344 JOURNAL OF FORESTRY 



At the present time I believe it is fortunate for the Journal that Mr. 

 Pack and the American Forestry Association are in no way connected 

 with the pubHcation or financing of the Journal of Forestry, and that 

 there exists one organ whose utterances cannot be silenced even by 

 threats of libel. 



PART V THE PRESENT BOARD OF DIRECTORS WHO THEY ARE AND WHAT 



THEY REPRESENT 



The great need in forestry in this country for the past decade, greater 

 today than ever before, is popular education in sound forest economics, 

 and vigorous efforts to enact these economic principles into a practical 

 forest code. For this purpose the American Forestry Association by 

 its history and character was eminently fitted. But to fulfill this func- 

 tion required a board of directors working disinterestedly for the public 

 good, a clear understanding of forest economics on the part of the direc- 

 tors and officers, a magazine in which first place was given to the 

 furtherance of sound legislation, and a field secretary or agent of proved 

 ability, to devote his entire time to legislative campaigns in the nation 

 and the states. 



Instead, we find an Association with a gross income of $100,000 

 unable to afiford a field secretary, a magazine in which the discussion 

 of sound forest policy is conspicuous by its absence, a Board manv of 

 whom have displayed remarkable misunderstanding or lack of under- 

 standing of the principles of forest economics and some who have 

 openly expressed their disbelief in practical forestry, their fear of 

 possible measures of forest regulation and their distrust of foresters 

 in Government and State employ when it comes to interpreting these 

 measures, and an Association which has been conspicuous chiefly for 

 weakness and vacillation in supporting any public measures, and whose 

 Secretary and Board of Directors are in principle opposed to having 

 the Association commit itself on any public issue about which there 

 is a difference of opinion, or which can be construed as "politics." 



We find this Association conducted in a manner which has progres- 

 sively deprived its duly elected Board of Directors of their powers 

 of supervision and management over its finances and policy, concen- 

 trating this power in the hands of the Executive Secretary employed 

 by the Association, acting through the President and the Chairman of 

 the Finance Committee. W'e find this Secretary's suggestions adopted 



