EDITORIAL 



295 



men on a battle-field, or the earthquakes 

 of San Francisco or Sicily were devel- 

 opments. 



Individuals, it is true, may grow rich- 

 by the processes in question, but indi- 

 viduals have likewise grown rich by 

 such calamities as those named. It is 

 high time that statesmen occupied them- 

 selves with other considerations than 

 those pertaining to the enrichment of a 

 few individuals. The statesman, as his 

 name implies, is supposed to be the 

 state's man — the representative of the 

 community, and of the public's interests. 

 As such, it ill becomes him to sacrifice 

 those interests that a few masters, not 

 of the art of development but of that of 

 ■exploitation, may heap to themselves 

 ill-gotten fortunes which mean the im- 

 poverishment of the human race till the 

 end of time. 



iii ^ ^ 



The Community Must Care for Itself 



AND still we hear the lumberman 

 condemned ! Usually from people 

 new to the forestry idea, and beginning 

 for the first time to realize the tre- 

 mendous havoc wrought by wood- 

 users and destroyers, comes the protest 

 against "private greed," "lack of pub- 

 lic spirit" and the "vandalism" of the 

 lumberman. 



We need to remember that the lum- 

 berman is very much like other people. 

 He is in business, as are others. Busi- 

 ness is conducted for profit. Those 

 who conform to business requirements 

 win ; those who fail to do so, lose. 

 Competition, insofar as it still sur- 

 vives, takes care of that. 



In his speech at the Annual Meeting 

 of The American Forestry Association, 

 Mr. Elliott of Pennsylvania emphasized 

 this point. "The lumberman," he de- 

 clared, "is no fool." He utilizes what 

 he can sell. "If you buy from him all 

 the wood there is that grows on the 

 trees, the stump and even up to the 

 twigs * * * i^g ^ill clear it all out 

 * * * and if you want to buy the 

 hole the stump stood in, he would sell 

 you that * * * He is willing to 



sell you everything he can. You can 

 go into some parts of the country where 

 there is a demand for all of the wood, 

 and you will find that they will strip 

 the forests clean ; the lumberman goes 

 in and gets all that he can get out of 

 the saw logs ; the tie man follows him ; 

 the paper pulp luan follows him ; and 

 the acid factory man follows him, and 

 there is nothing left bigger than my 

 arm." Elsewhere, where there is no 

 market for pulp wood, railroad ties or 

 acid factory wood, the lumberman is 

 forced to leave what he cannot sell. 



But the novice asks. How are public 

 interests then to be cared for? If the 

 lumberman's private interests lead him 

 to desolate the forests and to leave the 

 ground covered with tops and high 

 stumps, or to strip slopes and occasion 

 floods, what shall the public do? 



Very good. Such questions inevi- 

 tably force themselves to the front. 

 We are not likely to consider them too 

 much. 



The answer is. The public must not 

 look to the individual for its protection ; 

 instead, it must look to itself. Its power 

 is far superior to that of any individ- 

 ual. Its capacity for self-protection ex- 

 ceeds that of any man or collection of 

 men. If it will not care for its own 

 afifairs, it deserves to sufifer, and will 

 suflfer. We have long been taught that 

 the individual should not expect the 

 community to carry him ; much less 

 should the community expect the indi- 

 vidual to carry it. The individual has 

 his own afifairs to attend to ; if the 

 affairs of the community are not to be 

 ignored, as they too long have been 

 ignored, if they are not to be trodden 

 into the mire, as in countless instances 

 has been their fate, the community must 

 assert itself ; it must study its own case, 

 consider the grounds of its own well- 

 being and then, without hysteria, with- 

 out midue haste, without rancor, but 

 calmly, coolly, resolutely and energet- 

 ically proceed to mind its own business 

 and protect its own interests. In this 

 way, and in this way only will its prob- 



