the privations that were taken as a matter of course 40 or 50 years ago, he won't do it. We are living in a different world. We have a different standard of life and broader opportunities than we had then. It was all wrong in those days when they endured these struggles. Because it means assuming a larger responsibility and larger expenditure, there has been a reluctance to expand reclamation so that human welfare would be put to the front. More and more we realize it.

We are to have a conference here in February. It will deal with the reclamation problems of the West and will include a discussion as to how to place people on the land so that they will be free from the privations, trials, and anxieties of the past, and make conditions sufficiently attractive to draw to those areas the best type of people. To show you the interest in that, there are to be four presidents of transcontinental railroads here. I mention the railroads because I think, on the whole, the railroads represent the best understanding of conditions in the territory in which they run and in many ways the highest form of business ability that you find and can draw on. The fact that they realize it is a vital problem in the West, shows how we are getting over the idea that there is something more to reclamation than building canals.

The question has come up here since hearing of this meeting on the 24th of how we could use that to help along getting this idea more convincingly into the West, and I believe that we will arrange to have that meeting follow shortly after your conference on the 24th. If there is any objection to that let me have it. [Applause.]

Mr. FASS. Mr. Commissioner, would there be any objection to having a joint meeting?

Doctor MEAD. There would be a confusion of interest there. Let it come afterwards. Let them get the impulse of your thinking. It will help in both meetings, I think.

Mr. Chairman, I have been handed the names of the chairmen of the different State committees on publicity, and if it is desired, I will read them.

Mr. SMITH. Proceed, Doctor Mead.

Doctor MEAD. Alabama, Bruce Beveridge, chairman; Florida, Martin B. Gress; Georgia, J. F. Jackson; Mississippi, L. J. Folse; North Carolina, Dr. E. C. Branson; South Carolina, Capt. H. F. Church; Tennessee, Rutledge Smith.

I want to throw out the suggestion that I believe it would be an excellent idea if there were a few women on this committee. Women have sympathy and intuition and they are deeply concerned, and I believe it would aid to round out this idea if some women were added to these lists. [Applause.]

Another announcement and I am through.

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The great problem of the next two months is to get Congress to understand what we are trying to do and win them over. The committee that has been meeting with me this morning thought it would be an excellent idea to add to the committee on legislation a man who has been in Congress and who has a very wide acquaintance among Congressmen, especially Congressmen from the arid States, and so I have been delegated to submit to this conference the idea of appointing Hon. Walter F. Lineberger a member at large. [Applause.] This action was taken by the conference.

Mr. LINEBERGER. Thank you very much, gentlemen.

Mr. Fass. Is there any limit to the number of the members of the publicity committee?

GENERAL RESPONSE. No limit.

Mr. SMITH. The chairman from each State may act as ex officio member. There is no objection to each chairman getting his publicity through as many agencies as he desires.

.

Mr. MACRAE. I think that does not fully answer Mr. Fass's question. Mr. Coker's ruling yesterday was that the chairmen of the different committees from the States were to be associated with the publicity committees.

Mr. FASS. I appointed my committee, but I didn't want to appoint myself.

Mr. SMITH. In Tennessee we have three or four industrial editors who will write carefully and understandingly. I hope to enlist them. The next feature of the program is the report of the committee on development. Is there such a report ready?

Doctor MEAD. The committee on development was not formed. The committee on publicity was substituted for it.

If I might offer a word or two there. This conference, I think, has taken the action that it was called together to consider, and that is, how the money is to be raised to begin real constructive development. The next thing is this program of development, to talk over this afternoon how you are going to put that across. If I might make the suggestion, to open the way for broader discussion, I am delighted with the unanimity of opinion expressed here and I am only too desirous to do everything I can to carry it out.

In the last few months we have had to realize that carrying on this program without hitting a serious snag was attended with a good deal of difficulty. There were meetings of economic societies and agricultural societies who resolved against what they thought we were trying to do. There was also this thing, that the activities of the bureau would be misinterpreted, that we would lay ourselves open to the accusation that we were seeking to expand our own activities and influence. I think the fact that the recommendation made in my paper was rejected unanimously for something different

does not weaken your cause at all. The fact that I had sufficient faith in this movement, belief in its importance, and felt that it would appeal to the patriotic sentiment of this country, so that you could raise this money without help from Congress, is not going to hurt you any in going to Congress. We are in a much better position for having been overruled.

What is important is the passage of a bill that provides the money and designates the authority for management. That bill ought to be prepared and introduced in Congress as soon as Congress reassembles after the holidays, because there will have to be hearings and a place found for it on the calendar. The sooner these preliminaries are disposed of the better the chance of favorable action, so that before we adjourn we want to make arrangements for the preparation of that bill and for the selection of the gentlemen who are to introduce it in the two Houses of Congress.

Another matter I refer to with some hesitation, but I think it is proper. Last year after the conference held here there was introduced in both Houses of Congress a bill appropriating $50,000 for carrying on these investigations. It had a favorable report from the House committee. It passed the House and certainly would have passed the Senate if the deficiency bill had not failed. That deficiency bill came up again this year, and the view of the committee was that since it did not pass last year, since there is a regular appropriation bill on the calendar this year, there would be no need for including that item, and it was thrown out to be incorporated in the regular appropriation bill; but the situation is this: There was included in the Budget a regular appropriation to be included in the regular bill, but when it came before the Budget they said, "There is $50,000 in the deficiency; it will pass before this comes up." The result is we haven't anything; we are out entirely. That matter has to be attended to. That is a matter you might mention to your southern Congressmen and Senators while you are here. [Applause.]

Mr. FOLSE. Mr. Chairman, with regard to the procedure for publicity, I had in mind doing this and would like to have the views of the conference on it. To take these addresses as they come in and select the ones of particular individuals that would be most impressive to bankers and outstanding men throughout the State. I thought of calling on 15 or 20 of them, with the aid of my committee, and taking one or two of the statements, and asking those men to look them over carefully and to write the Senators from Mississippi, also the Congressmen from that district. I think by doing that, by the time we come back in January it will be possible