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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/31899-h.zip b/31899-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..211ef18 --- /dev/null +++ b/31899-h.zip diff --git a/31899-h/31899-h.htm b/31899-h/31899-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..086d1a8 --- /dev/null +++ b/31899-h/31899-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2543 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Conservation Through Engineering, by Franklin K. Lane. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +<!-- + +p { +margin-top : 0.75em; +text-align : justify; +margin-bottom : 0.75em; +text-indent : 1.25em; +line-height : 130%; +} + +h1 { +text-align : center; +clear : both; +font-size : 2em; +font-weight : normal; +} + +h2 { +text-align : center; +clear : both; +font-size : 1.4em; +font-weight : normal; +} + +hr { +width : 50%; +margin-top : 2em; +margin-bottom : 2em; +margin-left : auto; +margin-right : auto; +clear : both; +} + +body { +margin-left : 10%; +margin-right : 10%; +} + +.pagenum { +display : inline; +font-size : 0.8em; +text-align : right; +position : absolute; +right : 2%; +text-indent : 0; +padding : 1px 1px; +font-style : normal; +font-family : garamond, serif; +font-variant : normal; +font-weight : normal; +text-decoration : none; +color : #000; +background-color : #ccff66; +} + +.center { +text-align : center; +text-indent : 0; +} + +.smcap { +font-variant : small-caps; +} + +.blockquot { +margin-left : 5%; +margin-right : 10%; +font-size : 90%; +} + +.figcenter { +margin : auto; +text-align : center; +} + +table { +margin-left : auto; +margin-right : auto; +} + +.tr1 td { +border-bottom-style : double; +} + +.td1 { +text-align : left; +padding-left : 2em; +} + +.footnotes { +border : 1px dashed; +} + +.footnote { +margin-left : 10%; +margin-right : 10%; +font-size : 0.9em; +} + +.footnote .label { +position : absolute; +right : 84%; +text-align : right; +} + +.fnanchor { +vertical-align : super; +font-size : 0.8em; +text-decoration : none; +} + +--> + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's Conservation Through Engineering, by Franklin K. Lane + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Conservation Through Engineering + Extract from the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior + +Author: Franklin K. Lane + +Release Date: April 6, 2010 [EBook #31899] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Bergquist and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<div class='center'> +<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="header"> +<tr class='tr1'> + <td align='left'><span class="smcap">66th Congress</span><br /><i>2d Session</i></td> + <td align='center'>HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES</td> + <td align='right'><span class="smcap">Document</span><br />No. 572</td> +</tr> +</table></div> + +<p class="center"><big>DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR</big><br /> +<span class="smcap">Franklin K. Lane</span>, Secretary</p> + +<p class="center"><big><span class="smcap">United States Geological Survey</span></big><br /> +<span class="smcap">George Otis Smith</span>, Director</p> + +<p class="center"><b>Bulletin 705</b></p> + +<h1>CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING</h1> + +<p class="center">BY</p> + +<p class="center">FRANKLIN K. LANE</p> + +<p class="center"><small>Extract from the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior</small></p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 200px;"> +<img src="images/buffalo.jpg" width="200" height="193" alt="insignia" title="" /> +</div> + +<p class="center">WASHINGTON<br /> +GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE<br /> +1920</p> + + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS.</h2> + + + +<div class='center'> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents"> +<tr> + <td> </td> + <td align='right'>Page.</td></tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'>The coal strike</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='td1'>National stock-taking</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='td1'>Coal as a national asset</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='td1'>Public responsibility</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_4">4</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='td1'>The miners' year</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='td1'>Have we too many mines and miners?</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='td1'>The long view</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='td1'>Saving coal</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='td1'>Coal and coal</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_10">10</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='td1'>Expansion abroad</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='td1'>Saving coal by saving electricity</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'>White coal and black</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_12">12</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'>The age of petroleum</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='td1'>Oil shale</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='td1'>Save oil</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_16">16</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='td1'>Use the Diesel engine</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='td1'>Wanted—a foreign supply</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='td1'>By way of summary</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_20">20</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'>Land development</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='td1'>A program of progress</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='td1'>Garden homes for the people</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='td1'>Reclamation by district organization</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='td1'>Soldier-settlement legislation</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'>Alaska</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class='td1'>Matanuska coal</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align='left'>Save and develop Americans</td> + <td align='right'><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td> +</tr> +</table></div> + + + +<hr /> +<h2><a name="NOTE" id="NOTE"></a>NOTE.</h2> + + +<p>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 resources +of the country. The largest conservation for the future can +come only through the wisest engineering of the present.</p> + +<p>The conditions under which the utilization of natural resources is demanded +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.</p> + + + +<hr /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="CONSERVATION_THROUGH_ENGINEERING1" id="CONSERVATION_THROUGH_ENGINEERING1"></a>CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></h2> + +<p class="center">By <span class="smcap">Franklin K. Lane</span>.</p> + + +<p>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 foundation +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, but 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 development +and wisest use.</p> + + +<p class="center"><big>THE COAL STRIKE.</big></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 very pleasant one to contemplate. There was +an immediate demand for facts.</p> + +<p>How much coal is normally mined in this country?</p> + +<p>By whom is it mined?</p> + +<p>What is its quality?</p> + +<p>To what uses is it put?</p> + +<p>Who gets it?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p><p>How much less could be mined if coal were conserved instead of +wasted?</p> + +<p>What better methods have been developed for using coal than +those of ancient custom?</p> + +<p>Who is to blame that so small a supply is on the surface?</p> + +<p>Why should we live from day to day in so vital a matter as a +fuel supply?</p> + +<p>What substitutes can be found for coal and how quickly may these +be made available?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 humiliating +confession that we did not know facts which at the time were of +the most vital importance.</p> + +<p>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, produce +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 Vancouver, +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 (Steinmetz).</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p><p class="center">NATIONAL STOCK TAKING.</p> + +<p>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 Industries +Board, it will be realized more seriously than now how little +of stock taking we have done in this generous, optimistic land.</p> + +<p>When any such undertaking is proposed, however, it at once appears +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 provincial +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 immediate +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.</p> + +<p>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 lasting +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 immediate +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.</p> + + +<p class="center">COAL AS A NATIONAL ASSET.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> +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 we care to exercise +it, a mastery over the fate and fortunes of other peoples.</p> + +<p>Next to the fertility of our soil, we have no physical asset as valuable +as our coal deposits. Although we are sometimes alarmed because +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. Whatever +fears other nations may justifiably have as to their ability to continue +in the vast rush of a machine world, there can be no question of +our ability to last.</p> + +<p>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 justified +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.</p> + + +<p class="center">PUBLIC RESPONSIBILITY.</p> + +<p>This transfer is effected by a kind of carrier chain, the links of +which 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 ourselves +in abuse of arrogant coal barons or dictatorial labor unions, +it may lie 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, whether or not +the public is at all at fault when a nation wealthy beyond all others<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> +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 answer, +to my mind, turns upon the manner in which we have done +business.</p> + +<p>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 paying +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<p class="center">THE MINERS' YEAR.</p> + +<p>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 average +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 operation.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> +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.<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!)</p> + +<p>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,<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> +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.</p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p><p class="center">HAVE WE TOO MANY MINES AND MINERS?</p> + +<p>The problem of the miner and his industry may be stated in another +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 reasonable +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<p class="center">THE LONG VIEW.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> +Crookes has characterized as "first among the immediate practical +problems of science," we find ourselves both rich and wasteful, following +the primrose path, heedless of the morrow and not yet conscious +that the morrow is to be a day of battle.</p> + +<p>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 national +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. Therefore +it should be saved.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, bobbing +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 problem +in conservation by itself.</p> + +<p>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 congested +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.</p> + +<p>Are there no substitutes for coal which we can use and can not +export? This question immediately raises the water-power possibilities +of our land, of which only the most superficial study has +been made. Sell coal and use electricity would appear a thrifty +policy.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p><p>As petroleum is being used as a substitute for coal—and inasmuch +as the whole problem of fuel supply is one—we are ultimately compelled +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<p class="center">SAVING COAL.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It has been everyone's business to save coal, hence.... The railroads +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 distance +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 concern, +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.</p> + +<p>In one establishment visited by the fuel engineers of this department +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.</p> + + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span></p><p class="center">COAL AND COAL.</p> + +<p>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 buying, because it should buy the coal +it needs. There need be no prohibition against the mining or selling +of any coal,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> but coal should sell in terms of its capacity to deliver +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 bill were passed it would +promote the interests of those who schedule their 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> +which his particular article contains, thus enabling the injured public +to strike against an unfair mine.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<p class="center">EXPANSION ABROAD.</p> + +<p>It 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. England's +annual production has fallen 100,000,000 tons, according to +Mr. Hoover, and the European 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, will sadly learn through this winter +how little coal she can live on and how more than perilous is the +state of a people who are short of power, light, and heat.</p> + +<p>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 finding +ways of dealing with the larger phases of a heavy overseas +trade with those who are without immediate resources.</p> + + +<p class="center">SAVING COAL BY SAVING ELECTRICITY.</p> + +<p>It is three years since Congress was urged that we should be empowered +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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + +<p class="center"><big>WHITE COAL AND BLACK.</big></p> + +<p>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 imaginative +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 coal loss of Lens. +Italy found that she had still left unused opportunities for hydroelectric +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.</p> + +<p>And it is likely that the long-pending power bill which will make +available the dam and reservoir sites on withdrawn public lands<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, furnished +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 stationary +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.</p> + +<p>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 70 per cent of the available +water power is west of the Mississippi, whereas over 70 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!</p> + + +<p class="center"><big>THE AGE OF PETROLEUM.</big></p> + +<p>For a full century now we have been passing through different +phases of industrial and commercial life which have been characterized +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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> +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 country +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 threatens +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 promise +now is that nations will yet fight to gain the fitful bed in which +it lies.</p> + +<p>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 petroleum +of the world has come from this hemisphere.</p> + +<p>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 unfulfilled +that the peak of the possible yield had been reached.</p> + +<p>From the mountains of western Pennsylvania into the very ocean +bed of the Pacific and even beyond and into the broken strata of upturned +Alaska, the oil prospector bored with his sharp tooth of steel +and found oil. Hardly has one field fallen into a decline when another +has come rushing into service. Only three years ago and all +hopes were centered in Oklahoma, and then came Kansas, and then +the turn went south again to Texas, and now it looks toward Louisiana. +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 permanent +factor in the world of light, heat, and power. If this is not so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> +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 hundred +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.</p> + +<p>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 16⅔ to 36¾ million barrels; the annual gasoline production +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 warranting +deliberate attention to the oil problem of to-day.</p> + +<p>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 requires +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.</p> + +<p>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 further +rich contribution to the American supply.</p> + + +<p class="center">OIL SHALE.</p> + +<p>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 appropriation +for the development of an economical shale-reducing plant.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p><p>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 proportion +of our needs. It is imperative, however, that the development +of this latent resource be furthered and brought to a state of commercial +development as soon as possible.</p> + + +<p class="center">SAVE OIL.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 Cushing field, Oklahoma, the daily volume +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.</p> + +<p>We must save the oil after it leaves the well, save it from draining +off and sinking into the soil, save it from leaking away at pipe +joinings, save it from the wastes of imperfect storage.</p> + +<p>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—4½ per +cent of the crude run in the refineries.)</p> + +<p>The self-interest of the American refiner, notably the Standard Oil +Co., has done a work that probably no mere scientific or noncommercial +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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 respect. +Has the last word been said as to the carburetor? Mechanical +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."</p> + +<p>There are possible substitutes for some petroleum products, but +not for the whole barrel of oil; furthermore, petroleum is the cheapest +material, speaking quantitatively, from which liquid fuels and +lubricants can be made; therefore, any substitutes obtained in quantity +must cost more. Alcohol can be substituted for gasoline, but +only in limited quantity and at increased cost. Benzol from byproduct +coking ovens also can be used, but quantitatively is totally +inadequate. For kerosene no quantitative substitute is known. Lubricants +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.</p> + + +<p class="center">USE THE DIESEL ENGINE.</p> + +<p>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 convert +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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 consumption. +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 engineers, +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 develop +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.</p> + + +<p class="center">WANTED—A FOREIGN SUPPLY.</p> + +<p>Already we are importers of petroleum. We are to be larger importers +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p><p>Sometime since I presented to a board of geologists, engineers, +and economists in this department this question:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>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?</p></div> + +<p>The conclusions of this board may be summarized as follows:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(1) Such an oil need could not be met from domestic sources of supply.</p> + +<p>(2) It could not be assured unless equal opportunities were given our +nationals for commercial development of foreign oils.</p> + +<p>(3) Assurance of this oil supply therefore inevitably entails political as +well as commercial competition with other nationals, as other nationals controlling +foreign sources of supply have adopted policies that discriminate +against, hinder, and even prevent our nationals entering foreign fields.</p> + +<p>(4) The encouragement of and effective assistance to our nationals in developing +foreign fields is essential to securing the oil needed.</p> + +<p>(5) Commercial control by our nationals over large foreign sources of supply +will be essential if the estimated requirements are to be assured.</p> + +<p>(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.</p> + +<p>(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.</p></div> + +<p>This board proposed the following program of action:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>(1) To secure the removal of all discriminations to the end that our nationals +may enjoy in other countries all the privileges now enjoyed by other +nationals in ours:</p> + +<p>(<i>a</i>) By appropriate diplomatic and trade measures.</p> + +<p>(<i>b</i>) By securing equal rights to our nationals in countries newly organized +as mandatories.</p> + +<p>(2) To encourage our nationals to acquire, develop, and market oil in foreign +countries:</p> + +<p>(<i>a</i>) By assured adequate protection of our citizens engaged in securing +and developing foreign oil fields.</p> + +<p>(<i>b</i>) By promotion of syndication of our nationals engaged in foreign +business, in order to effectually conduct oil development and distribution +of petroleum and its products abroad.</p> + +<p>(3) Governmental action—through special agency or board:</p> + +<p>(<i>a</i>) Through the organization of a subsidiary governmental corporation +with power to produce, purchase, refine, transport, store, and market +oil and oil products.</p> + +<p>(<i>b</i>) Through the formation of a permanent petroleum administration.</p> + +<p>(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 satisfactorily +modified.</p></div> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> +that we should first make every effort to increase the domestic supply +through the methods that have been indicated—</p> + +<p>(1) The saving of that which is now wasted, below ground and +above ground.</p> + +<p>(2) The more intensive use, through new machinery and devices, +of the supply which we have.</p> + +<p>(3) The development of oil fields on our withdrawn territory and +in new areas such as the Philippines.</p> + +<p>In addition, we must look abroad for a supplemental supply, and +this may be secured through American enterprise if we do these +things:</p> + +<p>(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.</p> + +<p>(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.</p> + +<p>(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.</p> + +<p>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 kinds—the hardy, keen-eyed prospector +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 unusual +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 inventor; +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.</p> + + +<p class="center">BY WAY OF SUMMARY.</p> + +<p>It would seem to be our plain duty to discover how little oil we +need to use. To do this we must dignify coal by grading it in terms<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> +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 coordination +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.</p> + +<p>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 railroad +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 behind +a studied, fact-based, long-viewed plan to make America the +home of the cheapest and the most abundant and the most immediately +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 effected, +because it will be necessary.</p> + +<p>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 view as well as a national view of this whole involved and +growing problem, that he may recommend policies and induce activities +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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> +science, as Sir William Crookes said, for it is foremost among the +immediate practical problems of national and international statesmanship.</p> + + +<p class="center"><big>LAND DEVELOPMENT.</big></p> + +<p>I wish now to ask consideration for another matter of home concern +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.</p> + +<p>It was never more vital to the welfare of our people that a creative +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 proportion. +The normal growth of the United States now requires an addition +of 6,300,000 acres to its cultivable area each year, which +means an average increase of 17,000 acres a day.</p> + +<p>Fortunately, the opportunity for this essential expansion exists +not only in the West, where much of the public domain is yet unoccupied, +but in every part of the Republic. We have a great fund +of natural resources in the very oldest States, from Maine to Louisiana, +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.</p> + +<p>After every other war in our history the work of internal development +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 different +treatment, but they are by no means beyond the reach of enlightened +thought and action.</p> + +<p>More than a year ago we began an earnest discussion of reconstruction +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.</p> + + +<p class="center">A PROGRAM OF PROGRESS.</p> + +<p>The great work of material development accomplished in the past +has been done very largely by private capital and enterprise. Doubtless +this must be the chief reliance for progress in the future. We +should realize, however, that this method has involved losses as well<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> +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 central +valleys—the most remarkable natural heritage that ever fell +into the lap of a young nation—conditions of home making and settlement +have radically changed.</p> + +<p>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 possible +outlay of money.</p> + +<p>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 system +of district organization which may be made to finance itself; +third, cooperation with various States in the work of internal development.</p> + + +<p class="center">GARDEN HOMES FOR THE PEOPLE.</p> + +<p>There is no more baffling problem than that presented by the continued +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.</p> + +<p>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 problem +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 congestion +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 must +be a better way, and that the time has come when we should make +an earnest effort to find it.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p><p>Within a 10–mile circle drawn around the Capitol dome are thousands +of acres of good agricultural land, of which the merest fraction +has been reduced to intensive cultivation. Much of it is wastefully +used, and much of it is not used at all. Conditions of soil, climate, +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 governmental +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 expecting +that this experiment will be made. Such a plan of town or community +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 themselves. +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.</p> + +<p>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 providing +suburban homes for our millions of wage earners.</p> + + +<p class="center">RECLAMATION BY DISTRICT ORGANIZATION.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> +of our people. It will not, of course, solve the problem of increasing +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>To the deserts of the West we have brought the creative touch +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 agricultural +life of our abandoned farms.</p> + +<p>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 conditions +to cooperate, to work together, and to employ large-scale operations, +and on this principle we should move: Not what the Government +can do for the people, but what the people can do for themselves +under the intelligent and kindly leadership of the Government.</p> + +<p>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 confidence +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, constructed +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +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.</p> + +<p>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 landowner, +the future settler, and the general public, might do these +things:</p> + +<p>1. Employ its trained, experienced engineers, attorneys, and economists +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 difference +between success and failure. Unquestionably it would materially +reduce the interest rate on district bonds and greatly facilitate +their sale in the open market.</p> + +<p>There are other advantages less obvious but really more important. +Experience has shown that great enterprises can best be handled +under centralized control. This control, to be effective, must +extend from the initiation to the completion of the project. There<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> +can be no assurance of this when the management is left to the +electorate of a local district, and without such assurance it is difficult +to command the support, first, of the landowners whose consent +is essential to the formation of the district; next, of the investors +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 assurance +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.</p> + +<p>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 +$200 per acre the moment it is put into shape for cultivation. If +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.</p> + +<p>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 accomplished +without the aid of Government appropriations.</p> + + +<p class="center">SOLDIER-SETTLEMENT LEGISLATION.</p> + +<p>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 reclamation.</p> + +<p>The proposed soldier-settlement legislation stands on an entirely +different footing. The primary object is not to reclaim land but +to reward our returned soldiers with the opportunity to obtain +employment and larger interest in the proprietorship of the country. +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 special +privileges to one element of our citizenship or as a plunge into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 reclamation +and community settlement brought forward by this department +in the spring of 1918.</p> + +<p>The measure has been much misunderstood and sometimes deliberately +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 engaged +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 employment +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 certain +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +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 instances. +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.</p> + +<p>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 improvements +and live 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.</p> + +<p>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 himself +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 increment," +or society-created values; but in the one case he <i>gets</i> the increment, +while in the other case he <i>pays</i> it. Obviously, a larger +advance would be justified in one case than in the other.</p> + + +<p class="center"><big>ALASKA.</big></p> + +<p>One of 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 examining +into the work, has authorized an additional appropriation sufficient +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 ability<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> +and experience. It has been well and solidly built as a permanent +road, not an exploiting road. It has been built for as little +money as private parties could have built it, as all competent independent +engineers who have seen the road advise.</p> + +<p>Edwin F. Wendt, of the Interstate Commerce Commission, in +charge of valuation of the railroads of the United States from Pittsburgh +to Boston, after an investigation into the manner in which +the Alaskan Railroad was constructed and its cost, reported to me +as follows:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>In concluding, it is not amiss to again 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.</p></div> + +<p>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 construction +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The work of locating and constructing the road has been left in the +hands of the engineers appointed by yourself. The only instruction<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> +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 construction +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.</p> + +<p>It is not possible during the construction of a railroad to tell +what it costs per mile because all the foundation work, the construction +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.</p> + +<p>This cost per mile includes the building of the most difficult and +expensive stretch of line along the entire route from Seward to Fairbanks—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.</p> + +<p>The only Government-built railroad—that across the Isthmus of +Panama—cost $221,052 per mile. The only two recently built railroads +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.</p> + +<p>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 downgrade +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.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p><p>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.</p> + + +<p class="center">MATANUSKA COAL.</p> + +<p>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 Government. +The field was surveyed, and some of the most promising portions +of the field have been so reserved.</p> + +<p>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 associates. +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.</p> + +<p>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 population +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.</p> + + +<p class="center"><big>SAVE AND DEVELOP AMERICANS.</big></p> + +<p>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 intelligence +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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> +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 neglected +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 possibilities +no other man ever was given.</p> + +<p>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 understand +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 sweetheart +came filtering in through other eyes that had to read their +letters.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Here is raw material truly, of the most important kind and the +greatest possibility for good as well as for ill.</p> + +<p>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 history, +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.</p> + +<p>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 ambition +for an education who should not be given that opportunity—indeed, +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.</p> + +<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> +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 making +of Americans who understand why they are Americans and why +to be one is worth while.<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p> + + +<p class="center"><big>FOOTNOTES</big></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> 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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> 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. +</p><p> +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.S. Geol. Survey Bull.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> 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." +</p><p> +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 efficiency +in the use of coal can not produce satisfactory results unless the operators who +handle them are impressed with the importance of their duties. +</p><p> +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 encourages +the firemen to work harder to increase the efficiency. +</p><p> +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 concerning +the character and chemical constituents of the coal, together with knowledge pertaining +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.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> 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: +</p><p> +"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 have never 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 River, Mass., are utter strangers in a strange land. +</p><p> +"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 administration, +but constantly piles up a junk heap of broken humans and damaged machines +which cost the Nation incalculably. +</p><p> +"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. +</p><p> +"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. +</p><p> +"You will agree with me that future security compels attention to such concentrations +of unread, unsocialized masses thus conveniently and perilously grouped for +misguidance. +</p><p> +"They live in America, but America does not live in them. How can all be 'free and +equal' until they have free access to the same sources of self-help and an equal chance +to secure them? +</p><p> +"Illiteracy is a pick-and-shovel estate, a life sentence to meniality. 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 information. +</p><p> +"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. +</p><p> +"The loyal service of immigrant soldiers and sailors commit us to instruct and +nationalize their brothers in breed. +</p><p> +"The spirit in which these United States were conceived insists that the Republic +remove the cruel disadvantage under which so many native borns despairingly carry on. +</p><p> +"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. +</p><p> +"Anarchy shall never want for 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. +</p><p> +"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 can we set them right and empower them to inherit their estate. +</p><p> +"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. +</p><p> +"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. +</p><p> +"We demand the right to regulate the cheating scales upon which the Republic +is weighed by its ill-wishers. +</p><p> +"We demand the right to protect unintelligence from Esau bargains with hucksters +of traitorous creeds. +</p><p> +"We demand the right to present our case and our cause to the unlettered mass, +whose benightedness and ready prejudices continually invite exploitation. +</p><p> +"We demand the right to vaccinate credulous inexperience against Bolshevism and +kindred plagues. +</p><p> +"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. +</p><p> +"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." +</p><p> +Dr. Philander P. Claxton, Commissioner of Education, in his analysis of the illiteracy +figures of the census, said: +</p><p> +"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. +</p><p> +"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 +Tennessee and Kentucky combined. Boston had more illiterates than Baltimore, Pittsburgh +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. +</p><p> +"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."</p></div> + +<p class="center"><br /><br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>ADDITIONAL COPIES<br /> +OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE PROCURED FROM<br /> +THE SUPERINTENDENT OF DOCUMENTS<br /> +GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE<br /> +WASHINGTON, D.C.<br /> +AT<br /> +10 CENTS PER COPY<br /> +</p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Conservation Through Engineering, by +Franklin K. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Conservation Through Engineering + Extract from the Annual Report of the Secretary of the Interior + +Author: Franklin K. Lane + +Release Date: April 6, 2010 [EBook #31899] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Bergquist and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + 66TH CONGRESS + _2d Session_ + + HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES + + DOCUMENT No. 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 + + [Illustration] + + WASHINGTON + GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE + 1920 + + + + +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 + + + + +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 resources 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 +demanded 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. + + + + +CONSERVATION THROUGH ENGINEERING[1] + +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 foundation 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, but 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 development 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 +very 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? + +How much less could 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 humiliating confession +that we did not know facts which at the time were 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, produce +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 Vancouver, 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 (Steinmetz). + +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. + + +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 Industries Board, it will be realized more +seriously than now how little of stock taking we have done in this +generous, optimistic land. + +When any such undertaking is proposed, however, it at once appears 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 provincial 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 immediate 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 lasting 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 immediate 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 +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 we care to exercise it, a mastery over +the fate and fortunes of other peoples. + +Next to the fertility of our soil, we have no physical asset as valuable +as our coal deposits. Although we are sometimes alarmed because 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. Whatever fears other nations may +justifiably have as to their ability to continue 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 justified 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 which +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 ourselves +in abuse of arrogant coal barons or dictatorial labor unions, it may lie +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, whether or not the public is +at all at fault when a nation wealthy beyond all others 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 answer, 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 paying 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 average 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 operation. + +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 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.[2] + +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,[3] +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. + + +HAVE WE TOO MANY MINES AND MINERS? + +The problem of the miner and his industry may be stated in another 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 reasonable 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 Crookes has +characterized as "first among the immediate practical problems of +science," we find ourselves both rich and wasteful, following the +primrose path, heedless of the morrow and not yet conscious 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 national 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. Therefore 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, bobbing 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 problem 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 congested 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 possibilities of our +land, of which only the most superficial study has been made. Sell coal +and use electricity would appear a thrifty policy. + +As petroleum is being used as a substitute for coal--and inasmuch as +the whole problem of fuel supply is one--we are ultimately compelled 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 railroads +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 distance 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 concern, 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 department +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. + + +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 buying, because it should buy the coal it needs. There +need be no prohibition against the mining or selling of any coal,[4] but +coal should sell in terms of its capacity to deliver 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 bill were passed it would promote the interests +of those who schedule their 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 which his particular article contains, thus +enabling the injured public 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. + +It 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. England's annual production has fallen +100,000,000 tons, according to Mr. Hoover, and the European 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, will sadly learn through +this winter how little coal she can live on and 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 finding 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 empowered +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 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 imaginative +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 coal loss of Lens. +Italy found that she had still left unused opportunities for +hydroelectric 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 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, furnished 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 stationary 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 70 per cent of the available water power is west of the +Mississippi, whereas over 70 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 characterized 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 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 country 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 threatens 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 +promise 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 petroleum 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 unfulfilled 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 upturned +Alaska, the oil prospector bored with his sharp tooth of steel and found +oil. Hardly has one field fallen into a decline when another has come +rushing into service. Only three years ago and all hopes were centered +in Oklahoma, and then came Kansas, and then the turn went south again to +Texas, and now it looks toward Louisiana. 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 permanent factor in the world of light, heat, +and power. If this is not so 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 hundred 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 16-2/3 to 36-3/4 +million barrels; the annual gasoline production 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 warranting 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 +requires 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 further 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 appropriation for the +development of an economical shale-reducing plant. + +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 proportion of our needs. It is imperative, +however, that the development of this latent resource be furthered and +brought to a state of commercial 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 Cushing field, Oklahoma, the daily volume 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 draining 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--4-1/2 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 noncommercial +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 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 respect. Has the last word been said +as to the carburetor? Mechanical 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 cheapest +material, speaking quantitatively, from which liquid fuels and +lubricants can be made; therefore, any substitutes obtained in quantity +must cost more. Alcohol can be substituted for gasoline, but only in +limited quantity and at increased cost. Benzol from byproduct coking +ovens also can be used, but quantitatively is totally inadequate. For +kerosene no quantitative substitute is known. Lubricants 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 convert 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. 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 consumption. 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 engineers, 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 develop 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 importers +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. + +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 controlling 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 developing foreign fields is essential to securing the oil + needed. + + (5) Commercial control by our nationals over large foreign sources + of supply 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 nationals may enjoy in other countries all the privileges now + enjoyed by other nationals in ours: + + (_a_) By appropriate diplomatic and trade measures. + + (_b_) 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 foreign countries: + + (_a_) By assured adequate protection of our citizens engaged in + securing and developing foreign oil fields. + + (_b_) By promotion of syndication of our nationals engaged in + foreign business, in order to effectually conduct oil development + and distribution 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. + + (_b_) 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 satisfactorily 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 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, of 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 kinds--the hardy, keen-eyed prospector +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 unusual 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 inventor; 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 oil we need to +use. To do this we must dignify coal by grading it in terms 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 coordination 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 railroad +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 behind a studied, fact-based, +long-viewed plan to make America the home of the cheapest and the most +abundant and the most immediately 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 +effected, 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 view as well as a +national view of this whole involved and growing problem, that he may +recommend policies and induce activities 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 science, as Sir William Crookes said, for it is +foremost among the immediate practical problems of national and +international statesmanship. + + +LAND DEVELOPMENT. + +I wish now to ask consideration for another matter of home concern 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 creative 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 proportion. The normal growth of the +United States now requires an addition 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 unoccupied, but +in every part of the Republic. We have a great fund of natural resources +in the very oldest States, from Maine to Louisiana, 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 development +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 different treatment, but +they are by no means beyond the reach of enlightened thought and action. + +More than a year ago we began an earnest discussion of reconstruction +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. Doubtless this must +be the chief reliance for progress in the future. We should realize, +however, that this method has involved losses as well 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 central valleys--the most +remarkable natural heritage that ever fell into the lap of a young +nation--conditions of home making and settlement 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 possible 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 system of district +organization which may be made to finance itself; third, cooperation +with various States in the work of internal development. + + +GARDEN HOMES FOR THE PEOPLE. + +There is no more baffling problem than that presented by the continued +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 problem 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 congestion 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 must be a better way, and that the time has come when we +should make an earnest effort to find it. + +Within a 10-mile circle drawn around the Capitol dome are thousands of +acres of good agricultural land, of which the merest fraction has been +reduced to intensive cultivation. Much of it is wastefully used, and +much of it is not used at all. Conditions of soil, climate, 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 governmental 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 expecting that this experiment will be made. Such a +plan of town or community 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 +themselves. 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 providing 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 of +our people. It will not, of course, solve the problem of increasing 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 touch 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 agricultural 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 conditions to cooperate, +to work together, and to employ large-scale operations, and on this +principle we should move: Not what the Government can do for the people, +but what the people can do for themselves 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 confidence 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, constructed 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 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 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 landowner, the +future settler, and the general public, might do these things: + +1. Employ its trained, experienced engineers, attorneys, and economists +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 difference +between success and failure. Unquestionably it would materially reduce +the interest rate on district bonds and greatly facilitate their sale in +the open market. + +There are other advantages less obvious but really more important. +Experience has shown that great enterprises can best be handled under +centralized control. This control, to be effective, must extend from the +initiation to the completion of the project. There can be no assurance +of this when the management is left to the electorate of a local +district, and without such assurance it is difficult to command the +support, first, of the landowners whose consent is essential to the +formation of the district; next, of the investors 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 assurance 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. + +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 $200 per acre the moment it is put into shape +for cultivation. If 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 +accomplished 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 reclamation. + +The proposed soldier-settlement legislation stands on an entirely +different footing. The primary object is not to reclaim land but to +reward our returned soldiers with the opportunity to obtain employment +and larger interest in the proprietorship of the country. 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 special privileges to one +element of our citizenship or as a plunge into 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 reclamation and community +settlement brought forward by this department in the spring of 1918. + +The measure has been much misunderstood and sometimes deliberately +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 engaged 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 employment 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 certain +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 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 instances. 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 +improvements and live 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 himself 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 increment," or society-created +values; but in the one case he _gets_ the increment, while in the other +case he _pays_ it. Obviously, a larger advance would be justified in one +case than in the other. + + +ALASKA. + +One of 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 examining into the work, has authorized an +additional appropriation sufficient 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 ability and experience. It has been well and solidly +built as a permanent road, not an exploiting road. It has been built for +as little money as private parties could have built it, as all competent +independent 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 Pittsburgh 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 again 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 construction 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 been left in the +hands of the engineers appointed by yourself. The only instruction +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 construction 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 construction 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 +Fairbanks--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 railroads 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 downgrade 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. + +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 Government. The field was +surveyed, and some of the most promising portions 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 associates. 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 population 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 intelligence 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. 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 neglected 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 +possibilities 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 understand 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 sweetheart 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 history, 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 ambition for an education who should not be given that +opportunity--indeed, 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 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 making of Americans who +understand why they are Americans and why to be one is worth while.[5] + + +FOOTNOTES + +[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. + +[2] 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.S. Geol. Survey Bull.) + +[3] 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. + +[4] 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 efficiency 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 +encourages 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 concerning the character and chemical constituents of the +coal, together with knowledge pertaining 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. + +[5] 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 have never 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 River, 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 administration, 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 +concentrations of unread, unsocialized masses thus conveniently and +perilously grouped for misguidance. + +"They live in America, but America does not live in them. How can all be +'free and equal' until they have free access to the same sources of +self-help and an equal chance to secure them? + +"Illiteracy is a pick-and-shovel estate, a life sentence to meniality. +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 information. + +"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 borns +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 for 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 can we set them right and +empower them to inherit their estate. + +"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 +Republic 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 Tennessee and +Kentucky combined. Boston had more illiterates than Baltimore, +Pittsburgh 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." + + ADDITIONAL COPIES + OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE PROCURED FROM + THE SUPERINTENDENT OF DOCUMENTS + GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE + WASHINGTON, D.C. + AT + 10 CENTS PER COPY + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Conservation Through Engineering, by +Franklin K. 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