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

I believe, however, that we have reached a point where our equipment is such as adequately to test our basis of operations and to warrant an optimism as to the future if our reasoning and method be correct.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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 recre ation 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 move

ment 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 twentyeight 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.