GOTH CONGRESS 1

zd Session I

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

/DOCUMENT
0. 572

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

FRANKLIN K. LANE, Secretary

UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

GEORGE OTIS SMITH, Director
Bulletin 705

CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING

BY

FRANKLIN K. LANE

Extract from the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior

WASHINGTON

GOVEENMENT PRINTING OFFIOB
1920

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVE^ .., -, '(-D°CUB£?£

• * • *•*/** **«*r *%"« 0/«

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

FRANKLIN K. LANE, Secretary

UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

GEORGE OTIS SMITH, Director
Bulletin 705

CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING

BY

FRANKLIN K. LANE

Extract from the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior

' .

\

1

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WASHINGTON

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

1920

i H
•'.-,

CONTENTS.

Page.

The coal strike 1

National stock-taking 3

Coal as a national asset 3

Public responsibility 4

The miners' year 5

Have we too many mines and miners? 7

The long view 7

Saving coal 9

Coal and coal 10

Expansion abroad 11

Saving coal by saving electricity 11

White coal and black . 12

The age of petroleum ^ . 13

Oil shale 15

Save oil 16

Use the Diesel engine 17

Wanted — a foreign supply 18

By way of summary 20

Land development 22

A program of progress ; 22

Garden homes for the people 23

Reclamation by district organization 24

Soldier-settlement legislation., 27

Alaska :_ 29

Matanuska coal 32

Save and develop Americans 32

in

50693;

NOTE.

The plea for constructive policies contained in the report of the
Secretary of the Interior to the President deserves a hearing also by
the engineers and business men who are developing the power re-
sources of the country. The largest conservation for the future can
come only through the wisest engineering of the present.

The conditions under which the utilization of natural resources is de-
manded are outlined by Secretary Lane, and it will be noted that the
program recommended calls for the cooperation of engineer and
legislator. To bring this power inventory to the attention of the
men who furnish the Nation with its coal and oil and electricity,
this extract from the administrative report of the Secretary of the
Interior is reprinted as a bulletin of the United States Geological
Survey.

IV

CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING '

By FRANKLIN K. LANE.

In an age of machinery the measure of a people's industrial
capacity seems to be surely fixed by its motive power possibilities.
Civilized nations regard an adequate fuel supply as the very founda-
tion of national prosperity — indeed, almost as the Very foundation
of national possibility. I am convinced that there will be a reaction
against the intense industrialism of the present, butj~as it must
be agreed that the race for industrial supremacy is on between the ,
nations of the world, America may well take stock of her own power
possibilities and concern herself more actively with their develop-
ment and wisest use.

THE COAL STRIKE.

The coal strike has brought concretely before us the disturbing •
fact that modern society is so involved that we live virtually by '
unanimous consent. Let less than one-half of 1 per cent of our
population quit their work of digging coal and we are threatened \
with the combined horrors of pestilence and famine.

It did not take many hours after it was realized that the coal
miners were in earnest for the American imagination to conceive
what might be the state of the country in perhaps another 30 days.
Industries closed, railroads stopped, streets dark, food cut off, houses
freezing, idle men by the million hungry and in the dark — this was
the picture, and not a ver}^ pleasant one to contemplate. There was
an immediate demand for facts.

How much coal is normally mined in this country ?

By whom is it mined ?

What is its quality ?

To what uses is it put ?

Who gets it?

1 Extract from the annual report of the Secretary of the Interior for the fiscal year
ended June 30. 1919. The page numbers are the same as those in the report.

1

;{} CONSEEYJitl'ON THROUGH ENGINEERING.

iU<Ai\«iBfe^'c9iild- be, mined if coal were conserved instead of
wasted ?

What better methods have been developed for using coal than
those of ancient custom?

Who is to blame that so small a supply is on the surface ?

Why should we live from day to day in so vital a matter as a
fuel supply?

What substitutes can be found for coal and how quickly may these
be made available?

This is by no means an exhaustive category of the questions which
were put to this department when the strike came. And these came
tumbling in by wire, by mail, by hand, from all parts of the country,
mixed with disquisitions upon the duty of Government, the rights of
individuals as against the rights of society, the need for strength in
times of crisis, calls for nationalization of the coal industry, for the
destruction of labor unions, for troops to mine coal, and much else
that was more or less germane to the question before the country.

Many of these questions we were able to answer. But if coal
operators themselves had not carried over the statistical machinery
developed during the war, we would have been forced to the humiliat-
ing confession that we did not know facts which at the time Avere of
the most vital importance.

In a time of stress it is not enough to be able to say that the United
States contains more than one-half of the known world supply of
coal ; that we, while only 8 per cent of the world's population, pro-
duce annually 46 per cent of all coal that is taken from the ground ;
that 35 per cent of the railroad traffic is coal; that in less than 100
years we have grown in production from 100,000 tons to 700,000,000
tons per annum; that if last year's coal were used as construction
material it would build a wall as huge as the Great Wall of China
around every boundary of the United States from Maine to Van-
couver, down the Pacific to San Diego and eastward following the
Mexican border and the coast to Maine again; and that this same
coal contains latent power sufficient to lift this same wall 200 miles
high in the air, according to one of our greatest engineers (Stein-
metz).

Such facts are surely startling. They serve to stimulate a certain
pride and give us a great confidence in our industrial future ; yet they
are not as immediately important, when the mines threaten to close,
as would be a few figures showing how much coal we have in stock
piles and where it is ! And months since we called upon Congress to
grant the money that we might secure these figures, but no notice
was taken of the urged requests until, late in the summer, a committee
of the Senate awoke to this need and indorsed our petition.

CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING. 3

NATIONAL STOCK TAKING.

The Government should have a more complete knowledge of the
coal and of other foundation industries than can be found elsewhere,
and we should not fear national stock taking as a continuing process.
It is indeed the beginning of wisdom. The war revealed to us how
delinquent in this regard we had been in the past. One day when the
full story is told of the struggle of the Army engineer to meet war
emergency demands, and this is supplemented by the tale of the
effort made by the Council of National Defense and the War In-
dustries Board, it will be realized more seriously than now how lit-
tle of stock taking we have done in this generous, optimistic land.

When any such undertaking is proposed, however, it at once ap~
pears to arouse the fear that it is somehow the beginning of a
malevolent policy called " conservation," and conservation has had
a mean meaning to many ears. It connoted stinginess and a pro-
vincial thrift, spies in the guise of Government inspectors, hateful
interferences with individual enterprise and initiative, governmental
haltings and cowardices, and all the constrictions of an arrogant,
narrow, and academic-minded bureaucracy which can not think
largely and feels no responsibility for national progress. Needless ;
to say this fear should not, need not be. The word should mean
helpfulness, not hindrance — helpfulness to all who wish to use a
resource and think in larger terms than that of the greatest im-
mediate profit; hindrance only to those who are spendthrift. ^A*
conservation which results in a stalemate as between the forces of
progress and governmental inertia is criminal, while a conservation
that is based on the fuller, the more essential use of a resource is
statesmanship.

To know what we have and what we can do with it — and what we
should not do with it, also ! — is a policy of wisdom, a policy of last-
ing progress. And in furtherance of such a policy the first step is
to know our resources — our national wealth in things and in their
possibilities; the second step is to know their availability for im-
mediate use; the third step is to guard them against waste either
through ignorance or wantonness ; and the fourth step is to prolong
their life by invention and discovery.

COAL AS A NATIONAL ASSET.

Enough has been said, perhaps, to indicate how vast are the fields
of coal which this country holds. It may be that any day some
genius will release from nature a power that will make of little value
our carboniferous deposits save for their chemical content. By the
application of the sun's rays, or the use of the unceasing motion of

4 CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING.

the waves of the sea, the whole dependence of the world upon coal
may be upset. That day, however, has not yet come; and until it
does we may consider our coal as the surest insurance which we can
have that America can meet the severest contest that any industrial
rival can present. It is more than insurance — it is an asset which
can bring to us the certainty of great wealth, and if wre care to exer-
cise it, a mastery over the fate and fortunes of other peoples.

Next to the fertility of our soil, we have no physical asset as valu-
able as our coal deposits. Although we are sometimes alarmed be-
cause those deposits nearest to the industrial centers are rapidly
declining and we can already see within this century the end of the
anthracite field, if it is made to yield as much continuously as at
present, yet it is a safe generalization that we have sufficient coal in
the United States to last our people for centuries to come. An extra
scuttleful on the fire or shovelful in the furnace does not threaten
the life of the race, even if some Russian or Chinese of the future does
not resolve the atom or harness the hidden forces of the air. What-
ever fears other nations may justifiably have as to their ability to con-
tinue in the vast rush of a machine world, there can be no question of
our ability to last.

The present strike, however, makes quite clear, perhaps for the
first time, that it is not the coal in the mountain that is of value, but
that which is in the yard. And between the two there may be a
great gulf fixed. Therefore, we are put to it to make the best of
what we have. We turn from telling how much coal we use to a
study of how little we can live upon and do the day's work of the
Nation. And this is, I believe, as it should be. Indeed I feel justi-
fied in saying that the problem of this strike is not to be solved in
its deeper significances until we know much more about coal than we
know now, and this especially as to the manner in which it is taken
from its bed and brought to our cellars.

PUBLIC RESPONSIBILITY.

This transfer is effected by a kind of carrier chain, the links of
Avhich are the operator, the miner, the railroad, and the public. We
choose, to please ourselves, the link in this chain upon which we place
the responsibility for its failure to work; but before indulging our-
selves in abuse of arrogant coal barons or dictatorial labor unions,
it may be as well to ask whether we of the public are not responsible
in some part for this failure to function. I do not refer now to the
failure of society to provide methods of industrial mediation or other
adjustment of such labor difficulties. My question is. Avhether or not
the public is at all at fault when a nation wealthy beyond all others

CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING. 5

in coal finds itself with so small a supply on hand when a strike
comes — but a few days removed from the gravest troubles. The an-
swer, to my mind, turns upon the manner in which we have done
business.

We have been content to go without insurance as to a coal reserve.
Each day has brought its daily supply. There was no thought of
railroads stopping or mines closing down, so that large storage
facilities have not been provided, and, indeed, we would rebel at pay-
ing for our coal the added cost of caring for it outside its native
warehouse. We have not thought in terms of apprehension, but, as
always, in the calm certainty that the stream of supply would flow
without ceasing. In some way .there would be coal into which we
could drive our shovels when the need was felt.

No wonder, therefore, that we are rudely disturbed when one link
in the carrier chain from coal-in-place to coal-in-the-furnace breaks.
It simply is one of those things which doesn't happen. And not
having happened sufficiently often to give us fear, we have had no
thought that we should provide against it. It is a most heterodox
thing to say, but we may find that a bit more foresight on the part
of the public would certainly have made less sudden the present
crisis. Let us look, for instance, into the matter of the coal miners'
year and see if it is not fixed in some degree by the habit of the
public in its purchasing.

THE MINERS' YEAR.

The record year, 1918, with everything to stimulate production had
an average of only 249 working days for the bituminous mines of the
country. This average of the country included a minimum among
the principal coal-producing States of 204 days for Arkansas and a
maximum of 301 for New Mexico. In such a State as Ohio the aver-
age working year is under 200 days. In 1917 the miners of New
Mexico reached an average of 321 days, and in the largest field, the
Raton field, it was actually 336 — probably the record for steady oper-
ation.

This short year in coal-mine operation is due in part to seasonal
fluctuation in demand. The mines averaged only 24 hours a week
during the spring months. The weekly report of that date showed
that 80 per cent of the lost time was due to " no market " and only 15
per cent to " labor shortage," while " car shortage " was a negligible
factor. In contrast with this should be taken the last week before the
strike, when the average hours operated were 39 and " no market "
was a negligible item in lost time, while " car shortage " was by far

6 CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING.

the largest item. It follows that the short year is a source of loss to
both operator and mine worker and is a tax on the consumer.1

With substantially the same number of mines and miners working
this year as last, the accumulative production for the first 10 months
of this year is 100,000,000 tons less than that mined in the same
period last year. This 25 per cent loss in output means that both
plant and labor have been less productive, and, in terms of capital
and labor, coal cost the Nation more this year than last. For in the
long run both capital and labor require a living wage.

The public must accept responsibility for the coal industry and
pay for carrying it on the year round. Mine operators and mine
workers of whatever mines are necessary to meet the needs of the
country must be paid for a year's work. The shorter the working
year the less coal is mined per man and per dollar invested in plant,
and eventually the higher priced must be the coal. It is obvious that
the 264 short tons of coal mined by the average British miner last
year could not be as cheap per ton as the 942 tons mined by the
average American mine worker, backed up as he was with more
efficient plant. (A proud contrast!)

It would clearly appear that the coal business may be stabilized,
not wholly, but in a very large measure, in some of the western fields,2
if the public does not regard its supply of coal as it does its supply
of domestic water, which requires only that the faucet shall be opened
to bring forth a gushing supply. Coal does not have pressure behind
it which forces it out of the mine and into the coal yard. It rather
must be drawn out by the suction of demand. And herein the public
must play its part by keeping that demand as steady and uniform as
possible.

1 In spite of the strike order, effective the last day of the week, the production of
soft coal during the seven days Oct. 26-Nov. 1 was greater than in any week this year
save one. The exception was the preceding week, that of Oct. 25, which full reports
now confirm as the record in the history of coal mining in the United States. The
total production during the week ended Nov. 1 (including lignite and coal made into
coke) Is estimated at 12,142,000 net tons, an average per working day of 2,024,000 tons.

Indeed had it not been for the strike, curtailing the output of Saturday, the week of
Nov. 1 would have far outstripped its predecessor. The extraordinary efforts made by
the railroads to. provide cars bore fruit in a rate of production during the first five
days of the week which, if maintained for the 304 working days of full-time year, would
yield 715,000,000 tons of coal. It is worth noting that this figure is almost identical
with the 700,000,000 tons accepted early in 1918 by the Geological Survey and the
Railroad Administration as representing the country's annual capacity. During these
five days, therefore, the soft-coal mines were working close to actual capacity. There
can be little doubt that the output on Monday, Oct. 27, was the largest ever attained
in a single day. (U. 8. Geol. Survey Bull.)

a It is the western and southern fields that are most affected by the seasonal demand.
As a typical example, Illinois may be cited, with 18 per cent of the year's production
in 25 per cent of the time, April, May, and June, in 1915, and 15 per cent in 1916.
Retail dealers received 27 per cent of the coal from Illinois in the period from August,
1918, to February, 1919, compared with 4 per cent from the Pittsburgh, Pa., field.

CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING. 7

HAVE WE TOO MANY MINES AND MINERS?

The problem of the miner and his industry may be stated in an-
other way. We consume all the coal we produce. We produce it
with labor that upon social and economic grounds works as a rule
too few days in the year. We therefore must have a longer miners'
year and fewer miners or a longer miners' year and additional
markets. One or the other is inevitable unless we are to carry on
the industry as a whole as an emergency industry, holding men
ready for work when they are not needed in order that they may
be ready for duty when the need arises. There are too many mines
to keep all the miners employed all of the time or to give them a
reasonable year's work. This conclusion is based on the assumption
that we now produce only enough coal from all the mines to meet
the country's demand, which is the fact. More coal produced would
not sell more coal, but more coal demanded would result in greater
coal production. With the full demand met by men working two-
thirds or less of the time in the year there can not be a longer year
given to all the miners without more demand for coal. This seems
to be manifest. Therefore the miners must remain working but
part time as now, or fewer miners must work more days, or market
must be found for more coal and thus all the miners given a longer
year. If we worked all of our miners in all of our mines a reason-
able year, we would have a great overproduction. And to have
all our mines work a longer period means that we must find some
place in which to sell more coal, either at home or abroad.

Why have we so many mines working so many miners? There
can be no one- word reply to this question. It penetrates into almost
every social and economic condition of the country — the initiative
of capital, the size of the country, the pride of localities, the intense
competition between railroads, their inability to furnish cars when
needed, the manner in which cars are apportioned between mines,
the manner in which the railroads are operated so that movement is
slow and equipment is short, and this runs into the need for new
facilities, such as more yards, more tracks, more equipment, which
brings us into the need for more capital and so on and on.

We have none too many mines or too many miners to supply our
need if the mines are operated as at present. But we have too many
to fill that need if they are operated on a basis nearer to 100 per cent
of possible production.

THE LONG VIEW.

\

Passing from the labor phase of the coal situation to the larger
aspect of our coal supply as related to the whole problem of the
economical production of light, heat, and power, which Sir William

8 CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING.

Crookes has characterized as " first among the immediate practical
problems of science," we find ourselves both rich and wasteful, fol-
lowing the primrose path, heedless of the morrow and not vet con-
scious that the morrow is to be a day of battle.

In the first place we treat coal as if it were a thing which was
exclusively for home use, a nonexportable commodity which must
be used " on the farm," whereas it should be treated with profound
respect, because we know from Paris that sacred treaties and na-
tional boundaries turn on its presence. The world wants our coal,
envies us for having it, fears us because of it. It is not only useful
to us, but it has a cash value in the markets of the world. There-
fore it should be saved.

In the next place we treat coal as if it were all alike, not selected
by nature for specific uses; whereas we should choose our coal with
as scientific a judgment as we choose our reading glasses. There is
coal for coke and coal for furnaces and coal for house use and coal
adapted for one kind of boiler and a different kind of coal for a
different kind of boiler. Therefore we should discriminate in coal.

And again we have shown little willingness to dignify coal by
seeking to draw out by improved mechanical processes all the stored
content of heat in this lump of carbon. Instead we content ourselves
by giving it a mere pauper touch, driving off the greater volume of
its value into the air. This is a task for the mechanical engineer.

Then, too, there is the problem of using coal in the form of steam
or- in the more exalted form of electric current. The lifting, bob-
bing lid of James Watt's teakettle did not speak the last word in
power. We are only beginning to know how we may move on from
one form of motive power to another. The wastefulness of steam
power as contrasted with electric power is a real challenging prob-
lem in conservation by itself.

And then we naturally ask, Why this long haul over mountains
and through tunnels and across bridges and along streets and into
houses, by railroad, truck, and on the backs of men, when at the
very pit mouth, or within the mine itself, this same coal might be
transformed into electricity and by wire served into factories and
homes 100, 200, 300 miles from the mine? Why burden our con-
gested railroads with this traffic? Why strew our streets with this
dirt? This may be a practicable thing, a wise thing; it deserves
study if coal is worth conserving.

Are there no substitutes for coal which we can use and can not
export? This question immediately raises the water-power possi-
bilities of our land, of which only the most superficial study has
been made. Sell coal and use electricity would appear a thrifty
policy.

CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING. 9

As petroleum is being used as a substitute for coal — and inasmuch
as the whole problem of fuel supply is one — we are ultimately com-
pelled to an investigation of the ability of our petroleum supply to
meet its present drain and to meet the expansion in its use, which is
the most surprising development of our day in the study of power
creation.

This spells a program of development and conservation which
should challenge the ambitions of this Nation, and on a few of its
features perhaps a few further words would be justified.

SAVING COAL.

The two ways by which coal in greatest volume can be saved are
the discovery of the method by which more power can be taken from
the ton and the discovery of what kind of coal is best fitted for any
particular use.

It has been everyone's business to save coal, hence The rail-
roads have experimented with some success. They get perhaps 10 per
cent of the heat energy from a ton shoveled beneath the locomotive
boiler, 10 per cent of the total in the ton. They use one-quarter of
all the coal mined. Next to labor this is the greatest expense which
our railroads have. This shows how great the problem is to them.
Some have adopted a system of paying a bonus for the greatest dis-
tance made on a given quantity of a given coal. But this laudable
effort has not met with- the cooperation that would be expected from
the firemen, for reasons that go far afield. Industries, especially those
which generate electric power, have made similar effort to gain from
their fuel its greatest potentiality, and with varying success. We
can overlook the stoking of the domestic furnace as a national con-
cern, for the amount of coal used in this way amounts to not more
than 17 per cent of the national coal bill, and this whole charge
could be saved, it is estimated, by giving care to the 75 per cent of
our coal which is burned under boilers to make steam. Here there is
a maximum figure of 13 per cent of the energy of the coal put into
harness, and the average is less than 10 per cent, even in the larger
plants.

In one establishment visited by the fuel engineers of this depart-
ment during the war a preventable waste of 40,000 tons a year was
discovered. By changes in the admission of air to the furnaces and
in the " baffling " of the boilers the engineers of the Bureau of Mines
are confident that they have been able to increase the economy of
coal in the ships of the Emergency Fleet Corporation by 16 per cent,
making 6 pounds of coal do the work of 7. If such a percentage
of economy could be generally effected it would mean the saving
of as much coal as France and Italy together will need in this year
of their greatest distress.

10 CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING.

COAL AND COAL.

The Government should sample and certify coal. We do this as
to \wheat and meat; it is just as necessary to avoid injustice in the
case of coal, and it is thoroughly practicable. The public should
know the kind of coal it is bu}Ting, because it should buy the coal
> it needs. There need be no prohibition against the mining or sell-
1-^ ing of any coal,1 but coal should sell in terms of its capacity to de-
liver heat. Some coal that is only a pint bottle is selling as a quart
bottle. And the quart is hurt by the competition of the pint. A bill
to effect such fuel inspection has been drafted and will be presented to
Congress. It is not a bill commanding anything, but rather gives to
those who are willing an opportunity to have their product inspected
and attested and thus acquire merit in the eye of the world as against
those who are not willing to subject their coal to the official test tube.
Coal is coal in the sense of the classic traffic classification. Coal is,
however, not always coal, nor is it altogether coal when put to the
pragmatic test of the furnace. If such a bilkwerS passed it would
promote the interests of those who schedule ^heir price upon the
merit of their goods and make against the hauling of slate and dirt,
its storage and handling under an assumed name. The plan is not
to punish the malefactor who attempts to impose upon the public a
slender number of thermal units as a ton of "coal, but rather to give
to ever man an opportunity to advertise the number of such units

1 In every trainload of coal hauled from the mines to our coal bins, 1 carload out of
every 5 is going nowhere. In a train of 40 cars, the last 8 are dead load that might
better have been left in the bowels of the earth. No less an authority than Martin A.
Rooney states : " Every fifth shovel full of coal that the average fireman throws into
his furnace serves no more useful purpose than to decorate the atmosphere with a long
black stream of precious soot. At best one-fifth of all our coal is wasted."

The first requisite toward effecting fuel economy is to secure cooperation between
owners, managers, and the men who fire the coal. Mechanical devices to increase effi-
ciency in the use of coal can not produce satisfactory results unless the operators who
handle them are impressed with the importance of their duties.

.It is not essential for the plant manager to be a fuel expert, but he should be familiar
with the instruments that give a check on the daily operations. It is a mistake not to
provide proper instruments, for they guide the firemen and show the management what
has taken place daily. Instruments provided for the boiler room manifest the interest
taken by the management toward conserving fuel. It indicates cooperation and encour-
ages the firemen to work harder to increase the efficiency.

A second factor effecting fuel economy is the selection of fuel for the particular plant.
It is not expected of a plant manager that he should be thoroughly informed as to the
character of all fuels; but he can enlist the services of a man who is thoroughly trained
In this field. The Bureau of Mines has compiled valuable information on the character
and analyses of coal from almost every field in the United States. Information concern-
Ing the character and chemical constituents of the coal, together with knowledge pertain-
ing to the equipment of the plant, makes it possible to select a fuel adapted to the
equipment, thereby insuring better combustion. Hundreds of boiler plants operate at no
greater than 60 per cent efficiency, and it would be a comparatively simple matter to
bring them up to 70 per cent efficiency. The saving in tonnage would be more than the
combined yearly coal-carrying capacity of the Baltimore & Ohio and the Southern Railway
systems. The direct saving to our industries at $5 per ton would amount to $200,000,000
worth of coal per year.

CONSERVATION" THROUGH ENGINEERING. 11

which his particular article contains, thus enabling the injured pub-
lic to strike against an unfair mine.

Furthermore we are to become great exporters of coal, unless all
signs fail, and such certification should be required as to every ton
sent abroad.

EXPANSION ABROAD.

Tt has been said that we have too many mines in operation, as we
appear to have too many miners, if we are to maintain only our
present output. Rapid expansion in the development of industry in
general may justify the existence of such mines and so large a corps
of workers, even with an adequate car supply and more abundant
local storage facilities, which are greatly needed in almost all places,
and a more even demand. If, however, this should not be so, there
is a foreign demand for the best of our bituminous coals, which at
present we are altogether unable to meet for lack of credits on the
part of those who wish the coal, and lack of ships to carry it. Eng-
land's annual production has fallen 100,000,000 tons, according to
Mr. Hoover, and the Eur€{>ean demand next year will be more than
150,000,000 tons above her production. Whatever the world need, it
can not be supplied. It is too large for any possible supply by ship,
even if all necessary financial arrangements could be made, either
by loan or credit. Europe, indeed, svill sadly learn through this win-
ter how little coal she can live on tod how more than perilous is the
state of a people who are short of power, light, and heat.

As this country prior to the war sold abroad no more than 4,500,-
000 tons as against England's 77,000,000, it is quite manifest that
here will be a new field for American enterprise, the enterprise
being needed not for the winning of markets as much as for find-
ing ways of dealing with the larger phases of a heavy overseas
trade with those who are without immediate resources.

SAVING COAL BY SAVING ELECTRICITY.

It is three years since Congress was urged that we should be em-
powered to make a study of the power possibilities of the congested
industrial part of the Atlantic seaboard, with a view to developing
not only the fact that there could be effected a great saving in power
and a much larger actual use secured out of that now produced,
but also that new supplies could be obtained both from running
water and from the conversion of coal at the mines instead of after
a long rail haul. A stream of power paralleling the Atlantic from
Richmond to Boston, a main channel into which run many minor
feeding streams and from which diverge an infinite number of
small delivering lines — the whole an interlocking system that would

12 CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING.

take from the coal mine and the railroad a part of their present
burden and insure the operation of street lights, street cars, elevators,
and essential industries in the face of railroad delinquencies — this
is the dream of our engineers, and a very possible dream it has
seemed to me; of such value, indeed, that we might well spend a
few thousand dollars in studying it, not with the thought that the
Government would construct or operate even the trunk line, but
that it might so attract the attention of the engineering and financial
world as to make it a reality.

To tie together the separated power plants of 10 States so that
one can give aid to the other, so that one can take the place of the
other, so that all may join their power for good in any great drive
that may be projected — this would be the prime purpose of the plan ;
and from this would, evolve the development of the most practicable
method of supplying this vast interdependent system with more
power — perhaps from the conversion of coal, as it drops from the
very tipple, using the mine as one might use a waterfall, or by the
development of great hydroelectric plants on the many streams from
the Androscoggin to the James.

WHITE COAL AND BLACK.

This would be a plan for the wedding of the stream and the mine,
the white coal with the black. " White coal " they call it in imagina-
tive France, this tumbling water which is converted into so many
forms ; and a much cleaner, handier kind of coal it is than its black
brother. And cheaper, for the water goes on to return again and
fall once more and forever into the pockets of the turbine which
whirls the dynamo and so gathers or releases that mystery which
we name but never define. Farsighted, purposeful Germany fought
four and a half years upon the strength of great power plants run
by the snows of the Alps. She did not rely on these alone for power,
nor were they her main reliance, but they gave her a lasting power
which otherwise she would not have had. And we may expect her to
improve on that war-time experience for the conduct of the hard
fight she is to make in the industrial field. France saved enough
territory from the invader to permit her to make new adventures
into this field and so to some degree offset the coaj loss of Lens.
Italy found that she had still left unused opportunities for hydro-
electric development sufficient with the coal she could secure from
England and America to see her through the war. And with coal
conditions as they are in Europe we may expect a still greater push
to make use of water power to turn the industrial wheels of peace.
It must be so likewise here.

And it is likely that the long-pending power bill which will make
available the dam and reservoir sites on withdrawn public lands

CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING. 13

and make feasible the financing of many projects on both navigable
and unnavigable streams will soon have become law. We shall
then have an opportunity that never before has been given us to
develop the hydroelectric possibilities of the country. And this
raises the question as to their extent.

The theoretical maximum quantity of hydroelectric power that
can be produced in the United States has recently been estimated by
Dr. Steinmetz, who calculates that if every stream could be fully
utilized throughout its length at all seasons, the power obtained
would be 230,000,000 kilowatts (320,000,000 horsepower). It is
clear that only a fraction of this absolute maximum can ever be made
available. The Geological Survey estimates that the water power in
this country that is available for ultimate development amounts to
54,000,000 continuous horsepower.

The census of 1912 showed that the country's developed water
power was 4,870,000 horsepower, about 9 per cent of the maximum
power available for economic development and less than 2 per cent
of the total that may be supplied by the streams as estimated by
Dr. Steinmetz. According to the census, stationary prime movers
representing a capacity of more than 30,000,000 horsepower, fur-
nished by water, steam, and gas, were in operation in the United
States in 1912. (This amount does not, of course, include power
generated by locomotives, marine engines, automobiles, and similar
mobile apparatus.) The average power furnished by these station-
ary prime movers was probably not more than 20 per cent of their
installed capacity, so that the power produced in 1912 was equivalent
to probably not more than 6,000,000 continuous horsepower.

As the estimated available water power given above represents
continuous power the country evidently possesses much more water
power than it now requires, so that there would be an ample surplus
for many years if the power were so distributed geographically
that it could be economically supplied to the industries that need it.
But as a matter of fact the water-power resources of the country
are by no means evenly distributed. Over TO per cent of the avail-
able water power is west of the Mississippi, whereas .over TO per
cent of the total horsepower now installed in prime movers is east
of the river. Therefore unless the East is to lose its industrial
supremacy it must press and press hard for the development of all
water-power possibilities !

THE AGE OF PETROLEUM.

For a full century now we have been passing through different
phases of industrial and commercial life which have been character-
ized by some form of power. First the age of steam, and then the
age of electricity. We have passed out of neither and yet we have
155084°— 19 2

14 CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING.

come into another age — that of petroleum. As a lubricant, it has
become of such universal use that it has been called the barometer of
industry, and no doubt -after it has ceased to be a popular illuminant
or a source of power it will live invaluable as the thing which lets
the wheels go round. Its greatest popularity now arises out of its
use in the internal-combustion engine, and of the making of these
there is no end. It draws railroad trains and drives street cars.
It pumps water, lifts heavy loads, has taken the place of millions
of horses, and in 20 years has become a farming, industrial, business,
and social necessity. The naval and the merchant ships of this coun-
try and of England are fitted and being fitted to use it either under
steam boilers as fuel or directly in the Diesel engine. The airplane
has been made possible by it. It propels that modern juggernaut,
the tank. In the air it has no rival, while on land and sea it threat-
ens the supremacy of its rivals whenever it appears. There has
been no such magician since the day of Aladdin as this drop of
mineral oil. Medicines and dyes and high explosives are distilled
from it. No one knows whence it cometh or whither it goeth. Men
search for it with the passion of the early Argonauts, and the prom-
ise now is that nations will yet fight to gain the fitful bed in which
it lies.

In Persia and in Palestine, in Java and in China, in southern
Russia and in Rumania we know that petroleum is, for it has been
found there. How great these fields or others in Europe, Asia, or
Africa may be no one would dare to say. As yet, however, the petro-
leum of the world has come from this hemisphere.

The "oil spring" which George Washington found in western
Virginia and by his last will called to the especial consideration of
his trustees was the promise of a continental well which last year
yielded 356,000,000 barrels. Each year has seen the prophecy un-
fulfilled that the peak of the possible yield had been reached.

From the mountains of western Pennsylvania into the very ocean
bed of the Pacific and even beyond and into the broken strata of up-
turned Alaska, the oil prespector bored with his sharp tooth of steel
and found oil. Hardly has one field fallen into a decline when an-
other has come rushing into service. Only three years ago and all
hoTpes were centered in Oklahoma, and then came Kansas, and then
the turn went south again to Texas, and now it looks toward Louisi-
ana. Geologists have estimated and estimated, and they do not differ
widely, for few give more than thirty years of life to the petroleum
sands of this country if the present yield is insisted upon. And yet
there is so much of mystery in the hiding of this strange subterranean
liquid that honest men will not say but that it will become a perma-
nent factor in the world of light, heat, and power. If this is not so

CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING. 15

we are a fatuous people, for with every fifth man in the country the
owner of an automobile and the expenditure of hundreds of millions
of dollars for roads fit only for their use, and with ships by the hun-
dred specially constructed to burn oil, we have surely given a large
fortune in pledge of our faith that our pools of petroleum will not
soon be drained dry, or that others elsewhere will come to our help.

In 1908 the country's production of oil was 178,500,000 barrels,
and there was a surplus above consumption of more than 20,000,000
barrels available to go into storage. In 1918, 10 years later, the
oil wells of the United States yielded 356,000,000 barrels— nearly
twice the yield of 1908 — but to meet the demands of the increased
consumption more than 24,000,000 barrels had to be drawn from
storage. The annual fuel-oil consumption of the railroads alone 'has
increased from 16| to 36 J million barrels; the annual gasoline pro-|
duction from 540,000,000 gallons in 1909 to 3,500,000,000 gallons in*
1918. This reference to the record of the past may be taken not only
as justifying the earlier appeal for Federal action, but as warrant-
ing deliberate attention to the oil problem of to-day.

Fuel oil, gasoline, lubricating oil — for these three essentials are
there no practical substitutes or other adequate sources ? The obvious
answer is in terms of cost ; the real answer is in terms of man power.
Whether on land or sea, fuel oil is preferred to coal because it re-
quires fewer firemen, and back of that, in the man power required
in its mining, preparation, and transportation the advantage on
the side of oil is even greater. So, too, the substitute for gasoline in
internal-combustion engines, whether alcohol or benzol, means higher
cost and larger expenditure of labor in its production.

There are large bodies of public land now withdrawn, which, under
the new leasing bill which seems so near to final passage after seven
years of struggle and baffled hope, will in all likelihood make a fur-
ther rich contribution to the American supply.

OIL SHALE.

And beyond these in point of time lie the vast deposits of oil shale
which by a comparatively cheap refining process can be made to
yield vastly more oil than has yet been found in pools or sands. The
value of this oil shale will depend upon the cheapness of its reduction,
and this must be greatly lessened by the value of by-products before
it can compete with coal or the oil from wells. There is every reason
to believe, however, that some day the production of oil from shale
will be a great and a permanent industry. And the country could
make no better immediate investment than to give a large appro-
priation for the development of an economical shale-reducing plant.

16 CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING.

So conservative an authority as the Geological Survey estimates
that the oil shales of the Western States alone contain many times
over the quantity of oil that will be recovered from our oil wells.
The retorting of oil from oil shale has been a commercial industry
for many years in Scotland and France; in fact, oil was obtained
from oil shale here in the United States before the first oil well was
drilled. The industry is in process of redevelopment to-day and if
successful will assure us of a future supply, but at the best it will
take years of time and a vast investment of capital to build up the
industry to such a point that it can supply any considerable propor-
tion of our needs. It is imperative, however, that the development
of this latent resource be furthered and brought to a state of com-
mercial development as soon as possible.

SAVE OIL.

Yet with all the optimism that can be justified I would urge a
policy of saving as to petroleum that should be rigid in the extreme.
If we are to long enjoy the benefits of a petroleum age, which we
must frankly admit fits into the comfort-loving and the speed-loving
side of the American nature, we must save this oil.

We must save it before it leaves the well ; keep it from being lost ;
keep it from being flooded out, driven away by water. Through
the cementing of wells in the Gushing field, Oklahoma, the daily vol-
ume of water lifted from the wells was decreased from 7,520 barrels
to 628 barrels, while the daily volume of oil produced was increased
from 412 barrels to 4,716. These instances show what can and
should be done in our known oil fields.

We must save the oil after it leaves the well, save it from drain-
ing off and sinking into the soil, save it from leaking away at pipe
joinings, save it. from the wastes of imperfect storage.

Then we come to the refining of the oil. How welcome now would
be the knowledge that we could recover what was thrown away
when kerosene was petroleum's one great fraction. (The loss in
refineries is still startling, some 14,556,000 barrels last year — 4J per
cent of the crude run in the refineries.)

The self-interest of the American refiner, notably the Standard Oil
Co., has done a work that probably no mere scientific or noncommer-
cial impulse could have equaled, in torturing out of petroleum the
secrets of its inmost nature. And yet the thought will not altogether
give place that in that residue which goes to the making of roads or
to be burned in some crude way there may be things chemical that
will work largely for man's betterment. This is the fact, too — that
where the oil is produced by some small companies which have not the
financial ability to make it yield its full riches there is a greater
danger of loss of this kind. It would be well indeed if there could be

CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING. 17

such regulation as would require that all petroleum must be refined.
That this is done generally is not denied. It should be universal.
And all the skill and study and knowledge of the ablest of chemists
and mechanicians should find themselves challenged by the problem
of petroleum.

(Coming to the use of petroleum in its various forms we find a
field of promise. The engine that doubles the number of miles that
can be made on a gallon of gasoline doubles our supply. There is
where we can apply the principle of true conservation — find how
little you need; use what you must, but treat your resource with re-
spect. Has the last word been said as to the carburetor? Mechani-
cal engineers do not think so. Have all possible mixtures which will
save oil and substitute cheaper and less rare combustibles therefor
been tried ? Men by the hundred are making these experiments, and
almost daily the quack or the stock promoter comes forward with the
announcement of a discovery which proves to be a revelation — a
revelation of human stupidity or criminal cupidity. On this line
the men of science do not sing a song of the richest hope ; they shrug
their shoulders, exclaiming with uplifted hands: "Well, may be,
may be."

There are possible substitutes for some petroleum products, but
not for the whole barrel of oil ; furthermore, petroleum is the cheap-
est material, speaking quantitatively, from which liquid fuels and
lubricants can be made ; therefore, any substitutes obtained in quan-
tity must cost more. Alcohol can be substituted for gasoline, but
only in- limited quantity and at increased cost. Benzol from by-
product coking ovens also can be used, but quantitatively is totally
inadequate. For kerosene no quantitative substitute is known. Lu-
bricants can be obtained from animal and vegetable fats, but mostly
are inferior in quality, and there seems no hope of obtaining them in
quantity. Fuel oil can be largely supplanted by coal, but for the
internal-combustion engine there is no quantitative substitute.

USE THE DIESEL ENGINE.

We have ventured on a great shipbuilding program. Our people
are to once again respond to the call of the sea. On private ways and
on Government ways ships are being built to go round the world —
ships that are to burn oil under boilers and produce steam. I presume
that there is a justification for this policy, perhaps one that is as good,
if not better, than can be made for the railroads of the West pursuing
the same policy. I submit, however, that there should be justification
shown for the construction of any oil-burning ship which does not
use an engine of the Diesel type. To burn oil under a boiler and con-
vert it into steam releases but 10 per cent of the thermal units in
the oil, whereas if this same fuel oil were used directly in a Diesel
engine, 30 to 35 per cent of the power in the oil would be secured.

18 CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING.

Substitute the internal-combustion engine for the steam boiler and
we multiply by three or three and one-half the supply of fuel oil in
the United States. Instead of our fuel-oil supply being, let us say,
200,000,000 barrels, it would at once rise to 600,000,000 barrels or
700,000,000. I recognize that this is an impractical and unrealizable
hope as applied to things as they are, but there is no reason why this
should not be a very definite policy as to things that are to be.

This Government might itself well undertake to develop an engine
of this type for use on its ships, tractors, and trucks. We simply can
not afford to preach economy in oil when we do not promote by
every means the use of the internal-combustion engine for its con-
sumption. No other one thing that can be done by the Government,
our industries, or the people will save as much oil from being wasted
and thereby multiply the real production of the United States. If
such engines are delicate of handling and need specially trained en-
gineers, which appears to be the fact, there should be little difficulty
experienced in training men for such work. A nation that could
educate 10,000 automobile mechanics in 60 days might indeed de-
velop 1,000 Diesel engineers in a year. The matter is of too great
moment for delay. It touches the interest of everyone. We are in
the petroleum age, and how long it will last depends upon our own
foresight, inventiveness, and wisdom.

WANTED A FOREIGN SUPPLY.

Already we are importers of petroleum. We are to be larger im-
porters year by year if we continue — and we will — to invent and
build machines which will rely upon oil or its derivatives as fuel.
Our business methods have been and doubtless will continue to be
developed along lines that make a continuing oil supply a necessity.
Some of that oil must come from abroad, as nearly 40,000,000 barrels
did last year, and for that we must compete with the world. For
while we are the discoverers of oil and of the methods of securing it
and refining it, piping it, and using it, our pioneering is but a service
unto the world.

This situation calls for a policy prompt, determined, and looking
many years ahead. For the American Navy and the American
merchant marine and American trade abroad must depend to some
extent upon our being able to secure, not merely for to-day but for
to-morrow as well, an equal opportunity with other nations to gain
a petroleum supply from the fields of the world. We are now in the
world and of it in every possible sense, otherwise our Navy and our
merchant fleet would have no excuse. No one needs to justify
them — they are the expression of an ambition that carries no danger
to any people. For their support we can ask no preference, but in
their maintenance we can insist that they shall not be discriminated
against.

CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING. 19

Sometime since I presented to a board of geologists, engineers,
and economists in this department this question :

If in the next five years there should . develop a new demand for petroleum
over and above that now existing, which would amount to 100,000,000 barrels
a year, where could such a supply be found, and -what policy should be adopted
to secure it?

The conclusions of this board may be summarized as follows :

(1) Such an oil need could not be met from domestic sources of supply.

(2) It could not be assured unless equal opportunities were given our
nationals for commercial development of foreign oils.

(3) Assurance of this oil supply therefore inevitably entails political as
well as commercial competition with other nationals, as other nationals con-
trolling foreign sources of supply have adopted policies that discriminate
against, hinder, and even prevent our nationals entering foreign fields.

(4) The encouragement of and effective assistance to our nationals in de-
veloping foreign fields is essential to securing the oil needed.

(5) Commercial control by our nationals over large foreign sources of sup-
ply will be essential if the estimated requirements are to be assured.

(6) It is necessary that all countries be induced to abandon or adequately
modify present discriminatory policies and that the interest of our nationals
be protected.

(7) Some form of world- wide oil-producing, purchasing, and marketing
agency fostered by this Government seems essential to assure the commercial
control over sufficient resources to meet the competition of other nationals.
England has apparently adopted such a policy.

This board proposed the following program of action :

(1) To secure the removal of all discriminations to the end that our na-
tionals may enjoy in other countries all the privileges now enjoyed by other
nationals in ours:

(a) By appropriate diplomatic and trade measures.

( & ) By securing equal rights to our nationals in countries newly organized
as mandatories.

(2) To encourage our nationals to acquire, develop, and market oil in for-
eign countries:

(a) By assured adequate protection of^our citizens engaged in securing
and developing foreign oil fields.

(&) By promotion of syndication of our nationals engaged in foreign
business, in order to effectually conduct oil development and dis-
tribution of petroleum and its products abroad.

(3) Governmental action — through special agency or board:

(a) Through the organization of a subsidiary governmental corporation
with power to produce, purchase, refine, transport, store, and market
oil and oil products.

(&) Through the formation of a permanent petroleum administration.

(4) To assure to our nationals the exclusive opportunity to explore, develop,
and market the oil resources of the Philippine Islands, provided discriminatory
policies of other nations against our nationals are not abandoned or satisfac-
torily modified.

I have given much thought during the past year to this problem
of adding to our petroleum supply, and it has seemed to me but fair

r

20 CONSERVATION THKOUGH ENGINEERING.

that we should first make every effort to increase the domestic supply
through the methods that have been indicated —

(1) The saving of that which is now wasted, below ground and
above ground.

(2) The more intensive use, through new machinery and devices,
ol the supply which we have.

(3) The development of oil fields on our withdrawn territory and
in new areas such as the Philippines.

In addition, we must look abroad for a supplemental supply, and
this may be secured through American enterprise if we do these
things :

(1) Assure American capital that if it goes into a foreign country
and secures the right to drill for oil on a legal and fair basis (all of
which must be shown to the State Department) it will be protected
against confiscation or discrimination. This should be a known,
published policy.

(2) Require every American corporation producing oil in a foreign
country to take out a Federal charter for such enterprise under which
whatever oil it produces should be subject to a preferential right on
the part of this Government to take all of its supply or a percentage
thereof at any time on payment of the market price.

(3) Sell no oil to a vessel carrying a charter from any foreign
government either at an American port or at any American bunker
when that government does not sell oil at a nondiscriminatory price
to our vessels at its bunkers or ports.

The oil industry is more distinctively American than any other of
the great basic industries. It has been the creation of no one class or
group but of many men of many lands — the hardy, keen-eyed pros-
pector with a " nose for oil " who spent his months upon the deserts
and in the mountains searching for seepages and tracing them to
their source ; the rough and two-fisted driller, a man generally of un-
usual physical strength, who -handled the great tools of his trade ; the
venturesome "wildcatter," part prospector, part promoter, part
operator, the " marine " of the industry, " soldier and sailor too " ;
the geologist who through his study of the anatomy of the earth crust
could map the pools and sands almost as if he saw them; the in-
ventor ; the chemist with still and furnace ; the genius who found that
oil would run in a pipe — these and many more, in most of the
sciences and in nearly all of the crafts, have created this American
industry. If they are permitted they will reveal the world supply of
oil. And upon that supply the industries of our country will come
to be increasingly dependent year by year.

BY WAY OF SUMMARY.

It would seem to be our plain duty to discover how little csal we
need to use. To do this we must dignify coal by grading it in .terms

CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING. 21

not merely of convenience as to size, but in terms of service as to its
power. We should save it, if for no better reason than that we may
sell it to a coal-hungry world. We should develop water power as an
inexhaustible substitute for coal and if necessary compel the coordi-
nation of all power plants which serve a common territory. New
petroleum supplies have become a national necessity, so quickly have
we adapted ourselves to this new fuel and so extravagantly have
we given ourselves over to its adaptability. To save that we may use
abundantly, to develop that we may never be weak, to bring together
into greater effectiveness all power possibilities — these would seem
to be national duties, dictated by a large self-interest.

I have gone only sufficiently far into this whole question to realize
that it is as fundamental and of as deep public concern as the rail-
road question and that it is even more complex. No one, so far as I
can learn, has mastered all of its various phases ; in fact, there are
few who know even one sector of the great battle front of power. A
Foch is needed, one in whom would center a knowledge of all the
activities and the inactivities of these three great industries, which in
reality are but a single industry. We should know more than we
do, far more about the ways and means by which our unequaled
wealth in all three divisions can be used and made interdependent,
and the moral and the legal strength of the Nation should be be-
hind a studied, fact-based, long-viewed plan to make America the
home of the cheapest and the most abundant and the most imme-
diately and intimately serviceable power supply in the world. If
we do this, we can release labor and lighten nearly every task. We
will not need to send the call to other countries for men, and we
can distribute our industries in parts of the country where labor is
less abundant and where homes will take the place of tenements. One
could expand upon the benefits that would come to this land if
a rounded program such as has been but skeletonized here could be
carried out. I am convinced that within a generation it will be ef-
fected, because it will be necessary.

The simple steps now obviously needed are to pass those primary
bills which are already before Congress or are here suggested. But
beyond this there is imperative need that some one man (an assistant
secretary in this department would serve) — some one man with a
competent staff and commanding all the resources of this and other
departments of the Government shall be given the task of taking a
world viewv as well as a national view of this whole involved and
growing problem, that he may recommend policies and induce ac-
tivities and promote cooperative relationships which will effect the
most economical production of light, heat, and power, which is
more than' the first among the immediate practical problems of

22 CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING.

science, as Sir William Crookes said, for it is foremost among the
immediate practical problems of national and international states-
manship.

LAND DEVELOPMENT.

I wish now to ask consideration for another matter of home con-
cern to which I gave attention in my last report and as to which
the intervening year has strengthened and perhaps broadened my
ideas — the development of our unused lands.

It was never more vital to the welfare of our people that a cre-
ative and out-reaching plan of developing and utilizing our natural
resources should go bravely forward than it is to-day. Ours is a
growing country, and as its social and industrial superstructure
expands its agricultural foundation must be broadened in propor-
tion. The normal growth of the United States now requires an ad-
dition of 6,300,000 acres, to its cultivable area each year, which
means an average increase of 17,000 acres a day.

Fortunately, the opportunity for this essential expansion exists
not only in the West, where much of the public domain is yet un-
occupied, but in every part of the Republic. We have a great fund
of natural resources in the very oldest States, from Maine to Louisi-
ana, which invite and would richly reward the constructive genius
of the Nation. It is claimed by those who have specialized for years
on the subject of reclamation that the control and utilization of flood
waters now wasted would produce within the next 10 years more
wealth than the entire cost to the United States of the war with
Germany.

After every other war in our history the work of internal develop-
ment has gone forward by leaps and bounds, and our people have
thus quickly made good the economic wastes of the conflict. The
needs of to-day are different from those of the past and require differ-
ent treatment, but they are by no means beyond the reach of en-
lightened thought and action.

More than a year ago we began an earnest discussion of reconstruc-
tion policies, particularly with respect to the land. But nothing has
been done. Not one line of legislation, not one dollar of money has
been provided except in the way of preliminary investigation. We
stand voiceless in the presence of opportunity and idle in the face of
urgent national need.

A PROGRAM OF PROGRESS.

The great work of material development accomplished in the past
has been done very largely by private capital and enterprise. Doubt-
less this must be the chief reliance for progress in the future. We
should realize, however, that this method has involved losses as well

CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING. 23

as gains, for the Nation has sometimes been too prodigal in offering
its natural resources as an inducement to private effort. Not only
so, but with the exhaustion of the free public lands in our great cen-
tral valleys — the most remarkable natural heritage that ever fell
into the lap of a young nation — conditions of home making and set-
tlement have radically changed.

-There can be do doubt that there is an important sphere of action
which the Government must occupy if we are to go steadily forward
with the work of continental conquest, and all it implies to the future
of the Nation, but in suggesting practicable steps of progress at this
time I do not forget the burden of taxation which confronts our
people nor the delicate and difficult task which Congress is called
upon to perform in trying to keep the national outgo within the
national income. Hence, I am now suggesting such constructive
things as the Government may be able to do through the exercise of
its powers of supervision and direction and with the smallest pos-
sible outlay of money.

Under this head I put, first, the matter of suburban homes for
wage earners; second, reclamation of desert, overflow, and cut-over
areas, together with improvement of abandoned farms, under a sys-
tem of district organization which may be made to finance itself;
third, cooperation with various States in the work of internal devel-
opment.

GARDEN HOMES FOR THE PEOPLE.

There is no more baffling problem than that presented by the con-
tinued growth of great cities, but it is a problem with which we must
sometime deal. It bears directly on the high cost of living and is,
indeed, largely responsible for it. Rent is based on land values.
Land values rise with increasing population. The price of food is
closely related to the growing disproportion between consumers and
producers, resulting from urban congestion.

Here is Washington, a city of some 400,000 people, doubtless
destined steadily to grow until — a Member of Congress predicts —
it may touch 2,000,000 twenty years hence. Already the housing prob-
lem is acute, as it is in almost every other large American city. It
would be a pitiful thing if the provision of more housing facilities
to meet the needs of growing population meant merely more con-
gestion and higher rents, with an ever-decreasing degree of landed
proprietorship and true individual independence. Such conditions,
it seems to me, undermine the American hearthstone and carry a
deep menace to the future of our institutions. I believe there mugfc
be a better way, and that the time has come when we should make
an earnest effort to find it.

24 CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING.

Within a 10-mile circle drawn around the Capitol dome are thou-
sands of acres of good agricultural land, of which the merest frac-
tion has been reduced to intensive cultivation. Much of it is waste-
fully used, and much of it is not used at all. Conditions of soil, cli-
mate, and water supply are good and represent a fair average for
the United States. Suburban transportation is a serious problem
in some localities and less so in others, but tends to become more
simple with the extension of good roads and increasing use of motor
vehicles, including the auto bus.

Somewhere and sometime, it seems to me, a new system must be
devised to disperse the people of great cities on the vacant lands
surrounding them, to give the masses a real hold upon the soil, and
to replace the apartment house with the home in a garden. Such
a system should enable the ambitious and thrifty family not only
to save the entire cost of rent, but possibly half the cost of food,
while at the same time enhancing its standard of living socially
and spiritually, as well as economically.

It has been suggested that there is no better place to demonstrate
a new form of suburban life than here at the National Capital,
where we may freely draw upon all the resources of the govern-
mental departments for expert knowledge and advice and where
the demonstration can readily command wide publicity and come
under the observation of the Nation's lawmakers. And I am expect-
ing that this experiment will be made. Such a plan of town or com-
munity life, rather than city life, should be extended to every other
large city in the Nation. A simple act of legislation, accompanied
by a moderate appropriation for organization and educational work,
would enable the department to put its facilities at the service of
local communities and of the industries throughout the United
States. This form of national leadership would be of value both
to investors in the local securities and to the home builders them-
selves. If the work of land acquisition and construction, together
with the organization of community settlements resulting therefrom,
were conducted under the supervision of the State or the Federal
Government it would safeguard the character of the movement from
every point of view.

Therefore, I put first among the constructive things which may
be done by the exercise of the Government's power of supervision
and direction, with the smallest outlay of money, this matter of pro-
I viding suburban homes for our millions of wage earners.

RECLAMATION BY DISTRICT ORGANIZATION.

The provision of garden homes for millions of city workers will
contribute largely to the Nation's food supply and become in time a
most effective influence in reducing excessive cost of living for many

CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING. 25

of our people. It will not, of course, solve the problem of increas-
ing the number of farms and the area of cultivation to meet the needs
of growing population. Neither will it enable us to expand our home
market rapidly and largely enough to keep the country on an even
keel of prosperity.

We must go forward with the development of natural resources as
we have done for the past three centuries. And we must recognize
at the outset that conditions have changed with the depletion of the
public domain to the point where it offers comparatively little in the
way of cultivable lands.

We have now to deal principally with lands in private ownership.
This calls for a new point of view and for the application of a
somewhat different principle than that which has governed our
reclamation policy heretofore. Moreover, reclamation is no longer
an affair of one section of the United States. The day has come when
it must be nationalized and extended to all parts of the Republic.
. To the deserts of the West we have brought the creative
of water, and we must find a way to go on with this work. But it is
of equal importance that we should liberate rich areas now held in
bondage by the swamp, convert millions of acres of idle cut-over lands
to profitable use, and raise from the dead the once vigorous agricul-
tural life of our abandoned farms.

One more fundamental consideration — we have outlived our day of
small things. Whether, we would or not, we are compelled by the
inexorable law of necessity arising out of existing physical condi-
tions to cooperate, to work together, and to employ large-scale opera-
tions, and on this principle we should move : Not what the Govern-
ment can do for the people, but what the people can do for them-
selves under the intelligent and kindly leadership of the Government.

We have an instrument at hand in the Reclamation Service which
has dealt with every phase of the problem which now confronts us,
and with such high average success as to command the entire confi-
dence of Congress and the country. It has turned rivers out of their
natural beds, reared the highest dams in existence, transported water
long distances by every form of canal, conduit, and tunnel, installed
electric power plants, cleared land, provided drainage systems, con-
structed highways and even railroads, platted townsites, and erected
buildings of various sorts. In this experience, obtained under a
variety of physical and climatic conditions, it has developed a body of
trained men equal to any constructive task which may be assigned to
it in connection with reclamation and settlement in any part of the
country.

True economic reclamation is a process of converting liabilities
into assets — of transforming dormant natural resources into agencies
of living production. When such a process is intelligently applied

26 CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING.

it should be able to pay its own bills without placing fresh burdens
on the national treasury. It is in the confident belief that such is
actually the case that I suggest the policy of reclamation by means
of local districts, financed on the basis of their own credit but with
the fullest measure of encouragement and moral support of the
Government, practically expressed through the Reclamation Service.
In this connection it seems worth while to recall that with a net
expenditure of $119,000,000 the Reclamation Service has created
taxable values of $500,000,000 in the States where it has operated.
The ratio is better than three to one, and that is a wider margin of
security than is usually demanded by the most conservative banking

n methods. There is no reason to doubt that the overflow lands of the
South, the cut-over areas of the Northwest, and the abandoned farm
districts of New England and New York and other States would
do quite as well as the deserts of the West if handled by such an
_organization.

^What is the legitimate function of the Government in connection
with reclamation districts to be financed entirely upon their own
credits without the aid of national appropriations? I should say
that the Government, with great advantage to the investor, the land-
owner, the future settler, and the general public, might do these
things :

1. Employ its trained, experienced engineers, attorneys, and econo-
mists in making a thorough investigation of all the factors involved
in a given situation, to be followed by a thorough official report upon
the district proposed to be formed.

2. Offer the district securities for public subscription in the open
market. This, of course, would follow the actual organization of the
district and the approval of its proceedings by the Government's
legal experts.

3. Construct the works of reclamation with proceeds of district
bond sales, and administer the system until it becomes a " going
concern," when it may be safely confided to its local officers.

The most obvious advantage of Government cooperation is the
fact that it would assure the service of a body of engineers, builders,
and administrators trained in the actual work of reclamation. This
advantage, as compared with the management that might be had
in a sparsely settled local district, would often make all the dif-
ference between success and failure. Unquestionably it would ma-
terially reduce the interest rate on district bonds and greatly facili-
tate their sale in the open market.

There are other advantages less obvious but really more impor-
tant. Experience has shown that great enterprises can best be han-
dled under centralized control. This control, to be effective, must
extend from the initiation to the completion of the project. There

CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING. 27

can be no assurance of this when the management is left to the
electorate of a local district, and without such assurance it is diffi-
cult to command the support, first, of the landowners whose con-
sent is essential to the formation of the district; next, of the in-
vestors who must supply the money; finally, of the settlers who
must purchase and develop the land in order that the object of the
enterprise may be realized. The Government can give the assur-
ance of precisely that quality of unified, centralized, permanent, and
responsible control that is required to command the confidence of
all the factors in the situation. X

There is another advantage of Government cooperation that will |
inure greatly to the benefit of the settler. The Government may |
readily apply the policy it now uses in connection with privately /
owned lands within reclamation projects. It requires the owners;
to enter into a contract by which they agree to accept a certain'
maximum price for their land if sold within a given period of years.
This price is based upon the value of the land before reclamation.
There are many instances, particularly of swamp and cut-over areas,
where land that may be bought for $10 an acre and reclaimed at a\
cost of $25 to $50 per acre, has an actual market value of $100 to i
$200 per acre the moment it is put into shape for cultivation. I£_
the Government, by means of a contract with the local district,
undertakes the work of reclamation and settlement and does this
work at actual cost, the settler will generally save enough to pay
for all his improvements and equipment.

The crowning consideration is the fact that, because of all these
advantages, the work of reclamation would actually be accomplished,
while to-day it is not being done except in the far West, and ac-
complished without the aid of Government appropriations.

SOLDIER-SETTLEMENT LEGISLATION.

In the foregoing, attention has been called to those things which
may be accomplished by the exercise of the Government's powers
of supervision and direction with the smallest outlay of money.
In all this I have been speaking of reclamation for the sake of rec-
lamation.

The proposed soldier-settlement legislation stands on an entirely
different footing. The primary object is not to reclaim land
to reward our returned soldiers with the opportunity to obtain
employment and larger interest in the proprietorship of the coun-
try. The policy is based on a sense of gratitude for heroic service,
not on economic considerations. This is the answer to those who
have criticized it as class legislation or the proposal to grant spe-
cial privileges to one element of our citizenship or as a plunge into

irely
but

28 CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING.

socialism. Frankly, we avow our purpose to do for the soldier
what we would not think of doing for anybody else and what
would not be justified solely as a matter of reclamation.

Many measures of soldier legislation have been introduced into
Congress. Only one of these has been favorably reported. This
was introduced by Representative Mondell. of Wyoming, on the
first day of the present special session, embodying the plan of recla-
mation and community settlement brought forward by this depart-
ment in the spring of 1918.

The measure has been much misunderstood and sometimes deliber-
ately misrepresented. In the first place, it was not put forward as
the complete solution of the soldier problem. It was at no time
supposed or expected that all of the 4,800,000 men and women en-
gaged in the war with Germany would or could take advantage of
its provisions. It fortunately happens that the vast majority
quickly found their places in the national life. Of the remainder, a
very large proportion may be classified as " city minded." They
have no taste for farm life but would be better served by vocational
training and opportunities to enter upon remunerative trades or
professions. There is an element of " country minded," and of
these some 150,000 have made application for opportunities of em-
ployment and home-making under the terms of this bill. Largely
they are men who have had agricultural experience but who can not
obtain farms of their own without very considerable cash advances
and other assistance which the Government could render. It is for
this element that the policy is designed.

It has often been said that the plan would be applied only in
the West and South. The truth is that it has been the purpose
from the first to extend it to every State where feasible projects
could be found, and that our preliminary investigations lead us
to believe this will include every State in the Union.

The wide discussion of the measure has been highly educational to
the country, and some of the criticism is of constructive character.
For example, attention has been sharply called to the fact that in cer-
tain localities there are individual farms well suited to our purpose
which may often be had at a price representing rather less than the
value of their improvements. These are the so-called " abandoned
farms " so numerous in the Northeastern States. In some cases they
are interspersed with land now cultivated, so situated that it is not
possible to bring together a large number of contiguous farms as the
basis of a Government project.

In New England and elsewhere public sentiment strongly favors a
modification of the pending measure which will enable the purchase
of individual farms rather than community settlement. This would

CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING. 29

be practicable only in localities where a sufficient number of farms,
even if not contiguous, could be had to make possible the necessary
supervision and instruction, together with cooperative organization
for the purchase of supplies and sale of products. Without these
advantages the plan of soldier settlement would fail in many in-
stances. My information is that these conditions could be met. Not
only so, but it is urged that existing farm communities would be
inspired by the presence of soldier settlers and benefited by the
presence of soldier settlers by their cooperative buying and selling
agencies.

Another criticism of the pending measure is directed to the amount
of the first payment the soldier settler is required to make. As the
bill now stands it calls for 5 per cent on the land, 25 per cent on im-
proTements and lire stock, and 40 per cent on implements and other
equipment. It has been urged by some friends of soldier settlement
that no first payment should be required, but that the Government
should make advances of 100 per cent in view of the soldiers' peculiar
claim upon national consideration. It might be feasible to do this
in the case of community settlements. But it could not be done in the
case of scattered and individual farms, at least without abandoning
the principles of sound business.

In the case of community settlement the soldier literally " gets
in on the ground floor." Starting with a territory that is entirely
blank so far as homes and improvements are concerned, he finds him-
self in a place where community values remain to be created. When
he buys an improved farm in a settled neighborhood the situation is
precisely reversed. In both cases there is or will be " unearned incre-
ment," or society-created values; but in the one case he gets the in-
crement, while in the other case he pays it. Obviously, a larger
advance would be justified in one case than in the other.

ALASKA.

One 01 the first recommendations made by me in my report of
seven years ago was. that the Government build a railroad from
Seward to Fairbanks in Alaska. Five years ago you intrusted to
me the direction of this work. The road is now more than two-
thirds built, and Congress at this session, after exhaustively examin-
ing into the work, has authorized an additional appropriation suffi-
cient for its completion. The showing made before Congress was that
the road had been built without graft : every dollar has gone into
actual work or material. It has been built without giving profits to
any large contractors, for it has been constructed entirely by small
contractors or by day's labor. It has been built without touch of
politics : every man on the road has been chosen exclusively for abil-

155084°— 19 3

30 CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING.

ity and experience. It has been well and solidly built as a perma-
nent road, not an exploiting road. It has been built for as little
money as private parties could have built it, as all competent inde-
pendent engineers who have seen the road advise.

Edwin F. Wendt, of the Interstate Commerce Commission, in
charge of valuation of the railroads of the United States from Pitts-
burgh to Boston, after an investigation into the manner in which
the Alaskan Railroad was constructed and its cost, reported to me
as follows :

In concluding, it is not amiss to aga*in state that after the full study which
was given to the property during our trip, we are satisfied that the project is
being executed rapidly and efficiently by men of experience and ability. It is
believed that it is being handled as cheaply as private contractors could handle
it under the circumstances.

The road has not been built as soon as expected because each year
we have exhausted our appropriation before the work contemplated
had been done. We could not say in October of one year what the
cost of anything a year or more later would be, and we ran out of
money earlier than anticipated. It has not been built as cheaply as
expected because it has been built on a rising market for everything
that went into its construction — from labor, lumber, food supplies,
machinery, and steel to rail and ocean transportation. I believe,
however, it can safely be said that no other piece of Government con-
struction or private construction done during the war will show a
less percentage of increase over a cost that was estimated more than
four years ago.

The men have been well housed and well fed. Their wages have
been good and promptly paid ; there has been but one strike, and that
was four years ago and was settled by Department of Labor experts
fixing the scale of wages. The men have had the benefit of a system
of compensation for damages like that in the Reclamation Service and
Panama Canal. They have had excellent hospital service, and our
camps and towns have been free of typhoid fever and malaria. That
the men like the work is testified by the fact that hundreds who
" came out " the past two years, attracted by the high wages of war
industries, are now anxious to return to Alaska.

There has been but one setback in the construction, and that was
the washing out of 12 miles of tracks along the Nenana River.
This is a glacial stream which, when the snows melt, comes down at
times with irresistible force. In this instance it abandoned its long
accustomed way and cut into a new bed and through trees that had
been standing for several generations, tearing out part of the track
which had been laid.

The work of locating and constructing the road has be'en left in the
hands of the engineers appointed by yourself. The only instruction

CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING. 31

which they received from me was that they should build the road
as if they were working for a private concern, selecting the best
men for the work irrespective of politics or pressure of any kind.
As a result, we have a force that has been gathered from the construc-
tion camps of the western railroads, made up of men of experience
and proved capacity. That they have done their work efficiently,
honestly, and at reasonable cost is my belief.

It is not possible during the construction of a railroad to tell
what it costs per mile because all the foundation work, the construc-
tion of bases from which to work, the equipment for construction,
and much of the material is a charge which must be spread over the
entire completed line. The best estimate that can be made to-day as
to the newly constructed road is that it has cost between $70,000 and
$80,000 per main-line mile, or between $60,000 and $70,000 per mile
of track.

This cost per mile includes the building of the most difficult and
expensive stretch of line along the entire route from Seward to Fair-
banks— that running along Turnagain Arm, which is sheer rock
rising precipitously from the sea for nearly 30 miles. There are
miles of this road which have cost $200.000 per mile. Even to blast
a mule trail in one portion of this route cost $25,000 a mile.

The only Government-built railroad — that across the Isthmus of
Panama — cost $221,052 per mile. The only two recently built rail-
roads in the United States are (1) the Virginian, built by H. H.
Rogers, which cost exclusive of equipment $151,000 per mile, with
labor at from $1.35 to $1.75 per day and all machinery, fuel, rails,
and supplies at its door, and (2 ) the Milwaukee line to Puget Sound,
which is estimated as having cost $130,000 per mile exclusive of
equipment.

The work has been conducted with its main base at Anchorage,
which is at the head of Cook Inlet. The point was chosen as the
nearest point from which to construct a railroad into the Matanuska
coal fields. That was the primary objective of the railroad, to get at
the Matanuska coal. From Anchorage it was also intended to drive
farther north through the Susitna Valley and across Broad Pass,
and to the south along Turnagain Arm toward the Alaska Northern
track. To secure coal for Alaska was the first need. So in addition
to Anchorage as a base, one was also started at Nenana, on the Tanana
River, from which to reach the Nenana coal fields lying to the south.
If these two fields were open, one would supply the coast of Alaska
and one the interior. This program has been acted upon, with the
result that the Matanuska field is open to tidewater with a down-
grade road all the way. The Nenana road has been pushed far
enough south to touch a coal mine near the track, which may obviate
the immediate necessity for reaching into the Nenana field proper.

32 CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING.

There is an open stretch across Broad Pass to connect the Susitna
Valley with the road coming down from Nenana. This gap closed,
there will be through connection between Seward and Fairbanks.

MATANUSKA COAL.

By decisions of the Commissioner of the Land Office all of the
claims in the Matanuska coal field were set aside, and by act of
Congress a leasing bill was put into effect over the entire field.
Under this law a number of claims must be reserved to the Govern-
ment. The field was surveyed, and some of the most promising por-
tions of the field have been so reserved.

Two leases have been entered into by the Government, one with
Lars Netland, a miner, who has a backer, Mr. Fontana, a business
man of San Francisco, and the other with Oliver La Duke and asso-
ciates. There are many thousands of acres in this field which are
open for lease and which will be leased to any responsible parties
who will undertake their development. Government experts who
have examined this field do not promise without further exploring a
larger output of coal from this field than 150,000 tons a year.

The population of Alaska has fallen off during the war. She sent,
I am told, 5,000 men into the Army, the largest proportion to popu-
lation sent by any part of the United States. The high cost of labor
and materials closed some of the gold mines, and the attractive wages
offered by war industries drew labor from Alaska to the mainland.
All prospecting practically closed. But with the return of peace
there is evidence of a new movement toward that Territory which
should be given added confidence in its future by the completion of
the Alaskan Railroad. There is enough arable land in Alaska to
maintain a population the equal of all those now living in Norway,
Sweden, and Finland, and all that can be produced in those countries
can be produced in Alaska. The great need is a market, and this will
be found only as the mining and fishing industries of the country
develop.

SAVE AND DEVELOP AMERICANS.

When the whole story is told of American achievement and the
picture is painted of our material resources, we come back to the
plain but all-significant fact that far beyond all our possessions in
land and coal and waters and oil and industries is the American man.
To him, to his spirit and to his character, to his skill and to his in-
telligence is due all the credit for the land in which we live. And
that resource we are neglecting. He may be the best nurtured and
the best clothed and the best housed of all men on this great globe.
He may have more chances to become independent and even rich.
He may have opportunities for schooling nowhere else afforded.

CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING. 33

He may have a freedom to speak and to worship and to exercise his
judgment over the affairs of the Nation. And yet he is the most neg-
lected of our resources because he does not know how rich he is,
how rich beyond all other men he is. Not rich in money — I do
not speak of that — but rich in the endowment of powers and possi-
bilities no other man ever was given.

Twenty-five per cent of the 1,600,000 men between 21 and 31 years
of age who were first drafted into our Army could not read nor write
our language, and tens of thousands could not speak it nor under-
stand it. To them the daily paper telling what Von Hindenberg was
doing was a blur. To them the appeals of Hoover came by word of
mouth, if at all. To them the messages of their commander in chief
were as so much blank paper. To them the word of mother or sweet-
heart came filtering in through other eyes that had to read their
letters.

Now this is wrong. There is something lacking in the sense of a
society that would permit it in a land of public schools that assumes
leadership in the world.

Here is raw material truly, of the most important kind and the
greatest possibility for good as well as for ill.

Save ! Save ! Save ! This has been the mandate for the past two
years. It is a word with which this report is replete. But we have
been talking of food and land and oil while the boys and young men
that are about us who carry the fortune of the democracy in their
hands are without a primary knowledge of our institutions, our his-
tory, our wars and what we have fought for, our men and what they
have stood for, our country and what its place in the world is.

The marvelous force of public opinion and the rare absorbing
quality of the American mind never was shown more clearly than
by the fact that out of these men came a loyalty and a stern devotion
to America when the day of test came. Had Germany known what
we know now, it would have been beyond her to believe that America
could draft an army to adventure into war in Europe. There should
not be a man who was in our Army or our Navy who has the ambi-
tion for an education who should not be given that opportunity — in-
deed, induced to take it — not merely out of appreciation but out of the
greater value to the Nation that he would be if the tools of life were
put into his hand. There is no word to say upon this theme of
Americanization that has not been said, and Congress, it is now
hoped, will believe those figures which, when presented nearly two
years ago, were flouted as untrue. The Nation is humiliated at its
own indifference, and action must be the result.

To save and to develop, I have said, were equally the expression /
of a true conservation. What is true as to material things is true y

34 CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING.

as to human beings. And once given a foundation of health there is
no other course by which this policy may be effected than to place
at the command of every one the means of acquiring knowledge. The
whole people must turn in that direction. We should enable all,
without distinction, to have that training for which they are fitted by
their own natural endowment. Then we can draw out of hiding the
talents that have been hidden. The school will yet come to be the
first institution of our land, in acknowledged preeminence in the mak-
ing of Americans who understand why they are Americans and why
to be one is worth while.1

1 Assistant Secretary Herbert Kaufman before the Senate Committee on Education
presented facts and figures which accentuate the seriousness of the national situation.
Among other things he said :

" The South leads in illiteracy, but the North leads in non-English speaking. Over 17
per cent of the persons in the east-south Central States hare nerer been, to school.
Approximately 16 per cent of the people of Passaic, N. J., must deal with their fellow
workers and employers through interpreters. And 13 per cent of the folk in Lawrence
and Fall Hirer, Mass., are utter strangers in a strange land.

" The extent to which our industries are dependent upon this labor is perilous to all
standards of efficiency. Their ignorance not only retards production and confuses admin-
istration, but constantly piles up a junk heap of broken humans and damaged machines
which cost the Nation incalculably.

" It is our duty to interpret America to all potential Americans in terms of protection
as well as of opportunity ; and neither the opportunities of this continent nor that
humanity which is the genius of American democracy can be rendered intelligible to
these 8,000,000 until they can talk and read and write our language.

" Steel and iron manufacturers employ 58 per cent of foreign-born helpers ; the
slaughtering and meat-packing trades, 61 per cent ; bituminous- coal mining, 62 per cent ;
the silk and dye trade, 34 per cent ; glass-making enterprises, 38 per cent ; woolen mills,
62 per cent ; cotton factories, 69 per cent ; the clothing business, 72 per cent ; boot and
shoe manufacturers, 27 per cent ; leather tanners, 57 per cent ; furniture factories, 59
per cent ; glove manufacturers, 33 per cent ; cigar and tobacco trades, 33 per cent ; oil
refiners, 67 per cent ; and sugar refiners, 85 per cent.

"You will agree with me that future security compels attention to such concentra-
tions of unread, unsocialized masses thus conveniently and perilously grouped for
misguidance.

" They lire in America, but America does not live in them. How can all be ' free and
equal ' until they hare free access to the same sources of self-kelp and an equal chance
to secure them?

" Illiteracy is a pick-and-shovel estate, a life sentence to mentality. Democracy may
not have fixed classes and survive. The first duty of Congress is to preserve opportunity
for the whole people, and opportunity can not exist where there is no means of in-
formation.

" It is a shabby economy, an ungrateful economy that withholds funds for their
betterment. The fields of France cry shame upon those who are content to abandon
them to their handicap.

" The loyal service of immigrant soldiers and sailors commit us to instruct and
nationalize their brothers in breed.

" The spirit in which these United States were conceived insists that the Republic
remove the cruel disadvantage under which so many native boras despairingly carry on.

" How may they reason soundly or plan sagely ? The man who knows nothing of
the past can find little in the future. The less he has gleaned from 'human experience
the more he may be expected to duplicate its signal errors. No argument is too ridiculous
for acceptance; no sophistry can seem far-fetched to a person without the sense to
confound it.

" Anarchy shall never want fer mobs while the uninformed are left at the mercy
of false prophets. Those who have no way to estimate the worth of America are
unlikely to value its institutions fairly. Blind to facts, the Wildest one-eyed argument
can sway them.

" Not until we can teach our illiterate millions the truths about the land to which
they have come and in which they were born shall its spirit reach them — not until
they can read cau we set them right and empower them to inherit their estate.

CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING. 35

'" If we continue to neglect them, there are influences at work that will sooner or
later convince them who now fail to appreciate the worth of our Government that the
Government itself has failed — crowd the melting pot with class hates and violence
and befoul its yield.

" We must not be tried by inquest. We demand the right to vindicate the merit
of our systems wherever their integrity is questioned or maligned.

" We demand the right to regulate the cheating scales upon which the Eepublic
is weighed by its ill-wishers.

" We demand the right to protect unintelligence from Esau bargains with hucksters
of traitorous creeds.

" We demand the right to present our case and our cause to the unlettered mass,
whose benightedness and ready prejudices continually invite exploitation.

" We demand the right to vaccinate credulous inexperience against Bolshevism and
kindred plagues.

" We demand the right to render all whose kind we deem fit to fight for our flag fit
to vote and prosper under its folds.

" We demand the right to bring the American language to every American, to qualify
each inhabitant of these United States for self-determination, self-uplift, and self-
defense."

Dr. Philander P. Claxton, Commissioner of Education, in his analysis of the illiteracy
figures of the census, said :

" Illiteracy is not confined to any one race or class or section. Of the 5,500,000
illiterates as reported by the census of 1910, nearly 3,225,000 were whites, and more
than 1.500.000 were native-born whites.

" That illiteracy is not a problem of any one section alone is shown by the fact that in
1910 Massachusetts had 7,469 more illiterate men of voting age than Arkansas ; Michigan,
2,663 more than West Virginia ; Maryland, 2,352 more than Florida ; Ohio, more than
twice as many as New Mexico and Arizona combined ; Pennsylvania, 5,689 more than
Tenne-ssee and Kentucky combined. Boston had more illiterates than Baltimore, Pitts-
burgh more than New Orleans, Fall River more than Birmingham, Providence nearly
twice as many as Nashville, and the city of Washington 5,000 more than the city of
Memphis.

" It is especially significant that of the 1,534,272 native-born white illiterates reported
in the 1910 census 1,342,372, about 87.5 per cent, were in the open country and small
towns, and only 191,900, or 12.5 per cent, were in cities having a population of 2,500 and
over. Of the 2,227,731 illiterate negroes 1,834,458, or 82.3 per cent, were in the country,
and only 393,273, or 17.7 per cent, were in the cities."

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