NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS 



585 



vigorous plea for united action by the 

 countries of America for which he be- 

 Heved the time to be ripe. 



Dr. W J McGee. expert in charge of 

 soil erosion investigations, United States 

 Department of Agriculture, spoke on 

 the continent as a home for our people, 

 a subject which his ethnological and 

 soil investigations have especially fitted 

 him to discuss. 



Dr. F. F. Westbrook, of Minneapolis, 

 dean of the Medical College of the Uni- 

 versity of Minnesota, spoke on the sub- 

 ject of life and health as national assets. 

 He earnestly advocated the establish- 

 ment of a national department of health. 



Considerable life was injected into the 

 session by the address of Judge Frank 

 H. Short, of Fresno, California,, on the 

 conservation of capital. Judge Short 

 is an able lawyer and a witty and effec- 

 tive speaker. He frankly confessed 

 being the attorney of a number of large 

 water companies and electric power 

 companies and other corporations, and 

 he made a vigorous defence of capital 

 and threw out a warning to those who 

 are endangering its stability by wild de- 

 nunciations of wealth. He doubted the 

 ability of the United States government 

 as a controller of monopolies and in- 

 sisted that the states could do this better, 

 and that the people of the states could 

 not be deprived of their constitutional 

 right of local self-government. 



-United States Commissioner of Ed- 

 ucation Elmer E. Brown spoke in the 

 afternoon on education and conserva- 

 tion. He referred to the new move- 

 ment that has taken place in our edu- 

 cation, turning it more tov.-ard industrv 



and industrial life. "This new move- 

 ment," Mr. Brown said, "is making a 

 new demand for men in the business of 

 teaching, strong men technically train- 

 ed for their work. We have no na- 

 tional system of education," he main- 

 tained, "and do not want it, but we 

 have and are bound to have a national 

 program of education. The federal 

 bureau should survey the whole field of 

 American education and make the best 

 things contagious throughout that 

 field." 



Wallace D. Simmons, of St. Louis, dis- 

 cussed conservation from the point of 

 view of the business man. He sug- 

 gested that expert business men and 

 advertisers should be called in to for- 

 mulate a scheme of reaching the public 

 generally with the kind of information 

 they want and should have about con- 

 servation, and suggested some applica- 

 tions of this idea. Alfred L. Baker, of 

 Chicago, was another speaker who con- 

 sidered the general subject from the 

 point of view of the business man. He 

 declared that the great body of business 

 men favor the well known policies of 

 conservation. They believe in the gov- 

 ernment control of water power and in 

 the application of scientific forestry to 

 eliminate waste, also in the fire patrol 

 which will prevent the destruction of 

 our forests and of human life. 



James S. Whipple. Forest, Fish and 

 Game Commissioner of New York, 

 made a statement in regard- to the con- 

 servation work in that state which at- 

 tracted much attention because of its 

 practical value. 



GIFFORD PINCHOT STATES THE CONSERVATION PROGRAM 



There was, of course, especial inter- 

 est in the address of GifTord Pinchot on 

 "The Conservation Program." Noting 

 the progress of the conservation move- 

 ment Mr. Pinchot said that within the 

 last two years it has passed out of the 

 realm of an unimpeachable general 

 principle into that of a practical fight- 

 ing attempt to get things done. The 

 people believe in it and under sucli cir- 



cumstances the regular method of at- 

 tack has always been to approve the 

 principle in its general terms and then 

 condemn, its methods and. men. The 

 soft pedal conservationist asks for safe 

 and sane legislation, which means, the 

 speaker said, conservation so carefully 

 sterilized that it will do the special in- 

 terests no harm and the people no 

 good. The fundamental principles of 



