Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1910-08-25
THE CONSERVATION
OF I0WA'S RESOURCES
An Address Delivered Before The
Old Settlers Picnic OF Audubon
County, August IL, 1910,

and complimenting the old settlers anC
the great state in which they live with
some pretty bouquets. She said thai
though Iowa is great and beautiful
state we need to get away from home
to fully appreciate its beauty. If we
take trip west the novelty of sight
seeing creates much admiration. But
after remaining there for six weeks the
admiration becomes mixed with analy,
sis and the beauties which appeared to
us on the journey to the coast are be.
held by critical eye ON the return
journey and the green fields and grow
ing crops look good to the home coming
traveller. Iowa is an agricultural state
and conservation of the land is an i'm
portant subject.
Cheap land has made the farmer pro-
digal of his resources He hardly knows
the meaning of the word economy.
visited once at Marengo. While there |
went over to the settlement of Dutch
farmers, called the Amana colony.
These people may not be scientific
farmers but they certainly understand
the meaning of that word thrift. You
couldn't see weed in all their holdings,
crops grew right up to the edges of the
road, even the borders of streams were
ripprapped with bundles of willows to
keep the precious soil from wasting
Grapevines were grown near barns and
houses, and trellised high in the air to
take up as little space as possible, nut
bearing trees planted for shade thus
combining beauty and utility, These
people were thrifty but they also found
time for loye of the beautiful for no
where in the state will you find so many
of the little upturned faces of the pansy
and forget-me-not Conservation and
beauty are not Incompatible. The con-
seryation of the game and fish have
made our lakes more beautiful. Hickory
and Walnut trees planted along road
ways would be as beautiful as willows
and scrubby box-elders Clover and
timothy as sweet smelling as ragweeds
Even the lowly potato vine would look
as well along the railroads right-of way
as groves of rosin weeds and a crop of
potatoes is of more benefit to mankind
than crop of hay fever.
Iowa is really awaking to the need of
a conservation of her material resources
She has hearkened to the prophets who
have gone abroad in the land Her corn
man Holden has honor even in his own
country. But she has another resource
of so great Importance that it dwindles
all others into insignificince. A resource
that is the motive power, the vitalizing
element, that makes the wheels of com
merce, go round and round, that must
be depended upon to keep the lowing
herd in subsection that should cover
Iowa with net work of steel, bringing
comfort to jewellers in distant places. A
resource that must advance or retreat
the state standard, that will bring com
fort or disgrace to our old age, the real
wealth producers of Iowa her boys and
her girls. We have been prodigal, also
of this resource, also, so prodigal we are
willing to pay aNheavy tribute. A pat
riot once said; millions for defense but
not one cent for tribute We have
transposed the sentence and are virtually
saying; millions for tribnte but as little
as possible for defense, and for heavens
sake keep the taxes down.
Tributel Yes, we are paying tribute
Who to? the Dope fiend to Igorance, to
Intemperance, to immortality, to I'm
purity. What for? To fill our aims
houses with paupers our asylums with
lunatics and our penitentiaries with
criminals and worst of all our reform
schools with boys and girls. You know
this but you sit there alphabetically and
let the human scerifice go on. Why?
Because you are so busy making money
you don't have time to think And
what is the result? A disagreeable
we are raising better corn, oats, wheat,
cows, sheep, and horses, it is doubtful
if we are raising better boys and better
..vls II l,nl, f1nA
with me that the vital question, before
the American people is not the conser-
walton of land, forest and stream but
the conservation of the child, For
what profiteth man if he gain the
whole world and lose his own son.
In discussing the conservation of the
child we must admit few facts:
LIST. The child has right to be well
born. He didn't ask to come into this
world and it is crime to bring him
here handicapped by physical mental or
moral degeneracy. This means restric-
tion of marriage.
End. The child has right to be well
fed. This means pure milk and in order
to have pure milk we must have inspec-
ton. You will say, that there is law
covering this. Yes, but it only reaches
the cities and the small towns and rural
communities can feed their babies
typhoid germs and tubercle bacilli to
their hearts content and nobody be any
the wiser. We need law that reaches
the village and farm as well as the city.
We need scientific feeding of children.
Isn't it queer but when we talk of
scientific feeding of babies it is called a
fad but when we talk of the scientific
feeding of hogs it is called wisdom. Pure
water, Too much cannot be said on this
subject. We seem to insist on drinking
filtered sewage and when the children
of community die like flies we wonder
what is the trouble. Last but not least
as source of contagion is the public
drinking cup. 1t might well be crowned
king of destroyers. 1t carries its foul
ness from lip to lip, from the lip of the
drunkard to the mouth of the babe.
Scrofula, diptheria and tuberculosis
Turk in its Shiny surface. 1t reigns SUI
preme in the schoolroom as conveyor
of disease and turks in front of the ice
cooler on the train reckoning to the
thirsty traveller. How many children
must be sent to early graves before we
wake up. An item in last Sunday s
Register & Leader says that one-third
of all the children born in Iowa during
the last year have died, the result OF
injudicious feeding impure milk and
infantile paralysis. This statement may
be overdrawn but actual medical Stats
tics should convince one that the situa-
ton is serious enough to demand
thought.
The child has right to good habits,
Honesty, Industry and Common Decency
should be acquired in infancy. Send
him to school at the age of six and
make him go every day, if his health is
ordinarily good. He must learn the