750 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Let us turn to state and national 

 forestry. We have a national forest 

 system, with nearly 300 million acres 

 under its control — a tremendous empire 

 in itself. You understand that the 

 service charged with its management is 

 competent and loyal. Surely, .you say, 

 here at least we are in the van of 

 progress. 



Here is a stupendous task, involving 

 the protection of existing forests, re- 

 stocking denuded areas, and disposing 

 of the product so as best to serve the 

 entire nation. To withhold funds nec- 

 essary to this work is letting an im- 

 mensely profitable plant lie idle, as well 

 as in danger of destruction, to save the 

 cost of fuel and watchmen. To mis- 

 manage it is worse, for this one-fifth 

 proportion of our national supply can- 

 not but influence the four-fifths under 

 other control upon wdiich we are even 

 more dependent. 



Yet even here w^e are without a na- 

 tional policy. The Forest Service can 

 neither announce nor execute such a 

 policy as long as there is extreme vari- 

 ance in the views, not only of the 

 States, whose attitude toward their own 

 forests and forest industries has a pro- 

 found influence, but also in Congress 

 where any executive policy, to be de- 

 pendable, must find sanction and sup- 

 jjort. European countries, Japan, even 

 China, seek farseeing and expert de- 

 termination of the principles involved, 

 hut every session of our Congress sees 

 the whole subject debated from a dozen 

 viewpoints, chiefly political, seldom 

 statesmanlike, and always without real 

 knowledge of forest economics. Instead 

 of setting an example, we spend less 

 per acre for care of our forests not 

 only than other governments but than 

 our own private owners upon contigu- 

 ous lands. Retrenchment which does 

 not extend to the "pork barrel" is prac- 

 ticed vigorously when dealing with pro- 

 tection of the lives and resources of 

 the people. Pressure for the sale of 



ignorance or to "grandstand" against a 

 mythical lumber trust for political pur- 

 poses. 



Now all this is not chiefly the fault of 

 politicians. There is nothing for them 

 except so far as it can be made to strike 

 a responsive chord in their constituents. 

 With the public half so well informed 

 on the production of the lumber it 

 needs as it is upon the getting of its 

 parcels by mail or the price of sugar 

 there w^oukl be an expression on an 

 American forest policy that would 

 leave no statesman uncertain. W^e can- 

 not blame him if there is no such ex- 

 pression. We don't know ourselves, 

 that is all. 



The same is true of our States. Few 

 have comprehensive far-seeing policies, 

 covering their own oportunities on 

 State-owned forest lands and adecjuate 

 encouragement of good private man- 

 agement. Yet here, of all places, it is 

 the commonwealth that determines. It 

 is State intelligence and State pride 

 that dictates to the representative in 

 Congress and, in its own laws and their 

 enforcement, makes forestry a real in- 

 strument for good instead of a grudg- 

 ing concession to reformers. And 

 State intelligence will not be exerted 

 until we stop making forestry an ab- 

 stract problem of public or private con- 

 science. Abstract ethics do not get 

 results like fear of personal injury or 

 hope of personal gain. It is futile to 

 discuss the needs of posterity and pres- 

 ent sacrifice as a duty. The average 

 citizen must come to see that bad for- 

 est management, in this country of 

 ours, means a handicap of industry, 

 harder conditions of life, not only for 

 his children but for him as well. When- 

 ever an acre of forest is destroyed by 

 fire, forced into wasteful use, or not 

 frrown where it might be grown, he 

 bears most of the loss. 



Nor is this enough. Though he rec- 

 ognizes the evil, it will not be remedied 

 until he knows its practical working 

 reasons, so he may concede when he 

 must and demand where he may ; not 



tmiber to a sacrificial and demoralizing create further confusion through senti 

 extent is brought through penny-wise ment, ignorance, or prejudice. 



* From an address at the midsummer n-eeting of the Board of Directors of the American 

 Forestry Association at Chautauqua, N. Y. 



