Part 39

I also represent the National Shell Fish Association. Now, the purpose of this association is to issue, so to speak, a sanitary insurance to every person who consumes oysters, clams, lobsters and that type of sea food. In other words, we want to make it possible that when you in Kansas, Missouri, and in the interior of the country, eat from your table, or in your hotels, oysters brought from the seacoast of both sides of this nation, to be certain that there is no chance of infection, of typhoid fever, or other disease. To do that we are asking every state in the Nation to realize the enormous waste of material in the form of sewage and manufacturing waste which is pouring into our streams and into our coastal waters. To take one concrete illustration, the city of Boston, in Massachusetts, spent five or six millions of dollars for the purpose of putting the sewage into the ocean. It did that, but when it did it destroyed annually the potential capacity of that water to develop shell fish food. In other words, it was precisely the same as if so many thousands of acres in your farming country were utterly destroyed forever for all farming purposes. It was reduced merely to a desert, whereas, if that material had been placed on the land, where it belonged, there would have been enormous benefits arising to the farm, and it would have been possible to cultivate that land under water for raising food. Now, we are demonstrating, acre for acre, that the land under water can raise more food—nitrogenous food, the most expensive type of food for man—at a less expense in time, in capital, and in labor, than the very best acres in your boasted river bottoms, a type of food material which can be raised nowhere else than on the coasts of our country, on both the Atlantic and Pacific and the Gulf.

ADDRESS.

BY W. J. RUSHTON, _President American Association of Refrigeration_.

I desire to thank the Congress in the name of the members of the American Association of Refrigeration for the invitation to be represented here by official delegates.

We consider it especially fitting that our association should participate in the deliberations of this Congress, because it stands for the conservation of the perishable foods of the people in the broadest sense.

In order that those who are not already familiar with the objects of our Association and with the methods it employs in carrying these into effect, and to illustrate how well our work meshes with the purposes of this National Congress, I will call your attention to several statements taken from the statutes by which our organization is governed. Among our objects are:

“To institute investigations, experiments and tests for the purpose of demonstrating, correct solutions of scientific, technical and industrial problems pertaining to the art of refrigeration.

“To inspire confidence in the public mind, and appreciation of the beneficial effects of refrigeration upon perishable food products, both in transit and when stored for the purpose of conservation, by collecting and disseminating authentic information on the subject.

“To encourage the expansion of American trade, commerce and transportation of perishable agricultural products, and to assist the commercial and industrial interests affected by mechanical refrigeration, both at home and abroad.

“To further its purposes and extend its influence by publications, meetings, conferences and courses of lectures, and by encouraging the introduction in educational institutions of regular courses in refrigeration.

“To coöperate with the International Association of Refrigeration in the organization of international commissions for the discussion of questions of international import, and in the determination of correct basic data pertaining to the art of refrigeration.”

The conservation of the natural resources of the country is now recognized by all thinking persons as a vital factor in our national life, both as an obligation to posterity and because of its immediate influence on the material welfare and the health of the people.

The influence of this Congress, as it is felt more generally over the country, must result in strongly stimulating thrift and economy as well as respect for law among the people. The exercise of these qualities is essential to the conservation of the waters, the forests, the lands and the minerals, as well as all of the vital resources of the country.

Our people—in fact, the people of all the civilized countries of the world—are now confronted with serious problems due to the high prices of the necessaries of life, principally their food supplies.

It is believed that these conditions largely grow out of neglect to properly conserve and market perishable foods and to lack of adequate means for promptly collecting and transporting them in sound condition from regions capable of ample production to the thickly populated centers; also to insufficient means for preserving such supplies from seasons of overproduction to periods of scarcity.

It is certainly a very necessary and laudable mission, to concentrate the intelligence and energy of a body of men such as compose this Congress for the conservation of the forests, lands, waters, minerals and vital resources of the country. Our association is very much interested in all of this, because lumber, minerals and water are very necessary to the refrigerating industry, while the conservation of the soil is of paramount importance as the source of the fuel of the great human engine through the operation of which all of the other resources are harnessed to the world’s work.

We are, therefore, here particularly to emphasize the necessity of conserving the perishable foods of the people by refrigeration, that much misunderstood and often misrepresented natural mode of preservation.

However productive the soil may be made, and however ample the supply of highly nutritious food may be, unless such food is made available for use when and where it is needed, and where it must be supplied at prices the people can afford to pay, the conservation of the soil will have failed of extending the fullest measure of its possible benefits to the people.

Our organization has made an especial study of the subject of the production, the transportation and the conservation of perishable foods, and of the laws and proposed laws applying to the subject. The hearings before the Senate committees on manufactures of the Sixty-first and Sixty-second Congresses, the reports of which are published by the National Government, abound in evidences of the activity of our committees and individual members.

Therefore, if it is in order and otherwise agreeable, I would like to propose that, in furtherance of the purposes of this Congress, and in order that its opportunities for doing good may be realized in the fullest measure, a standing committee on food be added to the present standing committees. Such committee to be composed of persons best qualified to render the most efficient service in the study of the questions involved in the production, collection, transportation, preservation and marketing of perishable foods, and to report to the Fourth Congress. Such report to be made the basis of measures to conserve the perishable foods of the people, to improve their quality, increase their production, and to promote such relations between the producer and consumer as will bring about lower and more nearly uniform prices throughout each year.

WILD LIFE PROTECTION.

WILLIAM EDWARD COFFIN, _Vice-President Camp Fire Club of America, Chairman Committee on Game Protective Legislation and Preserves._

The Camp Fire Club of America was founded as an organization of big game hunters, with the protection of wild life and forests as its great objects. Dan Beard once characterized the club as a “Society of Criminals for the Suppression of Crime.” Big game hunters have always been active in game protection, indeed in all conservation measures, and that because their touch with the woods keeps the problem alive.

To the sportsmen of America are due nearly all the existing game protective laws.

Among the Camp Fire Club’s members are Dr. W. T. Hornaday, whom all honor as the Washington of wild life protection; Ernest Thompson Seton and Dan Beard, who by their work with the boys are doing more for the future of conservation than any men living with but two exceptions: Irving Bacheller, A. W. Dimock, Dillon Wallace, Gifford Pinchot—God bless him—and many others, who with pen, time and money are laboring ceaselessly for the great cause of conservation which is so near your hearts and mine.

The club may fairly claim for less than two years’ work: Yeoman service in the defeat of the bill permitting the sale of wild bird plumage in New York; the defeat of a bill authorizing spring shooting of ducks on Long Island; in securing the $20,000 appropriation for the starving elk in Wyoming; in enlarging the Waterton lake, park and game preserve now being formed in Southwestern Alberta.

To the Camp Fire Club belongs the sole credit, outside of Congress, for defeating the proposed twenty-year renewal of the Fur Seal Killing lease on the Pribilof Islands. Much of the credit for that public opinion which forced the treaty stopping pelagic sealing. When the fur herd is, through complete protection, restored to something like its old numbers, the country will have the Camp Fire Club to thank for fairly snatching that herd from the jaws of complete annihilation.

To Dr. Hornaday, our great leader, is due the famous Bayne-Blauvelt bill—the greatest single piece of game protective legislation ever enacted by any state or country. Think of it; that bill absolutely prohibits the sale of all wild game in the State of New York. The lion’s share of the campaign work incident to its passage was done by members of the Camp Fire Club. How well it was done you will realize when I state that the bill passed with only one dissenting vote in the whole legislature; and how it was done when I say that upwards of 30,000 letters were written asking senators and assemblymen to support the bill. The passage of that bill was the turning point of the war between the army of destruction and the army of preservation in New York state.

I must not leave this subject without a tribute to Governor Dix of New York, without whose hearty coöperation and steadfast support we would have been helpless.

In spite of great pressure by selfish interests he stood like a rock and has fully redeemed the ante-election pledges of himself and of his party. Let his name be written in the Conservation Temple of Fame.

So much for the past. For the future: 1st. We propose to keep everything we have gained. 2d. We have arranged for Gifford Pinchot and Overton Price to visit the Adirondack Mountains, study the situation and make a report which will make possible sound, seasonable legislation for “Scientific Fire Protection,” “Scientific Reforestation,” “Scientific Care of Existing Forests.” Legislation which combines sane utilization with sound conservation.

I wish you all could have seen the cheerfulness with which Pinchot and Price responded to the request of the club that they undertake this work.

The club is, at the request of the New York State Conservation Commissioners, to coöperate in a complete codification of the state game laws.

This we hope will result in a series of stringent but reasonable laws; simple, plain, readily enforced. Laws which the National Conservation Congress will be proud of and can safely recommend as a model for other states.

This is largely work in one state only, but it is wise to clear your own door yard before preaching sanitation to your neighbors, and with the beam removed from our own eye, we can the better see how to remove the mote from our brother’s.

Outside of New York we propose: 1st. To push Bayne-Blauvelt bills in the North Atlantic states for stopping the sale of game. Thus striking at the root of game slaughter is far more effective than attempting to police the army of market hunters or any other method of trimming the branches. 2d. We shall agitate ceaselessly for the complete protection of the fur seal. 3d. We shall do what we can to put life into the Migratory Bird Bill, which has been in congressional cold storage for so many years, and to promote a migratory fish bill. 4th. We propose to urge upon states—even upon counties—the formation of bird, game and fish refuges, one of the most effective methods of game protection. 5th. We shall hold ourselves in readiness to further any and every sound proposition for the conservation of this country’s natural resources, whether animal, vegetable or mineral.

And now having finished my report, permit me a few words of indictment and a few words of appeal.

The National Conservation Congress and Association heretofore have practically ignored wild life. Infinite and detailed attention has been given to lands, minerals, water and forests, and the Camp Fire Club is with you in all these, but are your halls so narrow, your boundaries so confined, that you have no room for the great cause of wild life protection?

Do you realize that in New York state alone there are nearly 150,000 active gunners; in Pennsylvania over 100,000, and that even a two shot gun does not satisfy them?

The laws in all states are so liberal to the killers and so hard on the game that wild life is swiftly vanishing.

The commercial interests of gun-making, game selling and feather working are terribly destructive influences. No wild species can stand exploitation for commercial purposes. In every case it spells extermination. Look backward at the millions of bison, fur seal, passenger pigeon, pinnated grouse and Florida egrets. Where are they all? Exterminated to fill the cash boxes of greedy men.

How much longer is Christian civilization, how much longer are you going to stand for such things? In birds alone six species are absolutely extinct, thirteen more nearly so. Our states are spending millions to fight insect pests whose increase is due chiefly to the decrease of bird life. How can it be stopped? By your efforts, those of the Camp Fire Club and other organizations. There must be a pull, a long pull and a pull all together. The majority of the American people are conscientious, humane, just and merciful toward all creatures; once arouse that majority and it will right any wrong.

The protection of wild life requires a campaign of education and publicity; given these, legislation will follow as light follows the sun. Congressmen and legislators will do the right thing if they are asked to do it often enough and hard enough by the people they represent. We do not appeal to this Congress as sportsmen or in the interest of sportsmen; but for the millions of men, women and children who love the outdoor life and who do not shoot at all.

We therefore ask for two things: 1st. A broad definite recognition in your platform organization and proceedings of this great branch of the conservation movement. We ask a standing committee on wild life protection. 2d. Your coöperation, collectively and individually. Bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, blood brothers, the Camp Fire Club, true of heart, clear of hand, eager in support of all you stand for, calls to you.

Come over into Macedonia and help us.

PREVENTABLE FIRE WASTE: CONSERVATION EFFORTS FOR ITS REDUCTION.

_By a Committee of the National Board of Fire Underwriters._

In each of the previous national assemblages of this character the National Board of Fire Underwriters has been represented and has earnestly endeavored to portray the enormity of the preventable fire waste of our country and its retarding effect on our national growth and prosperity.

With each annual meeting of our organization, statistical information has been prepared and furnished to the public and press, setting forth the tremendous money value in property which was being annually destroyed by fire throughout our country. As an aid toward convincing our people that a vast amount of real wealth was being wiped out of existence annually by preventable fires, our committee on statistics and origin of fires, by the aid of the Federal Government, secured figures of the fire loss in European cities and countries, which were compared with the fire loss of the cities of the United States and the United States as a whole and reduced to a comparison of the loss per capita. These figures were published by the National Board of Fire Underwriters in 1906. The comparison was so startling as to attract very wide attention and gave activity to the fire conservation movement.

The Geological Survey, through its technologic branch, investigated the fire loss and the cost of fire protection in the United States in 1907, and published Bulletin 418, known as “The Fire Tax and Waste of Structural Materials in the United States”—a pamphlet most impressive in the facts presented and irrefutable in its arguments. We quote a section:

“The investigation disclosed the fact that the total cost of fires in the United States in 1907 amounted to almost one-half the cost of new buildings constructed in the country for the year. The total cost of the fires, excluding that of forest fires and marine losses, but including excess cost of fire protection due to bad construction, and excess premiums over insurance paid, amounted to over $456,485,000, a tax on the people exceeding the total value of the gold, silver, copper, and petroleum produced in the United States in that year. The cost of building construction in forty-nine leading cities of the United States reporting a total population of less than 18,000,000 amounted, in 1907, to $661,076,286, and the cost of building construction for the entire country in the same year is conservatively estimated at $1,000,000,000. Thus it will be seen that nearly one-half the value of all the new buildings constructed within one year is destroyed by fire. The total fire cost in this country is five times as much per capita as in any country of Europe. This fire cost was greater than the value of the real property and improvements in any one of the following states: Maine, West Virginia, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alabama, Louisiana, Montana.

“The actual fire losses due to the destruction of buildings and their contents amounted to $215,084,709, a per capita loss for the United States of $2.51. The per capita losses in the cities of the six leading European countries amounted to but 33 cents, or about one-eighth of the per capita loss sustained in the United States. In addition to this waste of wealth and natural resources, 1,449 persons were killed and 5,654 were injured in fires.

“The total loss on buildings in the United States was $109,156,894 and on contents $105,927,815. There were fires in 36,140 brick, iron, and stone buildings, with a loss of $31,092,687 on the buildings and $37,332,580 on the contents, and in 129,117 frame buildings, with a loss of $78,064,207 on the buildings and $68,595,235 on the contents. In cities and villages with a population of 1,000 or more there were 6,324 fires that extended beyond the building of origin, with a total exposure loss of $13,913,694. The loss on fires that were confined to the building of origin in the cities and villages amounted to $93,179,589.”

The records of this board herewith subjoined show to what extent our fire loss has increased almost yearly since 1875.

+------------- | Aggregate Year. | Property | Loss. -------+------------- 1875 | $78,102,285 1876 | 54,630,600 1877 | 68,265,800 1878 | 64,315,900 1879 | 77,703,700 1880 | 74,643,400 1881 | 81,280,900 1882 | 84,505,024 1883 | 100,149,228 1884 | 110,008,611 1885 | 102,818,796 1886 | 104,924,750 1887 | 120,283,055 1888 | 110,885,665 1889 | 123,046,833 1890 | 108,993,792 1891 | 143,764,967 1892 | 151,516,058 1893 | 167,544,370 1894 | 140,006,484 1895 | 142,110,233 1896 | 118,737,420 1897 | 116,354,575 1898 | 130,593,905 1899 | 153,597,830 1900 | 160,929,805 1901 | 165,817,810 1902 | 161,078,040 1903 | 145,302,155 1904 | 229,198,050 1905 | 165,221,650 1906 | 518,611,800 1907 | 215,084,709 1908 | 217,885,850 1909 | 188,705,150 1910 | 214,003,300 -------+-------------

The fire insurance interests have carried on an aggressive campaign for the reduction of our discreditable fire losses and have been foremost in suggesting practical and reasonable remedial measures.

At the First Conservation Congress a paper on “The Fire Waste in the United States” was presented by this board and upwards of 12,000 copies were distributed to state and municipal authorities and to the press. We quote the causes then set forth as operating to make the large fire waste in the United States.

“First: The difference in the point of view and the responsibility of the inhabitants of Europe and those of the United States.

“Second: The difference in the construction of buildings.

“Third: The difference in the regulations governing hazards and hazardous materials and conditions, and in the enforcement of such regulations.”

And suggested as essential means toward its reduction:

“First: That the public should be brought to understand that property destroyed by fire is gone forever and is not replaced by the distribution of insurance which is a tax collected for the purpose.

“Second: That the states severally adopt and enforce a building code which shall require a high type of safe construction, essentially following the code of the National Board of Fire Underwriters.

“Third: That municipalities adopt ordinances governing the use and keeping of explosives, especially inflammable commodities and other special hazards, such as electric wiring, the storing of refuse, waste, packing material, etc., in buildings, yards or areaways, and see to the enforcement of such ordinances.

“Fourth. That the states severally establish and support the office of fire marshal and confer on the fire marshal by law the right to examine under oath and enter premises and to make arrests, making it the duty of such officer to examine into the cause and origin of all fires and when crime has been committed requiring the facts to be submitted to the grand jury or proper indicting body.

“Fifth: That in all cities there be a paid, well-disciplined, non-political fire department adequately equipped with modern apparatus.

“Sixth: That an adequate water system with proper distribution and pressure be installed and maintained. In the larger cities a separate high pressure water system for fire extinguishment is an absolute necessity, to diminish the extreme imminence of general conflagrations.”

At the Second Conservation Congress a paper on the “Conservation of Utilized Resources from Destruction by Fire” was presented by us and about 13,000 copies were widely distributed. We quote a section:

“If the office of State Fire Marshal were created by every commonwealth, and that official and his deputies given power to enforce good fire prevention laws, investigate, and, if necessary, prosecute cases of arson or criminal carelessness in the starting or spreading of fires, ascertain the cause of every fire, and by the distribution of literature educate the citizen to the need of care and forethought in the protection of his property, a distinct conserving of the utilized resources in that state would follow.