962 JOURNAL 01-" FORESTRY 



industry would hardly have found itself in the state of economic 

 embarrassment under which it has admitted that it labored during the 

 past two decades. The chief reason for this embarrassment is that 

 the lumber industry ignores the rudimentary principles of sound for- 

 est finance. Really enlightened self-interest would dictate the han- 

 dling of timber property not as a mine, but as a permanent invest- 

 ment in a renewable resource, so that enormous holdings of standing 

 timber would be assets instead of heavy burdens. 



Hardly another great industry was so near general bankruptcy 

 as was the lumber industry, until it was granted a temporary reprieve 

 due to conditions arising from the war. Dr. Compton implies that 

 the individuals who have invested in the business can be saved only 

 by allowing unrestrained destructive exploitation of the basic natural 

 resource upon which the existence of the industry itself depends and 

 which supplies material essential to the public welfare. He also 

 asserts that to restrict this destructive exploitation will violate the 

 Constitution of the United States, whose chief purpose, he says, is 

 to preserve and protect the rights of private property. Even if they 

 can be saved only by freeing them from restraint, which we do not 

 admit, to do so will far more seriously violate the intent of the Con- 

 stitution than to insure the present and future welfare of the public 

 by requiring careful use of the resource, even at the expense of a 

 few individuals. If Mr. Compton is entirely familiar with the Con- 

 stitution he knows that its purpose, as expressed in the Preamble, 

 includes furthering the general welfare of the nation and all its peo- 

 ple, but does not mention the preservation of private property, and 

 that this is later provided for in the fifth and fourteenth amend- 

 ments, as a means to promote the expressed purposes of the instru- 

 ment. As between the welfare of the whole country and the pocket- 

 books of a few individual property owners, we prefer the former. 



14. "The maintenance in idleness of cut-over land is declared to 

 be zvastefiil. The larger truth would seem to be that it is zvasteful 

 to maintain cut-over land in such state of idleness as does not furnish 

 safeguard against fire 07id ravage which destroys the natural repro- 

 duction of desirable species." 



After having categorically stated, in several of his previous argu- 

 ments, that it would be poor public economy, wasteful use of the soil 

 and against the interest of private economy to put to productive use 

 cut-over timber lands, Dr. Compton in his concluding point hedg- 



