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HARDWOOD RECORD 



Ja unary 2a^ 1U2 



News from the National Capital 



Witnesses Support Snell Bill at Hearings 



Kepresentatives of newspaper publisherSj timber owners, lumber 

 manufacturers, paper manufacturers, forestry associatious and 

 woodworking industries appeared before the House Committee on 

 Agriculture during the week of January 9 and advocated the Snell 

 forestry-policy bill (HE 129). 



The hearing was opened by Eepresentative Snell, who introduced 

 the bill, which, with slight changes, has been introduced in the 

 upper house by Senator McCormick of Illinois. Mr. Snell explained 

 that the bill was supported by the National Forestry Program com- 

 mittee, which included the Association of Wood Using Industries, 

 the American Newspaper Publishers' Association, the American 

 Paper and Pulp Association, forest societies and other kindred 

 organizations. 



The bill provides for the inauguration of a national policy of 

 forest production on lands suitable for it, whether in public or pri- 

 vate ownership. It appropriates $3,000,000 for a survey of the 

 forest resources of the country, $1,000,000 for co-operative investi- 

 gations, in which the states are to contribute dollar for dollar, 

 $1,000,000 for experiments in reforestation and the utilization of 

 wood, and $50,000,000 for the extension by purchase of the na- 

 tional forests. Provision is also made for the inclusion of addi- 

 tional areas of the public domain in the national forests. 



Kirby Is Star Witness 



After four days of the hearings to determine the essential features of a 

 forest policy bill, the House Committee on Agriculture heard .Tohn Henry 

 Kirby of Houston. Tex., president of the National Lumber Manufacturers' 

 Association. So practical, sensible and able was Mr. Kirby's presentation 

 that at the end of his testimony he received a round of applause in which 

 many of the members of the committee joined heartily. They had listened 

 patiently to a score of witnesses, Including Gifford Pinchot, former Chief 

 Forester of the United States Forest Service, and other experts, some of 

 whom had elaborate schemes for solving the forest policy program. When 

 Mr. Kirby appeared as almost the last witness, be frankly admitted that he 

 possessed no secret and infallible panacea for the problem at hand. Stat- 

 ing at the outset that he represented the National Lumber Manufacturers' 

 Association, which is a federation of fourteen regional lumber associations 

 producing practically every species of wood products in the United States, 

 he made it plain that the manufacturers of lumber are not asking any 

 favors in legislation. 



"Lumbermen are as good citizens, as patriotic, red-blooded Americans 

 as can be found anywhere," said Mr. Kirby, "and they are actuated in 

 consideration of a forest policy by their regard for posterity." Mr. Kirby 

 explained that it came from the state of Texas where lumbermen are not, 

 as a rule, large owners of land. His explanation of the conditions among 

 southern lumbermen and timber owners presented a phase of the general 

 forest problem that had not been previously touched upon. He pointed 

 out that the sawmill operator Is the only manufacturer who, at the very 

 outset of his business venture, must lay in a ten years' supply of raw 

 material, at least. "Imagine," he said, "the cotton manufacturer buying 

 ten years' supply of raw cotton in advance, or the shoe manufacturer laying 

 in ten years' supply of leather, paying interest on the investment, taxes 

 and insurance." 



Mr. Kirby stated that so far as the national lumber manufacturers 

 are concerned their problems differ widely in various producing regions. 

 The problems of the south are not the same as the problems of the lake 

 regions, the east or the west. He expressed emphatic doubt that the 

 Snell bill, or any other legislative proposal up to this time, would solve 

 all the difficulties of formulating a national forest policy. "We as lum- 

 bermen from all these regions," he said, "are willing to cooperate in any 

 rational plan that will be of benefit to future generations." He declared 

 that he was irrevocably opposed to any invasion of the rights of private 

 property and referred to the bill of rights of the federal constitution, 

 which, he said, prohibited the further centralization of governmental 

 Interference with the citizen's right to the enjoyment of what he right- 

 fully earns. 



Paying his respects to Mr. Pinchot and others who charged lumber- 

 men with reckless and "destructive" logging, Mr. Kirby said he wanted 

 especially to denv the impeachment that lumbermen in every part of the 

 country are -.-«steful and wilfully destructive. "If there were no other 

 reason for this denial it would rest upon the fact that selfishness alone 



would prompt every lumberman to get every possible penny out of every 

 stick of timber they could get to their mills." Speaking of reforestation, 

 Mr. Kirby declared that it would be an impossibility upon privately owned 

 timberlands. "We can't plant trees, pay interest on the investment, furnish 

 our own insurance and fire protection and pay taxes every year for thirty 

 years on a single crop," he pointed out. 



When asked if he had a plan of forestry in his mind, Mr. Kirby smil- 

 ingly denied that he had. But he manifested such a breadth of view, such 

 varied experience and such an intelligent appreciation of the many diffi- 

 culties of the problem, that he was invited to submit further views on 

 legislation for tlie guidanre of the committee. 



Pinchot for Drastic Control 



The day's hearing was opened by Gifford Pinchot, Forest Commissioner 

 of Pennsylvania, who declared that in his opinion the problem of restrict- 

 ing the cutting of private forest lands was the most important phase of 

 the forestry problem, and he added that it was his conviction that this 

 could only be accomplished by direct federal mandatory action upon the 

 private owners. During the hearing he approved increased appropriation 

 for fire prevention, and for the extension of national forest, but thought 

 that the Snell bill would not be effective in protecting forests in the heavily 

 timbered states from devastation. He said Pennsylvania demanded that 

 the states which now have forests preserve them for the benefit of the 

 rest of the country and pointed out that Pennsylvania, through the devas- 

 tation of its own forests in years past, was now dependent upon the other 

 states for four-fifths of its timber. He introduced resolutions of the 

 Pennsylvania State Board of Forestry opposing the Snell bill. 



Dr. S. J. Pratt of North Carolina's Forestry Board appeared in the 

 afternoon. a|)pr(>vlng all items of the Snell bill except the provision for co- 

 operation in establishing re(|uirements for cutting timber, and asked for 

 federal regulation of this phase of the problem, 



H. S. Graves, fonner chief forester, declared himself in favor of the co- 

 operative principle and against the Pinchot plan of federal control, but 

 advocated more specific restrictions in the Snell bill, offering a substitute 

 to make the application of the plan mandatory upon the states. 



After Mr. Kirby's appearance, E. T. Allen of the Western Forestrj- and 

 Conservation Association controverted the argument that the principle of 

 the Snell bill for cooperative handling of forestry problems was unwork- 

 able by giving figures to show that it was actually in effect already to the 

 extent that existing legislation permitted, and pointed out that the private 

 owners of western timberland are now not only paying hundreds of thou- 

 sands of dollars more than the amounts contributed by federal and state 

 agencies combined, but are even protecting private land not owned by 

 them to prevent fires from spreading to such lands to the holdings of those 

 who are paying the cost. 



E. S. Kellogg, of New York, chairman of the National Forestry Pro- 

 gram Committee, closed by saying that now for the first time a compre- 

 hensive national forestry policy was proposed, and that the Snell bill 

 was the only practicable solution of the great problems involved. He said 

 that it was admitted that some policy was necessary, and that any gov- 

 ernmental action must be based on justice to the private owner, as well as 

 protection of the public from future shortage. He added that no legis- 

 lation has ever been successful in forcing private interests to operate their 

 industries at a loss. 



Greeley Supports Snell BUI Strongly 

 Colonel Greeley told the fi.inmittec that the Snell hill represented the 

 most practicable and opportune solution of the timber supply problem. 

 Federal legislation was necessary because the problem was general and 

 national and could not be satisfactorily solved without federal co-opera- 

 tion. Colonel Greeley stated that the forest lands of the United States 

 amount to 460.000,000 acres, of which 70 per cent has been logged, and 

 17.D per cent, or 81,000,000 acres, is burnt over and idle. Timber is being 

 reduced at the rate of 50.000.000,000 feet annually, including that de- 

 stroyed by fire. Of the remaining standing timber. Colonel Greeley said 61 

 per cent is west of the Rocky Mountains, whereas four-fifths of the popu- 

 lation is east of those mountains. The consumption of timber is tour times 

 as great as its annual growth. Two-thirds of the timber consumers now 

 pay as much for freight alone on their wood supplies as they formerly 

 paid altogether. 



As betB'een the Snell bill, which is based on voluntary co-operation 

 between the states and the federal government in promoting forest propa- 

 gation, and the Capper bill, which enforces the forestry administration of 

 private lands through the federal taxation power, Colonel Greeley favored 

 the Snell bill. The measures on which all could agree were federal co- 

 operation with the states for fire protection, the distribution of young 

 trees for replanting, the extension of the national forests by purchase and 

 addition from the public lan,l.«. and roseaceh regarding reforestation and 



