WORK ON A NATIONAL FOREST 



195 



belonged to the natural order Pachy- 

 dermata. 



To be a forester in this day and age 

 is to be a man who has a profound 

 capacity for forgetting all unhelpful 

 personal criticism. He must not pick 

 it up, nor listen to talebearers and gos- 

 sips. He must treat all men with equal 

 fairness, and must carry no personal 

 feelings into his daily business. Good 

 literature is the refuge in all hours of 

 storm, and most of all, the great lyrics 

 and epics, the tales of heroes, and the 

 vast dramas of human existence. There 

 was once an astronomer up on Mount 

 Hamilton, at the Lick Observatory, 

 who used to tell me that five years of 

 star-gazing lifted one "above all the 

 flea-bites." Five years of forestry, of 

 association with pines and mountains, 

 ought to do as much as this for a man. 



But let us not unduly exaggerate the 

 frontier problems, for they lessen every 

 year and our men are not afraid to meet 

 them. Gentleness and justice long, very 

 long, continued will ripen at last into 

 permanent relations with each and 

 every one of the frontier communities. 

 The growing forest will give employ- 

 ment to more people, homes will 

 increase, better schools and more 

 churches will be established, telephones 

 and railroads will bring in new ideas, 

 and increase prosperity. Many an old 

 superstition, many an ancient prejudice 

 will soon melt like late rain-swept 

 snows, and "leave not a wrack behind. " 



The next generation will be in com- 

 plete touch with the forest idea, and 

 even the old are learning, little by little, 

 that forestry has come to stay, that tim- 

 ber cannot be cut without a permit, that 

 grazing fees must be paid and that the 

 forest officer is sustained, in case of 

 need, by the whole power of a great 

 government. No tactful man will ever 

 try to "rub these things in ;" but neither 

 will be give up this impregnable posi- 

 tion, as did one old-time ranger that I 

 knew of. He was heard to say to a 

 frontiersman, who objected to the trou- 

 ble of asking for a permit for free fire- 

 wood : 



"If I wasn't a ranger I would feel 

 just as you do. It's kind of a fool regu- 

 lation anyhow." 



Slowly and often painfully, then, the 

 average frontiersman will learn the in- 

 disputable legal fact that what he has 

 called "his" mountains belong in large 

 part to all the people of America, "for 

 the greatest good of the greatest num- 

 ber," and for whatever can be shown to 

 be the "higher use." In what the fron- 

 tiersman calls "his country," he only 

 owns certain areas to which he has se- 

 cured a title. He never had "rights" 

 in the woods, the waters, the game, the 

 grazing over wild areas of unentered 

 land — the land of the people of the Na- 

 tion. He only had a temporary privi- 

 lege to use these outside lands, because 

 they lay idle and unfenced. The Na- 

 tion so long deemed itself so rich in 

 surplus lands that no one thought of re- 

 ducing these things to a business sys- 

 tem, and of charging a rental for all 

 use of Government land, so as to keep 

 in clear sight the main fact of owner- 

 ship. Men's thoughts are clearing fast 

 on this point. In a National Forest the 

 lands belong to the Government, and to 

 those people who have titles there. 



I find it slow work to get a frontiers- 

 man to understand or accept all this, 

 and harder yet to have him realize that 

 a "regulation" has any legal value 

 whatever. Sometimes I say to a man : 



"It's this way : All the people in Cali- 

 fornia own the statehouse at Sacra- 

 mento, because they furnished the 

 money and ordered it built. But the 

 laws of California create a Capitol 

 Commission, appointed by the gover- 

 nor, and empower this commission to 

 appoint a superintendent, who hires the 

 workmen, and makes rules which are 

 posted all over the building. If you go 

 up there and deface the building, or spit 

 on the floor, the first of the officials who 

 sees you will stop it. If you make a 

 row, he will "run you in." If the peo- 

 ple had not given the authority to make 

 such rules and regulations (and to en- 

 force them) pretty soon California 

 would have no Capitol. In just the 

 same way the people established the 

 forest, and gave the chief of the forest 

 power to make rules and regulations 

 which have the force of law. Govern- 

 ment is mainly carried on in all civilized 

 countries by appointive officers. Most 



