40 



CONSERVATION 



ular, and I find that the result has been ex- 

 actly the opposite. It does seem to me that 

 the great monopolies which will try to control 

 them can much better afford to pay taxes on 

 great tracts of land than the individual man 

 with scanty means at his command, who 

 believes in reforestation and yet upon whom 

 the tax would be a burden so great that it 

 would be almost impossible for him to carry. 

 I believe with all my soul in the tax laws as 

 recommended in our report, and that they 

 should be changed according to these recom- 

 mendations. It is a shortsighted policy which 

 invites through excessive taxation the de- 

 struction of the only crop which steep moun- 

 tain lands will produce profitably. Taxes on 

 forest land should be levied on the crop when 

 cut, not on the basis of a general property 

 tax — that unsound method of taxation long 

 abandoned by every other great nation. An- 

 other urgent task before each great forest 

 State is not only the passage of adequate fire 

 laws, but their actual enforcement. More is 

 needed to protect the forest from tire than a 

 law upon the statute books. It requires the 

 definite commitment of all the States to their 

 inherent responsibility for the protection of 

 the forests within their boundaries from tire, 

 and that entails, and absolutely entails, the 

 employment of a trained force whose first 

 duty is fire patrol. 



The Nation, through the Federal Govern- 

 ment, confronts the urgent duty of conserving 

 all, not merely a part, of the public forest 

 lands by use. Until this standing timber is 

 adequately protected and conservatively used, 

 not only as at present on National Forests, 

 but on all other public lorest lands as well, its 

 very existence is imperilled. Grave injury has 

 already been done. It would be a national 

 disgrace should it continue. 



I have recently visited that great and beau- 

 tiful forest region which lies within the 

 Southern Appalachian Mountains, and I have 

 this to say regarding the proposed purchase 

 of a small portion of it by the Federal Gov- 

 ernment for the permanent use of the whole 

 people. I believe as firmly as I believe that I 

 am standing here on this platform, that unless 

 adequate action is taken, and taken soon, the 

 destruction now going rapidly on in the Appa- 

 lachian Mountains will either become totally 

 irretrievable, or retrievable onlv at an expense 

 so vast in time and money that it would 

 stagger this Nation. I do not believe that it 

 is necessary or advisable for the Federal Gov- 

 ernment to acquire all mountain forests in 

 this region, nor half of them, nor a fourth 

 of them. The purchase of one-twentieth of 



these mountain forest lands, their protection 

 from fire, and their conservation by use, 

 would solve, and solve satisfactorily, this 

 grave and urgent problem. But this entails, 

 as every other effective national measure for 

 the preservation of the forest entails for its 

 success, the cooperation of the States con- 

 cerned, through fire protection, and of the 

 private forest owners concerned, through bet- 

 ter care of forests in private hands. ^ 



These are the incontrovertible conclusions 

 which flow from the knowledge of how we 

 stand along main lines with relation to the 

 forest. Unless we do these things, our for- 

 ests will inevitably fail, and the failure of our 

 forests means the erosion of soil upon the 

 mountains and a falhng off in the usefulness 

 of our streams. Action upon each of these 

 conclusions requires no vast expenditures, no 

 upheaval in present economic conditions, but 

 merely the exercise of reasonable foresight 

 and thrift by individual forest owners and 

 users, and all the States, and by the Nation. 

 No one of these great agencies can alone 

 solve our forest problem, fhey must work 

 together, unitedly, vigorously, adequately, and 

 at once. If they act, together and now, we 

 need not worry greatly about our future tim- 

 ber supply. If they fail to act, it will mean 

 inevitable and grave timber scarcity in the 

 near future, an actual timber famine for those 

 who come after us. 



We can no more disregard, in our use of 

 the forests, than in our use of the mine, of 

 the stream, and of the farm, the fundamental 

 truth that want follows close upon the heels 

 of waste. But we should be thankful as indi- 

 vidual forest owners and forest users, thank- 

 ful as individual States, and thankful as a 

 federation of States, that the time, for the 

 application of an adequate remedy is not 

 wholly past. Grave injury has been done to 

 our country, which cannot be repaired in a 

 year, nor a decade, nor wholly effaced in a 

 century. But the fact gained by our present 

 inventory, above all other facts in import- 

 ance, is that if we act at once we still have 

 forest enough to produce under right man- 

 agement at least what timber we need. 



The cause of practical forestry is a just 

 cause. On the one side are established habits 

 of wastefulness and of misuse. On the other 

 side is the doctrine of common sense, of busi- 

 ness sagacity, of public duty. Because I be- 

 lieve in the American people, I believe that 

 they will follow the right cou,rse and turn 

 away from the wrong in this, as in all other 

 crucial questions, upon which depends the 

 permanent welfare of our country. 



After brief addresses by Messrs. 

 Page, of Virginia, and Howell, of Wy- 

 oming, in which both speakers dwelt 

 upon the magnitude of the task of 

 preparing for a sensible, utilitarian 

 method of conserving the resources of 



the Nation, and the absolute necessity 

 for cooperation between the States and 

 the Nation, Senator Edwards, a mem- 

 ber of the Canadian Parliament, was 

 called to the platform, responding with 

 a short but interesting talk. 



