16 American Fisheries Society 



business interests, with the men at the head of affairs. Business 

 is naturally conservative. It does not desire to move even if 

 the movement is said to be advantageous, when the proposal 

 has not been tried out by somebody else through a long enough 

 period to establish the certainty that it will pay; and proper 

 action will not be taken by manufacturers and by those who are 

 responsible for the pollution until they are brought under the 

 pressure of conscience and education as well as of law, until they 

 have seen the public disadvantage and have learned something 

 of the private advantage in handling the wastes instead of dis- 

 charging them thoughtlessly into public waters. 



Now the utilization of wastes is a rather complicated question. 

 Most of you recall the way in which industrial commissions are 

 forced to bring pressure on manufacturers to install safety devices. 

 I think the majority of manufacturers, especially at the present 

 time, will confess that it has been to their advantage to introduce 

 such safeguards for labor, but it has required the force of a very 

 powerful campaign with the public and in the halls of our legisla- 

 tures to pass such legislation and to compel the introduction of 

 protective devices in factories. The same thing is true right 

 here. A concrete instance can be taken from New York State. 

 The Standard Oil Company at Olean has a refinery which had 

 discharged enough wastes at previous times to destroy all life 

 in the stream into which they were emptied. Under the influence 

 of the conservation law and of the pressure exerted for the en- 

 forcement of the law, they introduced a special plant for the 

 refining and utilization of these waters. As a matter of fact 

 that plant not only corrects the evil and protects the people, 

 but it really yields to the company a good return on the invest- 

 ment. In other words, they were forced to undertake something 

 which has proved to be for their financial advantage; but I doubt 

 if there or elsewhere the same results would have been brought 

 about unless it had been for the pressure exerted on them from 

 the side of the people and of the Conservation Commission. 



I shall pass over some other phases of the problem of education 

 and speak for a moment of the need of investigation. These 

 questions involve, of course, many very complicated problems. 

 I have called your attention to the difficulties of deciding them 

 in ways in which the problems of the past have been decided. I 



