Page images
PDF
EPUB

that have been shown to us here by the people in Philadelphia who have supplied this splendid entertainment. [Applause.]

Those in the industry who have done this have the satisfaction of knowing that they have given great pleasure and gratification to us and I am sure have rendered a splendid service.

I wish those here to understand that the work of the council could not be so successful and far-reaching as it is in fact, I doubt, if we could make much headway-were it not for the great service that the young men and the young women who are identified with this organization are rendering in carrying on their work. [Applause.] There has grown up here a spirit of loyalty and service that I have never seen equaled anywhere in all my life. [Applause.] While it is impossible to name each one-and they are all entitled to creditit is my privilege at this time to refer to one who is responsible almost entirely for what you will see this evening in so far as the presentation is concerned, and I want to further say that the play you are going to see this evening is being presented for the first time. In fact, I doubt if there are half a dozen outside of those taking part who have ever seen it presented, or even rehearsed. It is the hope of all of us that it will be successful, as we feel sure it will be.

In the meantime I wish to present to you Miss Del Rose Macan, whose tireless effort and genius have made this thing possible. [Applause.]

Miss MACAN. May I add just a word of appreciation to Mr. Munn? Never in my experience have I presented my plays to a more appreciative, enthusiastic audience. It has helped the children, I know, and the grown people too, who will perform for you this evening.

This little play that we are going to present to you is the result of several years' thinking. That is, we have had plays that have appealed to girls primarily. We have never had a play that I felt was quite a play for boys, but I think we have one to-night that will appeal to boys, both old and young. [Laughter and applause.]

The boys who are going to take part are just like this back of the stage. I am not going to delay them, but if you really and truly like it at the end of the play, I shall introduce to you the author. Thank you very much. [Applause]

(The play, "Health Circus," was then presented.)

Toastmaster MUNN. Ladies and gentlemen: This radio apparatus you see on my right was put up here for those speakers who follow me. What they say here to-night will be heard in Canada, California, New Mexico, and every State in the Union.

Before proceeding with the regular program I wish to present Prof. John Price Jackson, the executive director of the SesquiCentennial Exhibition Association, who desires to present a suggestion to this gathering. [Applause.]

Prof. JOHN PRICE JACKSON. I was instructed, men and women of the World's Dairy Congress, to present this letter to my old personal

friend, Professor Van Norman, who has done such a wonderful job in this day and generation.

[Reads:]

H. E. VAN NORMAN, Esq.,
World's Dairy Congress,

Philadelphia, Pa.

MY DEAR MR. VAN NORMAN: I am instructed by the authorities of the SesquiCentennial Exhibition Association to invite the World's Dairy Congress, and its members, individually, to take part in the great celebration and exhibition which will be held in Philadelphia in 1926, to mark the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

This celebration is to enable the people of America, and the world, to rededicate themselves to the fundamental principles of human liberty and square dealing and to the promotion of international and internal welfare, peace, and happiness.

The celebration will be in the form of great congresses of people interested in all lines of human endeavor and an exhibition of the progress of civilization; it should be of special value to those engaged in agriculture and dairy husbandry.

It is, sir, with great pleasure that I have the honor of transmitting to you this invitation, and I respectfully beg that you will transmit it to the membership of the World's Dairy Congress.

That is signed by the executive director. [Applause.]

Toastmaster MUNN. We are highly honored, and it is a great privilege to me to introduce the next speaker. I have known of him for many years and had the pleasure of knowing him personally somewhat. I have observed in him a man who has valiantly struggled, and in part succeeded, in maintaining that necessary equilibrium between human progress on the one side and a constitutional form of government on the other. His notable action in recent days in securing a settlement of the coal strike is only evidence of his long action in this regard. [Applause.]

It is with pleasure that we have such a man as the governor of this great State, having him take part in and helping to advance this great industry in which we are all so deeply interested. He has appointed to his cabinet a man closely identified with the development of the industry in this State and who was formerly president of the producers' association in this locality. [Applause.]

It is with very great pleasure that I present to you Hon. Gifford Pinchot, Governor of the State of Pennsylvania.

(The delegates and guests arose and applauded.)

SELF-GOVERNMENT IN INDUSTRY.

GIFFORD PINCHOT, A. M., Sc. D., LL. D., Governor of Pennsylvania.

Mr. President, friends: I count it a matter of keenest gratification, the keenest personal gratification, that it has fallen to my lot as, for the time being, the executive of the State of Pennsylvania, to express the welcome of our Commonwealth to the men and women who have come to us from other nations. You have been made to feel to-day, I think, how warm that welcome is. [Applause.] I am sure you would not have felt it if the warmth were not in the first place in the hearts of those of my fellow-citizens who have been fortunate enough to take part in that welcome.

77612-24- -10

I wish it might be possible for me to address you all in the languages which you speak.

(Governor Pinchot then spoke a few sentences in French and German.)

But I can not go the whole round. [Laughter.]

I can only add that in expressing the warmth of the welcome of the State of Pennsylvania, I am sure that I have the right to express also the warmth of the interest and the sympathy and the desire to help of all Americans for all the world, and the feeling of responsibility that we have, as the older brother or the richer brother to do what we can to bring back prosperity around the whole globe. [Applause.]

I shall not take your time to-night to discuss the achievements of the National Dairy Council with which you are already familiar, or of the Interstate Dairy Council, whose peculiar guests you have been to-day. I have long been familiar with its work. I know it has done two things. It has improved the grade of milk produced; it has increased the consumption of milk. Life has been better for farmers because of it; life has been better for all the people of this neighborhood because of it.

The Interstate Dairy Council has been a good citizen and has deserved well of its fellow-citizens throughout its sphere. [Applause.] Pennsylvania is intensely interested in this whole milk question. To begin with, I took not one member of my cabinet out of the dairy council, but two. [Applause.] Not only Frank Willits, my old friend (at whose side I have worked or tried to work for the farmers of the State and of the United States for so many years), but also Clyde King, the milk arbitrator [applause], one of the most useful citizens of this Commonwealth and of the whole United States. [Applause.] I wish he were with us to-night.

Now I have something particular that I desire to say this evening. and for that reason and because it is a rather delicate subject to discuss, I have written it down. It will take me but a few moments to read it, but I must say precisely what I mean, and unfortunately the stenographer (who was not one of those whom we saw on the stage to-night) who wrote it up, did so in single space and I shall have to put on my glasses in order to read it.

The Philadelphia Dairy Council is a striking example of selfgovernment in industry. The result has been better sanitary conditions on the farms, better milk for the public, a larger per capita consumption of milk, better prices for the farmer, and lower prices to the consumer than those in any other large city in the United States. Self-government in the milk industry which supplies Philadelphia has been fully as good for the public as it has for the industry itself. The industry has looked after the general interest as zealously as it has its own.

Those of us who are not socialists will agree that government should interfere as little as possible with industry and still secure the protection of the safety, health, and morals of the people. No one will deny that where it is necessary government must and will establish contact enough with private business to assure such protection. No one will deny that menaces to public morals, health,

and safety supply good reasons for combined action by all the people in their own defense.

The history of government affords ample proof that the extent of interference by government with any industry or profession depends mainly on the attitude and action of the industry itself. Those professions and industries which have regulated themselves to the point of assuring a square deal to the public have had the least interference. Those professions and industries which have disregarded the rights of the public are precisely those where the government has stepped in. Nothing is more certain than that the rights of the public will finally be protected either by the action of each industry or profession, or by the joint action of the people themselves.

Lawyers, architects, engineers, doctors, undertakers, and many other professions have established codes of ethics for the protection both of the profession and of the public, and are forcing their own members to live up to them. We hear no talk of government interference with any of them. Liquor dealers, on the other hand, for years systematically disregarded the most elementary requirements of decency, refused to regulate their industry in the interest of the public, and have reaped the natural reward. [Applause.] Nothing is more certain than that their business (with its agency, the saloon) is on the verge of disappearance, not only from Pennsylvania but from the whole United States.

In the case of the saloon, the evil was so great that the public rightly became convinced that it could be abated only by complete abolition. With most industries the abuse is less violent and the proper remedy far less drastic.

Just at this time the people of the United States are face to face with the problem of deciding what shall be done about extortion in the prices of anthracite coal. They have reached a degree of exasperation which makes it entirely certain that a remedy will be applied. The question is no longer whether there shall be a remedy but what that remedy shall be.

No one seriously denies that the abuses exist. Shall the public step in and remove them with a strong hand, or will the industry clean its own house? One of those two things will happen, and happen soon, just as surely as the sun will rise to-morrow.

The way to prevent governmental interference is to make it unnecessary. Speaking broadly, no profession or industry in this country has ever been subjected to obnoxious governmental interference without having itself to thank. But if an important business or profession fails to deal fairly with the public, the time always comes when the public itself undertakes to assure for the people at large that fair treatment to which they have an inalienable right. Interference follows abuse-always has and always will. There has always been and there will always be less government interference with those businesses which have the good sense to govern themselves.

Will the hard-coal industry voluntarily assume its proper duty of eliminating extortion and treating the people fairly? If it will, the threat of Government interference which has bulked so large in the minds of many of its leaders need keep them awake no longer. If it will not, no power in America can keep the people of this coun

try from asserting their proper rights and compelling the hard-coal industry to live up to standards of decency which the public will set up and enforce. And if the people do so it will be because and only because the industry was not wise enough to set and enforce these standards itself.

I have heard much talk from the leaders of the anthracite operators about their own concern over the rising price of anthracite. The remedy is in their own hands.

The public interest not only permits but requires that every necessary industry shall earn fair profits on its legitimate investment. Without them the public can not be served. But, because the public is willing to pay a fair profit is no reason on earth why it should stand for extortion. The time is at hand in the case of anthracite when it should refuse and will refuse to do so. The question before the anthracite industry is this: Will you be good of your own action, or will you delay until the public forces you to be good?

My friends, I have spoken in a very unmodulated voice because I have spoken into one of these things [radio] before, and I know that if you attempt to drive any point home through a transmitter of this kind it is lost. The lack of emphasis with which I have made my statement does not in the least represent my own state of feeling on the subject. [Applause.]

In closing, let me say that I have been fortunate in meeting old friends, even among the foreign delegates, as I have many old friends in the room among Pennsylvanians and Americans from other States. The whole occasion has been to me a most delightful one, as I am sure it has been to you. And never have I enjoyed in the course of a somewhat long and misspent life [laughter] more delightful amateur theatricals than those we saw this evening.

My best thanks and best wishes to all of you. (The members arose and applauded.)

Toastmaster MUNN. When we first opened our office in Chicago to begin the work of the National Dairy Council, it was my privilege and opportunity to call upon the next speaker for some advice. I received a very warm and welcoming reception and some excellent advice. We have always tried to have the work of the National Dairy Council on a plane so high that the welfare organizations of this country. National and State, would be willing to cooperate with us and welcome us into their field of activities.

One of the first so to do was the next speaker on this program. She has been active for many years in welfare work, I think one of the first to take up the outdoor classes, and from that has advanced to general welfare work, always with judgment and consideration, but with determination which has brought to her the rewards which such effort demand.

It is, indeed, fortunate for us to have with us this evening to address us Mrs. Ira Couch Wood, of the Elizabeth McCormick Memorial Fund, of Chicago, Ill. [Applause.]

« PreviousContinue »