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HARDWOOD RECORD 



reasoniug, for an advertising announcement in a logically circulated 

 trade paper of five thousand circulation is worth more to the average 

 machinery man than the same advertisement would be in a publication 

 having a million miscellaneous readers. 



The Technical Publicity Association has frequent meetings and 

 invites to these gatherings representatives of the leading trade jour- 

 nals, at which time opportunity is given for a free discussion of all 

 phages of trade paper publicity. The association is a good thing, and 

 the Record wishes it the greatest possible success. 



The Trouble of the Railroads 



The demands being made upou the railroads liy their operators 

 for more wages based on the plea of increased living expenses is 

 still an important topic in the railroad world. The claims of the 

 organized switchmen's union against the railroads by mutual agreement 

 with the road managers has been referred to arbitration. It is to 

 be hoped that the affair can in this manner be settled aniieably, and 

 also that claims of other railroad operators can be handled in the 

 same way and an impending strike avoided. 



Railroad managers are doing everything in their power to conciliate 

 their employees. With the demand for higher wages on one hand 

 and legislation forbidding an increase of freight ratas on the other, 

 they are really ' ' between the devil and the deep sea. ' ' On top of 

 their other troubles the snow and sleet storms prevailing over a 

 large area of the country during the last two weeks have played 

 havoc with railroad business. Nearly every passenger train between 

 the Atlantic seaboard and the Rocky Mountains is running hours 

 late and a great many freight trains are at a standstill. In some 

 cases there is a paucity of available food and fuel supplies and prices 

 on the necessities of life have been boosted in Chicago, New York 

 and other cities. The extreme cold that has accompanied the recent 

 storms has entailed an immense amount of suffering not only on the 

 part of railroad employees but on the pcor over a wide range of 

 country. 



Pinchot and the President 



Gifford Pinchot, chief of the Forestry Division of the United 

 States, is a very patient man. For years he lias been assailed by 

 lumbermen, by coal men. liv waterpower trusts and everybody else 

 who wanted to grab chunks of Uncle Sam 's property without paying 

 a just equivalent for it, and heretofore he has held his peace. 



Mr. Pinchot, in the light of recent events, is more deeply inter- 

 ested in conserving, for the benefit of the general mass of citizens 

 of the United States, their equity in the public domain than he is to 

 hold his job and continue to be a football for sundry politicians 

 and the grafters a good many of them represent. 



A few days ago in New York, in discussing the conservation 

 question as a moral issue, Mr. Pinchot suggested that steps be taken 

 to restrict the tactics of monopolies. He declared the people had 

 been the victims of a system of plunder and that special interests 

 have made repeated attacks on the .United States Forest Service, 

 and these attacks have increased in violence just in proportion as 

 the service has offered effective opposition to predatory wealth. He 

 believes that the American people have made up their minds that 

 the natural resources of the country must be conserved, but this 

 settles only half the question. He asks: "For whose benefit shall 

 they be conserved — for the benefit of the many or for the use and 

 profit of the few?" 



Mr. Pinchot continued: 



The 'conservation issue is a moral issue. Wlieu a I'ew 

 men get possession of one of tlie necessaries of life, 

 either througli ownership of a natural resource or througli 

 unfair business methods, and use that control to extort 

 undue profits, as in the recent cases of the sugar trust 

 and the beef packers, they injure the average man with- 

 out good reason, and the.v are guilt.v of a moral wrong. 



I believe in one form of government and I believe in 

 the golden rule. But we must face the truth that 

 monopoly of the sources of production makes it impossi- 

 ble for vast numbers of men and women to earn a fair 

 living. Right here the conservation question touches the 

 daily life of the gi'eat body of our people, who pay the 

 cost of special privilege. And the price is heavy. 



The people of this country liave lost vastly more than 

 they can ever regain by gifts of public property, forever 

 and without charge, to men who gave nothing in return. 

 It is true that we have made superb material progress 

 under this system, but it is not well for us to rejoice too 

 freely in the slices the special interests have given us 

 from the great loaf of the property of all the people. 



The people of the United States have been the com- 

 placent victims of a system of plunder often perpetrated 

 by men who would have been surprised beyond measure 

 to be accused of wrongdoing, and many of whom in their 

 private lives wore model citizens. But they have suffered 

 from a curious moral perversion by which it becomes 

 praLseworthy to do for a corporation things which they 

 would refuse with the loftiest scorn to do for thena- 

 selves. Fortunately for us all, that delusion is passing 

 rapidly away. 



It is the honorable distinction of the forest service that 

 it lias been more constantly, more violently and more 

 bitterly attacked by the representatives of the special 

 interests in recent years than any other government 

 bureau. These, attacks have increased in violence and 

 bitterness just in proportion as the service has offered 

 effective opposition to predatory wealth. The more suc- 

 cessful we have been in preventing land grabbing and 

 the absorption of water power by the special interests, 

 the more ingenious, the more devious and the more dan- 

 gerous these attacks have become. A favorite one is to 

 assert that the forest service, in its zeal for the public 

 welfare, has played ducks and drakes with the acts of 

 Congress. 



The fact is, on the contrary, that the service has had 

 warrant of law for everything it has done. Not once 

 since it was created has any charge of illegality, despite 

 the most searching investigation and the bitterest attack, 

 ever led to reversal or reproof by either house of Con- 

 gress or by any congressional committee. 



Another, and unusually plausible, form of attack is to 

 demand that all land not now bearing trees shall be 

 thrown out of the national forests. 



Still another attack, nearly successful two years ago, 

 was an attempt to prevent the forest service from telling 

 the people, through the press, what it is accomplishing 

 for them, and how much this nation needs the forest. 



Since the forest service called public attention to the 

 rapid absorption of the water power sites and the threat- 

 ening growth of a great water power monopoly, the 

 attacks upon it have increased with marked rapidity. 1 

 anticipate that they will continue to do so. Still greater 

 opposition is promised in the near future. There is but 

 one protection — an awakened public opinion. That is 

 why I give you the fact.s. 



Secretary Ballinger believes that Gifford Pinchot has been instru 

 mental in throwing the lime-light on sundry transactions of his 

 department, and has reached a point of peevishness and has demanded 

 a congressional investigation. It has therefore transpired that a 

 committee of the Senate and House has been appointed to investi- 

 gate ( 1) and tell the story of Mr. Ballinger 's transactions. As 

 the committee is made up, it is very easy to assume in advance that 

 Mr. Ballinger w'ill come out of the mixup with a clean bill of health; 

 in fact, he will make the Apostle Paul look like the star member of 

 the Black Hand fraternity. 



Gifford Pinchot is on the level, and the Record is with him first, 

 last and all the time. It sincerely trusts that he will keep on telling 

 the truth and thus keep up the fight that has been inaugurated for 

 the conservation of the public domain for the benefit of the people 

 and not for the individual. 



It is a mighty sure thing that Pinchot is not going to desert 

 under fire. He will probably "get fired," but this will be only 

 another nail in the coffin of the present administration. 



Just wait until Teddy gets back on the job! 



[Edilor'.s Note. — The foregoing article was written early last week, auil 

 the prophecy it contains has been fultilled, for President Taft requested 

 the resignation of Gifford rinchot on Friday last. 



To the mind of every intelligent and fair-thinking man who has kept 

 in touch with the splendid work of Mr. rinchot in connection with the 

 Forest Service, the action of the president is the culminating blunder of 

 his administration. 



I used to think 1 h.iil some grudges against Theodore Roosevelt, but 

 they arc all wiped nut now save his one mounmental offense, the selec- 

 tion he made for the Ui-pnblican presidential landidate in the last cam- 

 paign. 



I again repeal, ■■.Inst wait until T.'ddy gets back on the job."] 



The Forestry Situation. 



It is perhaps ironical to start in this issue of Hardwood Record a 

 series of articles on the subject of the Status of Forestry in the 

 United States. As a matter of fact, under conditions as they are 

 today forestry has no status of any sort in the United States. 



