PRESERVATION OF FORESTS
AS A
MEASURE OF PUBLIC SAFETY
Seventeenth
National Irrigation Congress
HELD AT
SPOKANE, WASHINGTON, U. S. A.
AUGUST, 1909.
BY THE BRAZILIAN DELEGATE
L. BAETA-NEVES, Mining and Civil Engineer.
Address before the 17th National Irrigation Congress, Spokane, Wash.,
August, 1909.
by
L. BAETA-NEVES
Mining and Civil Engineer; Graduate of the Ouro Prete Mining School, Brazil; Chief ofthe Technical Department of the Directory of Railway and Public Works in MinasGeraes, Brazil; Member of the Historic and Geographic Institute of the same state;Member of the National Geographic Society of Washington; Knight of Columbus;Honorary Member of the Rotary Club of Los Angeles, Cal.; Representative of theBrazilian Government before the Scientific Congresses 16th Irrigation and 3rdDry Farming in America, and Vice-President and Corresponding Secretary of thisCongress; Special Delegate of Brazil before the 17th National Irrigation Congressat Spokane, Wash., where, by selection, he addressed the meeting on behalf ofthe Foreign Representatives.
I really feel glad and exceedingly honored in coming againbefore this Congress and my pleasure is great in telling youonce more how much I appreciate the warm welcome of theNorth American people, and how much I have enjoyed thepleasant stay in this most hospitable city.
I come now with the same feelings and sentiment that Itried to translate to you on the opening session of this mostimportant meeting full of very valuable lessons from any viewpoint; on that day I had the great honor of speaking to youon behalf of the foreign delegates of this convention bringinggreetings from the Brazilian Government and from the differentnations here represented. But now, allow me to say,Americans, and distinguished representatives of foreign continentsand islands, that translating the good feelings and altruisticsentiment of the people of the countries of Columbus, Iam going to speak with my whole soul, my whole heart, onbehalf of the sacred rights of humanity, addressing you on asubject very dear to me in which I have been deeply interestedsince my childhood; a subject on which I have learned a greatdeal from two men of universal reputation, who, for the glory[2]of the western hemisphere, were born under the purest skyof America—I mean Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot. I standfor the forest, for the preservation of forests as a measure ofpublic safety. My paper is in part an extract of a report thatI sent to Brazil to be read this week at the request of the4th International American Medical Congress, held now at RioDe Janeiro “on the most efficacious means of preventing andlessening the effects of periodical droughts.” In that paper Iwrote about the lessons of the Irrigation Congress, whichlessons we are already profiting by, having improved the Irrigationprojects of w