EDITORIAL 



447 



fore it gained any headway at all, and 

 the timber saved thereby is worth more 

 than the total cost of all the launches 

 yet bought by the Service. The fire 

 started in the timber on the hills above 

 the lake ; to make the trip around the 

 end of the lake, by land, would have 

 taken the better part of two days ; the 

 launch made it across in an hour or so. 

 We might say that steam fire engines 

 are a needless extravagance on the part 

 of a city ; the engines stand idle the 

 greater part of the time. But suppose 

 cities were without them ? 



&' «« 5^ 



The Service Itself 



FINALLY, is the Forest Service a 

 valuable hard-working, indispensa- 

 ble part of the Government, or is it, as 

 the Senator says, a farce? If it were 

 the latter, we fancy there would be less 

 opposition to it in the West — or any- 

 where else, for that matter. No or- 

 ganization, of whatever character, that 

 is not more than ordinarily active, and 

 that is not doing a great deal of work, 

 is ever abused. No ; the Senator is un- 

 happy in his choice of adjectives. Ac- 

 tive, aggressive, even impertinent — 

 when its activities are looked at from 

 the viewpoint of certain equally aggres- 

 sive western interests — the Forest Serv- 

 ice may be, but never farcical. It is 

 doing a work that is perhaps more vital- 

 ly necessary to the well-being of the 

 whole country than that of any other 

 single bureau of the Government. 

 Only the preliminary steps in the work 

 have as yet been taken ; the labors that 

 remain to be performed overshadow the 

 actual accomplished work as Pike's 

 Peak overshadows the foothills. If the 

 forests of the West are to be saved 

 from a fate like that which has already 

 overtaken those of the East, the work 

 of the Forest Service must go on, in- 

 creasing in scope as it proceeds. How 

 any man who pretends to the ability to 

 think consecutively and to reason from 

 premise to conclusion can say there is 

 no need for the work of the Forest 

 Service, and that the views advanced by 

 it are the babblings of cranks and hare- 



brained theorists, passes the comprehen- 

 sion of the writer. Practically the en- 

 tire State of Michigan was, thirty years 

 ago, covered with a dense stand of 

 timber as valuable as that growing in 

 any of the western states. Where is 

 that timber now? Gone — absolutely 

 and irrevocably gone ; stripped to the 

 sand and rocks of the eroded soil. The 

 same is true of the greater part of Wis- 

 consin. Likewise it is true of the moun- 

 tains of Kentucky and Tennessee. True, 

 too, of Pennsylvania ; true of New 

 York, and the New England States. 

 True, also of the South Atlantic States. 

 Is there any reason to believe that west- 

 ern timberlands will fare any better if 

 left unprotected? And when those tim- 

 ber tracts of the West shall have been 

 ravaged and stripped bare, what of the 

 country? What of the farming lands 

 that require irrigation water? What of 

 the grazing lands that must have 

 water? And, finally, what of the great, 

 growing nation that must have timber 

 and lumber? 



It will readily be granted that certain 

 individuals, who have a winning way 

 with state officials, would be greatly 

 benefited, financially, if they were un- 

 hampered in their operations by Forest 

 Service rules and officials. Certain 

 groups of stockmen in the range and 

 grazing states, likewise, would probably 

 fare better financially, were the Govern- 

 ment to remove its hampering regula- 

 tions — hampering only in so far as to 

 make stockmen pay for the benefits they 

 receive — and abolish the Forest Serv- 

 ice. But that the Government will ever 

 do any such thing is not to be 

 thought for a single instant. Rather, 

 the activities of the Forest Service will 

 be increased from year to year ; the 

 work of the Reclamation Service will 

 keep pace with it ; the new Commission 

 on the Conservation of Natural Re- 

 sources will add its strength to the work 

 of protection, and the country as a 

 whole will not be long in seeing every- 

 where the benefits that flow from the 

 work. The little group of westerners 

 who want every tree and every blade of 

 grass that grows on Government 

 ground for their own use will doubtless 



