1908 



THE GOVERNORS' CONFERENCE 



335 



health's sake. Vox populi is calHng for the 

 prevention of this waste for manufacturing 

 purposes, for electrical purposes, for dam 

 purposes, for commercial purposes — for all 



Photo Copyright by Harris-Ewing, Washington 



CONFERENCE CHAIRMEN 



Govs. Noel, Dineen and Johnson 

 Secretary Shipp at center in rear 



of these purposes. And vox Dei and vox 

 populi together shall be heard, and must be 

 heard, or else we will get a tribunal that 

 will listen to the demand of this great 

 American Nation, as year after year we 

 come here, urging our members to do their 

 duty to the great land in which we live to- 

 day. (Great applause.) 



"Men, Governors, Governors of the great 

 West, our members have stood by you in 

 your forest preservation ; we have stood by 

 you in your irrigation acts (applause) ; we 

 have stood by you in every single thing for 

 the upbuilding and the glory of this great 

 Nation in which we live. And coming to- 

 day, voicing the people's voice, the voice of 

 Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Con- 

 necticut, Massachusetts ; voicing the senti- 

 ment of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Vir- 

 ginia, .North Carolina, Tennessee, South 

 Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, I 

 plead with you and beg of you to come to 

 our relief and join with us in helping to 

 save the country from this waste and de- 

 vastation. We will plant our crops, we will 

 plant our grasses : but, sir, as long as floods 

 continue to come tearing and rushing down 

 our steep, unforested heights, into the val- 



leys and rivers, the crops which we may 

 plant are absolutely worthless. 



"In conclusion, I want to answer one re- 

 mark of Speaker Cannon, and that was this 

 — that there ought to be confederation in 

 the White ^Mountains, and in the Appa- 

 lachian chain, and that we ought not to ask 

 help of the Union — that confederation ought 

 to be the means by which this waste is to be 

 stopped. 



"1 cannot answer for New Hampshire or 

 Rhode Island or Massachusetts, but I can 

 answer for the South. We tried confedera- 

 tion once, and it did not pay (great ap- 

 plause). You told us to come into the 

 Union, and then to ask for anything we 

 wanted; and now that we have come into 

 the Union, and make our request, do not 

 rebuff us the first time we come and ask you 

 tor relief. (Great applause.) 



"Thank God, as was said yesterday, that 

 there is no North, no South, no East, no 

 West. A Confederate son and soldier 

 stands before you, who would die for his 

 country and his state because he loves it. 

 And that Confederate soldier is just as true 

 to the Union as any man born in the North 

 could possibly be." (Great applause.) 



Following Governor Glenn, Hon. 

 James O. Davidson, Governor of Wis- 

 consin, spoke along the same lines. 

 He said that to no state in the Union 

 is the question of conservation of nat- 

 ural resources more vitally important 

 than to the state of Wisconsin. Only 

 a few decades ago, he said, the north- 

 ern and eastern parts of Wisconsin 

 were one broad forest, broken only by 

 occasional stretches of prairie land. 

 Pine, hemlock, oak, and maple grew 

 in such abundance that it was the 

 state's proud boast that Wisconsin 

 alone could supply the whole country 

 with timber for a century. Amid its 

 great forests were swamps and hun- 

 dreds of small lakes, from which deep, 

 swift streams rushed to form the riv- 

 ers that added their volume to the 

 Mississippi. But, with its great for- 

 est wealth and its immense water 

 power, Wisconsin, like its sister states, 

 lived only in the immediate present. 



"Great lumber companies," said Governor 

 Davidson, "inspired only by an enthusiasm 

 and a greed which knew no bounds, at- 

 tacked these forests, engaging in a mad race 

 each to strip its territory, to market its lum- 

 ber first, and then to move forward and 

 continue the destruction. No tree was re- 

 garded as too small to escape cutting. 

 Trunks six inches in diameter were cut for 



