THE CONFERENCE PROPER 



23 



with the objects of this organization. It 

 seems to me that great benefit must come 

 from it. I do not understand that your work 

 will be limited merely to the preservation of 

 what we have ; certainly not to any effort to 

 retard the use of the resources of our coun- 

 try. That would indeed be objectionable. 



We believe that as speedily as possible the 

 resources should be brought into activity. 

 We believe, first, that we should study our 

 resources and that one of the consequences 

 of this gathering and this general movement 

 taking place throughout the entire country, 

 and one of the consequences of the local con- 

 servation organizations in each of the States, 

 will be the more complete investigation and 

 comprehension of the possibilities, of a ma- 

 terial character, in each of the States ; and 

 that we may expect a more complete knowl- 

 edge in our own country of what there is in 

 each one of the States of the country. 



This movement has aroused interest in 

 Georgia, has aroused interest in adjoining 

 States, and we believe that we will rapidly 

 bring into active cooperation quite a large 

 body, not only of experts employed by the 

 States in connection with such work, but 

 the business men, the public-spirited men, the 

 men of prosperity, who desire to know more 

 fully than they know now just what are the 

 possibilities within the soil and within the 

 mountains of our part of the Union. 



We think that this knowledge of what we 

 have will help to utilize, at each point, in the 

 best possible way, for the end sought to be 

 obtained, those of our mineral wealths and 

 our material resources that should with the 

 least expense and with the best results be 

 used for a particular purpose ; that substitutes 

 will be found for some things which we now 

 waste, by using them at greater cost, and 

 when they have larger values, it being at the 

 same time true that less expensive and less 

 valuable material can be substituted with prac- 

 tically the same result. 



I do not desire to speak of the special re- 

 sources of our section. It is not necessary to 

 tell you that our immediate section fixes the 

 price of pig iron the world over. We have 

 vast bodies of iron ore still undeveloped in 

 the State of Georgia. They are not develop- 

 ing rapidly, because over in Alabama they 

 have all the ingredients necessary for the as- 

 sembling of the various products required to 

 make steel, and they do it a little cheaper 

 than we can, and therefore our beds will wait 

 for future use to a large extent: but we are 



making great progress in producing that 

 which will act as a substitute, to a large ex- 

 tent, for iron ore. Our development of the 

 utilization of slate and lime for the purpose 

 of turning out cement of a high quality, is in 

 its infancy, and yet already well grown, for 

 plant after plant is being erected, producing 

 vast quantities of Portland cement which 

 must in structural matters largely relieve the 

 pressure upon our iron ore beds. 



Assisted by the study of our resources, we 

 will find substitutes for many things now 

 used, less expensive than those now used. We 

 will learn how to use in the best possible way 

 what we have, knowing what we have all 

 over the land, and conservation will come, not 

 from a lessening of activity, but from a quick- 

 ening of those forces in the best possible way, 

 with the best results, due to the knowledge of 

 what we have, and how to use what we have. 

 After all, it is not the rich field, but the minds 

 of the State that makes the wealth of the 

 Nation. 



Along with the progress which will come 

 with the study of our resources and the effort 

 to conserve them, must come the better prep- 

 aration of the boys and girls of our country 

 to handle in artistic style and with the master's 

 hand whatever either may be called upon to 

 do ; and from the simple handling of the hoe 

 in the field up to the highest mechanical skill, 

 it behooves us as a part of the progress for 

 which we all long as a part of the power com- 

 mercially of our Nation, which we now have 

 and which we would hand down with grow- 

 ing strength from generation to generation, 

 to pay particular attention to this feature. It 

 behooves us to see that every child is taught 

 to use his hand with a perfect skill, and we 

 must neither yield in resources nor in capacity 

 of our skilled artists and mechanics to Ger- 

 many or to any other country in the world. 



And so it is, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, 

 we come to you from our part of the coun- 

 try—rich, we believe, in resources of the most 

 varied character — anxious, bent upon study- 

 ing them, bent upon seeing that they are 

 utilized in the most profitable way, not alone 

 for the profit of the one who owns them; not 

 alone for the advancement and the commer- 

 cial and financial strength of those in the pos- 

 session of whom they rest, but with the com- 

 mon purpose that our country, our great Na- 

 tion, today, tomorrow, and hundreds of years 

 hence, shall fill that place which our patriot- 

 ism and our love assign to it — absolutely the 

 first among the nations of the world. 



