforced. Laws which the National Conservation Congress will be proud of and can safely recommend as a model for other states.

This is largely work in one state only, but it is wise to clear your own door yard before preaching sanitation to your neighbors, and with the beam removed from our own eye, we can the better see how to remove the mote from our brother’s.

Outside of New York we propose: 1st. To push Bayne-Blauvelt bills in the North Atlantic states for stopping the sale of game. Thus striking at the root of game slaughter is far more effective than attempting to police the army of market hunters or any other method of trimming the branches. 2d. We shall agitate ceaselessly for the complete protection of the fur seal. 3d. We shall do what we can to put life into the Migratory Bird Bill, which has been in congressional cold storage for so many years, and to promote a migratory fish bill. 4th. We propose to urge upon states—even upon counties—the formation of bird, game and fish refuges, one of the most effective methods of game protection. 5th. We shall hold ourselves in readiness to further any and every sound proposition for the conservation of this country’s natural resources, whether animal, vegetable or mineral.

And now having finished my report, permit me a few words of indictment and a few words of appeal.

The National Conservation Congress and Association heretofore have practically ignored wild life. Infinite and detailed attention has been given to lands, minerals, water and forests, and the Camp Fire Club is with you in all these, but are your halls so narrow, your boundaries so confined, that you have no room for the great cause of wild life protection?

Do you realize that in New York state alone there are nearly 150,000 active gunners; in Pennsylvania over 100,000, and that even a two shot gun does not satisfy them?

The laws in all states are so liberal to the killers and so hard on the game that wild life is swiftly vanishing.

The commercial interests of gun-making, game selling and feather working are terribly destructive influences. No wild species can stand exploitation for commercial purposes. In every case it spells extermination. Look backward at the millions of bison, fur seal, passenger pigeon, pinnated grouse and Florida egrets. Where are they all? Exterminated to fill the cash boxes of greedy men.

How much longer is Christian civilization, how much longer are you going to stand for such things? In birds alone six species are absolutely extinct, thirteen more nearly so. Our states are spending millions to fight insect pests whose increase is due chiefly to the decrease of bird life. How can it be stopped? By your efforts, those of the Camp Fire Club and other organizations. There must be a pull, a long pull and a pull all together. The majority of the American people are conscientious, humane, just and merciful toward all creatures; once arouse that majority and it will right any wrong.

The protection of wild life requires a campaign of education and publicity; given these, legislation will follow as light follows the sun. Congressmen and legislators will do the right thing if they are asked to do it often enough and hard enough by the people they represent. We do not appeal to this Congress as sportsmen or in the interest of sportsmen; but for the millions of men, women and children who love the outdoor life and who do not shoot at all.

We therefore ask for two things: 1st. A broad definite recognition in your platform organization and proceedings of this great branch of the conservation movement. We ask a standing committee on wild life protection. 2d. Your coöperation, collectively and individually. Bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, blood brothers, the Camp Fire Club, true of heart, clear of hand, eager in support of all you stand for, calls to you.

Come over into Macedonia and help us.

PREVENTABLE FIRE WASTE: CONSERVATION EFFORTS FOR ITS REDUCTION.

_By a Committee of the National Board of Fire Underwriters._

In each of the previous national assemblages of this character the National Board of Fire Underwriters has been represented and has earnestly endeavored to portray the enormity of the preventable fire waste of our country and its retarding effect on our national growth and prosperity.

With each annual meeting of our organization, statistical information has been prepared and furnished to the public and press, setting forth the tremendous money value in property which was being annually destroyed by fire throughout our country. As an aid toward convincing our people that a vast amount of real wealth was being wiped out of existence annually by preventable fires, our committee on statistics and origin of fires, by the aid of the Federal Government, secured figures of the fire loss in European cities and countries, which were compared with the fire loss of the cities of the United States and the United States as a whole and reduced to a comparison of the loss per capita. These figures were published by the National Board of Fire Underwriters in 1906. The comparison was so startling as to attract very wide attention and gave activity to the fire conservation movement.

The Geological Survey, through its technologic branch, investigated the fire loss and the cost of fire protection in the United States in 1907, and published Bulletin 418, known as “The Fire Tax and Waste of Structural Materials in the United States”—a pamphlet most impressive in the facts presented and irrefutable in its arguments. We quote a section:

“The investigation disclosed the fact that the total cost of fires in the United States in 1907 amounted to almost one-half the cost of new buildings constructed in the country for the year. The total cost of the fires, excluding that of forest fires and marine losses, but including excess cost of fire protection due to bad construction, and excess premiums over insurance paid, amounted to over $456,485,000, a tax on the people exceeding the total value of the gold, silver, copper, and petroleum produced in the United States in that year. The cost of building construction in forty-nine leading cities of the United States reporting a total population of less than 18,000,000 amounted, in 1907, to $661,076,286, and the cost of building construction for the entire country in the same year is conservatively estimated at $1,000,000,000. Thus it will be seen that nearly one-half the value of all the new buildings constructed within one year is destroyed by fire. The total fire cost in this country is five times as much per capita as in any country of Europe. This fire cost was greater than the value of the real property and improvements in any one of the following states: Maine, West Virginia, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alabama, Louisiana, Montana.

“The actual fire losses due to the destruction of buildings and their contents amounted to $215,084,709, a per capita loss for the United States of $2.51. The per capita losses in the cities of the six leading European countries amounted to but 33 cents, or about one-eighth of the per capita loss sustained in the United States. In addition to this waste of wealth and natural resources, 1,449 persons were killed and 5,654 were injured in fires.

“The total loss on buildings in the United States was $109,156,894 and on contents $105,927,815. There were fires in 36,140 brick, iron, and stone buildings, with a loss of $31,092,687 on the buildings and $37,332,580 on the contents, and in 129,117 frame buildings, with a loss of $78,064,207 on the buildings and $68,595,235 on the contents. In cities and villages with a population of 1,000 or more there were 6,324 fires that extended beyond the building of origin, with a total exposure loss of $13,913,694. The loss on fires that were confined to the building of origin in the cities and villages amounted to $93,179,589.”

The records of this board herewith subjoined show to what extent our fire loss has increased almost yearly since 1875.

-------+-------------
| Aggregate
Year. | Property
| Loss.
-------+-------------
1875 | $78,102,285
1876 | 54,630,600
1877 | 68,265,800
1878 | 64,315,900
1879 | 77,703,700
1880 | 74,643,400
1881 | 81,280,900
1882 | 84,505,024
1883 | 100,149,228
1884 | 110,008,611
1885 | 102,818,796
1886 | 104,924,750
1887 | 120,283,055
1888 | 110,885,665
1889 | 123,046,833
1890 | 108,993,792
1891 | 143,764,967
1892 | 151,516,058
1893 | 167,544,370
1894 | 140,006,484
1895 | 142,110,233
1896 | 118,737,420
1897 | 116,354,575
1898 | 130,593,905
1899 | 153,597,830
1900 | 160,929,805
1901 | 165,817,810
1902 | 161,078,040
1903 | 145,302,155
1904 | 229,198,050
1905 | 165,221,650
1906 | 518,611,800
1907 | 215,084,709
1908 | 217,885,850
1909 | 188,705,150
1910 | 214,003,300
-------+-------------

The fire insurance interests have carried on an aggressive campaign for the reduction of our discreditable fire losses and have been foremost in suggesting practical and reasonable remedial measures.

At the First Conservation Congress a paper on “The Fire Waste in the United States” was presented by this board and upwards of 12,000 copies were distributed to state and municipal authorities and to the press. We quote the causes then set forth as operating to make the large fire waste in the United States.

“First: The difference in the point of view and the responsibility of the inhabitants of Europe and those of the United States.

“Second: The difference in the construction of buildings.

“Third: The difference in the regulations governing hazards and hazardous materials and conditions, and in the enforcement of such regulations.”

And suggested as essential means toward its reduction:

“First: That the public should be brought to understand that property destroyed by fire is gone forever and is not replaced by the distribution of insurance which is a tax collected for the purpose.

“Second: That the states severally adopt and enforce a building code which shall require a high type of safe construction, essentially following the code of the National Board of Fire Underwriters.

“Third: That municipalities adopt ordinances governing the use and keeping of explosives, especially inflammable commodities and other special hazards, such as electric wiring, the storing of refuse, waste, packing material, etc., in buildings, yards or areaways, and see to the enforcement of such ordinances.

“Fourth. That the states severally establish and support the office of fire marshal and confer on the fire marshal by law the right to examine under oath and enter premises and to make arrests, making it the duty of such officer to examine into the cause and origin of all fires and when crime has been committed requiring the facts to be submitted to the grand jury or proper indicting body.

“Fifth: That in all cities there be a paid, well-disciplined, non-political fire department adequately equipped with modern apparatus.

“Sixth: That an adequate water system with proper distribution and pressure be installed and maintained. In the larger cities a separate high pressure water system for fire extinguishment is an absolute necessity, to diminish the extreme imminence of general conflagrations.”

At the Second Conservation Congress a paper on the “Conservation of Utilized Resources from Destruction by Fire” was presented by us and about 13,000 copies were widely distributed. We quote a section:

“If the office of State Fire Marshal were created by every commonwealth, and that official and his deputies given power to enforce good fire prevention laws, investigate, and, if necessary, prosecute cases of arson or criminal carelessness in the starting or spreading of fires, ascertain the cause of every fire, and by the distribution of literature educate the citizen to the need of care and forethought in the protection of his property, a distinct conserving of the utilized resources in that state would follow.

“If our municipalities will enact and enforce improved and safe methods of building construction and cause the removal or reconstruction of existing structures which constitute, because of their construction, a menace to adjoining properties, our cities will be freer from the imminent conflagration which now threatens them. Eliminate defective chimney flues, unprotected external and internal openings, excessive areas, weak walls, and combustible roofs; prohibit the storage of rubbish and demand the safe use and handling of dangerous inflammable liquids and oils; regulate the use of explosives; and the destruction of our values, created from the natural resources but enriched many fold by human toil, industry and skill, will be materially diminished.

“If the citizens of a community, as members of their local civic bodies and boards of trade, will create in such organizations a Committee on Fire Prevention, whose duty it shall be to study the subject and awaken among their associates a realization of individual and communal responsibility, and if our boards of education will emulate the action of the State of Ohio in prescribing primal education of the school children as to the chemistry of fire, the causes of fires in our homes and how to guard against them, and how to extinguish incipient fires or hold them in check while awaiting the response of the fire department, a preparation will be made in that community which will check the constantly increasing fire waste.”

This organization has not been alone in its efforts in this direction, neither has there been an entire absence of activity on the part of state and municipal authorities.

The National Fire Protection Association, of which the National Board of Fire Underwriters is an active member, has through some of its members, but principally through its secretary, delivered forty-two addresses on the fire waste in thirty-one different cities. At the annual meeting of the association held in New York in May last, it adopted the following resolutions, urging upon the public the vital importance of better construction and protection, and of a greater care in the maintenance of property:

“The National Fire Protection Association, with all the force at its command and with the absolutely united and unanimous support of its entire membership, wishes to place before the public in the strongest possible terms that the situation in connection with the fire waste is becoming so acute that there is necessity for action.

“Action by all cities and towns in adopting proper building codes, which will call for improved conditions and the use of fire resisting construction in congested districts.

“Action by the state and municipal authorities covering the regulation of the transportation and storage of inflammable oils and explosives.

“Action by those in authority to the end that all buildings where people congregate, such as schools, theaters, factories, and hotels, shall be so constructed and equipped that the lives of the people within them may be safe-guarded.

“Action by the proper authorities requiring the introduction of automatic fire extinguishing apparatus in all commercial establishments and city blocks.

“Action by the proper authorities prohibiting the manufacture and sale and use of the snap match and requiring the universal adoption and use of the safety match.

“Action by the public in bringing about a safe and intelligent celebration of Independence Day, and, above all,

“Action by every citizen of the land in using his individual effort in the cause of educating the public in regard to the dangers from fire, not only in so far as it applies to the personal and immediate consideration, but also from the broader standpoint, namely: that of the welfare of our land.”

At the same meeting the Association was honored in being addressed on “The Fire Waste” by the Hon. Walter L. Fisher, Secretary of the Interior, from whose remarks we quote:

“Indeed, I do not doubt that the average intelligent citizen of
the United States is aware of the fact that fires in America
are comparatively frequent. He undoubtedly appreciates in a
general way that a large percentage of our fires are from
preventable causes, and that the sacrifice of life and property
through loss by fire is, much of it, needless. What he does not
fully realize is his own duty, and the duty of city, state and
nation in the premises. He understands as yet but vaguely the
significance of that change of public sentiment which has made
of the movement for the conservation of our natural resources.
He glimpses but dimly how great an obstacle to human progress
and to human happiness is needless waste, whether it be in the
use we make of the products and the forces of nature, or the
productions and the energies of men. If the justification of
private property is that it tends to promote the common good
through increased energy and increased efficiency, which is
the antithesis of waste, then the broadest application of the
principles of conservation should extend to our created as well
as our natural resources, for in the last analysis the loss by
fire of a city building owned by an individual will be just as
important to the people of the United States as the loss by
fire of timber in the public domain. Both the building and the
timber are assets of the Nation. If they are destroyed these
assets are wiped out. No system of taxation will serve to bring
them back, whether this tax be collected by the constituted
authorities under the law, or collected by private interests
as premiums on policies of insurance. In either event, the
taxation is paid by the owners of property and it is ultimately
borne by the community as a whole. Reforestation costs money
which must be levied through taxation in some form. Rebuilding
a dwelling house, or a business block, or the business district
of a city, costs money, a large proportion of which under
insurance methods is assessed against property which has not
burned. It is the people who pay, whether they own land or
buildings or other things of value. It follows thus that the
question of fire waste is of direct pecuniary interest to every
citizen. Beyond the individual pecuniary interests, there
is also the obligation of each citizen to his fellows to so
protect his property and conduct his affairs as not to endanger
the lives and property of his neighbors.

“It is the duty of organized society to protect its members in
life and property. But organized society, it is clearly shown,
has been remiss in its duty. The obligations of municipal,
state and national government have not been met.

“It takes the force of public opinion to accomplish any
reform, and your association should receive hearty aid and
encouragement, for through it much of the educational work
which is a prerequisite to any successful agitation may be
accomplished. There is a real and vital necessity for teaching
each citizen of the United States the significance of the
national fire waste. The truth in regard to our national ash
heap should be brought home to each person having a family to
protect and property to preserve.

“It seems ridiculous that a people so apt and so eager to seek
out and destroy the mysterious and hidden enemies of mankind
should be so slow and sluggish in fighting a foe so plainly
in sight and so readily vanquished. We have led the world in
seeking out the causes of pestilence and removing them. We
are in the very vanguard of the battle against tuberculosis,
typhoid and yellow fever, and still we stand apart and let the
older nations lead the fight against an enemy much more easily
conquered.

“To arouse the people against the fire foe is our task. If
there were any dispute as to the facts, if anyone opposed a
movement to check the fire loss, the American people might
more readily become partisans of this movement which you are
leading. But there is no difference of opinion regarding the
essentials. The average American citizen would admit that
our fire waste is in the nature of a national disgrace. The
task is to make him do something to remedy conditions. You
must popularize your movement and create a general demand for
adequate laws and thorough enforcement. To relieve the people
of the unnecessary burden which they are now carrying, you must
teach them the importance and the significance of that burden.
You must show them the necessity for a defence against this
common enemy. Organized methods must be adopted for bringing
the significance of the fire waste before every person who will
read the written word or listen to the spoken one. Let the
people once realize the exact facts of their own negligence,
and they will be swift to provide the remedy.”

The Western Union, an organization of insurance companies operating in the Middle and Central West, has carried on, by public speeches of some of its members and through its committee on publicity, a most commendable campaign to impress the public with the significance of our fire waste. Numerous circulars have been distributed and printed in whole or in part in the newspapers.

Many commercial bodies and boards of trade of our cities have taken up the subject of the fire waste, appointed local committees on fire prevention and advocated and secured improvements tending to afford better fire protection, and lessen the great financial drain which the fire loss was causing in their communities.

The National Association of Credit Men, which has perhaps devoted more time to the study of insurance and the fire waste of the country than any other commercial body, has been very active in acquainting business men with the importance of the subject and in encouraging the adoption by municipality and state of such remedial measures as will tend to diminish the steadily and rapidly increasing fire losses.

The states of Ohio, Montana, Nebraska and Iowa are instructing their school children as to the importance of observing greater care in the handling and use of the ordinary fire hazards. The Fire Insurance Commissioners in annual convention in August last adopted the following resolutions:

“The appalling annual loss of life and property in the United States by fires, due to criminal carelessness, ignorance or dishonesty, commands the serious attention of the American people. From present indications over $300,000,000 in property values will be utterly wiped out during the current year—a sum so vast that it must have a serious economic effect on the prosperity of the country. The causes for this enormous drain on the savings of the Nation are well known and to a large extent preventable.

“The destruction of property by fire is ten times as great per capita in the United States as it is in Germany, France, England, and other countries abroad; and in addition to this needless waste of property there are also thousands of men, women and children burned to death or crippled in the various local fires and conflagrations that constantly occur. The chief factor responsible for this situation is general carelessness and the utter lack of personal responsibility for the removal of causes productive of fires.

“We recommend a campaign of education through the governors, insurance commissioners and fire marshals of the various states, for the purpose of bringing directly to the attention of the people the causes responsible for the national ash heap, and the adoption of legislation which will safeguard the lives and property of the people by holding every individual responsible for carelessness resulting in fires.

“We commend the suggestion unanimously adopted by the Association of Fire Marshals of North America, urging that the governors of the various states set aside one day each year to be known as ‘fire prevention day.’ By proclamation the governor can call the attention of the citizens to the enormous preventable fire waste of the country, and urge the taking of such precautions, individual, municipal and state, as will tend to reduce it. Appropriate exercises can be held in the public schools, instruction on the common fire hazards can be given the children, and the day can be made the occasion of the ‘clean-up’ day, which is doing so much to remove hazardous conditions.

“_Resolved._ That the individual members of the convention will use their influence to secure such action by the governors of their respective states, as an important, practical and educational assistance in the work of fire prevention.”

The governors of a number of our commonwealths have already acted favorably on part of the foregoing suggestions and by proclamation have set aside a day to be known as “fire prevention day,” when the citizens will be called upon to clean up their several premises and provide better fire protection, as a part of a nation-wide study of fire waste, and the individual responsibility of property owners and householders.

The State Fire Marshals in annual session adopted somewhat similar resolutions. The awakening of our people on this subject affords encouragement, but as yet it is only partial, incomplete, and not in keeping with the national importance of the subject.

A number of our states enacted fire marshal laws during their last legislative sessions, some of which were commendable in their provisions, but many of them embodied the false theory that such laws are more beneficial to the fire insurance companies than to the public, and impose on the former an additional tax for its support and enforcement. In contrast to this policy, the Legislature of New York State, recognizing that the state was collecting through its insurance department vastly more than the expenses of the department, enacted what may be taken as a model fire marshal law, the provisions of which are to be carried out and enforced by the state at its own expense.

Probably two-thirds of our fire loss is from preventable causes. Based on this estimate, nearly two hundred million dollars of property values are unnecessarily destroyed annually, reducing the wealth of the Nation in like measure, since insurance does not restore but merely indemnifies out of remaining wealth. It has truly been said that this preventable fire waste is a national disgrace, and we have the humiliation of knowing that the United States is by far the leader in this discreditable condition.

Publicity has been mentioned recently as a cure, or partial cure, for other evils. Likewise publicity will have an advantageous effect in preventing fires. A special lesson to be preached and reiterated is that those who cause, or have, avoidable fires, injure their neighbors, their municipalities, their states and their country. They have created a part of the two hundred million yearly “national scandal.” They have destroyed wealth and increased taxes. They have been bad citizens.

If the distinguished persons who are in attendance here will interest themselves in their respective communities and states and advocate the cause of conservation of the fire waste and the elimination of preventable fires, they will help, and give an impetus to, the movement for lessened fire losses and the saving of lives from fire. While the members of the National Board of Fire Underwriters have an advantage of contact and outlook as to the fire situation, they have no more and no different interest in the subject than have other citizens. Good citizenship demands that all, individually and collectively, should do their full part in inculcating principles and bringing about practices which will stop the ravages of the tremendous fire waste that is scandalous because obviously preventable.

GEO. W. BABB, New York.
W. N. KREMER, New York.
E. W. WEST, Glens Falls, N. Y.
E. G. RICHARDS, New York.
R. M. BISSELL, Hartford, Conn.
R. DALE BENSON, Philadelphia.
C. G. SMITH, New York.

REPORT OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF AUDUBON SOCIETIES.

BY WILLIAM P. WHARTON.

To cultivate in the public mind a more lively appreciation of the value of preserving the wild bird and animal life of America, is the object of the National Association of Audubon Societies for the protection of wild birds and animals. Backed by thirty-eight state Audubon societies, the National Association is directing its endeavors along certain definite lines of activity.

Coöperating with state forest, fish and game commissions and with local clubs, organized for game protection, the association is an important factor in aiding to secure legislation looking to the protection at all times of the valuable non-game birds, and the preservation from undue killing of the various game birds and game animals with which the country is blessed. In forty states the Audubon law for the protection of non-game birds has been enacted, and in many other states Audubon bills for the establishment of state game warden forces, the shortening of seasons for killing game, the creation of game protective funds by requiring hunter’s licenses, limits on the number of game birds which may be killed in a day and other restrictive measures have been enacted.

The association has always been active in advocating the passage of various federal laws looking to the conservation of our native wild life. Through its officers, agents and members large numbers of violators of the game laws are annually reported to the state authorities and in many instances prosecutions are begun and pushed by its representatives.

Its continuous fight against the millinery traffic in the feathers of native birds is a well-known subject in contemporaneous history. To safeguard American water birds, the association has purchased, leased and in other ways secured control of numbers of islands, lakes and swamps where birds of this class are accustomed to congregate in great numbers for the purposes of laying their eggs and rearing their young. Today virtually all of the important breeding colonies of birds on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States, as well as many of those along the Pacific coast, are guarded in the summer by wardens employed by the association. Through its efforts, the United States Government has been interested in establishing fifty-three bird sanctuaries by making islands and lakes frequented by breeding birds in summer federal reservations. The association coöperates with the Government in paying for the services of wardens who guard these birds from the inroads of hunters who may desire to kill them for food or to secure their plumage for the feather markets.

The association conducts a wide educational campaign by means of lecturers and the annual distribution of hundreds of thousands of pages of literature and pictures of native birds. It is pushing the organization of bird study classes in the schools, and as an example during the past year, over ten thousand Southern school children received systematic instructions in bird study.

The association in its various fields of endeavor coöperates with the officials of the United States Department of Education, with the United States Commissioner of Education and numerous scientific societies. Its growth during the past few years has been almost phenomenal and the results achieved in rehabilitating the bird life of many sections of the country is a source of great encouragement.

A LETTER.

_From J. L. Van Ornum, Representing the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education and the Society for Testing Materials._

Had there been time for me to extend the greetings of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education to the Third Conservation Congress, I should have stated that:

At our annual convention of fifteen years ago a paper was presented on the subject of “The Conservation of Government Energy Through Education and Research,” in which the statement is made with reference to our natural resources, “the Government must be possessed of large resources and a settled policy. Resources are not so easily commanded now as formerly. All sources must be guarded and everything realized must be successfully husbanded.”

In the work of the engineering colleges, which distinctively consists in educating young men in those fundamental principles which particularly concern the direction of the great resources of materials and power in nature to the use and convenience of mankind, the student is trained to regard wastefulness as serious a fault as he does otherwise defective design.

With this idea of the essential economy of their plans and works thus impressed, engineers have been filling their place in the development of the material resources of the Republic for more than half a century, until there exists a body of trained men to whom conservation is an ingrained trait.

Having this common ground of interest, it would seem that each organization may be of service to the other; that which I represent gaining an enlarged interest in those social, economic and moral questions which so vitally affect human welfare, and you, perhaps, utilizing the trained experience available to most fully disclose the true conditions upon which conclusions must depend, so that the principles advocated may always be based upon ascertained facts.

As I listened to the reading of the resolutions on the last afternoon, it seemed to me that if the situation referred to in my last paragraph had been utilized, the statement with regard to the purity of rivers would have been materially modified. I think that civil (sanitary) engineers are rapidly realizing that there is a practicable limit set by conditions of civilization to the absolute purity of rivers, in some cases, which has been theoretically deemed desirable. However, I wish to say in general, that it seems to me the resolutions passed by the Congress are excellent.

ADDRESS.

BY J. C. BAUMGARTNER _of California_.

I regret exceedingly that a gentleman from our state with whom many of you are well acquainted, a former governor, George C. Pardee, who is the chairman of our State Conservation commission, is not here. I feel wholly incompetent to represent California upon this occasion, but have been asked to say just a few words.

When the governor of California asked me a few days ago to take a place upon the state Conservation commission I was very proud and glad to do so. I happened to be a newspaper man by profession, and quite a number of papers throughout the state had little items about my appointment, and the heading in many instances read something like this: “Baumgartner gets a fat plum,” “An editor recognized,” and so on down the line. I made a little reply to that in this way: I said that I was very glad indeed to be recognized as a man who was willing and perhaps in some little measure competent to have a part in the great work of conservation, without money and without price, as you all know, and as was expressed from this platform this morning, this work is a work in which no individual has any selfish interest. It is a public-spirited work. And it is certainly one of the biggest and best things that is going on in this country today. Nothing has been done in California by the state government by way of recognition of this work until within the past few months. So that we who are here from that state are here to learn, and not to attempt to instruct. If we can learn our A B Cs here, we shall feel that our time and money have been well spent in coming here.