might surrender. That great veteran stood before that grand audience and said that there was no greater enemy present or future that could come to the British or other nation than the great foe of alcoholism. I listened to the great leader of transportation in Great Britain, Sir Holland Herbert, President of the Great London and Northwestern Railway Company, and heard from his unbiased. calm deliberate judgment that no greater enemy stood in the way of industrial development and the maintenance of industrial prosperity than alcoholism. I listened to men of science, from France, Germany, Austria, and other civilized nations of this world, and there came the same verdict. In every French city, it was told, in the official posting places, you find posted by the authority of the Government, national and municipal, public posters warning the people of France against the use of alcoholic drinks, proclaiming alcohol to be the cause of cronic poisoning which leads to the decadence and retrogression of the nations. The same story came to us from Germany, from Denmark, from Sweden, and from the other nations. If we must conserve these great natural resources for which these great men in office and out of office in our country and out of our country our pleading so magnificently, let us not forget also the grand object of it all, the preservation and conservation of American manhood to enjoy these things. And as one phase of this great moral question let us never forget that highest and greatest among these ideals. these elements that go to make up true manhood, we must conserve and preserve and protect the American home. Let us conserve the American home, not because it is more important than these things which I have mentioned, but because it so interweaves itself into every phase of the working out of the greater problems which we have to solve. We must conserve in these United States official integrity. Study the history of all the nations of the world, be they republics or be they empires, and you will find that those who have gone down have gone down at last because they struck upon the rock of official corruption. Without going into that phase of the monopolization of natural resources, the taking away of the benefits which belong to the people, but simply considering that aspect of it which deals. with official integrity, I say to you here today from the depth and breadth of a study which has been to me a life study, that in my judgment there cannot remain, with human nature as it is, official integrity so long as monopoly is permitted and fostered or protected by the Government. Create a condition of temptation and you must expect the logical results of that condition sooner or later. So I come at the end to where I started at the beginning of this talk. We must conserve manhood in the broadest, truest, and most comprehensive use of that term. turn to the old book of Genesis, and whether we interpret it in the light of theology or evolution, or whatever may be our means or method of interpretation, we come back to the truth of that statement of Holy Writ that after God had created all the great forces of nature and set them to work, last of all he created man in his own image, and gave to him dominion over all the earth. Conservation is the right use of everything in nature for the benefit of man, but with it all conserve that greatest of all resources, manhood; for never was a greater truth spoken than when the poet Pope said: "An honest man is the noblest work of God." (Applause.) After a selection by the Hawaiian Sextette, Professor Condra, of Nebraska, at the request of the Hon. B. N. Baker, Chairman of the Committee, presented the report of the Committee on Organization. PROFESSOR CONDRA: Your Committee has been at work three or four times and has labored a good many hours in preparing this report. I believe it is one that will please you because of the fact that the men we have named represent the various parts of the country and because we in these resolutions reflect what we believe you wish at this time. The report is unanimous, and I will read it. We hope there will be unity in this connection, because we expect great things to come from this Congress. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON PERMANENT MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE. Hon. Bernard N. Baker, Chairman, Maryland Mr. E. L. Worsham, Georgia Mr. Augustus F. Knudsen, Hawaii Mr. J. E. Sherfey, Indiana Hon. H. W. McAfee, Kansas Mr. H. B. McAfee, Mississippi Mr. Joseph A. Hutchinson, Nevada Mr. William L. Finley, Oregon Mr. Frederick W. Aldred, Rhode Island Dr. J. A. Widtsoe, Utah Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, District of Columbia Chairman and Members of the First National Conservation Congress: We beg to submit the following as the unanimous action of your committee: 1. That there shall be established an organization to be called THE NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS. 2. That its object shall be broad to act as a clearing house for all allied social forces of our time, to seek to overcome waste in natural, human, or moral forces. 3. To produce a unity of action of all such forces out of the divers individual viewpoints of each. 4. To communicate with the municipal, State and National departments of the Governments, and to arouse public opinion to attain said object. 5. That a Board of Directors, consisting of the Chairman of each State Conservation Commission and the secretary of each State Conservation Association, be elected by this Congress, who, in turn, shall elect an executive committee and prepare a constitution and by-laws and detailed plan of organization and the proper requisite of representation for membership in this Congress, and the results to be reported and acted upon at the Second National Conservation Congress. 6. That pending the report and action of the said Board of Directors appointed as aforesaid, an executive committee be elected by this body with full power to act and secure such assistance as they may find necessary to accomplish the objects of this recommendation and with full power to arrange time and place of meeting of the Second National Conservation Congress. The following gentlemen are recommended as an executive committee: J. B. White, Missouri A. B. Farquhar, Pennsylvania L. H. Bailey, New York J. N. Teal, Oregon Henry E. Hardtner, Louisiana Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, Massachusetts W. A. Fleming Jones, New Mexico 7. We recommend the election of Bernard N. Baker as President. 8. We further recommend Mr. L. Frank Brown as Secretary. 9. That the following five Vice-Presidents, representing different sections of the country, be elected: Hon. John Barrett, North and South America Prof. Alfred C. Ackerman, Georgia Henry A. Barker, Rhode Island James S. Whipple, New York Prof. E. J. Wickson, California 10. That each State be requested immediately to nominate an honorary Vice-President of this Congress for election by this body to be acted upon today, after recess. MR. LIBBY: I object to the word "Congress" as being too official. I hope that this movement will be kept as it has been started, one of the people, for the people, by the people. The word "association" to my mind is more popular, and is a better word. Secondly, I notice that the State commissioners are especially represented. I object to that, not because of any criticism of the State commissions, which are all right and are doing a good work; but I believe that the associations other than the State commissions should have representation in this proposed national association. I therefore desire that the name of the proposed organization shall be the National Conservation Association, and secondly, that in the clause referring to the State commissions it read "State associations." By such means it appears to me we shall more nearly adhere to the objects that have been set forth for this particular Congress and from the outset thereby fix upon the proposed National Association the idea of its being a purely popular organization. MR. H. W. CARROLL: With a view to expediting matters in connection with the adoption of the report, I move that each section be read and adopted seriatim, section by section. The motion was duly seconded and carried. Section I. MR. HUTCHINSON, of Nevada: I wish to state that I think that the amendment of Mr. Libby is a somewhat frivolous one. The question of the name was discussed by the committee for over an hour. We have our Irrigation Congress, Mining Congress, Trans-Mississippi Congress. A Congress means the people as much as an association. We have devoted hours and hours to discussing and bringing in this report, and as a member of the Committee I hope that the Congress will be known as the National Conservation Congress, because that means something. Section I was then adopted as read. Section 2. MR. LIBBY: It seems to me we are going too fast, without giving due consideration to these questions. Somebody has said that speech is silver and silence is golden, but in America only the dead are silent. I have given some hours and weeks and years to this subject. This "Conservation" to my view is a movement for the conservation of natural resources as differentiated from human re |