EDITORIAL 



115 



and apt illustration of your President, 

 I was thinking, in the back of my head, 

 of the time that has gone by in this 

 forest movement, about some of the 

 men who made it what it was in the 

 early days, and whose friends have 

 carried on the work until now. 



"Dr. Franklin B. Hough, the first 

 Commissioner of Forestry, under whom 

 began the little division which has now 

 spread into the National Forest Service, 

 I think ought to be remembered on a 

 night like this, when, if I judge rightly, 

 you are taking stock of the great ad- 

 vance that has been made in forestry 

 in the last few years, and putting in a 

 new peg, setting a new high water mark 

 of interest and effectiveness and readi- 

 ness to go ahead. And there are very 

 many other men. There is Dr. Fernow, 

 who followed him, who is now teaching 

 in Canada, my immediate predecessor 

 in the Department of Agriculture. The 

 man whom I want to mention next is 

 one whose march has been steady, con- 

 tinuous, effective, and directly in the 

 leadership of all of us, whose fight was 

 begun single-handed under tremendous 

 difficulties ; who, before he was through, 

 had so conquered and held the loyalty 

 of a whole state that when a hostile 

 Governor tried to remove him from 

 his office, he was compelled by the 

 unanimous voice of all the citizens to 

 take him back — Dr. Rothrock. 



"No one can look about this room 

 without finding man after man whose 

 services have been very great indeed. 

 There is the senator here (Senator 

 Smoot), the best friend of the Forest 

 Service on the floor of the Senate. He 

 has shown that friendship in two of the 

 hardest fights any Government bureau 

 has had to sustain, and, thanks to him, 

 we pulled through all right ; I judge 

 from his talk that when the fight comes 

 the Senator will be there. 



"I may have gone out of the Forest 

 Service, ladies and gentlemen. I am 

 not prepared to deny that. But I ob- 

 serve that there is no danger whatever 

 but that the work will go on just ex- 

 actly the same. 



"Now, I could talk for an hour, and 

 a good many hours, just in pointing out 

 the men around this table whose serv- 



ices have been great ; Mr. Farquhar, 

 Mr. Pack, Mr. MacFarland, your Presi- 

 dent (whose service has been very great 

 indeed), Mr. Maxwell, Mr. Cox. I am 

 not going to try to go all around the 

 table, because I think practically every 

 man here has served the cause of for- 

 estry in a great degree ; and the thing I 

 want to say is simply this, that out of 

 the united efforts of the men who are in 

 this room tonight, and a few others not 

 here, has sprung a movement which has 

 consolidated in its grasp the whole of 

 the American people, until there is not 

 any question whatever, that no matter 

 what men come and what men go, the 

 forest work is going straight on. 



"Now, there is one man of whom I 

 want to speak a word. No one has ever 

 been more fortunate in the loyal sup- 

 port, assistance and co-operation of the 

 men who were working under him and 

 with him than I have been. I cannot 

 speak too highly of the fidelity, enthu- 

 siasm and devotion of the men in the 

 Forest Service. They are as clean and 

 fine a body of young men, and some few 

 old ones, as clean and fine a body of 

 men, I believe, as ever were gotten to- 

 gether for any pubhc purpose in this 

 world, and they have got the spirit that 

 will carry them straight on to do just 

 exactly the same kind of work in the 

 future, only better than they have been 

 doing in the past. And as for men 

 like Colonel Harvey, and others who 

 have given their time freely and gener- 

 ously, who have given their money and 

 their enthusiasm, which is better than 

 all, to carry on this movement, no one 

 has ever been more fortunate than I in 

 the men who worked with me, and with 

 whom I have worked in this whole 

 movement. 



"There is one man for whom I want 

 to bespeak your most vigorous and 

 earnest support. When I began forest 

 work a good many years ago in this 

 country, the first assistant I had, the 

 man to whom I turned as the one best 

 able, as I thought, of all the youngsters 

 I knew to take hold of this work and 

 carry it on, was the man, curiously 

 enough, who now steps into my shoes, 

 and will carry on the work that I have 

 had a share in forwarding. Now, there 



