Chapter IV: Part 4

From what is undoubtedly a very thorough investigation and study of 4,839 cases of delinquents (of whom 561 were girls and 4,278 were boys), we have carefully worked out for us interesting tables showing 2,416 working as against 1,862 non-working delinquent boys, and 251 working as against 210 non-working delinquent girls, or a total number of 2,767 working delinquent children as against 2,072 non-working delinquent children. Added to these interesting figures is the further fact that the ratio of working delinquents is very much larger than the non-working in all these cities, varying in different cities from three to ten times as great as the non-working, with the disproportion even more striking among the girls, making it perfectly clear, as one chapter of the report concludes, “that putting children to work prematurely is not an effective method of training them for good citizenship.”

THE VALUE OF THE REPORT.

Another interesting fact brought out by the report is that the repeaters or recidivists (those apprehended for the second to the tenth offense as carefully tabulated in the report) are to be found mostly among the working children with the proportions much larger among the younger working children between 9 and 14 years of age. Up to this point the scale in this respect constantly ascends, beginning to descend as the working age approaches maturity.

The report is unusually fair in making every possible concession to a variety of details and difficulties that might discredit its conclusions; but even with all such concessions there isn’t any room to dispute its final demonstration that working children not only contribute more in actual numbers but in an alarmingly larger proportion than do the non-workers to the criminal classes, and among repeaters or recidivists the same condition is even more marked. No such interesting or reliable set of tables has ever yet been added to the literature on this subject. It forces upon us the idea that the virtues necessary to good citizenship are not so much inherited as they are to be acquired. It follows that we are doing hideous injustice to our children in unnecessarily subjecting them to temptations which their untrained, immature souls are not yet able to withstand. These temptations naturally enough are greatest among the six groups of working boys who furnish the most delinquents. They are well known to juvenile court officers. These six groups represent the six classes of occupations yielding the greatest number of delinquents out of the total number investigated. Proportionately they are, delivery and errand boys 491, or 20.3 per cent; news-boys and bootblacks 449, or 18.6 per cent; office boys 46, or 1.9 per cent; street vendors 66, or 2.7 per cent; telegraph messengers 73, or 3 per cent; employed in amusement resorts 51, or 2.1 per cent; or a total of 2,416, more than one-half of the total number of 4,278 cases of delinquent boys investigated. The greatest proportion of offenses among the boys are of course larceny. This one offense constitutes more than half of all the offenses reported. Putting these immature souls to work simply violates the supplication of the Christian’s prayer “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” The temptation of dishonesty constantly besets the working child, much more than the non-working child. The results shown are rather to be expected. The next in order of popular offenses are incorrigibility and disorderly conduct, terms so indefinite as to frequently include larceny. Truancy appears only in the cases of 185, and begging in the cases of only seven. Every juvenile officer will appreciate the more than probable accuracy of these tables, for, with one or two exceptions of minor importance, they are confirmed by their common experience, for which heretofore reliable tables are rather scarce.

A FALLACY EXPLODED.

The tabulations concerning the parental condition of the delinquents show equally creditable work. They are interesting as exploding another popular fallacy (which indeed was long since exploded by Miss Jane Addams and other champions of child labor laws) that most of the working children were sons and daughters of widows. Only 419 boys or 17.3 per cent of the entire number investigated were sons of widows, and only 185, or 8.7 per cent, were orphans; while 1,318, or more than one-half of the entire number, had both parents living. And again, curiously enough, the tables show that proportionately the great majority of these delinquent boys, employed or unemployed, came from average good homes. Seventy-six and two-tenths per cent of the delinquent working boys are recorded as coming from “fair or good homes,” and 71.6 per cent of the working and non-working boys (that is, of the total number of delinquents) enjoy the same favorable conditions in so far as their homes are concerned. The results seem to prove what has often been emphasized by juvenile officers, that a good home is not as complete a guarantee of a good boy or girl as it would seem we ought to be entitled to expect. The influences of the home—while of course the most important influence and the one that counts most—is by no means the only influence under which a child is placed, especially in that kind of city life that has come to this country only in the past fifty years and which in every particular is to become more terrific in the next fifty years, unless there be some unexpected changes. It is furnishing in many respects a new kind of environment under which most of our children are expected to be reared. It means we have got to make war against the street, the conditions, the environment, the causes, if we are to perform our full measure of duty to our children.

Forty-four and seven-tenths per cent of the delinquent boys are children of native born parents as against fifty-five and three-tenths per cent of foreign born parents. Considering the far greater ratio of native born parents, this clearly indicates that there is less control over their children by foreign than by native parents.

But I do not wish to be misunderstood. I firmly believe in work even in childhood. By this, I mean the right kind of work. It is not so much a question of work as the amount of work, the kind of work and the conditions under which that work is performed. This need not lessen our belief in happiness in childhood. I want to say very candidly, that there are a great number of children in this country from fourteen years of age upward about whom I feel more alarmed at their failure to do or to know how to do any kind of useful work than of any possibility of their being overworked.

THE DANGER OF IDLENESS.

In our zeal for the protection of our boys subjected to extreme or unnatural conditions, we must not lose sight of the dangers and difficulties of idleness. There are thousands of boys in the cities of this country who, if not employed at some useful thing, are generally on the streets or in the alleys in the downtown public pool rooms and bowling alleys, engaged not always in wholesome play, but too often in idling, cigarette smoking and dirty story telling, with absolutely no thought of work or the serious side of life. They are too constantly occupied with thoughts of “having a good time,” and some rather perverted notions of what a good time is. Too many of our boys especially reach the age of moral and legal responsibility without the slightest conception of work. They are too often more concerned as to how much they earn than how well they do their work. In dealing with a certain class of youth in the juvenile court, I say without hesitation that the most hopeless fellow in the world is the boy who will not work—the boy who has not learned how to work, or the value and importance of work. There is always hope for the boy who works, especially the boy who likes to work. I believe in the “strenuous life,” and I think its importance should be taught our boys and girls at an early age. There are too many young people in this country looking for “the life of ignoble ease.” I can say all of this to persons sincerely interested in the protection of the children from degradation or unnatural labor, and yet not be understood as depreciating the importance of wise child labor laws and their rigid enforcement for the protection of the children of the Union. But we must be careful, in doing this, never to underestimate the importance of work—the right kind of work, a certain amount of work—in the life of every child, and especially that teaching which inculcates good impressions in the life of every child as to the necessity and importance of labor. On the other hand, my experience is that most boys will work if given any kind of an encouraging opportunity. The lack of a chance is often responsible for idleness. At least 90 per cent of our boys and girls are forced out of the grammar school to fight the battles of life. They must have a chance to earn a living under such reasonably favorable conditions as not to destroy all chance of happiness or else they must become idlers and loafers. My own experience is that our common school education too often fails to equip them for earning more than the most scanty wages. An opportunity between the sixth and eighth grades in our city schools for children of the toiling masses to learn some kind of useful trade or valuable work with the hands—to learn to do what their fathers do—is a reform in our educational system which the champions of child labor must, in my opinion, espouse if they would round out a systematic and consistent plan of battle in this fight for the salvation of the children.

PLACES FOR THE BOYS.

I want to see the time come in this country when a boy of fourteen years of age up may be a valuable help to the plumber, the carpenter or the printer at a decent wage, instead of going to the messenger service and the street. I do not believe that juvenile labor should trespass upon the legitimate occupations of men and women, but we must equip these children for some kind of industrial efficiency and usefulness, or enlarge our reformatories and prisons for their care and maintenance. One of the saddest things in my experience as judge of the juvenile court has been the little fellows who have requested me to send them to the reform school in order that they might learn a trade. The principal of a school once said to me: “Judge, why don’t you send that boy to the reform school so that he can learn a trade?” On behalf of the boy, I replied: “In God’s name, why don’t you people on the Board of Education give him an opportunity to learn a trade at home?”

I ask you, is it fair, just or decent that in most of the cities of this country an American boy has no opportunity to learn a trade, to capacitate himself for joyous, useful work with his hands, unless he commits a crime? And yet, I am compelled to say to you, that such is the condition in a very large section of this country.

But there are wonderful changes just ahead of us in our educational system. These changes are bound to come if we are to make progress, and we are making progress.

If the Nation is to do its real duty to its boys—whether they be city boys or country boys, its children, city children or country children—it should pass the bill that has for the last six years been repeatedly offered in Congress providing for the establishment of a children’s bureau in the Department of Commerce and Labor.

CHILDREN VERSUS ANIMALS.

It is a kind of protection that is sadly needed in this country, and especially from the government we need a systematic scheme of national investigation of all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and child life. It would in no manner interfere with the activities and agencies provided by the states but, on the contrary, through the help and assistance that would come from the national government, do much to strengthen all such agencies. Such a bureau would be of equal if not superior importance to those now existing in several of the departments. For instance, the Department of Agriculture, where we have a bureau of animal industry, plant industry, of soils, of chemistry, and the like. The Government spends annually millions of dollars investigating the diseases of animals, the inspection of cattle, hogs, sheep, etc., and the results obtained by the able experts are published and circulated generously to the farmers and stock raisers of the country. The work of these bureaus has more than justified the expenditure of money by the Government. If we have a somewhat analogous bureau dealing with the welfare of the child life of the Nation, it would be doing no more for them than we are now doing for cattle and hogs. We have no right to neglect the child crop of this country. It is scarcely necessary to repeat that it is our most valuable crop, for there are born every year in this country over two million children. What the state is, what the Nation is ten, twenty, or thirty years from now depends not so much on our business, our ranches, our great industries, as upon the kind of men we have directing the great industries, the business, the farms, the ranches of this country, and what these men are then depends upon how well we care for our children now. If there are diseases among the cattle of the Nation, or decrease in some of the staple cereal crops of the Nation, the Government immediately becomes interested and its investigators and experts are busy everywhere to ascertain the causes, to furnish the remedies, to coöperate with the people for the protection of the material wealth of the Nation. Now, the child crop of the Nation is not to be measured in dollars and cents for as important as such a standard may be it is insufficient to furnish a scale for measuring the value of soul stuff. Yet if there is a large increase in infant mortality, of the dependency or delinquency of the childhood of the Nation, there is no bureau under the Federal Government that is even required to become interested in the matter. And, indeed, there are very few states that provide sufficient and adequate agencies to carry on the work that must be done if we are true to our children. It is freely admitted that of the 300,000 little children—out of the 2,000,000 born annually—that die annually, one-half of the deaths are preventable by the knowledge and application of preventive measures. If through the dissemination of proper information about children, such as is disseminated concerning cattle, an appreciable per cent of these children could be saved as they certainly would be saved, such a bureau would more than justify its establishment.

SOME PRACTICAL EXPERIMENTS.

I remember recently, when the Children’s bill in England was being considered, receiving a letter, I think, from one of the under secretaries, to get certain facts, and it was simply impossible to provide the information that was needed and expected that this Government could furnish; and I, as a judge of one of the courts of this country dealing with children, felt very much embarrassed that we could not say that our Government was able to furnish such information.

We have found, in our efforts to help these 100,000 children annually that are dependent or delinquent, that nothing is so important as facts. In my humble judgment—I may be wrong, and that is just why we want a bureau of this kind, in order that I may know and you may know whether I am right or wrong—in my judgment there are 100,000 children, dependent and delinquent, coming to the courts of this country every year, and that means 1,600,000 children coming to the courts of this Nation in every generation of childhood. Is this great government of ours, with sufficient facts already gathered in this imperfect way to demonstrate the necessity, going to neglect this opportunity of spreading useful information concerning the children of this country?

I recall a certain city in which I asked the chief of police how many children had been in jail that year. He said 100. When we investigated the records, we found there were 650 boys alone brought to the jail in that city of less than 200,000 people. In another city I asked the jailer how many boys had been in jail, he said five or six hundred. When we investigated the records, we found there were 4,000 arrests in that city among the boys alone under twenty years of age and over 2,000 brought to the jail were under seventeen years of age.

But finally any work for children of the city or country must bring us face to face with many of the social, economic, industrial and political conditions that concern us as a people. There is no real problem of the child that is not also the problem of the parent. We cannot do our duty toward the children of this Nation without attacking the conditions that deform the lives of the children. This must take us so far afield that I do not dare attempt to follow now lest it take me so far beyond the immediate scope of this paper as to find for it no satisfactory ending.

The fight for the childhood of today is the fight for the parenthood of tomorrow, the manhood of tomorrow; it is after all the supreme battle for the country, the city, the state, for justice for all men and women, and that means a day of better things, a happier country, a more perfect civilization; the dawn of a tomorrow, a new day, a new time in which the scriptural promise shall be more than fulfilled, for the little child shall lead, shall teach, shall save the world.

Chairman HADLEY—The audience will remain seated a moment. There are a few more of the states that will be called, and as it is necessary for me to attend to some official duties, President Wallace will now take charge of the meeting.

President WALLACE—The Congress is not yet adjourned, and we have some good things in store. Please come to order as soon as possible. I wish to announce Hon. B. A. Fowler, president of the National Irrigation Congress, of Phoenix, Arizona, as chairman of the committee on resolutions. Now, we want every state that has not appointed a committeeman on resolutions to do so at once, and report to the clerk, and Mr. Fowler will announce when and where that committee will meet.

Another thing. Any of you that have resolutions will please turn them in to that committee at the time and place of meeting. The committee will consider the resolutions and present them and their final report on next Wednesday. It is to be regretted that many of the governors could not be here this afternoon, but some of them have sent representatives.

President WALLACE—I have the pleasure of introducing to you Mr. D. M. Neill, representing the governor of Minnesota.

[Mr. Neill’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]

President WALLACE—The Honorable George Coupland of Nebraska is here as its representative, and has been asked to speak next. Mr. Coupland.

[Mr. Coupland’s paper is to be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]

President WALLACE—When this meeting adjourns, which will be at 5 o’clock sharp, it will adjourn to meet at 8 this evening, and will be presided over by Hon. B. A. Fowler, the president of the National Irrigation Congress. Mr. Condra has an announcement to make.

Professor CONDRA—I wish to announce a meeting of the credential committee as soon as I leave the stage about ten minutes to 5. Another announcement: There are about a hundred state conservation commissioners present, and they will meet in the white room at the Baltimore Hotel tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock for a conference.

President WALLACE—This Congress intended to get Hon. Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey to address us. He was unable to come, but has sent a representative, Mr. Edward A. Stevens, Commissioner of Public Roads, and he will be heard as soon as the secretary makes some announcements, which will close the program for this afternoon.

After announcements by Secretary Gipe, President WALLACE continued: We will now hear from the representative of Hon. Woodrow Wilson, Mr. Stevens. (Applause)

Mr. STEVENS—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I did not come prepared to represent the Governor of New Jersey, or to make a speech. That had been entrusted, I believe, to somebody better fitted than myself. I find in the West the State of New Jersey is considered and known for its mitigation of corporations which do not meet the approval of the United States Supreme Court. But it is not that industry I wish to interest you in, or in fact any New Jersey industry. All I can do today is to give a slight enumeration of the work being done in one of the smallest and most densely populated states of the Union. We have commissions or officers in charge of the following branches of conservation work: Forestry; the oyster industry; the conservation of flowing water; the geological survey of the state (which is one of the most complete and most accurate yet carried out by any state of the Union); of agriculture; of public roads; of inland waterways; the regulation of public utilities; the watching over health by the State Board of Health, and also special institutions for the care of tuberculosis, of epileptic and feeble-minded children. We have a fish and game commission, because with us the ocean furnishes a vast source of wealth in its fisheries. We have besides that a commission for the regulation of factory labor, and especially for the regulation of child labor, for children in New Jersey cannot enter into work without passing an examination and without special permits. I am sorry that I cannot do much more than merely enumerate the branches of activity which the state is undertaking. I am only familiar with one of them, that is public road building. If I can be of any service in that technical line to this Congress I hope I will be considered at its disposal. (Applause)

President WALLACE—Prof. F. W. Rane, State Forester, will speak for the State of Massachusetts.

[Prof. Rane’s paper is to be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]

President WALLACE—The Congress now stands adjourned until 8 o’clock, when the conference of the states will be resumed. We will meet tomorrow morning at 9:30 promptly.

_THIRD SESSION._

In the absence of President Wallace, who was attending the dinner given to the President of the United States, Prof. Condra acted as chairman of the meeting.

Professor CONDRA—Ladies and Gentlemen, your attention: We will continue the program this evening from 8 o’clock until the arrival of the President and his party. We will have reports from a number of the states. The states which are represented should send their representatives to the platform. If I understand it, we are now to hear from Michigan, Montana, New York and a number of other states, and in addition to that we will have a short talk which will please you I am sure. The first thing on the program is a flashlight picture.

After the flashlight picture was taken, the Congress continued as follows:

Professor CONDRA—Are there any announcements to be made by the members of the different committees? Has the chairman of the committee on resolutions an announcement to make?

I wish to announce that there are a good many scientific men present who are representing various bodies and they are going to hold a number of important meetings. One of these will be held in the Coates House, room 244, at 8:30 tomorrow morning. The question is, “What should be the relation of Conservation to Science, to the Discovery of Truth?” We must not divorce the two departments. They are identical when we understand the two. All chemists, geologists, agriculturists, and others who are ready to assist in this work and wish to meet with the scientists are invited to do so tomorrow morning. I understand Dr. Shinnick of Iowa is to preside at that meeting. He represents the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Another announcement: We have gathered here about one hundred state conservation commissioners. The conservation commissions of the various states are not political bodies, neither are they partisan, but they are men and women who are studying the truth underlying conservation. The conservation commissioners, together with the various scientists, namely, geologists, agriculturists, chemists and others, will hold meetings tomorrow. I ask you to take notice. And representing these various scientific bodies, the meeting of the conservation commissioners and the friends of that kind of work; those who want to get at the details of state conserving, including what we should investigate and give to the people as the basis of conservation activity, how we shall do soil survey, geological survey, what kind of maps must be prepared, what is the truth of dry farming, what is true drainage, how shall we make up the various inventories, what kind of forest study should be made in the state—in other words, in what manner are we to coöperate in the various states, and in what manner are we to coöperate with the Federal Government in getting at the conservation facts? We ask all of you interested in these subjects to join us in the white room at the Baltimore Hotel tomorrow. We will have talks by such men as Prof. Holden, Dr. Hawarth, W. J. Spillman, of the Department of Agriculture, and I might name a number of others, men practically engaged in this line of work. I would like to know whether there is anyone to speak for Michigan?

At the meeting of last year there was not full opportunity to hear from the men representing the states. We want these men to come forward and tell us what they are doing. Michigan has not responded. Is Montana represented? Is New York? New Mexico? We ask that you will come here to the platform. Will the representative of Pennsylvania please come to the platform? I ask those of you who are scattered here and there in this great building to be as quiet as you can, because there may be some who are not used to speaking before so many persons and it is rather difficult to speak from this position. Mr. Emil Gunther, representing Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia in particular.

Mr. GUNTHER—The chairman has just announced I may have five minutes. Realizing the importance of time, I wrote out my remarks so that I could not speak more than five minutes if I wanted to.

[Mr. Gunther’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]

Chairman CONDRA—It is quite possible that the people throughout this Middle Western country and all of the western part of the United States may fail to realize the different phases of activity that are maintained in the great empire state of New York. That state has recently established a conservation commission, with three scientists as members, paying those men $10,000 a year for the difficult task of organizing the various lines of conservation activity in the state. I have the pleasure of introducing one of the state commissioners of New York, Mr. John D. Moore.

[Mr. Moore’s address is in Supplementary Proceedings.]

Chairman CONDRA—Is the representative of South Carolina, Dr. M. W. Twitchell, present?

A DELEGATE from Kansas—We have tried to hear two speakers from the East, but in Kansas City, half way across the continent, we have been unable to hear them. If you have any more Eastern speakers, California, perhaps, in the rear end of the hall, would like to hear something they say.

Chairman CONDRA—I would call attention to the fact that people are coming in. I know that those who are here are as quiet as you can be, and I ask that those in the rear on this first floor will call the attention of the ushers to this fact so they may request people to enter more quietly. We realize that this is a very large building, and you ought not to require every man to speak to all of you. They haven’t all got lungs strong enough to make everyone hear, but we hope Dr. Twitchell has.

[Dr. Twitchell’s address is in Supplementary Proceedings.]

Chairman CONDRA—We will postpone the reports from the states until tomorrow. The first speaker represents the National Soil Fertility League, who will speak for ten minutes. After that we will have a talk by Bernard Baker, our old conservation friend, the man who was the president of the Congress at St. Paul during its last Congress. If President Taft should enter during either one of these speeches, I ask that the band may start up “America.” I think it would be appropriate to sing “America” when the President of this great country enters such a great hall filled with such an audience. (Applause) I understand that the gentleman who is to speak is able to talk to the uttermost parts of the gallery. I now introduce Howard H. Gross, president of the National Soil Fertility League. Mr. Gross, of Chicago.

Mr. GROSS—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I want to thank you kindly for the applause, for it may be the only occasion when it would be proper. (Applause) I want to say as president of the National Soil Fertility League that it is an organization formed to do a specific definite work, and to work with this great Congress, and all who are striving for a better agriculture. I have been doing considerable institute work, and I made this observation: that the farmer was very quick to see and demonstrate how some of these half-baked theories that he was asked to subscribe to did not appeal to him, or, in other words, that we are all from Missouri, and it was necessary to be shown. (Applause) We know that we are not getting out of our farms what we ought to get. We know that Europe is getting two or three times as much per acre as we are. So, in the organization of the National Soil Fertility League I felt that two or three things were necessary: First, we must have an organization that would command the respect of the people, and when I give you the names of the gentlemen who make up the advisory committee I believe you will agree with me that they have been wisely chosen, and we are under obligations to them, all of us, for joining in a great work of this kind. On the advisory committee are Mr. James J. Hill of St. Paul, whom I regard as one of the greatest men who it has ever been my privilege to meet; the next is our most distinguished, our first citizen, William Howard Taft (applause); Franklin MacVeigh; Missouri’s great son, Champ Clark (applause)—gentlemen, this is not a political convention. Dr. James, of the University of Illinois; William Jennings Bryan (applause)—now, gentlemen, it would not do for me to read the other names if you are going to break over like this. It is against the rules. Mr. F. D. Coburn, Secretary of Agriculture of the State of Kansas (applause); Benjamin Franklin Yoakum; William George, banker and farmer; Samuel Gompers, president of the Federation of Labor (applause); Alvin H. Saunders of the Breeders’ Gazette; J. M. Studebaker, of wagon fame; Samuel Allerton; Henry Wallace, you all know (applause), and W. D. Howard is no less distinguished. The speaker is the only cheap skate in the crowd. (Applause)

Now, gentlemen, the National Soil Fertility League was formed for a definite purpose. It will have a paid organization. We will be Johnny-on-the-spot every minute during the year, doing business. What we propose to do is this: to supplement the great work that is being done by the agricultural colleges, and insist that the state and the nation shall recognize these great institutions with adequate contributions, so that they may do extension work and reach every community in the land from Maine to California. (Applause) We mean to have Congress appropriate a million dollars to start with, and increase it to eight or nine or ten millions if necessary, and every man who has anything to say in Washington is committed to this proposition from top to bottom, and we are going to get the money. Then we propose to have bills introduced at the next meeting of the Legislature in forty-four states, and get the people back of those bills, to the end that the money will be forthcoming to enable the college of agriculture to take up this great work and carry it forward. The plan will be to take a soil chemist, a skilled agriculturist, and put one in every county in the state. That man is responsible to the state university of where the county is situated. He will help the farmer solve the problems of a larger field, coöperating with him, studying the local conditions, to the end that we may establish a permanent agricultural college, and get the largest returns possible and maintain soil fertility. In Europe where they have been farming for a thousand or fifteen hundred years they are raising two or three times what we get, and our land originally was better than theirs. Now there are several problems that are collateral to this. Let me know, Mr. Chairman, when my time is up—and one is farm labor, how to keep the boy on the farm. The new agriculture showing the boy that we can use his brain as well as his brawn, that farming is profitable, far more than he thinks, that he can make dollars out of dimes by proper manipulation, and so he will see that the largest field of opportunity for a man of brawn and brain is in treating with the soil. Show him also that it is a high and noble and splendid business avocation. Also we must have better schools in the country. (Applause)

There is no reason why the boy and the girl on the farm should not have as good educational advantages as those in the city schools. The greatest product that we have on our farm is not cattle, hogs and alfalfa, wheat and oats, but the boy and the girl in the farm home. (Applause) Upon them depends the future of this great country. So let us realize the personal equation and take care of the boys and the girls; give them the education that they want and let them get it at home instead of going to town. Home life is a great deal more pleasant. You must have good roads, consolidated schools, fill your homes with the best there is in the land, and there is no place on God’s green earth where society and civilization can reach a higher plane and a better one than upon the great plain of Illinois and Michigan, Missouri, Kansas, and all these great states. But let the young men realize that they can learn something from the green leaves of the field, as well as from the yellow leaves of the library. When we get to doing business, and we are doing it now, we want you all to help us get the legislation that is necessary, so that we can provide abundant and cheap food supply for the country, and have plenty to ship abroad, without impairing one single dollar of the farmer’s income, but make it twice what it is today. (Applause)

Chairman CONDRA—I wonder if you really believe what this gentleman has said? (Sure we do. Yes.)

In the course of my work I have run on a few individuals who have an idea that it is not necessary for the state to be concerned with the materials of conservation, or with the conditions that obtain in those states. I hope that the time will come when the people on the farm, in the factory, all the citizens in the state will realize that an American state that does not have a full survey of its climate, its topography, its structure, its drainage, its resources, is behind the times. I want you people to pledge me, though not orally, that you will go home, return to your places, and stand by the men like Professor Holden, like Dr. Hawarth, like Dr. DeWolf, and those men who are farmer boys who have gone to the land to study the real value that they may give of their knowledge of farm management. Do you believe that? (Sure. Yes, sir. You bet.) Well, suppose as delegates we might bring in a resolution which says that conservation in these states must be based on that basis, on the material, on the conditions, would you vote it down? Would you believe that these men are sincere? Would you think those men are put in a glass case, that they represent a museum curiosity, or would you think that those men that are huskies, those men of brawn, would you think that those men are your friends, that they mean what they say and they know what they are talking about? They are the ones who have seen this thing from the practical side, and they must work with you. Let me sound this note: I make the plea that you may, in the conservation of the various states, stand for conservation based on fact, not on conservation based on dogma without foundation. Will you stand for that? (Applause) I wish to assure all now I am not now making an argument for the man who does the geological survey, the agricultural survey, the nursery survey, the industrial survey; I am making an argument to the people for the people who ought to have the truth of the situation, the benefit of those surveys. We have seen too many concerns floated without basis. We have seen altogether too much promotion without basis. The time is when our agriculture will flourish according to the conditions that obtain. We will not misrepresent for the purpose of drawing a population from one section of our great country to an unfavorable place in another section. We are going to take the land as it is. We will take the climate as it is. We will take the resources through and through as they are. And the state will place its stamp of approval, based on the fruits, and the people can go here and there according to the light that is found. And we condemn any concern in the state that goes into another state and misrepresents things to the people, taking them to a place for which they are not fitted, and to land which they do not understand. I do not want to discourage you, and here let me clear up a thought. We stand as conservationists for reclamation. We intend to make more of these dry lands, those sandy lands, those wet lands, and the various other kinds, and we want to get more out of these trees, out of that coal, out of that gold, out of that iron.

Let us stand on the basis of truth. Let us stand against misrepresentation. May I sound another warning? There never was a state that misrepresented industrial facts and attracted factories to those unfavorable places, or attracted people to an unfavorable locality, which they did not understand, there never was a state that permitted that but suffered for the same sooner or later. We must take truth as it is. We must abide by the facts. We must, as people of the state, loyal to our state and our country, put our forces against all kinds of misrepresentation, because they end up badly. (Applause) Now you don’t understand that, all of you. The farmer gets occasionally into some one of these concerns that ends badly. Then he objects to all kinds of business, and he objects to the railroads, and he objects to the men in the factory, and he thinks all business is illegitimate. We have reached a time in the conservation of our states when we will base our industry on investigation and reliable report, made by one who will not pad the facts.

I ask Mr. Baker to tell us a little about the Panama Canal.

Mr. BAKER—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: The subject is not one as Prof. Condra said, that covers the subject of conservation to most people, but to me it means a great deal. It means that your government, your people are spending today some four hundred millions of dollars for the purpose of conserving the interests of transportation between the east and the west coast of the United States of all this great country, the enormous commerce that has been absolutely and almost entirely in the control of the railroads for so many years. So serious has this control been that for nineteen years the transcontinental railway pool paid to the owners of the Panama Railroad Company $1,080,000 a year for nineteen years to induce them not to do business. Think what that means. Not only that, but for many years they paid the United States of Colombia, which formerly and originally was under the Republic of Panama before it seceded, $10,000 a year to prevent the extension of that line, to deepwater, so as they could utilize that route to develop the commerce of the United States. Your Government, you people, are paying for that. I am going to tell you a little, while we are waiting for the President. I have just had the honor of being with him at dinner. He was unfortunately detained, but I expect him every moment, and it is not necessary for me to say that when he appears I shall retire.

They started out with that wonderful enterprise—the Panama Canal—by meeting the opposition of all the railroad interests that were determined that it should not be completed. Many, many times able articles, which many of you have read in the magazines, were written and paid for by the most eminent engineers to prove how totally impracticable the building of the Panama Canal was. It was a dream. A long dream, they used to say. It began in the early days of Spain when Columbus came to the Panama Canal. He was the first one to visit it. There was located on the west side of the canal what is known as the Treasure House of Spain. When our Government took hold of it, and employed the engineers to make a thorough survey, the question came up of building an open waterway free right down to sea level. When it was suggested that they build lock canals—and as many of you farmers to whom I am speaking may not understand that, I take a few minutes to explain exactly how they work. You come in on the level of the Caribbean sea, and the ship is elevated about thirty feet by sliding into a lock, the water pouring from the upper lock, sixty feet above, into this lower lock, thirty feet, and on this the ship rises. That occurs three times, until they bring the ship up to a level of eighty feet above the Caribbean sea. There is very little rise or fall in the tide of the Caribbean sea, only about eighteen inches, maximum and minimum. Then it enters into what is going to be—and now when I was there in November, had about twenty-eight to forty feet of water in it—a most beautiful fresh water lake some twenty-nine miles wide and some thirty long, bordered with the most beautiful mountain ranges. The ship will sail through that lake and will come into what you have all heard about, the wonderful Culebra cut, a cut straight through the mountains. One of the greatest difficulties, one that you have heard so much of, is the slides, the land constantly sliding down into that cut, was due to the character of the soil, it being a volcanic ash.

Now, the most wonderful thing has happened, due to modern invention, which has brought to work what is known as the cement gun, a gun that will fire cement into those banks and make them practically solid and prevent sliding. So they can go on and dig the canal without further interruption. There is no question whatever that the waterway will be opened to the people of the United States by the shortest possible route, saving 7,000 miles of water distance between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, all the way around the Straits of Magellan, by June, 1913. (Applause) Not only have they made the cement gun, but they have made the cement boat. I am an old steamship man of many years’ experience. I can remember some years ago when they talked about iron boxes floating as being impossible. Then they came to a steel box floating. Now, ladies and gentlemen, they are floating a stone box there, and putting on this stone box the gun which will fire the cement. It is made of cement. The steamer will proceed through that large cut, which is covered with the most wonderful vegetation that ever was written about, right in the tropics, within eight degrees of the equator. The ladies here—all ought to go to Panama and see the wonderful flowers, blooms—things that we see here in our greenhouses—there growing as trees—magnificent, wonderful—and the parrots playing through the woods. If you go a little way off you can also see the monkeys playing in the woods. All those things will be open to travel, and there will be the big fine passenger steamers going through there.

When you get over to the other side of the canal you meet first what is called the Piedro Miguel Locks. Peter McGill was an Irishman, but they called him, in Spanish, Piedro Miguel. A number of things down there are named after him. A short distance below you come to two more locks, lowering you to the level of the Pacific Ocean, which has a rise and fall of nearly eighteen feet. That is known as the Miraflores Lock, or many flowers. Now you have reached the Pacific Ocean. I want to go back just a moment, however, and tell you why it was necessary to make this lock canal. An old steamship man’s ideal way is simply to sail through without any destination whatever, but there is a river down there, you know, the Chagres river. Up to the time I was last down there they never had yet found the source of the river. The vegetation was so rank it was almost impossible to get through. That river has been known to rise sixty feet in forty-eight hours, and yet I have seen it when you could almost walk across the river bed. Imagine that kind of a flood being taken care of in an open waterway constituting a ship canal. I would not like to be on the ship that undertook to go through a canal that might possibly meet that condition of floods in Panama. I want to tell you another thing that to me is the most wonderful work I have ever seen, and that is the way everything is managed and controlled by one man, Col. Gilfos. He is a wonder. You can go among the engineers, the laboring men, constituting all the nationalities of that part of the country, a great many of them Jamaicans and West Indians, Spaniards, and everywhere you will hear, “We are working for Col. Gilfos.” No mistakes of any importance have been made. They all live there in the most perfect socialism, if I may call it in the true idea of socialism, the brotherhood of man, having everything in common.

When a lady wishes to give a dinner, she asks by telephone—Government telephone—for a carriage to be sent. It is a mule wagon generally, by the way. But now they are getting some automobiles. It takes her down to the commissary headquarters. She picks out what she wants to entertain her friends with, and she uses no money. It all comes up promptly just at the hour, and many times at prices which it would be impossible today to duplicate in some of our Western and Eastern cities. When the baby is sick she sends for the Government doctor. Everything is done in that way by the United States Government. Why, they even run the most wonderful hotel in the most wonderful way, the Hotel Tivoli. It is a beautiful place, a marvelous place, and a remarkable arrangement they have there. If you stay one week it is a fixed price per week. If you stay two weeks it is at proportionate reduction, and three weeks again a reduction, so as to encourage people to come there and stay in the hotel. They are now adding to the Tivoli a very large $500,000 addition, just to accommodate travelers, and everything is run by the Government. You never hear a word of complaint, never any differences. There seem to be no social bickerings or differences among the people. One goes everywhere and finds absolute social enjoyment. I never in my life have seen such a marvelous community. There is where we ought to raise our children. Little figures running about with very little on them, there is so much bright sunshine and beautiful weather they do not need clothes, and they seem to be perfectly healthy. When you think of it, an old saying used to be that when they built the railroad across there every tie cost a human life. Disease was terrible. For five years there has never been a case of fever—yellow fever—and it is the statistical record that it is one of the healthiest places today in the United States.

Of course it is not in the United States, but compared with any place in the United States. There was, by the way, one death, I understand, in Panama that was due to the curiosity of one of our dear women. She came down as a nurse, a trained nurse from New York, and did not believe that the mosquito could possibly convey fever. In the physical laboratory of the hospital at Ancon were a number of them in a glass case for experimental purposes. Talking to some of the other nurses when the doctors were not about, she put her finger in and allowed one of the mosquitoes to bite her. She was bitten all right. In five days she died of fever, proving beyond any question that the mosquito was the one thing that made all this unhealthfulness in the past. But not satisfied with that, the Government has drained in the most effectual way all the entire canal zone of some fifty miles long and ten miles wide. At the head of every small stream where there is any possibility of drainage or stagnant water producing mosquitoes, they place a small barrel of oil, with a drip. That drip is regulated just in proportion to the flow of water. Now today it is one of the most pleasant places in fair weather I ever saw. There are few or no flies on account of this strict sanitation, which includes also the removal of garbage. Everything of that kind is done by the Government in the most sanitary and most effective way. All the houses belong to the Government—they have single men’s apartments, and married men’s apartments, and houses for the different officers. There is provided a special can for the removal of all the garbage and refuse from the houses. If anyone leaves that open they are fined very promptly. No one does. An inspection officer is going about. So today I know of no more pleasant place in the world to spend a month or so than at the Hotel Tivoli, Panama.