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HARDWOOD RECORD 



October 10. 1919 



text giving an analysis of what was said, showing it in a more 

 simple form than it would appear in if transmitted verbatim. Any- 

 one interested in securing additional copies of the insert appearing 

 in this issue may have them by addressing Hardwood Kecoed. 



Partnership in Forestry 



THE FORESTEY PLAN advocated by Henry S. Graves, chief 

 forester of the general government, has been worked out by 

 liim in considerable detail and sent to the trade press of the country 

 for publication. Mr. Graves has given much thought to this matter, 

 as is apparent in the precision with which he has worked out the 

 details. The general outline differs little from that announced by 

 him in various public addresses in recent months, but certain points 

 are made clearer. 



The basic idea underlying the plan is that the government ami 

 the private and municipal owners of timberlands should form a 

 sort of partnership for their mutual benefit. By the terms of that 

 J artncrship, the timber owners will receive financial, technical, 

 and expert assistance from the government, and in return will sur- 

 render certain rights and privileges to the government. The priv- 

 ileges surrendered shall consist, for the most part, in the manage- 

 ment of the property in order that waste may be lessened, output 

 increased or improved, and future forests provided for. The matter 

 of taxation comes up for discussion. Mr. Graves believes that the 

 holder of timberland should be protected against excessive and 

 short-sighted local taxation which too often forces him to cut his 

 trees before they are ready to cut. 



The forester evidently intends this paper to be a reply to cer- 

 tain critics who have challenged some of the features of his plan, 

 as heretofore announced. At any rate, it is a contribution toward 

 a better understanding of a very important matter. However, the 

 ground assumed is somewhat radical, for, under our form of govern- 

 ment, private property is very jealously guarded against encroach- 

 ment by the government. The constitution lays down the rule that 

 private property shall not be taken for public use without just 

 compensation, and that question narrowly misses being involved in 

 the proposed plan, if it really is not involved. Fully aware that 

 his plan may be attacked on that ground, Mr. Graves frankly 

 states the terms on which lie proposes to work out a partnership 

 between the government and the owners of timberland, so that 

 each party may be benefited in proportion to its contribution. 



A Day's Work 



SHORTENING THE HOURS of labor cuts down production. 

 Experience of recent months has shown that to be the case; 

 and it is proper to consider seriously what will be the final out- 

 come of the propaganda for shorter and still shorter hours. Will 

 tlie hours become so short that production will not meet the coun- 

 try's needs? If so, what is the remedy, and when and how should 

 the remedy be applied? This is not a theoretical question that can 

 be met with a theoretical answer. It is practical, and sooner or 

 later a practical answer must be forthcoming; for, if not enough 

 work is done to produce such things as the country must have, the 

 country must either get along with less, or the volume of work 

 must increase. 



Many years ago, Henry D. Thoreau, an eccentric philosopher of 

 Massachusetts, announced that a man could live by an hour of 

 work a day, and that when he worked more than that, somebody 

 else was living on the product of the extra labor. To prove his 

 theory he went into the woods near Concord, Mass., built a hut 

 at Walden Pond, doing all the work himself, and proceeded to 

 prove that a man could live by working one hour a day, and will 

 then be free to spend the other twenty-three hours sleeping, and 

 communing with nature. He proved his case. He worked an hour 

 a day, ate cornmeal mush and boiled pumpkin, slept plenty, com- 

 muned with nature, wrote some charming books, refused to pay 

 taxes and went to jail instead. 



The question might be asked, and has been asked, If Thoreau 

 lived by one hour of work a day, why cannot others do it? They 



can, if they are all like Thoreau, all willing and able to live as he 

 lived, and can find conditions and circumstances as he found them 

 in a New England forest seventy years ago. But Thoreau sup- 

 ported only himself, and the average man has four besides himself 

 to support, for the average American family consists of five. 

 Therefore, the head of the modern house must work five hours 

 instead of one, even if the family should be willing to live as 

 Thoreau lived. 



But is the modern family willing to live in a forest shanty and 

 eat pumpkin and mush? Hardly. Besides, Thoreau had finished 

 his schooling before he became a hermit, and his hour of daily work 

 made no provision for educating children, paying for books, tuition, 

 movies, and other recreation; but the modern family wants some 

 of these things, and they cannot be had for nothing. 



The philosopher Thoreau proved all he started out to prove; but 

 one of the things which he did not try to demonstrate was that 

 civilization can exist without a proper amount of productive labor. 

 Everything the nation uses must be produced by work, and enough 

 work must be done to produce what the people individually and 

 the nation as a whole use. That cannot be done without a pretty 

 substantial day's work by the people generally, no matter what 

 each one 's particular job may be. Thomas Carlyle shot the truth 

 straight to the mark when he exclaimed: "In this great garden of 

 life, you who are not working, are either begging or stealing." 



But the point is, as a living question of today. Will not the 

 tendency and determination to shorten the day's work, shorten it 

 to such an extent that it will not suffice to supply the people with 

 what they need and result in underproduction? It cannot be 

 authoritively stated just how many hours of work a day are 

 necessary to produce enough; but the extreme theories of agitators 

 that five or six hours a day are enough, has been proved wrong in 

 Russia, where the people are starving to death, factories are idle, 

 railroads are falling to jjieces, land is untilled, and all a direct" or 

 indirect result of the attempt to live without doing a full and 

 honest day 's work, one day with another. In some lines, we have 

 underproduction now, and apparently no overproduction anywhere, 

 and agitators are calling for still shorter days, which would inevita- 

 bly further reduce production at the very time when greater output 

 is needed. It remains to be proved that a universal eight-hour day 

 will produce as much as the nation must have, even with all the 

 improved apparatus and labor-saving appliances. The American 

 people have outgrown the log-cabin, mush-and-milk, one-horse-sled, 

 homespun-jeans stage, and they want more; but it must not be 

 forgotten that we are not living in the Garden of Eden, where all 

 things needed grow on trees — namely, fruit for eating and fig 

 leaves for clothes. We have to work for what we get, and it takes 

 a certain amount of work. If that amount is reduced too low, the 

 people must suffer the consequences and get along with less, in 

 obedience to the inexorable law that something cannot come from 

 nothing. 



What's the Matter With Us 



THE STEEL STRIKE is on and it looks like a long drawn out 

 war by labor to control an industry in preference to men who 

 own the stock or the officers they employ to conduct the affairs 

 of a corporation. There should not be any question in the mind 

 of any lumberman as to what side of the fence he is on. Before 

 we get through with this strike we might just as well let it be 

 known that when men desire to confiscate other people's property 

 they are not citizens of America under the present constitution, 

 and every business man should come out and support the owners of 

 the steel companies and fight this out if it takes all winter. When 

 it is settled it should mean that we demand the deportation of the 

 men who are leaders of this radical unionism and are adopting 

 such methods. 



We are not of the kind who think the employes are all wrong, 

 but we are of the opinion that the time has come when they ought 

 to show their patriotism and accept the responsibilities of their 

 birthright, which is their citizenship in the United States of 

 America. 



