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THE EVENING STAR, WA HINGTON D. C, TUESDAY , 1937 B—9 FLODD BIL RGED N FORUM SPEEC Senator Schwellenbach Warns Nation of Loss in Fertile Lands. ‘ An appeal to the Nation to battle for flood control, water conservation | and reclamation, in order “that Amer- | ica’s national destiny will not end in disaster,” was voiced last nigh by Senator Schwellenbach, Democrat, of Washington | He spoke on the National Radio Fo- | rum, sponsored by The Star and broadcast over a Nation-wide net- work of the National Broadcasting | Co | Citing statistics compiled by the National Resources Board. Senator Schwellenbach painted a grim pic- | ture of broad expanses of fertile land | which will be transformed into desert | unless the scourge of wind and flood is checked Contending conservation of natural Tesources is a national problem which | must be met by the Federal Gov-| ernment, Senator Schwellenbach said: | ““We have come to know that Amer- ica cannot long remain prosperous or happy when any portion of the popu- Jation is neglected by the rest of the population * The text of Senator Schwellenbach’'s address follows At the outset, may I express to Mr. Kuhn and The Washington r my eppreciation for this opportunity to | discuss this important question with | you The term, “conservation of natural resources,” despite its dramatization by President Theodore Rocsevelt, has always had a rather vague and far- away sort of meaning to most of us. | We have thought of it as consisting of the withdrawal of acreage. of forest | lands. or the creation of oil reserves. It was something of which every one approved but about which no one did 2nything. Were we not the richest Nation in the world? Did not we pos- tess limitless resources? Our attitude was that, while our great-grandchil- firen might possibly suffer from our lack of attention to conservation probably they would have such greater knowledge than we that there was no need for worry. Quotes From Report. It has been only the last few years since the revelations by the studies of the National Resources Board, that the American people have been | brought to the realization that a proper use. development and preserva- tion of natural resources is & current | and telling problem which faces us today and which must be solved today. Let me read to you from the recent report of the National Resources Committee. I quote “The fact is that most of the terri- tory occupied by the United States is not naturally suited for a permanent civilization. It is like the land of the Mayas of Yucatan or the land of Babylon—a rich country where its civilization would flash into a blaze of glory and then collapse in a few generations into ruin. Our soil is not | enriched by the usual methods of cu tivation, but impoverished. By the normal processes of our farming, our mining and our lumbe; we are creating a desert. The Americans need to realize that all their national hopes and aspirations are secondary to the question whether we can con- tinue to eat. Without a fertile soil and | gelf-renewing forests, the problem of | our bankrupt cities will become a ghastly joke. Armies and navies can- not defend a nation against the scourge of wind and flood; constitu- tions and courts have no authority over natural law. Any nation whose land naturally tends to turn into des- ert must take measures to preserve the land or it will surely die.” End of quotation. In addition, we in this country have viewed the problem of conservation from a purely local viewpoint. We In the West have read of the floods in the East. We have shuddered at them. We have sympathized with their victims. But was not until recently that we have appreciated the fact that our own prosperity was af- fected by them. Drought's Affect on East. In the past we have had a similar tttitude toward the droughts and the duststorms of the Middle West. You people in the East have never appre- | ciated the fact that your prosperity end your future might be affected by the destruction of the purchasing power of the people of the Middle West through the failure of their €rops or by our failure in the West | to make the proper use of the re- | gources with which we were endowed. | The last few years have brought to WOODWARD 10™ 1™ F a0 G StREETS us & much wider range of vision. We have come to know that America cannot long remain prosperous or happy when any portion of the popu« lation is neglected by the rest of the population. The American people should not | need more argument to persuade them | to this conclusion. Do you realize that a dam constructed in Tennessee or Alabama on the Tennessee River or one constructed 'way out in Mon- tana on the Missouri River may be the one factor which will result in the protection of the lives and the property of the people of Arkansas or | Mississippi or Louisiana in the event of a flood in the lower Mississippi region. If you do, you certainly can fully comprehend the extent to which our people are interdependent. The worker in the great industrial city of the East may find the cost of | his bread and his meat too high for | him to provide the necessary food for | his family. He must understand the direct relationship between that cost | and the failure of his Government to conserve the water supply of the | Great Plains area which caused the scarcity of wheat or corn or hogs or cattle. Talk of Economy. We hear much talk today about the necessity for Government econ- omy. We are told that a balanced budget is the primary requisite for future governmental stability. I have no quarrel with those who present | these arguments. I recognize as well | !'as any one that no government, like | no business, can indefinitely proceed in the red. There is, however, such a thing as wasteful economy. There is o better example of an inefficient business man than the one who, be- | cause of his desire to make a good showing in his operating statement, | permits his machinery and equipment and build to unduly depreciate because of lack of expenditure for maintenance Let us look for & moment at our national balance sheet. The Ameri- can people acquired on this continent | an area consisting of nearly 2,000.- | 000.000 acres of land. We gradually | extended the use of it until today | about one-fifth of it is in crops, two- | fifths in pasture, one-fifth in produc- tive forest. Of the remainder, elim- | inating that portion which consists of deserts and snow-capped mountains. the rest is occupied by ecities and roads. When our ancesters arrived 300 years ago, nearly one-half of the | area of the present United States was a forest The territory contained many million acres of fertile land. It contained millions of tons of valuable | metals and ores. Its coal fields con- tained in excess of 3,000,000,000.000 tons of coal. The entire territory | abounded in fish, wild animals and | game | Let me give you just a few examples of how we have misused these re- | sources: We are losing. through ero- sion caused by wind and water, 3,000.- 000.000 tons of our fertile top soil | each year. Of the 900.000.000 acres of ‘ forest land which we one possessed, only 200,000,000 acres now remain. Scnator White's Statement. | Let me read to you a statement | made before the United States Sen- ate on March 8 of this year by lhe! distinguished Senator from Maine, Mr. | Wallace White. I quote: | “We have seen our fish resources | ppearing - throughout the entire | United States, along the East Coast, 'in the area of the Gulf and up the Pacific Coast as well. Within my own time we have seen disappear from the waters of New England sal- mon, shad and sturgeon. It was not | many vears ago that one could find the Atlantic sea salmon running into some | 30-0dd rivers between New York and | the Canadian border, and today there | is just one river along that entire rth Atlantic seaboard in which At- | lantic sea salmon is found in any | numbers. The same thing has hap- | pened with respect to the shad and with respect to the sturgeon. We have | seen a constantly diminishing supply | of fish in the Chesapeake Bay area | and to the south.” We have been profligate in our use of our natural resources. We have been wasteful. The insatiable desire for immediate profit has brought about an attitude of complete forget- fulness toward our responsibility for the preservation of our resources. | Damage in Ohio Vailey. | If any one doubts that this is a cur- rent problem, one that doesn't need to be solved now, I would have him visit | the areas devastated by floods during | the last Spring. Let him go into the Ohio Valley and talk to those who were driven from their homes or those whose homes were destroyed or carried down the streams. Can any | one who listened to the radio reports of conditions in Kentucky and In- | diana and Ohio doubt for a minute the necessity of dealing with the flood problem now? It is a sad commentary upon our recognition of national re- | sponsibility that even after the ter rible flood of 1927 in the Mississippi | Valley, the only legislation for a & LOTHROB Puone Dlsmrict §300 Irons $2.95 Woods $3.95 These related Clubmate woods and irons may be the solution to low scores for you. Made by a lead- ing manufacturer of golf clubs, their smooth, ta- pering shafts, and well- balanced heads spell hap- piness ahead for many a golfer. All the irons have a flange to get the ball up, and to keep you from ploughing into the ground if you hit in back of the ball. You had better not overlook this opportunity to improve your game. SrorTiNG Goops, Fourtn FLoom. | comprehensive consideration and so- lution of the ‘flood control problem was an act which applied only to the lower Mississippi, to one river in Cali- fornia and to one lake in Florida. The people of this countyy must realize that we cannot denude our forests at the headwaters of streams, we cannot | take from our lands the grasses and the humus that retain the moisture and fail to pay the penalty that in- evitably must come when we leave the water of our streams uncontrolled by “he forces which nature provided for the purpose of controlling them. The streams know no State bound- aries. They have no respect lori States’ rights. It avails us nothing to put dikes at the lower end of the | stream if we neglect to provide pro- | tection at the headwaters. It is not | merely big waters that present our | problems of flood control. The little | waters also are of critical importance. | It is the combination of flood forces | from the tributaries in far distant | States that will endanger and destroy | the lives and property of those living nearest the mouth of the great | streams that empty into the oceans or the gulf. Of equal importance with the over- supply of water is the problem pre- sented in other parts of our country from the undersupply of water. I| again ask those who think that this is a problem which can be delayed of solution for some future vears to | B0 out into any portion of the dust | bowl area and see the conditions of desolation and despair which face the inhabitants of that territory. They suffered a severe drought in 1934, a more severe one in 1936, and the prob- ability of an even more severe condi- tion in 1937. I wish the doubters would question some of the hundred | thousand families who have given up their life's investment in the dust bowl States of the Middle West, piled their personal belongings and kitchen utensils onto a second-hand Ford and proceeded almost penniless into the country west of the Rocky Mountains, where they are today begging for the opportunity of acquiring some irri- gatec land out of which they hope to derive a living. They know the cost of our Government's neglect of its natural resources. They have paid the price for it. They have come through the dark years faced, not merely with the privations of the de- ression, but faced with the realiza- tion that the land which they had purchased and they had cultivated had lost the possibility of future pro- ductivity simply because of the failure upon the part of those responsible for the administration of government to realize the necessity for the conser- vation of water in that arca. If the $350,000,000 which it was necessary to spend last year to provide relief to those whose lands had become im- poverished and parched for the lack of water had been spent in the years preceding in building storage dams, the necessity for the relief expendi- tures would never have arisen. Example of Problem Faced. T realize that those living in great industrial cities find it difficult to ap- preciate the importance of the prob- lem created by the oversupply and undersupply of water in other parts of the couniry. Let me present the problem to you in this way: Sup- posc that you know that on the mor- row when you awoke the water sup- ply of the city ‘in which you live would be completely destroyed, that you and your family and your neigh- bors would have no water, you know the extent to which the clutching hand of fear would encircle your heart and you know that you would demand that your Government do something about it. You know that if the cause of that suspension of the water sup- States, you would demand that the Federal Government do something about it. You wouldn't want them to wait until next week or next month or next year. You would wa.t it done right now. To the economic life of the farmer the supply of water is just as essential as it is to your personal life and the life of your family and of your neighbors. On the other hand, suppose that you knew that tomprrow morning the pressure upon the pipes bringing water into your home would be so great as lu cause them to burst and flood and destroy your furniture and drive you and your family and your neighbors into the street. You would demand governmental action about that and you'd want that gov- ernmental action now and not some time in the distant future. The people of Paducah, Ky, and the people of other cities and towns in Kentucky and Ohio and Indiana and Illinois have precisely that same fear with the approach of every storm and of every rain. I contend that money spent in the protection, preservation and proper use of natural resources can only be classified as a capital investment. 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There isn't a manager of any great business cor- poration in the country who would hesitate to borrow money if by the use of the money he could increase his production or decrease the de- struction of the corporate property. Cost and Remedy. Let me cite you an example. It is undisputed that a very low estimate of the primary direct property dam- age during the last two years in the Ohio Valley as a result of floods ex- ceeds $700,000,000. It is further ad- mitted that, with the expenditure of less than $1,000,000,000 for the build. could have pletely. I challenge any business man in the country to dispute the assertion that it would not have been good business upon the part of the Government to have borrowed that $1,000,000,000 in order to prevent a $700,000,000 loss. Let me give you another example. The Fort Peck dam is being built near the headwaters of the Missouri in Montana. It is costing $80,000,000. It will result in the furnishing of cheap power. It will provide flood control advantages to the entire Mis- souri and Mississippi Rivers. It will | insure navigability of the Missouri | River. It will reduce the maintenance | charge on the Missouri River and on the Mississippi River from St. Louis to Cairo to the extent of $300,000 a been prevented com- Fitting and Preper=\WHITE You look better and feel wonderful the minute you don one of these style-perfect Palm Beach suits. New York, and even all the way from London town are reflected and reproduced in this porous Summer fabric. your choice of single or double breasted suits, sports .bock or plain. So get smart and get this smart get-up . . . all-white Palm Beach for all Summer. When you go into that informal Summer slouch, do it in $3 white Palm Beach slacks___________ Styles from Hollywood, I You may have U $|6.75 | year. ing of flood control dams, that damage | It will prevent the annual loss | by erosion between St. Louis and Sioux City of 38,000 acres of fertile land. This will mean the annual saving to the farmers of that area of $3,800,000. | Is there any business man in the | country who would dare to attack the | borrowing of $80,000,000 upon the | basis of that saving? ‘We hear much today about the ter- | rible burden we are placing on thp‘ generations to come in the form of | the debt with which they will be en- | cumbered. Sound, practical common | sense requires the conclusion that it | is much better that these people have | a debt to pay and have left .0 them | & country with resources out of which | to earn the income with which to pay | the debt than to turn over to them a | | debt-free country with its resources | 0 denuded, dissipated and destroyed as to make it impossible for them even | to eke out a meager existence from the soil which they have inherited. | Efforts Toward Conservation. | We of the West also have our prob- | lem which arises from the lack of | water. It, too, is national in scope | and requires attention and action | from the Federal Government. We take pride—I think it is a pardonable | pride—in our efforts toward conserva- | tion. We have a territory in which | the soil is extremely fertile. It needs but water to make it extremely pro- ductive. I know that there are many people in other parts of the country we are most critical of our reclama- tion program. They say that we are constantly tapping the Federal Treas- ury for funds raised by taxation in the East and expended upon projects 2,000 to 3,000 miles away. Every cent At Wz White Is of Federal money expended on a Western reclamation project is re- payable to the Federal Government by the owners of the lands which have been irrigated under the proj= ects. From 1902 to date, those repay- ments have been made in an amount equal to 95 per cent of the legal re- quirements contained in the con- tracts and the acts of Crngress. I know that you people of the other agricultural areas deplore the placing of new agricultural lands under pro- duc‘ion in competition with yours, I ask you to realize that not more than 5 per cent of the total produc- tion of the irrigated lands of the West is sold in competition with the produc- tion of the other agricultural areas of the country. But you people in the East and the Middle West ask what is the value to you of the reclamation expendi- tures in the West. To the industrial worker of the East, the farmers of the Midwest and the South, my answer is this: You are frantically seeking a market for the products of your industry and agriculture. Your pros- perity, your jobs themselves, depend upon those markets. Our Govern- ment is going to great lengths in an effort to develop foreign trade that those markets may be acquired. The Midwest, the East and the South will find even a better market in a pros- perous West. Just let me give you a few gures Eleven irrigation States buy annually from the Mid= west, the East and the South, $12 000,000 in corn. hog and pork prod- 97,000,000 in cotten, cott seed and textiles: $80.000,000 of to inued on Page B-10, Column 1.) (Con tomec By it Sench Ny - == == Right After Dark After six wear a perfectly tailored white Palm Beach Tuxedo coat with a red, blue, or black tie and black Palm Beach Tuxedo trousers. Then, no matter where you go, you are sure of being correctly dressed. —Coat. - - .- —Trousers - - - . $12.50 & st Y —Bow Ties - - - - - . . 81 ' AR LOTHROP WO OT}I)E%N’S S%RE§§ECOND FLOOR A