ROOSRX'IvI.T's part IX FORESTRY 123 



Government under a single head. For more than three years, as I 

 remember it, his recommendations for the transfer were made to Con- 

 gress, while the personal pressure which he exerted was by far the 

 strongest factor in our final success. Without him it would have been 

 wholly impracticable to bring the transfer about. It was Roosevelt 

 who made the Forest Service possible. 



It tells but little of the story to say that Roosevelt saved for us more 

 National Forests than all other Presidents put together. He not only 

 created but defended and preserved them, and when Congress finally 

 took from him the power to add to their number, at the last moment 

 he saved to the people of the United States some 16.000,000 acres more 

 of mountain forest lands. He did it by using the method which has 

 meant so much to forestry and conservation in America, by out-think- 

 ing the opposition. 



It was William T. Cox, now State Forester of ^Minnesota, who came 

 to me with the suggestion that Roosevelt should save this forest land 

 before the objectionable provision had passed both houses. When I 

 took Cox's suggestion to him, the President approved it with enthu- 

 siasm ; the Forest Service was ready ; the necessary field studies had 

 been made ; the maps had been drawn ; we knew what we wanted and 

 we knew how to get it. It remained only to prepare the official procla- 

 mation for each addition to the existing National Forests. 



For 48 hours the drafting force of the Forest Service worked night 

 and day. As fast as they prepared the proclamations they were taken 

 to the White House. As fast as he received them the President signed 

 them, and sent them at once to the State Department for safekeeping. 

 Thus Roosevelt saved from destruction and set aside for all the people 

 an area more than half as large as the State of Pennsylvania, and did 

 it in the short interval while the bill was passing, and before it passed. 



X'o other President has ever been, and doubtless no other ever will 

 be, as practically familiar both with the forest and the range as was 

 President Roosevelt. It was in the early part of his administration that 

 the fbrest and grazing problem in the Southwest became the livest ques- 

 tion before the Bureau of Forestry. To the huge gain of the nation as 

 a whole, Roosevelt was thoroughly equipped to handle it. At the rec- 

 ommendation of the Secretary of the Interior, as I recall it. President 

 Roosevelt made, soon after he came to the White House, a decision as 

 to grazing on National Forests in Arizona which I thought to be unwise. 

 Representatives of the grazing interests of that territory, including, I 

 believe, the present Associate Forester of the United States Forest 

 Service, came to me and set forth their objections to the President's 



