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What wond'T in the ini()st of all this ruin that "Great Heart ' sho''.'d 

 arise. He looks on the past and then on the present, and then Into 

 the future and he asks himself what will become of this nation 200 years 

 from now. On the ordering of Providence when a tremendous crisis 

 comes there is always a man to meet it. This time it was Gifford 

 Pinchot, by education one of the best foresters the world has produced. 

 A man of means, he is not hampered in his work. He is ready to 

 to sacrifice thousands for the future. He might have made judicious 

 investments in the great West he knew so well, so he could have become 

 a billionaire. He could have taken his chances in an unguarded mo- 

 ment and captured forests, water powers and coal lands. No man since 

 the days of Robert Morris, who furnished the sinews of war for Wash- 

 ington and then died in a debtor's prison, has done more or made 

 greater sacrifices than Mr. Pinchot. Though for the present he has lost 

 his position, he is yet a king, independent of throne or crown. Few 

 men have shown such a fearless persistence in the face of the most 

 determined opposition. There were thousands of men who had pet plans 

 for the future. They wished to put their hands on the nation's wealth. 

 Little cared they for the future. Cattlemen and sheepmen, who for 

 years had been allowed to ruin young forests and destroy pastures by 

 overfeeding, these rose in arms, and what a clamor they raised. 



There was no way of fiehting fires. The cattlemen wanted fires. 

 Some of the cowboys had it worked down to the fine arts. Here was 

 a tract they wanted burned. They might be caught. One takes a mag 

 nifying glass and sets it so the focused rays next day would li^ht on dry 

 feavps and other combustibles. The sun does its work and the innocent 

 cowboy nrovps an alibi, for he is fifty miles away. I met a range rider 

 in the Rockies and had a long talk with him. He would say to stock 

 owners: "You can put only so many head on this ranee and you must 

 pay for it." "Not much; we have had this range and we are going to 

 have it." He would tell them: "I represent the United States govern- 

 ment. You cannot afford to have a war with ninety million peonle." 

 Often his life was threatened. All manner of trumped no charges were 

 sent on to Washington and sometimes he had to face fire both front 

 and rear. But these heroic men, like the mounted police of Canada, 

 have convinced the ranchmen there was a law in the land and it must 

 be obeyed. 



In a terrible time like this, when most of our northwestern forests 

 are tinder boxes, what could be done without our range riders and 

 their system of fighting fires? Sometimes they are at it for forty-eight 

 hours without letup. One man found two of them lying on the ground 

 in the deep sleep of utter exhaustion. They lay as they fell and the 

 ants were running over them. Perhavs these men took a little relaxation 

 and then the cry goes up: "See those lazy fellows and the waste in 

 the forest service." No figuring, you understand, of the waste of the 

 fires and the ax. All manner of abuse was heaped on the chief forester, 

 but there was a vision before him. one nf ruin and desolation, and he 



