TENTH SESSION.

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.”

Address, “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.”

Address, “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.

Address, “Social, Industrial and Civic Progress”

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.

So much for progress along industrial and social lines; but we have made and are making just as great progress in this country along other lines that affect the general welfare of the people. And also our ethical standards and our aspirations are conspicuously higher. For instance:

Within the past twenty years there has been a most remarkable gain in the popular concept of the relation of industrial, railway and municipal utility corporations to the public. The large corporations called trusts have been taught even in the past five years that they must recognize certain “rules of the game” that give their competitors a chance, and what is wholesome about this from the ethical standpoint is that they now admit the justice of these changed conditions.

The abolition of rebates and free passes and the placing of railroad, telegraph, telephone and express companies absolutely under the regulatory power of the Interstate Commerce Commission are so far-reaching that the benefits to the people are impossible to measure. From federal regulation of railroads, it was only a step to State regulation of street railway, gas and electric light companies.

The idea that railways or big corporations are masters of the people has been dissipated.

Today, through insistent demand of the people for publicity, it can be said that the big business of the country is being done behind glass doors. The improved methods of doing business adopted by banks, trust companies and insurance companies during the past five years would alone justify this statement.

In practically five years, thanks to the great educational work of the National Conservation Congress, there has been a complete transformation of the public mind in the matter of proper control of our natural resources, such as our public lands, timber and water power. It was not many years ago, when I was living in the West, that it was considered a smart thing to “grab off” all public land that one could get hold of. This was generally accomplished by taking land in the name of your mother and father and all your children, past, present and future, and it was not bad form even to use your neighbor’s name in taking up claims. I found my own name had been used in three or four different counties by some of my ambitious neighbors.

Politically speaking, we have progressed from the state where our elections were great public scandals and where primary elections were “free-for-alls,” with no legal status whatever, to a day when, thanks to the Australian ballot law, ballot-box stuffing is practically unknown and primaries are generally so conducted that the voters control.

Campaign contributions that were largely responsible for corruption in politics and legislation are now by law made public to the world.

The initiative, referendum and direct primary have been adopted in some form in two-thirds of the States and in over two hundred cities the commission form of government, often with a recall attachment, has been adopted. These measures, whether they prove to be practical reforms or not—and there are many who doubt that—undeniably testify to the paramount power of those agitating for a so-called “progressive program,” they all being opposed by what are termed the “reactionaries.”

The civil service, from being a thing detested by nearly everybody twenty years ago, is so popular today that political parties are vying with each other to see which can include the largest number of civil employes. The President has just ordered the 35,000 fourth-class post-masters be taken from under the political brokerage offices of the Congressmen and placed under the civil service law.

The government of cities, which has been the burning shame of this country, as it was in the early days of every other country, is slowly but surely becoming more decent and effective. The work of the National Municipal League, the hundreds of local municipal reform associations, and the National Bureau of Municipal Research with its local bureaus, furnish abundant evidence of the truth of this statement. The Bureau of Municipal Research is not only making an exhaustive and painstaking analysis of administrative methods in many large cities, and installing more up-to-date and efficient systems, but it also has prevailed upon the Federal Government to have a similar investigation made in its various departments. It has, in addition, organized a training school to meet the demand for municipal experts.

The administration of justice and the influence of wealth upon the decisions of the courts have been revolutionized in the past ten years. It used to be charged that the criminal courts convicted only the poor and released the rich, whereas today the penitentiary that has not a half dozen or more bankers or rich malefactors within its walls is the exception. There is no man or corporation so powerful today as to be immune from attack by the government when violating the law.

The American Bar Association and the National Civic Federation are jointly working to bring about a reform in legal procedure which will wipe out unnecessary delays and cost in litigation, thereby opening the courts more freely to the wage-earner.

Five years ago there was no such thing as a Pure Food and Drug Law. Today there is a federal act which has been made the basis of legislation in thirty-five States, and in another five years it is likely to be practically impossible for misbranders or adulterators of food and drugs to live outside of our penal institutions.

The rural free delivery, the postal savings bank and the parcel post are all great advances from which the farmers largely benefit.

The building and loan associations and savings banks, unknown in early days, are great aids to wage-earners.

In other words, reform is writ large over all sections of the country and all classes of society. There are:

Over two thousand boards of trade and chambers of commerce, at least half of whose efforts are directed towards municipal and industrial reforms, and the other half to commercial reforms;

Thousands of church societies and committees aiding in the improvement of industrial, social and political conditions in their respective localities;

Thousands of women’s clubs, representing over two million of the brightest and most energetic women of our nation, devoted to securing civic improvement, factory legislation and reforms in public schools, to spreading information upon social hygiene and domestic science and working for the protection of women and the redemption of unfortunate ones;

Thirty thousand labor organizations, whose purpose is not only to secure better working conditions, better wages and a shorter workday for wage-earners, but also to lift them to a higher plane of citizenship, and

Millions of farmers who, through granges, alliances and institutes, are working not only to improve the home life on the farm, but to educate their children in the use of better and more scientific methods of production.

Pretty fair, is it not, for a people whom our English critics and our American Socialists say are bereft, or almost so, of a social sense?

And it must also be kept in mind that this resumé does not refer to progress in science, invention and the arts, nor is attention called to the fact that never before in the history of this country were the basic conditions better than they are now, despite the fact that a national political campaign is supposed to be on.

But while the progress made has been so tremendous that we do not realize it, on none of these lines is it contended that anything near the ideal has been reached. There are yet very many black places and perplexing problems demanding attention on the part of those who love their fellow-men. But the same courage, intelligence and humanitarianism that have accomplished so much will not now falter, but will press forward.

Many in this audience may conclude that I am unduly optimistic and that I am able only to see the good, but I can assure you that I know something as well about the ills of society; for instance, I could cite from the records of the Welfare Department of the National Civic Federation alone a catalogue of industrial horrors showing where greedy and thoughtless, if not unfeeling and criminal, employers are grossly and outrageously mistreating the wage-earners in their employ, paying them atrociously low wages, working them excessively long hours and giving no consideration to the comforts or decencies that a humane employer would furnish. But also from that same record I could show that all such evils are being met by other employers, justifying the belief that, through education and proper agitation, the remaining sore spots can be removed. Last year one great corporation alone spent five millions of dollars in betterment work, including a gradual shortening of the working time in its plans for improving conditions, and several large corporations, operating night and day, have gone from two twelve-hour shifts to three eight-hour shifts without decrease of pay.

As a concrete and striking example of the power of agitation and education, there can be no better illustration than the present widespread sentiment in favor of legal enactments requiring compensation to injured wage-earners in lieu of the old employers’ liability system. Through the work of the National Civic Federation and co-operating bodies, this complete reversal of policy has been brought about in four years, fourteen States having already passed workmen’s compensation laws. The legislation, both Federal and State, which is now being secured, makes the industry bear the burden, while before the wage-earner took all the chances, did all the suffering and, if, after long-drawn-out litigation, he finally got anything in the way of damages, he had to give up fifty per cent. of it to the “ambulance chaser.”

I am happy to state that a movement is now on foot to make a painstaking inquiry into the progress made during the past fifty years in the directions indicated, with a view not only to discovering the good, but also to ascertaining what social and economic ills remain to be eradicated, and to propose, as far as possible, practical remedies therefor.

It is believed that a movement which will recognize the good and sincerely seek to remedy the wrong would be more effective in accomplishing reform than one designed only to tear down and destroy.

It were well, and with this suggestion I conclude, if at all future gatherings of this great organization some such counting of the milestones passed were to be made a feature. There is good reason for this. There are among our ninety millions of people many who, strange as it may seem, interpret such occasions as this as diagnostic of a body-social sick nigh unto death as the result of neglect. They do not know—and the fault is not wholly theirs—that the patient, far from being in extremis, is in better condition than ever before, that what to them is a death chamber consultation is merely an evidence of periodical stock taking in terms of social health and welfare. (Applause.)

President White—This is certainly a truthful resumé. It is well for us all sometimes to stop and “count our blessings.” (Applause.)

We will now listen to Dr. Burton J. Ashley, of Morgan Park, Illinois. His subject is “Disposition of Sewage,” a very interesting aspect of Conservation.

Address, “Disposition of Sewage”

Dr. Ashley—The universal aim of every one is to succeed. Success in anything depends, it is aptly said, on one’s ability, reliability, endurance, and action—four personal requisites, the absence of any one of which means failure. Ability and reliability are personal qualities, while endurance and action, two of these four requisites, are physical endowments dependable on one’s health. Accepting these statements as correct, then half of our successes is dependable on personal health and one-half on personal quality.

If man’s successes are equally as dependable on health as on his mental or acquired qualities or abilities, then we must draw but one conclusion, viz., that as much attention should be given to the maintenance of a healthy body as to the use and maintenance of our mental and moral capabilities.

Healthfulness depends in part on cleanliness, the state or quality of being clean. Health is natural. Disease is unnatural and is the result of some known or unknown transgression of natural laws. Dirt and disease have always been good friends. Disease is always most flourishing when it has dirt and filth for company; and to be dirty or filthy is to transgress nature’s efforts at keeping the body well.

Water and food are essential to life. Consume them and the liquid waste produce is sewage filth. To man the foulest and most repulsive dirt or filth is that of his own daily making, and well that it is, for it contains the most poisonous substances that exist and civilized humanity everywhere is increasingly directing its efforts to accomplish its destruction in the most sanitary and economical way possible. Modern methods employed by cities or lesser municipalities to disposal of their liquid filth is that of establishing systems of underground drains called sewers, into which such liquid filth is discharged.

The first well designed sewerage system to be adopted in the United States was built in Chicago about the year 1855.

The modern water-closet was not evolved until early in the last century, and in consequence of which evolution water carriage as a means of conveying sewage away logically followed its introduction. Former designs of sewerage provided for drains that would accommodate both the storm waters as well as the sewage. This method is commonly known as the “Combined System,” but when the employment of this character of sewage disposal created nuisances, the demand arose for the abatement of said nuisances, and it was then that civilization faced sewage purification in some form as a remedy. Storm waters are only dirty waters and not, strictly speaking, polluted waters, for merely dirty water will not create an offensive nuisance and requires no purification, while polluted water does. So the “separate system” of sewers was then evolved, namely, where one system conveys the storm waters and a separate system the sanitary sewage, for, inasmuch as only sanitary sewage needs purifying, therefore works of smaller capacity are needed than would be required were the large and unsteady volume of storm waters to be also subjected to the purifying process.

Many experiments have been made and varying forms of sewage purifying plants have been built during the last half century, and out of the many failures there have been evolved a few processes of purification which have proven fairly successful, but from an economic standpoint as well as from a physical one much yet has to be gained.

The broad irrigation of land with raw or crude sewage has been tried out and its limitations discovered. Although physically successful when properly administered, this form of disposal has been found to be expensive. Existing costly land values are usually exceedingly against the adoption of this form of disposal. The Broad Irrigation Plant of Berlin, Germany, with her 43,000 acres of land, is a notable example of the continuance of this form of disposal, but while this scheme has through its years of usefulness sometimes shown profits and sometimes deficits, the profits have never been large enough to pay the interest and sinking fund charges on the capital expended on the purchase of farms.

The method of purification now in general use is what is broadly called the biological method, wherein nature’s own mysterious forces, viz., putrefaction and nitrification, are encouraged usually by first impounding the sewage and then nitrifying the impounded liquid in a filter bed, so called.

This form of sewage purification is found to require a minimum amount of manipulation or labor as compared with some of the other forms.

The plea for sewage disposal is that it enhances life by preventing disease. The United States Conservation Commission reported that eighty-five per cent. of typhoid and malaria are preventable.

The sewage disposal problem is by no means an easy one, for every case being a law unto itself is sure to present a greater or less number of physical conditions that may not be found in any other case. Sewages differ in their composition as people differ. Some sewages are easily controlled and gotten rid of, while other sewages are stubborn to almost refusing to be subdued. The sanitary engineer in arriving at determination is obliged to previously dig deep and acquaint himself with existing conditions before he can safely conclude upon designs or measures or means that will bring successful results. The sanitary engineer’s practice is therefore much like that of a physician who considers symptoms before offering a diagnosis or prescribing a remedy.

Contrivances that have worked successfully in England have often proven to be failures in the United States. The character and composition of sewage abroad differs widely from the composition of our greatly diluted sewage here. Latitude, quantity of contained manufacturing wastes, character of water supply and numerous other components all combine to make the art of sewage disposal a problem. For instance, when the water supply is what is commonly termed “hard” undue collection of scum or mat is almost sure to form in biological tanks, and this is only one of the innumerable vexatious enigmas that confront the engineer or biologist. Pioneer practitioners have frequently undertaken the solution of sewage disposal questions when not qualified for such duty, largely in answer to the urgent request of an impecunious public with the usual disappointing results. But the value and possibilities of health Conservation have now been brought to that degree of successful accomplishment where the demand for specialists in the advancement of this modern art has become enhanced, and the advisability of employing specialists when the nature of the work is of such vital importance as is sewage disposal needs no argument.

Mr. Winslow has told us that a badly constructed or badly operated system is worse than none at all, for it creates a sense of false security and it also breeds a sense of distrust.

The first city to go about the establishment of sewage disposal in a thoroughly exhaustive way was Columbus, Ohio. Its example was shortly followed by the cities of Baltimore and Philadelphia. Very elaborate and exhaustive experiments are now being made by the city of Chicago at an experimental plant costing $60,000, which experiments have already covered a period of over two years, so that when a report shall be forthcoming the character of disposal best suited to that city will be a known factor and such steps as will be taken will be along lines of certainty.

The whole civilized world is or should be deeply indebted to the far-reaching experiments that have been conducted since the year 1887 at Lawrence, Mass., by the Massachusetts State Board of Health. The annual reports of the findings have become classic both at home and abroad. Nor would we forget to mention particularly the fifth report of the English Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal, which, after making exhaustive observation covering a period of four years of the operation of twenty-seven sewage disposal plants in actual daily operation, gave information, the value of which to the sanitary expert and indirectly to the civilized world at large, may not be determined.

At this stage of sanitary advancement our common people should not be further excused for the density of their ignorance regarding the value of preventive medicine as exemplified in clean premises and person and the adopting of respectable sanitary conveniences.

Want of knowledge along lines of modern sanitary advancement is to a very large extent due to the inertness of legislatures in enacting laws to meet the modern sanitary needs. The passing and enforcing of such laws would surely force our ignorance on this subject out of us and place us on a higher hygienic plane, such as has been established by the excellent enactments in a few of our States.

Standing out pre-eminently in this respect are the laws relating to the public health in Massachusetts, with New York following as a close second. One of the most important laws which is the foundation of others in Massachusetts is a provision for the acquirement of land by cities and towns for the purification of sewage. All through the Massachusetts code are to be found an abundance of preventive measures, as well as curative—abatement of nuisances, of offensive trades; establishing water supply and sewage disposal. Then follows a long list of subjects spell as lying-in hospitals, dangerous diseases, spitting, drinking cups, protection of infants, vaccination, quarantine, public school inspection, diseases of domestic animals, hydrophobia, cemeteries, cremating of dead bodies, burials, bakeries, supervision of plumbing, pollution of streams, food and drugs, milk, registry of births, marriages and deaths—not one of which but has its peculiar relation to the producing of sewage, and indirectly with sewage disposal.

As a contrast with the Massachusetts code let me refer to the sanitary laws, or want of them, in the State of Illinois. According to a copy of the public health laws issued for the information of local health authorities and others of this State, there occurs, for instance, but two sections covering the establishing of sewers. Rules and regulations are in evidence for isolating, quarantining, disinfecting and coping with various infectious diseases after they come into existence, but not a statutory provision is to be found establishing sewage disposal, nor for preventing the pollution of streams and lakes. The State Board of Health in this State is well-nigh powerless in taking initiative steps, particularly with regard to sewage disposal and stream pollution. It is high time State legislatures betook themselves to looking more into the all important art of sanitation and its far-reaching results and at once enact laws that will meet the advanced requirements of our daily living, and give such attention to the conservation of health and to the physical welfare of our homes as it in some cases has given to the welfare of the barn, the pigsty and their occupants. Had I the time I could refer to some very astonishing facts that might cause the blush of negligence to come to the faces of our Hoosier legislators.

Ohio has recently enacted a code of plumbing and drainage laws, containing provisions supposed to cover scientific sewage disposal. This code provides for and encourages contrivances that have been most soundly condemned by leading sanitarians both in this country and abroad for a century past.

It was Eugene Field who said:

What this tender poet wrote several years ago is increasingly being enacted today by the exodus of the prosperous captains of industry, of commerce and of the professions from their narrow city confines in unneighborly city neighborhoods to well appointed habitations in the outlying suburbs, or in his comfortable summer home up in the mountains or alongside the beautiful waters of some inland lake. These prosperous friends, though removing to the country, are unwilling to yield up any of the comforts and conveniences afforded by municipal service. Sewers usually unavailable in these more or less remote locations causes sewage disposal to become at once one of their most vexatious problems, so here comes a new demand for special skill in aiding our country gentlemen in establishing a satisfactory sanitary service that will tend to his comfort and respectability and prevent a menace to life and health. So all along the line the requirements for the sanitary uplift of home surroundings is widening, and the requirements in the daily living is enhancing, for modern sanitary methods of which sewage disposal is the most important are found to be most effective and therefore more necessary in the conservation of man’s most valuable asset—health. (Applause.)

President White—While waiting for committee reports, we will hear from a gentleman from San Francisco, who asks a little time. I will introduce to you Mr. J. P. Baumgartner.

Remarks, Mr. J. B. Baumgartner

Mr. Baumgartner—I just want to say to you that San Francisco will be in the field at the proper time with an invitation to this Congress to meet in that city in 1915—the year of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. The State of California has raised twenty million dollars for this Exposition. There will be a million-dollar convention auditorium on the Exposition grounds, and we feel there are many reasons why it would be particularly fitting for this Congress to meet in that city that year. I do not want to press this matter unduly at this time, but I felt I had a duty to perform to tell you that we want you to come to San Francisco in 1915, and that we will extend to you a royal welcome. I thank you. (Applause.)

President White—There is a committee to report at this time. The Chairman of the Executive Committee, Mr. E. L. Worsham, will report on some amendments to the Constitution.

Report, Executive Committee

Chairman Worsham—Mr. President and Members of the Congress: The Executive Committee makes the following recommendations for changes in the Constitution of the National Conservation Congress:

That the following be added as Section 3, Article III:

“After a call of the Executive Committee by the Chairman, and after all members of the committee have been notified of the meeting in sufficient time to be present, three members shall constitute a quorum for the transaction of business.”

That Article IV, Section 1, be amended as follows:

“Section 1. The officers of the Congress shall consist of a President, to be elected by the Congress; a Vice-President, to be elected by the Congress; a Vice-President from each State, to be chosen by the respective State delegations; one from the National Conservation Association and one from the National Association of Conservation Commissioners; an Executive Secretary, a Recording Secretary, and a Treasurer, to be elected by the Congress.”

That in Article V, Section 1, the words “during each regular annual session” be stricken out.

That Article V of the Constitution be amended to read as follows:

“Section 4. The President shall appoint a Finance Committee of five, three from the members of the Executive Committee and two from the Advisory Board, whose duty it shall be to plan ways and means of increasing the revenue of the Congress, and to prepare a budget of expenditures. The Chairman shall be a member of the Executive Committee.

“Section 5. The Executive Committee shall appoint in consultation with the Vice-President from the State, a State Secretary whose duty shall be to work with the State organizations for the especial interests of the Congress. Such Secretary shall report progress to the Executive Committee.”

That the remaining sections of Article V be renumbered accordingly.

That Section 2 be added to Article VII, to read as follows:

“The membership in the National Conservation Congress shall be as follows:

“Individual membership, one dollar a year, entitling the member to a copy of the Proceedings and an invitation to the next year’s Congress, without further appointment from any organization.

“Individual permanent, or life membership, twenty-five dollars, entitling the member to a certificate of membership and a copy of the Proceedings and invitations to all succeeding annual Congresses.

“Individual supporting membership, one hundred dollars, or more, entitling the member to a certificate of membership, a copy of the Proceedings, and an invitation to all succeeding Congresses.

“Organization membership, twenty-five dollars, entitling its delegates to the Proceedings and an invitation to the organization to appoint delegates to the next Congress.

“Organization supporting membership, one hundred dollars or more, entitling the organization to appoint one delegate from each State, each of whom shall receive a copy of the Proceedings.”

Remarks, Mr. E. Lee Worsham

Mr. Worsham—We are proposing some radical changes regarding the membership of the Congress. Heretofore, the personnel of the Congress has varied from year to year, and we have had no way of keeping in touch with delegates who attend. We think it is necessary to place the Congress on a good financial basis, and also to keep in touch with the people who attend from year to year, and we have, therefore, recommended these changes. I move the adoption of this report.

The motion was seconded, put, and declared carried.

President White—I will now call for the report of the Nominating Committee, which will be presented by the Chairman, Prof. George E. Condra.

Report, Committee on Nominations

Professor Condra—Your committee has been working very diligently, canvassing the situation. We have looked over the field, reviewed the work of various persons connected with Conservation, noted their efficiency. We have looked into the future, we have thought of the fitness of certain individuals for the work, and therefore report as follows:

For President, a man who can take up the work where Captain White leaves off—Mr. Charles Lathrop Pack, of Cleveland, Ohio. (Great applause.)

For Executive Secretary, one who has been with the work since its beginning, and has accomplished so much—Mr. Thomas R. Shipp, of Indianapolis. (Applause.)

For Recording Secretary, one who has also been valuable in the work, and has been associated with Mr. Pack and with Captain White—Mr. James C. Gipe, of Indianapolis. (Applause.)

For Treasurer, the man whom the Executive Committee at an earlier Congress gave an earnest invitation to take up this work, that it might be taken care of in a manner befitting this Congress—Mr. D. Austin Latchaw, of Kansas City. (Applause.)

The one who has been nominated for second place, Vice-President, we named because of fitness to serve all phases of the work of Conservation, but especially the conservation of life and the home. Not chosen because she is such a womanly woman; not especially because she has done splendid work for us here, but chosen because she is a great leader and we want her for the work. A person known to most of you—Mrs. Philip N. Moore, of St. Louis. (Applause.)

I do not name the Vice-Presidents of the States, for reasons given in the report of the Executive Committee. I take great pleasure in moving the adoption of this report.

The motion was seconded by Mr. A. B. Farquhar, put, and declared carried.

President White—I now wish to present to you your next President, Mr. Charles Lathrop Pack. (Applause.)

It is with great pleasure that I present to you the President of the next Congress. He is one who is thoroughly in love with Conservation. He is one of those who first studied Conservation. He spent years in its study, and he is, I know, the first American who ever received a fee for scientific forestry advice. He was paid one thousand dollars by the President of the Missouri Pacific Road for his expert opinion. When Mr. Pack returned from Germany, where he had been studying forestry for some time, he was sent for by Jay Gould, who asked him for his expert opinion on some forestry matters. Next morning Mr. Pack found in his box at the hotel a check for $1,000. This was the earliest record of such a fee being paid in the United States. So, if he was appreciated to this extent by a great railroad president then, we surely can trust him now. We are proud to have him as our President, and we feel he will be a great help to Conservation in the ensuing year. Mr. Charles Lathrop Pack, your new President, will now take the chair. (Applause.)

Remarks, Mr. Charles Lathrop Pack

President Pack—Ladies and Gentlemen: You have a great work before you, not only for the ensuing year, but for all years. The Conservation movement is not one for today, but for all time, and it matters very little the name or the names of the workers in the cause. It matters that you, and every one of you, should have your hearts right and do the right work. Conservation makes for the best use of all resources, and is dead against their abuse. It is your duty and my duty not only to come to these Congresses and confer and talk, but when you go home to be a true advocate of the cause and to be against everything that is opposed to it. (Applause.) Conservation is for men and women, and for one I thank God we have the women with us. (Applause.)

I do not intend to make a speech; I am not a speech-maker. You have plenty of orators. But with your help during the next year, I will try to do my part, and I ask every one of you to go to your homes and come back to the next Conservation Congress with three delegates in place of one. I thank you. (Applause.)

Before we go any farther, I ask you to rise and join me in giving three cheers for that great Conservationist, Captain White.

Three rousing cheers were given, led by Mr. Pack.

Mr. White—Ladies and Gentlemen, Delegates to the Congress, Mr. President: This is glory enough for me. I feel paid for the work I have done in the past year in having the appreciation of such a good class of people. (Applause.)

President Pack—The next speaker on the program is Mr. George M. Lehman, representing the Mayor of Pittsburgh, who will speak to us on “The Investigations of the Flood Commission of Pittsburgh.”

Address, “The Investigations of Flood Commission of Pittsburg”

Mr. Lehman—Mr. Chairman and Delegates of the Fourth National Conservation Congress: It has been the custom in this country to build dams and locks on lower reaches of rivers, for navigation; to build regulating works for forming and maintaining channel depth, etc., and to dredge deposits caused by erosion.

Our country has received large benefit from this process, particularly in certain sections. It would have thrived, however, to a far greater extent and much suffering, involving general living and business conditions, would have been avoided and a better foundation provided for future generations, if, in addition to the above-named developments, attention had been promptly and thoroughly given to the control and conservation of flood water. We have been woefully thoughtless and backward in bringing about a comprehensive treatment of this matter which is of such great national importance.

HISTORICAL AND GENERAL OUTLINE OF WORK.

Pittsburgh having been seriously troubled by destructive floods for over a century, attention was finally directed toward means of alleviation and in 1908 the Chamber of Commerce organized a commission consisting of business men, engineers and other professional men, to ascertain the character and extent of flood damage and make investigations of methods for relief. Later, an enlargement of the commission was made by the addition of city and county officials and representatives of manufacturing and various business concerns affected by floods. The expense of carrying on the work has been borne by public-spirited citizens, including the interests affected by the floods, and by county and city contributions. To this date about $137,000 has been expended.

The work has involved detailed surveys and soundings, within the city limits, of the Ohio, Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers, and a survey of the areas of overflow. The topography was fully developed, and streets, lines of transportation, buildings, etc., located. Extensive topographic surveys were made along the principal tributaries of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers for the purpose of determining the possibility of constructing storage reservoirs.

In connection with complete contour maps, diagrams, profiles, etc., made from the above work, studies have been made of the cost and effectiveness of a flood wall, in connection with dredging, in deepening, widening and straightening of the river channel at the city, and the cost and effectiveness of regulating the stream flow by storage reservoirs, located throughout the drainage basins. In addition to the collection of a vast amount of general data, including precipitation, taken from the records of the United States Weather Bureau, the work involved many special studies, among which were forest conditions, geology and stream-flow. For the stream-flow studies, gauging stations were established by the Flood Commission and also a number in co-operation with the Water Supply Commission of Pennsylvania. In the forest studies, the co-operation of the United States Forest Service and of the Forestry Department of Pennsylvania were secured. Valuable stream-flow data have been provided by the United States Geological Survey.

At the beginning of the investigations the matter was treated as of local concern only, but as the work progressed the broad aspect of the problem and its national scope were realized, as it became evident that Pittsburgh’s floods had a direct bearing upon the flood troubles of other communities. Further study disclosed the fact that inseparable from the flood problem was the question of navigation, sanitation, water supply and water power, and that the valleys of the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio Rivers could be benefited wherever conditions are favorable for the construction of storage reservoirs. On many of the principal tributaries of the Ohio below Pittsburgh, the topography is favorable for storage reservoirs upon a large scale, and floods could be prevented throughout the Ohio valley by extending the plans of the Flood Commission.

An exhaustive report, consisting mostly of original data, has been published by the Commission, as the result of nearly four years of painstaking work. It is said that this report forms the most comprehensive treatment of a subject of this kind that has ever been carried out. The report contains over 900 pages, including numerous maps and diagrams, and a large number of illustrations, showing flood damage, reservoir sites, forest conditions, etc.

FLOOD DAMAGE.

Pittsburgh, which has a population of 533,905, and about twice as much with the contemplated greater city, is located at the head of the Ohio River and at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. The combined drainage area, above the city, amounts to 18,920 square miles. Of the two rivers, 150 miles, directly connecting with the city, have been slackwatered. About 14,000 miles of navigable waterway lies below the city. The National Government, in a few years’ time, will have the entire 967 miles of the Ohio River improved.

The tonnage of Pittsburgh, incoming and outgoing, amounted in 1910 to 167,000,000 tons, of which 11,000,000 tons consisted of river traffic. The above total tonnage, which has doubled in the last six years, is twice as great as the combined tonnage of New York, London, Hamburg and Marseilles.

As is frequently the case in communities situated upon the inland rivers of this country, the most important commercial and industrial parts of Pittsburgh are located upon the low lying areas bordering the water. The need of free access to water and of rail and water transportation naturally brings about such development. In fact, on account of the topography, rail communication can in many cases be satisfactorily established only along the stream. Such a condition, however, frequently causes great suffering and interruption to business, involving not only the districts in direct touch with the river, but the whole community.

During the progress of the investigations, it became evident that unless some adequate method of flood relief could be devised and carried out, the larger portion of the flood affected areas could never be properly developed, and the capital invested therein would continue to suffer. The general needs of building operations and of city improvements will of necessity keep pace with the advance of population; and the flood damages, which in their effect involve the home conditions and business life of the entire city and surrounding communities, will become correspondingly greater.

In ascertaining the extent of flood damage to the city, a careful investigation was made of three floods which occurred within a period of about twelve months, from March 15, 1907, to March 20, 1908. In the conduct of this work it was noted that while those coming in direct contact with the floods are alert to the seriousness of the situation during the flood, the matter is, however, after a time almost forgotten; the disposition in most cases apparently being to take the troubles as they come rather than to do anything in the way of even attempting to devise means of relief.

The classification under which this work was done, and the monetary amount of direct losses within the city by the three floods may be given as follows:

Damage to buildings, equipment and machinery $782,400

Damage to materials 1,698,900

Loss to employer by suspension of business 1,974,200

Loss to employee due to shut-down 1,308,300

Expense of cleaning up 547,400

Charities dispensed and funds for prevention of disease 27,800

Fires uncontrolled through inaccessibility or lack of water pressure 175,000

—————

Total $6,514,000

It was found that the loss ranges as follows: For the flood of 27.3 feet, $414,700; 30.7 feet, $839,800; 35.5 feet, $5,259,500.

The area comprising the larger part of the mercantile, industrial and railroad interests amounts to about 3,000 acres, 1,540 of which was covered by water during the great flood of 1907, which had a height of 35.5 feet, or 13.5 feet above the danger line. This flood remained sixty-five hours above the danger line of 22 feet. About fifteen miles of river front land are occupied with industrial works of various kinds. The assessed value of real estate as affected by the 1907 flood amounts to about $160,000,000, and a careful estimate shows that this property is nearly $50,000,000 lower in value than it would be if protected from floods. Using the results obtained for the above floods and the flood records for the past twenty years it is estimated that the direct loss to the city has amounted in that period to about $17,000,000, over $12,000,000 of which occurred in the ten years preceding January, 1911.

Based on the assumption that in the next two ten-year periods there will be no increase in number or height of floods over those occurring in the ten years just preceding January, 1911, it is estimated, if protective measures are not provided, that the flood losses at Pittsburgh in the next twenty years will amount to about $25,000,000. As records show, however, that floods are increasing in frequency and height, it is estimated that the losses in the next twenty years will amount to about $40,000,000, or nearly twice as much as it will cost to carry out the flood prevention measures recommended by the Commission.

The Commission did not have resources for securing the amount of damage at the many important points along the rivers, above and below Pittsburgh, but at Wheeling, W. Va., it was ascertained, for instance, that about $1,000,000 was lost during the flood of 1907. Authorities consider that the total loss along the Ohio Valley for the two floods of 1907 amounted to more than $100,000,000. This is indicative of the vast losses occurring annually all over the country.

In addition to many miles of street car tracks, streets and alleys, about 435 acres of railroad and industrial yards were covered, in addition to 17 miles of main railroad, by the big flood of 1907.

At high stages many manufacturing plants must close down. The following is quoted from a report of the American Iron and Steel Association: “Damage to the iron and steel industry unprecedented. At beginning of March, 1907, flood there were forty-four blast furnaces in Allegheny County in blast, and of these thirty-eight had to be banked for an average of two days. Work at most of the sixty-five or seventy rolling mills and steel works was suspended.” Many of the open-hearth furnaces were badly damaged and some of them practically ruined.

FLOOD PROTECTION.

Regarding methods of local treatment, studies and estimates of cost were made of the following: A wall of about twenty-five miles in length to be built in the city along the river fronts; also for deepening, widening and straightening of the river channel by dredging.

The wall, high in places above the river streets, would prevent overflow by confining the floods to the channel. Dredging and removal of obstacles in the channel, bank encroachments, etc., as can now be accomplished, would have comparatively slight effect in reducing flood heights and these means were, therefore, not broadly recommended. Furthermore, these forms of treatment would be of local flood benefit only and communities above and below Pittsburgh would continue to suffer in various ways.

A wall of limited height, however, is really desirable, at least along certain parts of the river. While reservoir control would result in reclaiming considerable areas of land, a wall would provide means for adding to the amount and greatly improve the appearance and usefulness of the banks. The handling of cargoes, to and from river boats would be greatly facilitated by means of modern devices. Sheds could be constructed along the wall and close to the boats which would lie alongside. Such arrangement would make feasible the bringing directly of river and rail transportation with the great advantage of through rates and routes, a condition which is now lacking at practically all points on American rivers.

FLOOD PREVENTION.

In the treatment of the flood problem, prevention, by the use of storage reservoirs, for the purpose of holding back the damaging part of the flood water, is the rational and comprehensive method, as it goes to the source of the trouble, and extends its benefits throughout the entire river valleys, not only in the form of flood relief, but by improvement of the low-water flow, due to the release of the impounded flood waters during the dry season.

Forest cover is beneficial to some extent in retarding the run-off and in improvement of low-water flow, and the attitude of the Flood Commission is to support such National and State legislation as will tend to preserve and increase the present forest cover. The Commission, however, recommends the use of the storage reservoir system, supplemented by other means where necessary, for the reason that such a system could be speedily brought about. The use of storage reservoirs for flood control is not a new idea in this country and this method is now successfully employed in European countries.

The exhaustive surveys and studies for flood prevention disclosed the fact that forty-three reservoir sites are available in the Allegheny and Monongahela drainage basins above Pittsburgh, and that while not needed for present purposes additional sites are feasible. The forty-three projects would have a total capacity of 80,500,000,000 cubic feet, would cost $34,000,000, and would control about sixty-two per cent. of the total drainage area above the city. After a careful analysis it was found that a less number of reservoirs was practically as effective, under proper manipulation, and a selection was made of the most favorable ones, seventeen in number. These would have a total capacity of 59,500,000,000 cubic feet, would cost $21,700,000, or about $364 per million cubic feet of storage capacity, and would control fifty-four per cent. of the total drainage area.

As a basis, eleven of the principal floods, occurring within recent years, were exhaustively studied and it was found that the seventeen selected reservoir projects would reduce all of them, with one exception, to below danger line. Investigation showed that a low wall built at comparatively small cost along a few parts of the low-lying river fronts could be used in combination with the seventeen reservoirs to prevent overflow by the highest known floods. This combination was therefore recommended, the total cost being estimated at $22,350,000.

Some of the benefits to be derived by preventative methods and stream regulation and development, may be summarized as follows:

1. Reducing or doing away with floods and flood damages and their constant menace, thereby encouraging and making possible for present and future generations full development of affected areas.

2. (a) Improving of navigation, by permanently increased stream-flow in slackwatered rivers, where dry weather flow is frequently inadequate to furnish desired draft, thus providing uninterrupted transportation not only for present business but for future demands. (If the reservoirs were brought up to maximum capacity, that is, above flood control requirements, the low-water flow of the Ohio, at Wheeling, ninety miles below Pittsburgh, would be nearly six times the present minimum, giving an increase in stage of 3.7 feet. One of the largest floods would have been reduced over thirteen feet.)

(b) Making possible slack water on certain rivers, worthy of attention, but now unimproved largely on account of absolute lack of sufficient water.

(c) Reducing velocity of current, due to lowering of high stages, thereby making safer the maneuvering of river craft; reducing wide fluctuations in water levels, particularly at river ports, facilitating thereby the handling of cargoes and increasing clearance under bridges. (Under a certain bridge at Pittsburgh, investigations show that during the past fifty-three years there has been an average of fifty-seven days when the ordinary steamboat could not pass. Had the proposed system of reservoirs been in operation the water would have been lowered so that there would have been an average of only three days.)

(d) By having the great fluctuations reduced, the erosion of the banks along the bottom lands and at other places would naturally be considerably lessened.

3. Improving sanitary conditions and increasing the quality and quantity of the supply for municipal and industrial purposes. High stages leave deposits on banks, becoming a nuisance to health; and low stages are frequently unable to properly carry away polluted water stagnating in slack water or natural pools.

4. Developing water power, which is feasible under favorable conditions in connection with reservoir systems for flood prevention.

I would call attention to the fact that this brief review upon stream regulation goes far enough to show that so far as damage from floods is concerned alone, the matter is not only of local but of great National concern, affecting as it does railroads and manufacturing interests which supply the Nation. What is true of Pittsburgh is also true of many other river localities, and it is therefore urged that the question be looked at in a progressive manner and that suitable State and National legislation be enacted at the earliest possible moment to provide not only for full navigation requirements, but in addition for flood damage and the combination of needs as outlined in the report of the Flood Commission. It is hoped that this Congress will lend its powerful co-operation in bringing about the accomplishment of this great movement which is so necessary to the public welfare. (Applause.)

President Pack—I am sure we are all indebted for this paper, and to Mr. Lehman for coming from Pittsburgh to present this valuable subject.

If there is nothing more before the Congress at this time we will adjourn until 2:00 o’clock.