FOREST DEVASTATION 933 



Under such circumstances the woods worker easily becomes vote- 

 less, landless, womanless, homeless, and hopeless, and therefore dis- 

 contented, restless, and sympathetic with destructively radical doc- 

 trines. 



The conditions of forest labor need prompt and adequate attention. 

 Past experience gives little reason to hope that the timber operators 

 will, of their own accord, meet the situation in the open. If they do 

 not, it is time for the public to act. 



Such action should not be confined to such items as hours of labor, 

 wages, or current living conditions. The basic trouble lies in the ever- 

 lasting shifting in the location of the forest worker's job. This shift- 

 ing about from camp to camp is wholly unnecessary and must be 

 stopped before forest labor conditions can become decent and perma- 

 nently fair. Whatever stops forest devastation, whatever keeps forest 

 lands continuously at work producing timber, whatever makes the 

 lumber industry permanent and stable rather than temporary and 

 shifting, will help to give the forest worker a chance at a permanent 

 job and home. When the owner of a forest is prohibited from 

 devastating it, when he is required to make one crop of timber follow 

 another, then, and only then, can the lumber camp and lumber town 

 become permanent, and only then can forest labor be assured of a 

 chance at those living conditions to which every worker is justly enti- 

 tled, a chance at a real home. 



FOREST DEVASTATION AND THE FARMER 



The farmer is the greatest consumer of wood in the United States — ■ 

 more than 35 per cent of our entire production of lumber, and more 

 than 50 per cent of our production of all kinds of wood, is used on 

 the farm. Wood is the farmer's chief construction material. No 

 substitute will make building so easy and rapid or fill so many of his 

 needs. Whatever raises the price or lowers the quality of his timber 

 supply adds to his troubles and cuts down his returns. 



The farmer of the Prairie States has more interest in a permanent 

 timber supply than any other consumer. Many a prairie farmer can 

 yet remember the difficulties which went with sod and adobe houses 

 and shortage in fencing and fuel. Many a one will recall the time 

 when good white-pine fence boards were cheaper than wire. They 

 will have noted the rapid increase in price and the steady decrease in 

 dimensions and quality of the lumber and posts in their local markets, 

 and they have doubtless realized that, as forest after forest disappears. 



