Read Ebook: Proceedings [of the] fourth National Conservation Congress [at] Indianapolis October 1-4 1912 by United States National Conservation Congress

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y, or insular possession.

ARTICLE 10--AMENDMENTS.

This Constitution may be amended by a two-thirds vote of the Congress during any regular session, provided notice of the proposed amendment has been given from the Chair not less than one day or more than two days preceding; or by unanimous vote without such notice.

RESOLUTIONS.

FOURTH NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS.

The Fourth National Conservation Congress, made up of delegates from all sections and from thirty-five States of the Union, met in the City of Indianapolis, do hereby make the following declarations:

Recognizing the natural resources of the country as the prime basis of property and opportunity, we reaffirm the declaration of the preceding Congress, that the rights of the people in these resources are natural, inherent, and inalienable; and we insist that these resources shall be developed, used and conserved in ways consistent both with the current and future welfare of our people.

We put chief emphasis on vital resources and the health of the people; and since health and brains are the first and most important factors of efficient life, we urge the adoption of all rational and scientific methods which will lead to their building-up.

To be well born is the primal requirement, and the first step to make sure that children shall be well born is to stop the multiplication of those bearing hereditary defects of body and mind. We believe that science is capable of solving the problem satisfactorily and that improvement is possible under existing conditions. We earnestly urge its consideration by the public.

We believe that every State should have wisely ordered health laws, with officers empowered to enforce them, and also that a National Department of Health should be created, comporting with the dignity and importance of the cause. This department should work effectively for the promotion of the physical and hence the moral and intellectual health of the people.

The accurate registration of births and deaths, which has been called the 'Bookkeeping of Humanity,' is a fundamental necessity for a study and knowledge of disease, and for all public health work. Therefore, we affirm our belief in the importance of vital statistics registration, and recommend that all States now without proper vital statistics adopt as early as possible the model bill for the registration of vital statistics indorsed by the United States Bureau of the Census, and by many prominent professional and scientific bodies.

We urge the strengthening of laws safeguarding the health and the lives of workers in industrial establishments; and we commend to the employers of labor all practicable safety devices and proved preventive measures against illness and injury and physical inefficiency; and we urge upon the other States the investigation of accidents by elevators and the enactment of laws similar to those on the statute books of Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

We commend the activity of all individuals and organizations and governmental agencies to put an end to such work by children and women as impairs the health of the race. Childhood is our greatest resource, and its right to protection in growing to a normal maturity is inalienable. We deplore the ignorant use of medicines; and we call upon all humane and educational agencies to teach the waste and danger of any drug-habit.

We earnestly advocate the employment by communities and manufacturing concerns of such methods of sewage disposal as will render their waste products harmless to health and utilize them in the restoration of soil fertility; and we urge the enactment by States of laws prohibiting stream pollution and by the Federal Government of such legislation as will prevent the pollution of interstate and coastal waters.

Uniform State legislation regulating the refrigeration of perishable food stuffs is advisable, therefore this Congress recommends that its Food Committee be requested to study the questions involved in the production, collection, sanitary preparation, transportation, preservation and marketing of perishable foods and to report its findings to the succeeding Congress as a basis for uniform legislation.

In view of the enormous losses annually sustained by the agricultural interests of the United States on account of the ravages of injurious insects, which might be kept more under control by an increase of insect-eating birds, we urge the passage of Federal laws for the protection of all migratory birds; and the passage of State laws for the prohibition of spring shooting and of the sale of game.

We reaffirm the great importance of our fishery resources, which are threatened with serious diminution. We urge upon Congress and the States to provide more liberally for the propagation and preservation of food fishes.

LANDS.

We keenly recognize the need of the people of the country for more complete and accurate knowledge of their land and its conditions than is now available, in order to promote their economic, social and intellectual well-being and to conserve scattered individual energy;

We recognize that such data should be collected by a general series of State and National surveys arranged in the order in which they will be most accurate and effective and that many of these are already in progress;

This Congress earnestly points out the following kinds of data of which the people have need and the approximate order in which it should be collected, namely:

We urge the several States and the Federal Government to examine their existing agencies to determine whether they are completely and effectively fulfilling these functions.

Further, we reaffirm the action of the last Conservation Congress in approving the withdrawal of the public lands pending classification, and the separation of surface rights from mineral, forest and water rights, including water-power sites, and we recommend legislation for the classification and leasing for grazing purposes all unreserved lands suitable chiefly for this purpose, subject to the rights of homesteaders and settlers, on the acquisition thereof under the land laws of the United States; and we hold that arid and non-irrigable public grazing lands should be administered by the Government in the interest of small stockmen and home-seekers until they have passed into the possession of actual settlers.

FORESTS.

Believing that the necessity of preserving our forests and forest industries is so generally realized that it calls only for constructive support along specific lines--

We commend the work of the Federal Forest Service, and urge our constituent bodies and all citizens to insist upon more adequate appropriations for this work and to combat any attempt to break down the integrity of the national forest system by reductions in area, or transfer to State authority.

Since Federal co-operation under the Weeks law is stimulating better forest protection by the States, and since the appropriation for such co-operative work is nearly exhausted, we urge appropriation by Congress for its continuance.

We recommend that the Federal troops be made systematically available for controlling forest fires.

Deploring the lack of uniform State activity in forest work, we emphatically urge the crystallization of effort in the lagging States toward securing the creation of forest departments with definite and ample appropriations, in no case of less than ten thousand dollars per annum, to enable the organization of forest fire work, publicity propaganda, surveys of forest resources and general investigations upon which to base the earliest possible development of perfected and liberally financed forest policies.

We recommend in all States more liberal appropriation for forest fire prevention, especially for patrol to obviate expenditure for fighting neglected fires, and the expenditure of such effort in the closest possible co-operation with Federal and private protective agencies; and also urge such special legislation and appropriation as may be necessary to stamp out insect and fungus attacks which threaten to spread to other States. We cite for emulation the expenditure by Pennsylvania of 5,000 to combat the chestnut blight, and the large appropriation by Massachusetts to control insect depredation, and urge greater Congressional appropriation for similar work by the Bureau of Entomology.

Holding that conservative forest management and reforestation by private owners are very generally discouraged or prevented by our methods of forest taxation, we recommend State legislation to secure the most moderate taxation of forest land consistent with justice and the taxation of the forest crop upon such land only when the crop is harvested and returns revenue wherewith to pay the tax.

We appreciate the increasing support by lumbermen of forestry reforms and suggest particularly to forest owners the study and emulation of the many co-operative patrol associations which are doing extensive and efficient forest fire work and also securing closer relations between private, State and Federal forest agencies. Believing that lumbermen and the public have a common object in perpetuating the use of forests, we indorse every means of bringing them together in mutual aid and confidence to this end.

MINERALS.

We reaffirm the opinion of the last Conservation Congress that mineral deposits underlying public lands should be transferred to private ownership only by long-time leases with revaluation at stated periods, such leases to be in such amounts and subject to such regulations as to prevent monopoly and needless waste; and that in case of doubt as to availability of such mineral deposits, or while they are waiting exploration, surface rights to the land should be transferred by lease only under such conditions as to promote development and protect the public interest. Natural and manufactured fertilizing materials should be limited and regulated by law.

Since present conditions in the mining industry result in heavy and unnecessary loss of life and great waste of natural gas, coal and other mineral resources, we call to public attention the need of specific and uniform laws for the betterment of these conditions--laws as rigid and comprehensive as we enact for the protection of life and for the right use of property in any other fundamental industry.

WATER POWER.

We reaffirm the previously expressed belief of the Conservation Congress than all parts of every drainage basin are related and inter-dependent, and that each stream should be regarded and treated as a unit from its source to its mouth.

Recognizing the vast economic benefits to the people of water power derived largely from interstate and navigable rivers, we favor public control of their water power development; and we demand that the use of their water rights be permitted only for limited periods, with just compensation in the interests of the people.

COUNTRY LIFE.

We applaud the betterment of conditions affecting country life, such as good roads, and organizations for co-operative buying and selling; and we urge the study of rural credit systems whereby the farmer may more easily borrow capital at a reasonable rate of interest.

We applaud the work of making rural schools fit rural needs.

DR. W. J. McGEE.

We here place on record our sense of the deep loss by the country through the untimely death of Dr. W. J. McGee, a member of a Committee of this Congress, a scientific man of broad attainment, and of the widest human sympathy, whose helpfulness in these Congresses and many similar meetings will be sadly missed.

THE EXHIBIT.

We mention with appreciation the work of the Committee on Exhibits, Mrs. Philip N. Moore, Chairman, which made the instructive health exhibit under the management of Dr. Winthrop Talbot.

We record our grateful appreciation of the hospitality and helpfulness of the State Government of Indiana, and of the City Government of Indianapolis; and of the Local Board of Managers, Mr. Richard Lieber, Chairman; of the Reception Committee, Mr. Albert E. Metzger, Chairman; of the Commercial and Industrial organizations which, through the Commercial Club, made the Congress here possible; of the State Board of Agriculture, and of the Claypool Hotel, for their helpful courtesies and generous co-operation; and we thank the newspapers of Indianapolis for their unusually generous and accurate reports.

FOURTH NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS.

The Congress convened in the Murat Theater, Indianapolis, Indiana, on the morning of October 1, 1912, President J. B. White in the chair.

President WHITE--The Fourth National Conservation Congress will now come to order, and the audience will please rise while the Rev. Dr. F. S. C. Wicks invokes Divine blessing.

INVOCATION.

ADDRESSES OF WELCOME.

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