6o 



CONSERN'ATION 



To the Agricultural Loniniittee of 

 tlie House there is presented an oppor- 

 tunity' of signally serving the whole 

 Nation by promptly passing the Senate 

 bill, or one equally as effective — of 

 abandoning individual opinions and im- 

 practical plans based on incomplete 

 knowledge or misconception of the for- 

 est and forest functions ; of rising to 

 the real level of patriotic and far- 

 sighted statesmanship. Will they grasp 

 the opportunity before it is too late? 

 'M &' 5^ 

 Speaker Cannon in the Open 



ATA meeting of the Chicago Bank- 

 ers' Club on Saturday, November 

 7, Speaker Cannon, if the press dis- 

 patches are to be believed, made an 

 open avowal of his stand in regard to 

 conservation as well as some of the 

 other big policies to which the United 

 States stands committed. A special dis- 

 patch from Chicago to the Washington 

 Herald gives an outline of the Speak- 

 er's remarks. The dispatch follows : 



Uncle Joe Cannon, speaking before the 

 Chicago Bankers' Club Saturday, declared 

 himself against the conservation of public 

 resources and the expenditure of large sums 

 for the completion of the Panama Canal. 

 Before the speech was delivered newspaper 

 men were requested to leave the room. 

 Then the Speaker, declaring that they were 

 all hard-headed business men, and not doc- 

 trinarians, said that the province of the Gov- 

 ernment was the protection of life, liberty, 

 and prosperity. 



"Let it perform those functions,"' he said, 

 "then let every man take care of himself." 



"There are great problems to be solved by 

 the next Congress," said Speaker Cannon, 

 "and they are not going to be solved by the 

 emotional hysteria of the country." 



Mr. Cannon referred to the canal first of 

 all. 



"This is not a time," he said, "for the ex- 

 penditure of large sums of money for the 



completion of the Panama Canal. Discreet 

 care should be used in the endeavor to build 

 a deep-water way from the Lakes to the 

 Gulf." 



He said that great engineering problems 

 were involved, and that they might be bet- 

 ter left to future generations. Newspapers, 

 magazines, specialists, doctrinaires, women's 

 clubs, and school children, he said, signed 

 memorials to Congress for the issuance for 

 bonds for millions, to be used in all sorts of 

 plans. 



"Because I happen to be one Congressman 

 who is in a position where my judgment is 

 brought to bear on these subjects, some 

 think I should be killed altogether." 



He said that many people blamed him for 

 opposition to the reforestation of the Appa- 

 lachian range. There is a question, he said, 

 as to whether the Nation had the police 

 power to prevent the destruction of forests. 

 He said that he thought that police power 

 remained with the State. He declared that 

 there was also a question as to the advisa- 

 bility of reforestation, and criticised maga- 

 zines and newspapers for their articles on 

 the waste of coal and timber. 



The completion of the Panama Canal, he 

 declared, might come when the Nation had 

 reached 500,000,000 inhabitants. 



Transcontinental railroads might be com- 

 pleted, he thought, when the Nation got to 

 be 100,000,000 or 200,000,000. It would be a 

 serious thing, he said, for the country to go 

 ahead now and make mistakes. 



The friends of conservation have 

 long known of Speaker Cannon's op- 

 position to the whole program looking 

 toward reforestation, extension of wa- 

 terways, forest conservation — in fact, 

 the entire program of conservation of 

 natural resources. The Speaker has 

 not, however, heretofore put himself on 

 record ; his utterances before the Chi- 

 cago Bankers' Club are the first in 

 which he has openly declared opposi- 

 tion to the policy of taking care of the 

 resources which we have left and mak- 

 ing every effort to replace those re- 

 sources which we have wasted. 



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