The Congress convened in the Auditorium, Saint Paul, on the morning of September 6, 1910, and was called to order by President Baker.

President Baker—Ladies and Gentlemen. We have a few minutes before our honored guest Colonel Roosevelt arrives. We shall occupy that time in routine business. At Seattle, where this Congress was formed, the organization was left to an Executive Committee and a Board of Directors. They are now prepared to submit a report; but the first and most important question relates to credentials, on which the Congress at large may properly act.

A Delegate—Mr Chairman, I move that the Chair be authorized to appoint a committee of five on credentials.

President Baker—Gentlemen, you have heard the motion. Is it seconded? (The motion was seconded) If there is no discussion, the motion will be put. All those in favor of the motion will signify their pleasure by saying aye.

A Voice—What is the question?

President Baker—The motion is that the Chair be authorized to appoint a committee of five on credentials. All in favor will say aye. Contrary nay. It is a unanimous vote.

The Chair will appoint on that committee Edward Hines, of Chicago, chairman (and will ask him to call his committee together as soon as possible); George K. Smith, of Saint Louis, R. W. Douglas, of Seattle, Charles H. Pack, of Cleveland, Lynn R. Meekins, of Baltimore.

The next important business will be consideration of a Constitution and By-Laws, which Professor Condra will read.

Professor Condra—Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am asked to read the draft of a constitution that you may know that it comes from the State organizations. Your various State committeemen met and adopted the draft submitted to us by the Executive Committee; therefore the proposed Constitution has the approval of two bodies, one State and one National.

(Professor Condra proceeded with the reading of the Constitution as submitted; after reaching Article VI—)

A Delegate—Mr President, as the time is late, and as the Executive Committee have passed upon Constitution and it has been approved by the representatives of the States in the form presented, I move that the further reading be suspended and that the Constitution be adopted. (Applause)

President Baker—Is the motion seconded? (Several voices seconded the motion) All in favor will say aye; contrary nay. Carried without dissenting voice. (Applause)

Some announcements will now be made by the gentleman from Nebraska.

Professor Condra—Ladies and Gentlemen: In order that there may be proper representation of the various delegations in the Committee on Resolutions, it is again urged that all members of each delegation meet and select their representatives. If chairmen of delegations will give us the place and time of meeting we will gladly announce it from this platform. Thus far we have not heard of time and place for meeting of delegations from New Hampshire, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Minnesota, Kansas, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, or Nevada.

[Several announcements of meetings of delegations were here made.]

President Baker—We will now listen to an address from Honorable John Barrett, a man known around the world as the Director of the Bureau of American Republics. (Applause)

Mr Barrett—Ladies and Gentlemen: If I had the fascinating capacity of Governor Stubbs, of Kansas (applause), I might be able to do justice to this occasion; but I have been sitting in yonder corner, behind three noble Governors each ready to speak, beside the representative of the British government—which today is watching with great interest this gathering—not expecting for a moment that I would be called upon today; and it is only that I may be true to my New England birth and my western training that I rise in response to the suggestions of your Chairman. (Applause) If any reason renders it at all fitting that I should say a word, it is because perhaps I have the honor of representing here today some twenty nations as showing their interest in this great Conservation movement which is sweeping over the wide world (applause). I want to tell you that as this movement grows, under the splendid leadership of the men who are blazing the way, it will become the policy of every American country from Alaska and Canada on the north to Argentina and Chile on the south (applause). We shall hear not only from the United States but from our sister nations of Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile in this effort to make the world realize that if we are to provide for ourselves and for all men who are to come, we must be minute-men—the minute-men of the present day.

Ladies and Gentlemen, all the world is listening to what was said yesterday, on this platform, and all the world will listen, even more earnestly, to what is said today (applause and cheers); and these two great pronunciamentos on Conservation will be read in every corner of the globe, and you and I will be proud that we have participated in this great movement. (Applause)

[Numerous calls were made for Governor Stubbs.]

Governor Stubbs—Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: It gives me great pleasure to be here this morning in anticipation of hearing a great speech from the greatest American and the greatest citizen of the world. (Vociferous applause) I am proud of our country; I am proud of her achievements; I am proud of the great State of Kansas, the greatest State in America (great applause), and I am proud to tell you that we won't meet in a bar-room today (laughter and applause), and that we do not have bar-rooms to meet in down in Kansas (great applause and cheers); and I want to tell you that in Kansas the idea of letting men spend their money for shoes and clothes and schools and homes has proved a blooming success (laughter and applause and cheers) as compared with the fellow who works by the week and makes ten or twenty or forty dollars and spends it in a saloon Saturday night. (Renewed applause)

You have come here today to consider one of the great problems of the age and you will hear from a master mind, from the great leader of this movement, the policies and the plans and the propositions by which the work will be carried forward. I do not propose to take up your valuable time this morning in any discussion of a question of such splendid proportions that I would not have time to get started nor time in which to stop. (Applause)

Ex-President Roosevelt here entered the hall amid cheers and rousing enthusiasm and mounted the platform.

President Baker (when silence was restored)—Reverend Doctor J. S. Montgomery, Pastor of Fowler Methodist Episcopal Church, Minneapolis, will now offer an invocation.

Invocation

Almighty God, Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Thou art the source of all mercy, love, and blessing. Lift upon us all the light of Thy holy countenance.

From the beginning Thou hast never been without a witness in the world, and Thou hast never left us comfortless. Give unto us, O God, the Source of all wisdom, a great measure of Thy wisdom, truth, and blessing. We recognize in Thee the source of every good and perfect thing in all the world. Thou hast opened up this new great world; and on this auspicious occasion, look Thou upon us in mercy. Bless our great land. Grant that every source of material blessing may be conserved to serve all the people; grant that our citizenship may be blessed and directed from border to border. Remember our country; remember the great Southland, the great Northland; bless the great East and the great West; and may all of our people everywhere have bread enough and to spare, and may we recognize that our supremest duty is not to build up institutions fit for man but to build up man fit for institutions.

Bless Thou the Governors of all the States. Remember our great Government, its legislative, its judicial and its executive branches.

Remember in mercy the President of these United States; and bless Thou our most distinguished guest and most conspicuous citizen in all the world, who is with us this day. Look upon him in mercy, guide him and direct him in wisdom, and grant that no peril may come nigh him.

Bless Thou our flag; may it float on until all nations see the blessings of our great Republic; may it float on until all selfishness dies out of the world's heart; may it float on until all ignorance shall be gone; may it float on until the nations of the earth shall be united in a brotherhood around and about which are wreathed the blessings and the wisdom of Thy holy and undying self.

Be Thou in the deliberations of this great body; grant that wisdom and truth may be uppermost in the minds of all who are here. Accept Thou our gratitude for thy abiding mercy, and at the last, O Lord, gather us all into the haven of eternal rest. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, we ask it. Amen.

President Baker—Ladies and Gentlemen: It is now my pleasure to present that citizen of our country who in three continents has evoked the greatest enthusiasm, and who has done for this country no greater service than in forwarding and extending the work of Conservation to protect the natural resources and in carrying out the principles of fair dealing between man and man; our most honored citizen, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. (Great applause and cheers for many minutes)

ADDRESS BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT

Mr Chairman, and Governor; Governors, and fellow-guests; Men and Women of Minnesota: It is a very great pleasure to me to be here in Minnesota again, and especially to come here to speak on this particular subject of "National Efficiency." (Applause)

Minnesota is one of the States that almost always takes the lead in any great work (applause), and Minnesota has been one of the first to take hold of the Conservation policy in practical fashion; and she has done a great work and set an admirable example to the rest of us (applause)—a work representing a policy well set forth in your Governor's address yesterday—and I am glad that this Congress is held in such a State, where we can listen to such an address made by a Governor who had the right to make it. (Prolonged applause)

Much that I have to say on the general policy of Conservation will be but a repetition of what was so admirably said on this general policy by the President of the United States yesterday (great applause); and in particular all true friends of Conservation should be in heartiest agreement with the policy which the President laid down in connection with the coal, oil, and phosphate lands (applause), and I am glad to be able to say that at its last session Congress finally completed the work of separating the surface title to the land from the mineral beneath it. (Applause)

Now, my friends, America's reputation for efficiency stands deservedly high throughout the world. We are efficient probably to the full limits that are permitted by the methods hitherto used. The average American is an efficient man; he can do his business. It is recognized throughout the world that that is his type. There is great reason to be proud of our achievements, and yet no reason to think that we cannot excel our past (applause). Through a practically unrestrained individualism, we have reached a pitch of literally unexampled material prosperity. The sum of our prosperity in the aggregate leaves little to be desired, although the distribution of that prosperity, from the standpoint of justice and fair dealing, leaves a little more to be desired (laughter and applause). But we have not only allowed the individual a free hand, which was in the main right; we have also allowed great corporations to act as though they were individuals, and to exercise the rights of individuals, in addition to using the vast combined power of high organization and enormous wealth for their own advantage. This development of corporate action is doubtless in large part responsible for the gigantic development of our natural resources, but it is also true that it is in large part responsible for waste, destruction, and monopoly on an equally gigantic scale. (Applause)

The method of reckless and uncontrolled private use and waste has done for us all the good it can ever do, and it is time to put an end to it before it does the evil that it well may (applause). We have passed the time when heedless waste and destruction and arrogant monopoly are longer permissible (applause). Henceforth we must seek national efficiency by a new and a better way, by the way of the orderly development and use, coupled with the preservation, of our natural resources; by making the most of what we have for the benefit of all of us, instead of leaving the sources of material prosperity open to indiscriminate exploitation (applause). These are some of the reasons why it is wise that we should abandon the old point of view, and why Conservation has become a great moral issue, and become a patriotic duty.

One of the greatest of our Conservation problems is the wise and prompt development and use of the waterways of the Nation (applause). There are classes of bulk freight which always go cheaper and better by water if there is an adequate waterway (applause), and the existence of such a type of waterway in itself helps to regulate railroad rates (applause). The Twin Cities, lying as they do at the headwaters of the Mississippi, are not on the direct line of the proposed Lakes-to-Gulf Deep Waterway, and yet Minnesota, with its vast iron resources and its need of abundant coal, is peculiarly interested in that problem (applause); and the Twin Cities, therefore, have their own real personal concern in the deepening and regulation of the Mississippi to the mouth of the Missouri and on to the Gulf. (Applause)

Friends, I have spoken on how progressive Minnesota is and how progressive these Twin Cities are, but there are other progressive cities in the West, too (applause). I have just come from Kansas City (applause)—it's a pretty live proposition (laughter), and there the merchants themselves have undertaken, by raising over a million dollars, to start the improvement of the waterway lying at their doors so that they shall be able to benefit by it. It is sometimes said that the waterway projects are only backed by people who are delighted to see the Government spend its money but who are not willing to show their faith in the proposition by spending their own. Kansas City is spending its own (applause). The project for a great trunk waterway, an arm of the sea extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes should be abandoned (applause). Of course, before any project is entered upon, an absolutely competent and disinterested commission should report thereon in full to the Government so that the Government can act in the interest of the whole people and without regard to the pressure of special interests (applause), but subject to the action of such a body the Lakes-to-Gulf Deep Waterway, and the development of the rivers which flow into it, should be pushed to completion vigorously and without delay. (Applause)

In nearly every river city from Saint Paul to the Gulf the waterfront is controlled by the railways. Nearly every artificial waterway in the United States, either directly or indirectly, is under the same control. It goes without saying that (unless the people prevent it in advance) the railways will always attempt to take control of our waterways as fast as they are improved and completed; and I do not mention this to blame them in the least, but to blame us if we permit them to do it. (Great applause and cheers) If Uncle Sam can't take care of himself, then there is no particular reason why any railroad man should act as his guardian. (Great laughter and applause) If he attempted the feat he would merely find himself lonely among other railroads (laughter), and Uncle Sam wouldn't be materially benefitted. Uncle Sam's got to do the job himself if he wants to be protected (applause). We must see to it that adequate terminals are provided in every city and town on every improved waterway, terminals open under reasonable conditions to the use of every citizen, and rigidly protected against being monopolized (applause); and we must compel the railways to cooperate with the waterways continuously, effectively, and under reasonable conditions. Unless we do this, the railway lines will refuse to deliver freight to the boat lines either openly or by imposing prohibitory conditions, and the waterways once improved will do comparatively little for the benefit of the people who pay for them.

Adequate terminals, properly controlled, and open through lines by rail and boat, are two absolutely essential conditions to the usefulness of internal waterway development. I believe, furthermore, that the railways should be prohibited from owning, controlling, or carrying any interest in the boat lines on our rivers (applause), unless under the strictest regulation and control of the Interstate Commerce Commission, so that the shippers' interests may be fully protected.

And now here another word in supplement: You are the people; now don't sit supine and let the railways gain control of the boat lines and then turn around and say that the men at the head of the railroads are very bad men (laughter and applause). If you leave it open to them to control the boat lines, some of them are sure to do so, and it's to our interest that the best and ablest among them should do so. But don't let any of them do it, excepting under the conditions you lay down (applause). In other words, my friends, when you of your own fault permit the rules of the game to be such that you are absolutely certain to get the worst of it at the hands of some one else, don't blame the other man; change the rules of the game. (Laughter and applause and prolonged cheering)

Take the question of drainage, which is almost as important to the eastern States as irrigation is in the western States: Where the drainage of swamp and overflow lands in a given area is wholly within the lines of a particular State, it may be well, at least at present, to leave the handling of it to the State or to private action; but where such a drainage area is included in two or more States, the only wise course is to have the Federal Government act (applause); the land should be deeded from the States back to the Federal Government, and it then should take whatever action is necessary (applause). Much of this work must be done by the Nation, in any case, as an integral part of inland waterway development, and it affords a most promising field for cooperation between the States and the Nation (applause). The people of the United States believe in the complete and well-rounded development of inland waterways for all the useful purposes they can be made to subserve. They believe also in forest protection and forest extension. The fight for our National forests in the West has been won, and if after winning it we now go on and lose it, that is our own affair; but we are not going to do it! (Applause) After a campaign in which her women did work which should secure to them the perpetual gratitude of their State, Minnesota won her National forest, and she will keep it (applause); but the fight to create the Southern Appalachian and White Mountain forests in the East is not yet over. The bill has passed the House, and will come before the Senate for a vote next February. The people of the United States, regardless of party or section, should stand solidly behind it and see that their representatives do so likewise (applause). Because our ancestors didn't have sufficient foresight, the Nation is now obliged to spend great sums of money to take responsibilities from the States. We, the people of the East, our State Governors—I have been a Governor of an eastern State myself (applause)—showed that the States in the East couldn't do the work as well as the National Government and we are now getting the National Government to take, at large cost to itself, these lands and do the work the public good requires (applause). When we are now doing that in the East, it seems to me the wildest folly to ask us to start in the West to repeat the same blunders that are now being remedied (applause and cheers). My language shall at least be free from ambiguity.

If any proof were needed that forest protection is a National duty, the recent destruction of forests in the Rocky Mountains by fire would supply it. Even with the aid of the Army added to that of the Forest Service, the loss has been severe. Without either it would have been vastly greater. But the Forest Service does more than protect the National forests against fire. It makes them practically and increasingly useful as well. During the last year for which I have figures the National forests were used by 22,000 cattlemen with their herds, 5,000 sheepmen with their flocks, 5,000 timbermen with their crews, and 45,000 miners. And yet people will tell you they have been shut up from popular use! (Applause) More than 5,000 persons used them for other special industries. Nearly 34,000 settlers had the free use of water. The total resident population of the National forests is about a quarter of a million, which is larger than the population of some of our States. More than 700,000 acres of agricultural land have been patented or listed for patent within the forests, and the reports of the forest officers show that more than 400,000 people a year use the forests for recreation, camping, hunting, fishing and similar purposes. All this is done, of course, without injury to the timber, which has a value of at least a thousand million dollars. Moreover, the National forests protect the water supply of a thousand cities and towns, about 800 irrigation projects, and more than 300 power projects, not counting the use of water for these and other purposes by individual settlers. I think that hereafter we may safely disregard any statements that the National forests are withdrawn from settlement and usefulness (applause).

Conservation has to do not only with natural resources; it has to do with the lives of those who enable the rest of us to make use of those natural resources. The investigations of the Country Life Commission have led the farmers of this country to realize that they have not been getting their fair share of progress and all that it brings. Some of our farming communities in the Mississippi valley and in the middle West have made marvelous progress, and yet even the best of them, like communities of every other kind, are not beyond improvement, and those that are not the best need improvement very much. As yet we know but little of the basic facts of the conditions of rural life compared to what we know about the conditions, for instance, of industrial life. The means for better farming we have studied with care, but to better living on the farm, and to better business on the farm—I mean by that, having the farmer use the middleman where it is to the farmer's advantage and not be used by the middleman chiefly to the middleman's advantage (applause)—scant attention has been paid. One of the most urgent needs of our civilization is that the farmers themselves should undertake to get for themselves a better knowledge along these lines. Horace Plunkett, an Irishman, for many years a Wyoming ranchman, has suggested in his recent book on "The Country Life Problem in America" the creation of a Country Life Institute as a center where the work and knowledge of the whole world concerning country life may be brought together for the use of the Nation. I strongly sympathize with his ideas. Last spring, while visiting the capital of Hungary, Buda-Pesth, I was immensely impressed by the Museum of Country Life, which contained an extraordinary series of studies in agriculture, in stock-raising, in forestry, in mining. It was one of the most interesting places I ever visited, and the exhibits were not merely interesting and instructive, they were of the utmost practical importance; and I felt rather ashamed that I, a citizen of what we suppose to be a very go-ahead country, should be in Hungary and obliged to confess we had nothing at all like that in our own country. I wish we had such a museum in Washington, and some of your farmer congressmen ought to get a detailed report of this Buda-Pesth museum to be printed for distribution as a public document (applause). I would like to see a study made of such museums, so that we may take what is good in them for our own use here in America. (Applause)

As a people we have not yet learned the virtue of thrift. It is a mere truism to say that luxury and extravagance are not good for a Nation. So far as they affect character, the loss they cause may be beyond computation. But in a material sense there is a loss greater than is caused by both extravagance and luxury put together. I mean the needless, useless and excessive loss to our people from premature death and avoidable diseases. It has been calculated that the material loss to the Federal Government in such ways is nearly twice what it costs to run the Federal Government.

One of the most important meetings in our recent history was that of the Governors in the White House in May, 1908, to consider the Conservation question (applause). By the advice of the Governors, the meeting was followed by the appointment of a National Conservation Commission. The meeting of the Governors directed the attention of the country to Conservation as nothing else could have done, while the work of the Commission gave the movement definiteness, and supplied it with a practical program. Now, my friends, so far, I have had nothing but praise to speak of Minnesota; but I cannot continue to speak only words of praise. At the moment when this Commission was ready to begin the campaign for putting its program into effect, an amendment to the Sundry Civil Bill was introduced by a congressman from Minnesota, with the purpose of putting a stop to the work so admirably begun. (Sensation) Congress passed the amendment. Its object was to put an end to the work of a number of commissions which had been appointed by the President, and whose contributions to the public welfare had been simply incalculable. (Voice: "Now, what do you think of Tawney?" and laughter) Among these were the Commission for Reorganization of the Business Methods of the Government, the Public Lands Commission, the Country Life Commission, and the National Conservation Commission itself. When I signed the Sundry Civil Bill containing this amendment, I transmitted with it, as my last official act, a memorandum declaring that the amendment was void because it was an unconstitutional interference with the rights of the Executive and that if I were to remain President I would pay to it no attention whatever (enthusiastic applause and cheers). The National Conservation Commission thereupon became dormant. The suspension of its work came at a most unfortunate time, and there was serious danger that the progress already made would be lost. At this critical moment the National Conservation Association was organized. It took up work which otherwise would not have been done; if it had not done it we wouldn't have had this meeting here (applause), and it exercised a most useful influence in preventing bad legislation, in securing the introduction of better Conservation measures at the past session of Congress, and in promoting the passage of wise laws. It deserves the confidence and support of every citizen interested in the wise development and preservation of our natural resources (applause) and in preventing them from passing into the hands of uncontrolled monopolies (applause). It joins with the National Conservation Congress in holding this meeting. I am here by the joint invitation of both. (Applause)

When the Government of the United States awoke to the idea of Conservation and saw that it was good, it lost no time in communicating the advantages of the new point of view to its immediate neighbors among the nations. A North American Conservation Conference was held in Washington, and the cooperation of Canada and Mexico in the great problem of developing the resources of the continent for the benefit of the people was asked and promised. The Nations upon our northern and southern boundaries wisely realized that their opportunity to conserve their natural resources was better than ours, because with them destruction and monopolization had not gone so far as they had with us. So it is with the republics of Central and South America. Obviously they are on the verge of a period of great material progress. The development of their natural resources—their forests, their mines, their waters, and their soils—will create enormous wealth. It is to the mutual interests of the United States and our sister American Republics that this development should be wisely done. Our manufacturing industries offer a market for more and more of their natural wealth and raw material, while they will wish our products in exchange. The more we buy from them, the more we shall sell to them. Thank Heaven, we of this hemisphere are now beginning to realize, what in the end the whole world will realize, that normally it is a good thing for a Nation to have its neighbors prosper (great applause). We of the United States are genuinely and heartily pleased to see growth and prosperity in Canada, in Mexico, in South America (applause). I wish we could impress upon certain small Republics to the south of us, whose history has not always been happy, that all we ask of them is to be prosperous and peaceful (laughter and applause). We do not want to interfere, it is particularly the thing that we dislike doing; all we ask of any Nation on this hemisphere is that it shall be prosperous and peaceful, able to do reasonable justice within its own boundaries and to the stranger within its gates; and any Nation that is able to do that can count on our heartiest and most friendly support. (Applause)

It is clear that unless the governments of our southern neighbors take steps in the near future by wise legislation to control the development and use of their natural resources, they will probably fall into the hands of concessionaires and promoters, whose single purpose, without regard to the permanent welfare of the land in which they work, will be to make the most possible money in the shortest possible time. There will be shameful waste, destructive loss, and short-sighted disregard of the future, as we have learned by bitter experience here at home. Unless the governments of all the American Republics, including our own, enact in time such laws as will both protect their natural wealth and promote their legitimate and reasonable development, future generations will owe their misfortunes to us of today. A great patriotic duty calls upon us. We owe it to ourselves and to them to give the other American Republics all the help we can. The cases in which we have failed should be no less instructive than the cases in which we have succeeded. With prompt action and good will the task of saving the resources for the people is full of hope for us all.

But while we of the United States are anxious, as I believe we are able, to be of assistance to others, there are problems of our own which must not be overlooked. One of the most important Conservation questions of the moment relates to the control of water-power monopoly in the public interest (applause). There is apparent to the judicious observer a distinct tendency on the part of our opponents to cloud the issue by raising the question of State as against Federal jurisdiction (applause). We are ready to meet this issue if it is forced upon us (applause), but there is no hope for the plain people in such conflicts of jurisdiction. The essential question is not one of hair splitting legal technicalities (applause). It is not really a question of State against Nation, it is really a question of the special corporate interests against the popular interests of the people. (Tremendous applause and cheers) If it were not for those special corporate interests, you never would have heard the question of State against Nation raised (great applause and cheers). The real question is simply this, Who can best regulate the special interests for the country's good? (Voices: "Theodore Roosevelt!" and prolonged applause and cheers) Most of the great corporations, and almost all of those that can legitimately be called the great predatory corporations (laughter), have interstate affiliations: therefore they are out of reach of effective State control, and fall of necessity within the Federal jurisdiction (applause). One of the prime objects of those among them that are grasping and greedy is to avoid any effective control either by State or Nation; and they advocate at this time State control chiefly because they believe it to be the least effective (applause). If it grew effective, many of those now defending it would themselves turn around and declare against State control, and plead in the courts that such control was unconstitutional (applause). I had my own experience (applause and laughter); I'll give you an example of it. When I was Governor of New York, there came up a bill to tax the franchises of certain big street railway corporations. As originally introduced, the bill provided that the taxation should be imposed by the several counties and localities in which those corporations did business. Representatives of the corporations came to me and said that this would work a great hardship upon them, that the State authority would be more just, that the local authorities (especially where a railroad ran through two or three towns or counties) would each endeavor to get the whole benefit of the taxation for their own locality, and that, in the name of justice, I ought to agree to have the State and not the localities made the taxing power. I thought their plea just, and recommended and sanctioned the change. The bill was made a law; and those same corporations instantly entered suit against it on the ground that it was unconstitutional (laughter and applause) to take the power of taxation away from the localities and give it to the State (renewed laughter and applause); and they carried the suit up to the Supreme Court of the United States where, during my own term as President, it was decided against them. (Applause)

In the great fight of the people to drive the special interests from the domination of the Government, the Nation is stronger, and its jurisdiction is more effective than that of any State (applause). I want to say another thing, which the representatives of those corporations do not at the moment believe, but which I am sure that in the end they will find out; because of its strength, because of the fact that the Federal Government is better able to exact justice from them, I also believe it is less apt, in some sudden gust of popular passion, to do injustice to them (applause). Now, I want you to understand my position—I do not think you can misunderstand it. I will do my utmost to secure the rights of every corporation. If a corporation is improperly attacked, I will stand up for it to the best of my ability; I'd stand up for it even though I was sure that the bulk of the people were misguided enough at the moment to take the wrong side and be against it (applause). I should fight to see that the people, through the National Government, did full justice to the corporations; but I don't want the National Government to depend only upon their good will to get justice for the people. (Great applause) Now, most of the great corporations are in large part financed and owned in the Atlantic States, and it's a rather comical fact that many of the chief and most zealous upholders of States' rights in the present controversy are big business men who live in other States (applause). The most effective weapon is Federal laws and the Federal Executive. That is why I so strongly oppose the demand to turn these matters over to the States. It is fundamentally a demand against the interest of the plain people, of the people of small means, against the interest of our children and our children's children; and it is primarily in the interest of the great corporations which wish to escape effective Government control. (Applause)

And I ask you to consider two more things in this connection: Waters run; they don't stay in one State (laughter and applause). That fact seems elementary, but it tends to be forgotten. I have just come from Kansas. Practically all the water in Kansas runs into Kansas from another State, and out of it into other States. You can't have effective control of a watershed unless the same power controls all the watersheds (applause and cries of "Good"), as the water runs not merely out one State into another but out of one country into another. One of the great irrigation projects of Montana has been delayed because the Waters that make the Milk river rise in Montana, flow north into Canada, and then come back into Montana. You can't settle that matter excepting through the National Government (applause); the State can't settle it. So much for what we see here. Now, take the experience of other Nations—of the little Republic of Switzerland. It actually tried what some of our people ask to try; it actually tried the experiment of letting each Canton handle its own waters, and a conflict of jurisdiction arose, and the squabbling and the injustices became such that about nine years ago the National Government of Switzerland had to assume complete control of all the waters of Switzerland, on the explicit ground that all of the waters belonged to all the citizens of the Swiss nation (great applause). Now, I am not asking that we go ahead recklessly; I am only asking that we do not go backward where other countries have gone ahead. (Applause)

As the President yesterday pointed out, one of the difficulties that we have to meet, in connection with the fight for Conservation, is that our aim is continually misrepresented—that the effect is constantly made to show that we are anxious to retard development. It has been no slight task to bring ninety millions of people to understand what the movement is, and to convince them that it is right. Much remains to be cleared up in the minds of the people, and there are many misunderstandings to be removed. For example, we find it constantly said by men who should know better that temporary withdrawals, such as the withdrawals of the coal lands, will permanently check development. Yet the fact is that these withdrawals have no purpose whatever except to prevent the coal lands from passing into private ownership until Congress passes laws to open them under conditions just alike to the public and to the men who will do the developing (applause). And, now understand me; if there is any doubt whether the conditions are liberal enough to the men who are to do the developing. I always solve the doubt in favor of liberality to those men; I want to give them every chance, I want to give them every opportunity to do well for themselves, but I want to see that in doing well for themselves they also do well for the rest of us. (Applause)

In spite of these difficulties, most of which are doubtless inevitable in any movement of this kind, the cause of Conservation has made marvelous progress. We have a right to congratulate ourselves on it, but there is no reason for believing that the fight is won. In the beginning the special interests, who are our chief opponents now, paid little heed to the movement, because they neither understood it nor saw that if it won they must lose. But with the progress of Conservation in the minds of the people, the fight is getting sharper. The nearer we approach to victory, the bitterer the opposition that we must meet and the greater the need for caution and watchfulness. Open opposition we can overcome, but we must guard ourselves; and you of this Congress must especially guard yourselves against the men who are really corporate agents but who pose as disinterested outsiders (applause). Now I heartily approve the action of any corporation which comes here openly because it is interested in the deliberations of a meeting such as this, and by its openly accredited agents presents views which it believes the meeting should have in mind (applause); I approve of the corporation that does that, and I would despise any of our people who feared instantly to give the most ample and respectful hearing and real consideration to any such plea thus put forward. (Applause and cries of "Good!") The corporation through its agents not only has a right to be heard, but if it did not volunteer you ought to endeavor to see that its views were presented. My protest is not against the man who comes here openly as the corporation agent, but against the man who comes here openly as something else and really as the corporation agent. (Laughter)

It is our duty and our desire to make this land of ours a better home for the race, but our duty does not stop there. We must also work for a better Nation to live in this better land (applause). The development and conservation of our national character and our free institutions must go hand in hand with the development and conservation of our natural resources, which the Governors' Conference so well called the foundations of our prosperity. Whatever progress we may make as a Nation, whatever wealth we may accumulate, however far we may push mechanical progress and production, we shall never reach a point where our welfare can depend in the last analysis on anything but the fundamental qualities of good citizenship—honesty, courage, and common sense (applause). The homely virtues are the lasting virtues, and the road which leads to them is the road to genuine and lasting success.

What this country needs is what every free country must set before it, as the great goal toward which it works—an equal opportunity for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to all of its citizens, great and small, rich and poor, great and humble, alike. (Tumultuous applause and continuous cheers)