24 



HAROWOOD RECORD 



'Builders of Lumber History 



(See portrait supplement.) 



When Gifford Pinchot graduated from 

 Yale, forestry in the United States existed 

 in books only. But he became interested in 

 it and went abroad to- study. In England, 

 by chance he met Sir Dietrich Brandis, one 

 of the greatest figures in practical forestry 

 in the world. Following the advice of Sir 

 Dietrich, Pinchot started his preliminary 

 training at the Forest School at Nancy. 

 After finishing there, he studied extensively 

 in the forests of Germany and India, still 

 under the guidance of the man who had 

 outlined his first studies. Pinchot inherited 

 the same untiring energy and enthusiasm 

 that gave to that old "saint of the for- 

 ests" the exalted position which will 

 always be his. As a consequence, the two 

 became close friends, which resulted in 

 Pinchot being given opportunities for 

 study and observation usually denied for- 

 eign students. 



In 1892 Pinchot undertook the first prac- 

 tical task in forestry, on any considerable 

 scale in the United States, at Biltmore, 

 N. C, and he prepared the forestry ex- 

 hibits from that state for the World's Fair 

 at Chicago. Later he opened an oflSce in 

 New York as- a "consulting forester" — a 

 profession that had practically no clients, 

 yet he worked with as much enthusiasm as 

 if he were achieving great visible results 

 every day, and with the keenest enjoy- 

 ment. 



July 1, 1898, he became chief of the Di- 

 vision of Forestry in the Department of 

 Agriculture. The Division of Forestry at 

 that time consisted of eleven people, only 

 two of whom, Mr. Pinchot and his suc- 

 cessor, Henry S. Graves, were professional 

 foresters. Its work was entirely scientific, 

 though it had no laboratory and was ad- 

 visory to private owners who did not wish 

 advice. The forest reserves which had 

 been created in President Cleveland's ad- 

 ministration, chiefly upon the advice of the 

 commission of which Mr. Pinchot was sec- 

 retary, were still under the control of the 

 Interior Department. There were no trained 

 men in the ranger force, and the whole 

 field service was hardly more than a farce. 



Beginning in 1898 the Division of For- 

 estry transferred its chief interest to the 

 field, though it had not yet acquired any 

 authority over national forest reserves. 

 It began two definite tasks: to get the data 

 necessary to found the science of American 

 forestry, and to educate the public to its 

 necessities. 



By 1901 the work was so increased that 

 the division was enlarged to a bureau. It 

 still, however, had no forests under its 

 charge. The first administrative work be- 

 gan two years later, when the sale of the 



NUMBER -XC 

 Gifford Pinchot 



timber on the Chippewa Indian lands in 

 Minnesota was put under its charge. 



Still, while the Forestry Bureau was 

 building up a trained force, creating the 

 science of forestry in this country, giving 

 a striking example of its benefits in Min- 

 nesota, and beginning to educate the pub- 

 lic, the National Forest Eeserves were ad- 

 ministered much in the same manner as 

 they had always been, and a strong feeling 

 of resentment against them was growing in 

 the West, which sooner or later seemed sure 

 to cause their abolition. This was a nat- 

 ural resentment. The forests were simply 

 kept from any human use whatever. They 

 were still under the management of the In- 

 terior Department, which had no scientific 

 knowledge of forestry. At the same time 

 the Agricultural Department 's corps of for- 

 esters had no forests to care for. 



On the first of February, 1905, this illog- 

 ical situation was remedied. The control 

 of the forest reserves, since then called the 

 National Forests, was put into the hands 

 of the Bureau of Forestry, which was re- 

 named the Forest Service. It was the be- 

 ginning of a new era, in which the theory 

 of beneficial use was the keynote of the 

 work. 



It was at this time that the real work 

 of Gifford Pinchot began, the work of con- 

 ducting forestry, not to save trees, but to 

 use them wisely — trees and every other nat- 

 ural resource. The policy of proper for- 

 estry was begun with imperfect means of 

 execution, but it was begun; and in 1909, 

 352,434,000 board feet of timber were cut 

 in the National Forests, and this cutting 

 left them in better shape than they were 

 in before. More than a million and a half 

 cattle and horses and nearly eight million 

 sheep and goats grazed within their borders 

 Tpithout damage to the range, and without 

 bloodshed between the cattle and sheep 

 men. Now, 216,000 people live in the Na- 

 tional Forests, and mills, mines, power sta- 

 tions and many other activities are carried 

 on, of benefit to the people, and without 

 damage to the forests. The fire loss has 

 been reduced to about one-half of what it 

 was under the old administration. 



While all this is going on, the National 

 Forests are protecting the head waters of 

 all the streams in the West, and the streams 

 mean life and light and power to the pop- 

 ulation. 



All this was not accomplished without a 

 struggle. To some people the ideas were 

 revolutionary and therefore bad; others 

 opposed them because they felt they meant 

 too much centralization. But the real op- 

 position came from those who had bene- 

 fited from the old system of bad laws and 

 loose methods. They were numerous and 



strong and they were hard fighters. Pinchot 

 went West to meet them. 



In the summer of 1906 he met criticism at a 

 cattlemen's conference at Glenwood Springs, 

 Colo., and Senator Heyburn's attack on him 

 at Boise. In 1907 he faced his opponents 

 in the Denver Land Convention, "packed" 

 to rebuke him and his policies, but nothing 

 came of it. The convention was discredited 

 and its promoters lost ground. 



It was from necessity, and not from 

 choice, that Pinchot became connected in 

 any way with the present proceedings at 

 Washington. Only when the conservation 

 policy was definitely discouraged and set 

 back, did he become even indirectly in- 

 volved in the controversy. But then the 

 strongest quality of the man began to assert 

 itself — the fighting quality. For any mere- 

 ly personal advantage, he would not fight 

 any human creature. In all his work he 

 had never considered his personal fortune. 

 It is said that he had always given his 

 salary to further the interests of his work — 

 a story which is truly characteristic. 



There is probably no other case entirely 

 parallel to this — a man whose personal for- 

 tunes are in no way involved, who never 

 gave a day's work in his life to make a 

 dollar, and who has no political ambition, 

 nor a desire for office except for the fur- 

 thering of conservation, who knows perhaps 

 more nearly every square mile of our ter- 

 ritory than any other man, who, beginning 

 as a $2,000 clerk under Civil Service rules 

 in President Cleveland's time, has worked 

 out a great policy of more fundamental 

 importance than any other; a policy which 

 all political parties have accepted and which 

 underlies a true philosophy of national life 

 and growth. 



It was indeed unfortunate that President 

 Taft's administration did not at the very 

 first show an active sympathy with what 

 Mr. Pinchot stands for. The fact of this 

 man's loss for the public service or that 

 man's — the fact of any man's loss — is a 

 little matter. It is no great matter, there- 

 fore, that Mr. Pinchot 's official services 

 were lost to the Government, in an atmo- 

 sphere of changed and changing relations, 

 but it is a very great misfortune that this 

 policy should be questioned or disturbed. 



Gifford Pinchot out of the public service 

 is the same as Gifford Pinchot in the pub- 

 lic service, and the forestry machinery of 

 the government is in the hands of men of 

 his own training (most of tne foresters 

 that we have were trained by him, or owe 

 to him their first inspiration). But there is 

 this difference: As a private citizen and 

 president of a national forestry associa- 

 tion, he will do more active work than he 

 oould do in an official position, for the ed- 



