Chapter XIX: Section VIII: The Congress shall have power (9)

Do not think I am pessimistic. I should not feel this so strongly, but I feel that this Congress was originally established for the conservation of natural resources, because the other side had received so much greater recognition and it is naturally nearer to our hearts. You do not know how much harder it is to appeal to people for these far-away things than to those that are so near and dear to them, and the things they can take hold of in an animate way.

I would like you to review with me just a few of the natural resources and the result of their Conservation, or the result of a lack of Conservation.

We will begin with the forests, because in our natural conservation we consider that the foundation of the fundamental principle of the conservation of natural resources. And what does the forest for us? What is the purpose of the forest? Why must we have them? Well, the forest makes soil in a way; that is, it makes humus matter, which is so large a portion of the soil that it may well be termed the soil. The forest is the only crop that grows that gives to the soil more than it takes from the soil. It also conserves the mineral in the soil that it takes Nature ages to produce by its slow processes of disintegration, and at the same time prevents the filling up of reservoirs, lakes and streams, and to that extent prevents the pollution of the waters. The forest is a great health resort, and why? Because it actually purifies the air. Its action is just the reverse of animals. It gives the air what we need and takes from it that which is detrimental to our health.

We must look a little into plant life and see what nature does that we may fully appreciate that point. I cannot take time tonight because of the late hour to go into the whole life of the tree, but I will say that its principal constituent is carbon, and it takes from the air the carbonic acid gas which is so detrimental to human beings and to all animals. It has a way of converting it into its own life blood in combination with the sap taken up from the roots, by the marvelous process in the leaves, by this little understood substance called chlorophyll, that has the power of converting this poisonous substance for us into the life of the tree, and then taking so much from it and giving it to the soil. That is a most important factor which is so often overlooked.

Then the forest is valuable as a wind shield for crops. And for the wood supply. Wood is demanded in all the industries or the arts, for almost all things we use.

These are the fundamental things the forest does for us. Are we not working for conservation of strength and health and human life when we are working for the forest?

While the General Federation takes up many phases of water Conservation, perhaps I may just say that we have irrigation, drainage, waterways, the deep canals for transportation, we have water power, which is the coming thing. This is something to be conserved, and which conserves our coal, which conserves the purity of our atmosphere by not having all the gases turned into it by the burning of the coal.

All these things it does for us.

And then the very last and most vital is the pure continuous supply of water, which all human beings and which all animals demand. It is, next to the air we breathe, the most important factor in animal existence. Are we not working for health, for strength and for life when we are working for this pure plentiful water supply, and does not that come pretty near working directly for conservation of human life? Have you anything you can bring forward that touches much more nearly the health, life, strength of human beings, the child, than this same conservation of water, which is a natural resource?

The soil is indirectly our staff of life. From it does not come our bread? Must not this seed fall into the ground, spring from the earth and be protected until it reaches maturity, and we have food? Many other instances might I bring forward had I time.

Then the animal kingdom is much more nearly related to human existence than we would think at the outset; but when we come to look more deeply into it we find this close relationship.

I so often come up against the saying, “Oh, I am so much interested in human life. I have no time, no thought, no desire to give to the animal kingdom. It is all right enough for you sentimentalists, but I am not interested.” Yes, but even from a selfish point of view, if we do not care at all for any suffering, or anything which may come to the animal kingdom beside ourselves, it is of economic value to us.

I will choose but one example of the animal kingdom, and that is the birds, because it is said that all vegetation from the earth would cease if the birds existed no longer. It is very interesting to know that Longfellow appreciated this economic value of insectivorous birds long before there was any movement on foot for bird protection, and I wish you would all read the poem, the last of the Wayside Inn stories.

This very conservation of bird life is one of the things that is the great new problem of conservation of natural resources, and one in which you women take a hand and have the real control. I know you have heard so much about that I am not going to give you statistics as to what the birds do for agriculture. I am going to ask you a personal favor: that this fall when you choose your fall millinery, will you not think of your Chairman of your Conservation Department of the General Federation, and I beg you choose some other decoration for your hats. This is not sentiment. It is pure economics. You have no idea what you do when you wear these feathers, until you think really deeply into it, and I am not speaking of the egret, of the paradise feather, wholly, but of the less choice feathers. There is only one exception to this rule, and that is the wearing of the ostrich plume. That is a legitimate business and one to be encouraged. There is no reason why we should not use ostrich plumes if so we deem it best, but in regard to everything else in the way of feathers, let us turn over a new leaf for the fall. Will you not spread this gospel, not only to yourselves, but all the other women need to be asked to do the same thing? There are so many other articles, all the jets, the laces and ribbons. Will you not consider those things, even leaving out the sentiment?

I might cite for you many examples where conservation of natural resources works for the betterment of the human race, but I have just brought up a few of the most important.

Now, I want to say just a few words about the way to go to work to do some of these things. I will not go into the larger fields of forestry, or even into shade trees, except to emphasize the fact that while the shade tree is a very important one, and especially in the cities, we must never lose sight of the larger fact that after all it is not forestry, it does not stand for that, and that our arbor day, where we plant the one tree, should extend far beyond that. But I think one of our primary ways of working is to begin with the school, perhaps begin with the normal school. Many of the States have made great progress in that. I really have not the record of Indiana in that regard. I may be carrying coals to Newcastle to bring up this subject in Indiana. My own State, Massachusetts, stands very high in this line. Still I know there are many States that need this message. There is a great work to be done with the children, in making the school garden, and then the home garden; to teach the children to know what the soil is made of and how it should be treated, to make them love the growing flower and to make them respect the property of others. There we are laying the foundation of things for the next generation.

I know perhaps of no better book on the subject than that fine book for children, “The Land We Live In.” I sent a copy into each State of the United States last year, with a request to each of my State chairmen that she do all she could to introduce that work into the libraries of her State, and the schools, feeling sure that if every child could read that book or hear it read, he would have a different idea of the natural resources and the need of natural Conservation. Some of the States have hundreds and thousands of copies of this book, and I am sure it is doing a great propaganda work.

I am going to tell you a little story of how I became interested in these things. It was before I was out of school myself, although pretty nearly so. It was when the welfare work began of taking the children out in the country from the slums in the north end. I was personally acquainted with one of the teachers, who was among the first to take the children out in the fresh air to breathe and see the grass and flowers and trees that they had never seen before. One little boy, after he had looked around in amazement—it was in the fall of the year—saw the bright red apples on the trees, and he looked up and said, “Apples on trees, by God!”

It is overwhelming, isn’t it? I don’t wonder that you gasp at it. But look a little more deeply into it and see the pity of it. That child had been born and bred in the slums of the north end of Boston and actually had never seen apples on trees. He had seen apples in barrels. How did that poor child know that they did not grow in barrels? No, it had never occurred to him. They did not teach, in those days, the principles of horticulture in the schools. Was it not pathetic? Doesn’t that teach a lesson? That has come home to me many and many a time. I actually believe that was the foundation of my interest in Conservation. I think I was born with a love of the soil. And the story of the boy added to that, made me feel that I must know something about nature, about the fundamental principles, about the other side of life, the vegetable kingdom that supports the human life. Those two things combined taught me a lesson that I never, never could forget, and I wish you would think them over.

I will say to you this one message, while you are working for this thing of prime importance, the conservation of life, for which this Congress has stood at this fall meeting, do not forget that the conservation of life itself must be built on the solid foundation of conservation of natural resources, or it will be a house built upon the sands that will be washed away. It will not be lasting. I thank you. (Great applause.)

President WHITE—I want to have read into the record of this evening’s proceedings, by title only, a paper which was intended to have been read by Mrs. Elmer Black, of the International Peace Congress. She was expecting to be here and was on the program originally, but we learned that she could not get back from Europe in time to be present. She sent on her contribution in the way of a paper. It will be published in the Proceedings. The title is “War is the Policy of Waste—Peace the Policy of Conservation.” (For Mrs. Black’s paper, see Supplementary Proceedings.)

President WHITE—I wish to say further that your very gallant Sergeant-at-Arms, Col. John I. Martin, wants to address the ladies for just three minutes.

Col. MARTIN—Madam President, Ladies and Gentlemen: For the very cordial manner in which you have carried out the suggestion made by our popular, esteemed and whole-souled President of the National Conservation Congress, the Hon. J. B. White, that I briefly address this association, and for your kind invitation, I return my most profound thanks.

Nowhere in this wide and extended country can there be found a grander association of noble, unselfish women, planning, acting, counseling upon the great subject of conservation of human life than this organization under whose auspices we are all assembled this evening. Nowhere can there be found an institution more efficient for good, more blessed in all its labors of love and humanity, more universal in its application to the advancement of love and sympathy, stimulating education, encouraging enlightenment and scientific and humane development and morality, than an institution of the character of this band of noble women, engaged in such a magnificent undertaking as your association promulgates. Fully appreciating the fact that as the world grows better and people become more educated and more honest in their endeavors to espouse the cause of the weak against the strong, and the right against the wrong, then such organizations as the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the National Conservation Congress will be heralded as the very acme of perfection along the lines of the contemplated work in which you are now engaged. (Applause.)

In all ages of the world chivalry has yielded to feminine beauty, patriotism, loyalty and devotion, and I am sure that our popular President, Captain White, his efficient officers and all the members of the National Conservation Congress are at all times ready to listen to advice and counsel from the fair sex, and to surrender with wise discretion to all her laudable undertakings. (Applause.) Wherever cheeks have turned pale with waiting, weeping and watching, there was woman’s presence to cheer, to comfort and to save, and in her garden of the sun heaven’s brightest rose is yet to bloom, and when it comes it will be the bright-hued mission of a heavenly charity. The poets have sung no truer rhyme than that inscribed by one of your own number:

“Woman, not she with trait’rous lips her Savior stung,
Not she denied him with unholy tongue,
She, when Apostles shrunk, did dangers brave,
Last at the cross, and earliest at the grave.”

God Almighty, in his crowning work of creation, gave woman to man, made weakness her strength, modesty her citadel, truth, gentleness and love her attributes, and the heart of man her throne. (Applause.)

The CHAIRMAN—The meeting will stand adjourned.

_TENTH SESSION._

The Congress convened in the Murat Theater, on the morning of October 4, 1912. It was called to order by President White.

President WHITE—We will put things through on the ten-minute plan this morning, so as to give every one a chance who has a place on the program. Today we have reports from the committees, and elect our officers. We can then get ready for another Congress, for we are all going into the field, we are going to work for Conservation, and the whole country is going to take it up. We will give them the text, and the press will take it up, the politicians will take it up, and we will each be a committee of one to go forth through the country and make this Conservation idea a potent force that will change and correct legislation for the benefit of all the people. (Applause.)

Mr. A. B. Farquhar, who was to speak this morning, spoke yesterday, and therefore his address, for which a great many expected to be present, will be printed and you will have an opportunity to read it. Every one should subscribe for as many copies of the Proceedings as he can afford, for distribution among friends. It is without doubt going to prove to be the greatest book on conservation of human life that has ever been written. These papers are scholarly, and they are true, and the truth will prevail if we can only get people to read and to think. We want to give you all an opportunity to subscribe for this publication, which will be published as soon as possible, and will only cost one dollar, and those who pay this dollar will be entitled to membership in this organization next year, so that if your Mayor, or your Governor, or your civic body does not reappoint you, you are sure of membership next year, because you have paid in your dollar and subscribed for the book.

Dr. Livingston Farrand, of New York, will now speak to us on “The Problem of Tuberculosis.”

Dr. FARRAND—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: The problem of tuberculosis in the United States is simple in its outlines. Stated in their lowest terms, the figures which describe it are sufficiently impressive and appalling. Increasing experience and added knowledge serve only to confirm earlier estimates and to emphasize the seriousness of the situation which confronts us. The vital statistics of our country are notoriously faulty and incomplete, but the lesson they teach must arrest the attention of every thinking citizen.

According to the census of 1910, treating the non-registration area on the same basis as that from which mortality reports were recorded, there were 150,000 deaths from tuberculosis in that year. This is, of course, an under statement by many thousands. Rigidly conservative estimates agree that the mortality from tuberculosis in this country is at least 200,000 each year and very probably considerably more. Let us for the moment, however, deal with the demonstrable facts and not enter the field of estimate.

The real problem is not the number of deaths from tuberculosis, but the number of living cases of the disease. In calculating this different methods have been employed. For many years, the ratio of three living cases to each death was used as an index of the situation in any community. It was quickly realized by those familiar with the situation that this proportion was far too low, but with our almost total lack of registration, figures to demonstrate the discrepancy were not available. With the improvement in recording the facts of disease in certain typical centers of population, it became certain, however, that a ratio of five to one was not only conservative but below the truth.

More recently records of great value have been obtained which confirm the convictions of experts and allow still sharper definition of the problem.

It has remained for the city of Cleveland to work out during the past two years a system of tuberculosis registration and administration which is undoubtedly the most complete in the country for a community of its size and complexity. Without going into details of method, notification, and registration have been brought to such a point in Cleveland that of all the deaths from tuberculosis now occurring approximately ninety per cent. have been previously recorded and under observation by the Department of Health, before death is reported. This is an achievement for a city of its population of extraordinary significance. There are in round numbers something over 700 deaths a year from pulmonary tuberculosis in that city of 600,000 inhabitants. There are in register and under observation at this time approximately 4,600 cases of tuberculosis. Allowing for the ten per cent. in the mortality not reported before the death, it is obvious that the number of living cases is over seven times the number of deaths and with slight allowance for the very large number of active cases in any community which have not yet come to diagnosis, we can demonstrate in that city a ratio of eight living cases for each death.

It is singularly fortunate that this demonstration has taken place in a community of sufficient size to include the problems in some degree of all our larger cities and to be regarded as reasonably typical of the situation throughout the country. It has also been shown that except for certain centers, where the problem of congestion is extraordinarily prominent, the rural situation in the United States does not differ appreciably from that obtaining in all cities and towns so far as the presence of tuberculosis is concerned. I have no hesitation, therefore, in asserting that we must from this time on raise our figures and use a ratio of at least eight to one in calculating the prevalence of tuberculosis on a basis of the recorded deaths from that disease.

Apply these figures to the country. The Bureau of the Census indicates 150,000 deaths a year. On this basis we have 1,200,000 living cases of tuberculosis. Let us not forget, however, that 150,000 recorded deaths is far below the actual number, for it is easy to show in most of our communities that many deaths properly to be assigned to tuberculosis are reported under other terms, and the area of the United States from which no statistics are forthcoming includes precisely those States where the mortality is high and the prevalence of tuberculosis demonstrably widespread. We are still absolutely certain that the mortality from this disease is at least 200,000 each year, and the number of living active cases more than a million and a half.

Such, numerically speaking, is our problem. What are the efforts for its solution?

Since the discovery of the bacillus as the cause of this disease in 1882, an organized campaign has gradually been developed. The inferences from the discovery of the cause were perfectly inevitable and indicated the lines of operation. It became entirely clear that tuberculosis, being due to a specific germ, was infectious, and it was equally clear that the bacillus and its life history being known, the disease was theoretically preventable. Here, too, the outlines of the campaign are simple, even though the details of operation are varied and the end in view baffling to attain.

It was inevitable that the first sporadic efforts based upon slight experience should have been more or less random, and that years of trial and proving should precede the establishment of definite method. Some degree of order is, however, emerging, and we are witnessing an increasing clearness of purpose and definition of attack in the preventive movement against tuberculosis which is now sweeping over the country and the civilized world.

While recognizing the unfortunate complexity of the social conditions whose maladjustment is perhaps the chief underlying factor in the problem, while recognizing fully the obligation to lend all possible aid to the betterment of those conditions, the administration of the campaign against tuberculosis has still conceived its specific task to be a direct attack on the sources of infection; this, because experience has indicated such procedure to be the best and most feasible means of prevention. As the logical conclusions of laboratory discovery and clinical experience began to express themselves in organized movement, it was recognized that the preliminary task in prevention was one of education; an education which should impress upon the public mind not only the fundamental facts that tuberculosis is infectious and preventable and the methods of its infection and prevention, but an education that should bring about an improved knowledge of public and private hygiene, and particularly an education which should create a public sentiment which could appreciate conditions and would support and even demand those measures which expert advice and experience might indicate as necessary. This educational propaganda, now so familiar, has been in the United States the particular province of private organization. The union of professional and lay effort in this latter day crusade has been one of the most inspiring of social phenomena and has already resulted in accomplishments of imposing dimensions.

With our political organization such as it is, this enlightened public sentiment is an absolute essential if the responsibility for the situation is to be an official one, and not left for the suggestive and stimulating but less final and efficient efforts of private philanthropy.

The insistence upon official responsibility has been made an essential point in our American campaign and toward its intelligent acceptance by public authorities all efforts are directed. As may well be appreciated, the attainment of this desired end is slow, even though ultimately inevitable.

In planning the campaign, an ideal program was not difficult to lay down. It included as fundamental:

1. The education of which I have spoken, not only as it applies to tuberculosis but as contributing to the solution of that problem of misery which is, after all, the chief problem of the day and which reduces in the last instance largely to terms of good or ill health.

2. Enactment or enforcement of protective laws of which the basis was that notification and registration agreed upon as preliminary to official knowledge and control of the situation.

3. Adequate institutional provision for all classes of cases; the sanatorium for the curable; the hospital for the advanced and hopeless, and dispensaries for early diagnosis and as centers for that all-important field of action, education and treatment in the homes of the poor.

The developments of the years have not served appreciably to modify the main features of this program. Emphasis has shifted from time to time and will continue so to shift, but the fundamentals remain more firmly established than ever.

In developing the movement in this country, the most effective means of stimulating action in our various communities has been the voluntary association for the prevention of tuberculosis. In organizing these societies the local community has been recognized as the essential centers of action. The effort has been made, therefore, to obtain in every community of considerable size an organization embracing elements both medical and lay which shall charge itself with the task of securing adequate official treatment of the tuberculosis problem as it there presents itself.

In many of our commonwealths such organizations can best be brought about through the action of a State society, whose special function becomes one of organization and of securing desired legislation. In other cases the initiative is local in origin. Where State societies exist, these act as co-ordinating agents for the affiliated local societies, and the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis acts as a clearing house for them all.

It will be seen at once that such organization is but preliminary, and would be entirely futile, did it not result in preventive measures of a definite sort. There is, however, no other index equally valuable of the vigor and growth of this movement in the United States. Speaking from the national point of view, the organized campaign in this country has been in existence exactly seven years. In 1905 there were in the entire country but twenty-one of these societies, while at the present time there are no less than 660, working in co-operation and presenting a united front to the enemy. There is no considerable area that does not contain some such center of intelligent action.

The carrying out of the program outlined a moment ago is the special function of the organized movement. In the development of this program it is historically interesting that it was institutional provision for tuberculosis that first obtained support. It was the sanatorium for the cure of curable cases with its peculiar appeal which first engaged attention. From our present point of view, it was perhaps not the logical beginning, but it was certainly the obvious and perhaps the most fortunate point of attack. The sanatorium with its promise of restoring to a wage-earning capacity those unfortunates who formerly had been regarded as doomed to a speedy and inevitable death, was peculiarly fitted to arrest public attention and to engage public support.

As the movement for sanatorium establishment developed momentum, attention turned to the need of special dispensaries as logical centers of preventive work. Time will not permit even an outline of this phase of the problem. Suffice it to say that with the first general survey of the movement in the United States, six years ago, there were in the country but eighteen dispensaries exclusively devoted to tuberculosis. There are today more than 400 such foundations and their number is increasing at a rapid rate. All those who deal hand to hand with the problem become impressed at once with the fact that tuberculosis is pre-eminently a disease of social life, of living and working conditions. In the absence of adequate institutional facilities it is unavoidable that the problem should be attacked in the homes and workshops of the people, and with such weapons as may be at hand or which can be devised. With early diagnosis and careful instructive nursing supervision, much can be done even in the distressing conditions which characterize the crowded and poorer quarters of our great cities. The center of activity in this field is everywhere the dispensary, and the elaboration of its function to include supervision in the homes of indigent patients has been one of the most interesting and important of recent developments.

The third and possibly the most important aspect of institutional provision was the last to be taken up with energy. Every survey of our equipment during recent years has served to emphasize the shocking lack in our facilities for the care of advanced cases of tuberculosis. It has become increasingly evident that as centers of infection the consumptive in the advanced stages presented the most serious problem. Equipped as we were, with a healthily growing movement along educational, sanatorium and dispensary lines, the time seemed ripe for a vigorous attack on this point of weakness. The result has been that during the last four years there has been a concentration of energy in this direction and a notable advance has been made. Without pausing to specify various kinds and degrees of hospitals and sanatoria for the treatment of tuberculosis in the United States, it is encouraging to note that we now have over 500 in the country, as compared with 111 seven years ago. The number of beds contained in these institutions is approximately 30,000, a number small when compared with the need, but encouraging when compared with the situation but a few years since.

The third feature of the program already mentioned, that of legislation, is less susceptible of numerical expression, but it is in many ways the most fundamental and most significant of advancing intelligence. The principle of compulsory notification and registration has been insisted upon from the outset, and it has now come to be fairly generally accepted in all parts of the country. With few exceptions the more important States provide for registration by enactment either of the Legislature or of the State health authorities. In most of our larger cities local regulations are also on the statute books. Unfortunately the enforcement of these regulations is far behind their expression, but the situation is rapidly improving, and the example of such cities as New York in initiating the principle, and of Cleveland in demonstrating its possibilities, is of inestimable value.

In dealing with the question of public hospital establishment, the best adapted political unit has caused much embarrassment where a given community is not large enough to support an independent institution. Federal provision is agreed upon as being out of the question. The State as such is in most instances regarded as having the same limitations to a lesser degree as the national government. It is fairly generally accepted that where the municipality is of sufficient size it should accept responsibility for its problem. In those sections where communities of lesser population are the rule, the county is now in the focus of attention.

Little difficulty has been encountered in procuring the necessary legislation for local and county institutional provision. We have now reached the point where the possibility of mandatory State legislation is being considered with care and some favor. In this connection one should note the recent passage by the Legislature of the State of New Jersey of a law which undoubtedly represents the most advanced legislation in the United States and probably in the world. Without going into details, the law in question provides for the establishment of special tuberculosis hospitals in all the counties of the State, for the payment by the State of a certain sum ($3.00 per week per patient) toward the maintenance of such hospitals, for the compulsory segregation in such hospitals of dangerous and incorrigible cases of the disease, and for the general supervision of these provisions by the State Board of Health, though the primary responsibility is placed upon the local health officer. This legislation is of the highest interest, not only in its promise of results, but as an enactment into law of principles formulated as necessary by expert experience even though in advance of public appreciation.

Reaching into every field of social activity as this campaign must do, it is inevitable that new phases of importance should successively make their appearance and demand attention. I should say that perhaps the most striking is the essential importance of the child in the tuberculosis problem. With improved methods of diagnosis and wider facilities for examination, there has been shown a prevalence of tuberculosis in children of school age that is most alarming. It is a conservative statement that there are today in the public schools of the United States 100,000 children who will die of tuberculosis before they reach the age of eighteen if the present rate of mortality be continued. A very recent estimate presented by the United States Bureau of Education states that at least 15,000,000 children now in attendance in the schools of the United States are in need of a physician’s attention, and that of this number 1,000,000 have or have had tuberculosis. It has become clear that if our educational campaign in the interest of preventive medicine and public health is to achieve success, the attention must be concentrated upon the coming generation rather than upon those who have already passed their years of plasticity.

We see, then, on every hand the tendency to attack the problem in the schools, and this not only by the establishment of provision for open air teaching and the improvement of the undernourished and the predisposed, but upon insistence of regular and intelligent instruction as to the prevention of disease.

Such in its general outlines is the plan by which we are working. With such a situation and with such a campaign what then is the outlook? I have little sympathy with the enthusiasm which deals in specific predictions or which assigns a date for the practical achievement of theoretical possibilities. It is perhaps inevitable that an impatient public should demand results before definite results can be forthcoming. There is, on the other hand, a corresponding obligation for conservatism in expression when indicating probable or even possible results. A drop in the mortality curve of a slowly developing and slowly progressive disease such as tuberculosis, is not a matter of months but a matter of years. It is unjustifiable to expect results from the specific campaign against tuberculosis in an observable diminution of mortality for some years to come. I believe, however, that we have reached a point where our equipment is such as adequately to test our basis of operations and to warrant an optimism as to the future if our reasoning and method be correct.

Believing as we do, that the soundness of the procedure is certain, it would seem reasonable to expect a response in the mortality tables within five years, and that ten years should afford indisputable proof.

There is, of course, no doubt that tuberculosis is diminishing and has been diminishing for a generation. This decrease is not to be assigned to the specific warfare against the disease, but is doubtless correlated with other factors. It is uncertain whether we are to assign as its cause the general improvement in public hygiene or whether there may be perhaps an acquisition of immunity gradually extending through the civilized world. In my own judgment this decrease in the prevalence of tuberculosis is associated with the improvement in hygienic conditions which has been so marked during the last fifty years. I believe we are justified in expecting an acceleration in this diminution as a result of the specific measures now being adopted not only here but in Europe. While we cannot interpret them with confidence, there are already appearing certain figures of possible significance. It should not be forgotten that the first result of all concentrated activity and interest is a greater accuracy in mortality and morbidity statistics, and that an actual decrease in tuberculosis might appear in official reports as an apparent increase in the disease.

Taking all these factors into account and viewing the situation candidly and with all the precautions possible, I do not hesitate to assert that optimism as to the future is justified, and that the end of the present decade will witness the beginning of another drop in the mortality curve comparable to that which was seen in the closing years of the last century. (Applause.)

President WHITE—Dr. W. C. Mendenhall, of the United States Geological Survey, at Washington, was expected to be here this morning to speak upon the subject of “Water as a Natural Resource.” He is unable to be present, and Mr. Jacob P. Dunn, Secretary of the Indiana Historical Society, will now have ten minutes to discuss “The Conservation of Navigable Streams.”

(For Mr. Dunn’s paper see Supplementary Proceedings.)

President WHITE—The subject of the next address is “Social, Industrial and Civic Progress.” It is to be a review of fifty years of what has been done in labor economics, by one who has given a great deal of study to the subject, Mr. Ralph M. Easley, of New York City, Chairman of the Executive Council of the National Civic Federation.

Mr. EASLEY—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: In view of the fact that the work of the Committee on Civics was not outlined at the time it was organized, and as it was the desire of the national officers of the Conservation Congress that its work should not duplicate nor overlap the work of other organizations, the mapping out of a practical program for the committee was deferred until this meeting of the Congress.

Recognizing this situation, the officers of the Congress suggested that, as Chairman of the Committee on Civics, I should briefly review the progress that has been made by others in this country along industrial, social and civic lines. This seemed to me wise because at a gathering of this kind, which has discussed conditions that call for improvements, it might be helpful to note what progress our country has already made along these lines. To look back adown the slopes we have so painfully and undauntedly climbed in advancing to our present plane of material and moral welfare, far from inspiring us with a smug complacency, should heighten our resolves and give renewed energy and freshness of spirit.

Another reason for accepting the suggestion is that I had just read in an English newspaper a sweeping and vitrolic criticism of our social and civic conditions. Our unkind critic spoke of us as a people so utterly bound up in the worship of the “almighty dollar” that we had lost whatever social vision might have illumined the minds of our fathers. To all sense of social righteousness we were as a people pitiably indifferent. In mill, factory and mine our working people slaved; in tenement and farmhouse our poor lived, little if any better than the poorest of Europe’s poor; our sick and otherwise helpless were scarcely given a thought. Politically we were rotten to the core, statesmanship and graft going hand in hand.

That, in short, ours was a dog-eat-dog civilization, and that the only direction in which light might be seen breaking was in the “fact that making headway among the wisest and most far-seeing Americans was the conviction that American institutions were a failure!”

The editorial concluded with the statement that if any one considered that view a biased one, all such skeptical readers need do was to acquaint themselves with the writings and speeches of American sociologists and magazine writers or to converse with any of that “dwindling proportion” of our well-informed citizens to whom human values are not a mere academic phrase or an abstraction.

It is unnecessary to point out that our English critic might have used his columns to better advantage if he had differentiated between the sociologists and magazine writers who seek our country’s good and those who seek only its destruction—a very important differentiation to make at this time.

In fact, our critic may be a Socialist, who is only passing along to England the general cry of the pessimists of this country, that “whatever is, is wrong”; and that there is a great unrest in the industrial world which will, sooner or later, burst out in volcanic force and engulf us in a terrible cataclysm—all of which is unspeakable rot.

I think I am in a position through the organization with which I am connected (composed as it is of the representatives of the great labor, agricultural, manufacturing, banking, commercial, educational and professional organizations) to know something about this “great unrest” upon which the Socialists and other radical writers and speakers declaim so much, and I can assure you that the only unrest in the industrial and social fields that I can discern is that wholesome, normal unrest which comes through the education of the people, and therefore a better understanding of their rights as workers and the translation of that knowledge through the labor unions and other social and economic organizations into concrete demands for better living conditions.

But let us take a birdseye view of the situation and see whether we are advancing or going backward. I think you will agree with me that the following bare outline of a few of the important achievements and the work now being done by organizations and movements of public-spirited citizens is inspiring and encouraging.

Let us start with the industrial gains.

The American Federation of Labor and the railway brotherhoods have in the past twenty-five years secured better wages and working conditions for millions of wage-earners and the eight-hour day for hundreds of thousands, and they have developed a system of collective bargaining and methods of conciliation and arbitration that are reducing the number of industrial disturbances. To get a clear idea of what this means in terms of progress, let us consider that while in the past six months 500,000 coal miners and their employers have made contracts covering wages, hours and conditions of employment for a term of four years; all the railroads east of Chicago are arbitrating their differences with their thousands and thousands of engineers, trainmen, conductors and so on; the hundreds of thousands of carpenters, bricklayers, painters, plasterers and others of the thirty-five crafts involved in the building industry have made contracts with associations of builders all over the land from Maine to California; while the publishers of the great daily newspapers throughout the United States have made a five-year contract with their printers, pressmen, stereotypers, etc.; and the street railway employes in many great cities and many others of the 135 crafts belonging to the American Federation of Labor have made satisfactory contracts with their employers—I say, let us consider that while this is what is going on today in this country, we shall not have to go very far back into history to find the time when it was a penal offense for a man to join a labor organization, or for workers to ask collectively for an increase in wages, and to find that, while we are now legislating in the interest of the employe for a minimum wage, at that time the effort of legislation was for a maximum wage in the interest of the employer.

In the meantime, the State factory legislation has revolutionized the methods of sanitation in the workshops of the country and is safeguarding better and better the lives and limbs of the workers.

Employers are making increased provision for the welfare of their employes through sanitary and safe work places, opportunities for recreation and education, model homes rented or sold, and relief funds for sickness, accident and death benefits, as well as old age pensions, all affecting millions of railroad, factory, mine and department store workers.

The National Child Labor Committee has led a campaign that in ten years has secured wholesome legislation in practically every State in the Union, reducing hours of labor, prohibiting children under fourteen years of age from working in factories, mines and mills, and preventing night work for women and children in many places.

The tenement house reform movement in New York alone, where the problems are greatest, has made seventy-five per cent. improvement in fifteen years; and as an example of the growing recognition of big business of its social responsibility, it may be pointed out that when the Supreme Court upset the Tenement House Law, and by a decision wiped out all that had been accomplished in twelve years through the tenement house agitation, the allied real estate interests in New York joined with the tenement house reformers in securing the passage of a State law and a city ordinance correcting the defects.

Amazing in magnitude and usefulness are the health organizations, public and private, devoted to securing more efficient methods of sanitation and the prevention of disease, recent statistics in New York City showing as a result of such work that the mortality rate has decreased fifty per cent. in fifty years.

There are various national and local organizations devoted to the protection and education of the millions of immigrants from all parts of the world who have landed on these shores in the past ten years, and whose assimilation and adaptation to American standards and conditions have constituted one of the problems of the age.

There are thousands of non-sectarian hospitals and institutions for the scientific care of dependents, defectives and delinquents.

Splendid work is being done by the great charity organization movement which is teaching independence and thrift through its penny provident societies, and which has organized some of the most important preventive and remedial agencies.

The National Federation of Remedial Loan Societies covers twenty-eight cities, where societies lend money to the poor at reasonable rates to protect them from the loan sharks, the New York organization alone having a fund of millions for this purpose. A rapidly increasing number of large employers have changed their attitude towards their employes, in that they now aid instead of discharging those who incur debt—the latter policy having played directly into the hands of the loan sharks.

The National Association for the Promotion of Industrial Education has brought the manufacturers’ associations and the labor organizations into harmonious support of the measure providing a federal appropriation of $5,000,000 for industrial education of the young workers in towns and cities, whether in factories, stores or offices, and including domestic science for the girls. The measure also provides an equal amount for the sons and daughters of the farmers.

The tremendous program of constructive work undertaken by the United States Bureau of Labor and the Bureau of Mines in the interest of the workingmen and by the Department of Agriculture for the farmers should alone silence our English scoffer. The recent establishment of the Children’s Bureau is an achievement of which humanitarians may well be proud.

The public school system and other free educational institutions enable the children in this country today to receive twelve times as much schooling as their grandparents—a tremendous factor in our advancement of itself and one that readily accounts for much of the unrest without which no progress could come.

The universities, especially the State institutions, have in the past ten years enlarged the scope of their work to such an extent that many of them can be classed as leaders in what are termed the “uplift movements” of the day. A complete catalogue of the public work done by the University of Wisconsin alone would be a revelation.

The Playground and Recreation Society of America and other recreation movements are assisting in the development of children’s playgrounds in parks and schools and are bringing health and good cheer to congested centers.

The Association for Labor Legislation is working jointly with the American Medical Association to safeguard wage-earners against occupational diseases.

The American Bankers’ Association is organizing a movement to help the farmers of the country develop idle land in the effort to decrease the cost of living.

One of the most encouraging signs to those who are alarmed over the high cost of living, and that is about all of us, is the recognition by the farmers, State agricultural colleges and railroads, of the necessity of introducing up-to-date methods for raising and marketing grain, live stock, fruit, dairy produce, etc. Only last week I read the announcement of a convention called in Kansas, where three thousand delegates will meet to consider this very question of improving the methods of farming. These delegates will represent not only farmers but also the bankers, merchants, wage-earners and all divisions of society.

It would take a volume to describe even in outline the great social and economic reforms being promoted by Mr. Andrew Carnegie, Mrs. Edward H. Harriman, Mrs. Russell Sage and Mr. John D. Rockefeller, whose $60,000,000 gift covers the promotion and development of the high school system in the Southern States and the promotion of higher education throughout the United States, while his Sanitary Commission has discovered and is eradicating the hookworm disease in the South. The Carnegie Institute of Washington, with an endowment of $22,000,000, was founded to encourage in the broadest and most liberal manner investigation, research and discovery, and the application of knowledge to the improvement of mankind, while the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, with its $15,000,000 endowment, provides retiring pensions for the teachers of universities, colleges and technical schools. The Russell Sage Foundation, endowed by Mrs. Sage with $10,000,000, has, for its purpose the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States of America.

There are the tremendous achievements through the institutional work of the churches of all denominations. Three-fourths of the efforts in the live churches of today are devoted to material welfare, as is evidenced by the especial care of the orphan, the sick and the poor on the part of the Catholic Church; the great Hebrew philanthropic and educational agencies; and such single illustrations as the social work outlined in the handbooks just issued by Trinity and St. George’s parishes in New York—the former being a revelation to those who believed that the millions of Trinity Church were being used only for commercial profits.

The Young Men’s Christian Association, with its tremendous energy and enthusiasm, while organized primarily to promote the spiritual growth of young men, has lately, under its “physical and social well-being” clause, gone into the field of industrial betterment with conspicuous success.

The Men and Religion Forward Movement and the Federation of Churches, representing many million members of Protestant denominations, have recently adopted broad programs of industrial and social reform.

There are the movement to suppress the social evil, known as the Federation of Sex Hygiene; the Anti-Tuberculosis Society, with its wonderfully comprehensive and successful efforts in fighting the great white plague; the Red Cross Society which, in addition to relieving distress in great disasters, has fostered with marked success annual competitive drills of “first-aid” crews from the mines; the Boy Scouts of America, inculcating patriotism and good citizenship; the National Consumers’ League; the New York Museum of Safety and Sanitation; the Prison Labor Reform Association, and hundreds of other organizations and movements devoted to human betterment too numerous even to mention by title.

And last, but not least, there is the educational work being done by the National Civic Federation through its Departments on Conciliation, Compensation for Injured Workmen, Industrial Welfare, Pure Food and Drugs, Reform in Legal Procedure, Regulation of Interstate and Municipal Utilities, Regulation of Industrial Corporations and Uniform State Legislation.

As much of the work of the various departments of the National Civic Federation called for uniform State legislation, a special department was organized to co-operate with the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws.

The importance of uniformity to all business and commercial institutions is clearly recognized, when we consider that our larger corporations—such as the railroads, telegraph, insurance, banking and trust companies and, in fact, so far as taxation is concerned, all manufacturing concerns whose plants are in different States—are subject to forty-eight masters, each with a mind quite different from that of the others. The “interminable” law’s delay, the clashing of the States upon the question of regulation of corporations and combinations, the diversity of State laws on ordinary commercial matters, such as warehouse receipts, bills of lading and negotiable notes, the urgent need for a uniform bill on compensation for industrial accidents, all give emphasis to the need for uniformity. But even this chaotic legislative situation shows encouraging signs of clearing up.