REFLECTIONS OF A LIFE DIRECTOR 457 



ence to those whose funds support the Association. Better for the 

 American Forestry Association if it remained poor and feeble, but 

 free to defend the pubHc welfare, than to be rich, prosperous, and 

 endowed with buildings and invested funds, and speak only when 

 spoken to. A certain class of philanthropists are incurably afflicted 

 with the malady whose symptoms are manifested in a belief that money 

 purchases control of public sentiment and of the means for its expres- 

 sion. This was first manifested in the American Forestry Association 

 in connection with the bond issue. Dr. Henry S. Drinker procured 

 from his friends the sum of $7,500 which was invested in the Asso- 

 ciation bonds, paid them G per cent interest, and was finally returned 

 to them in full. But on the strength of this financial assistance Dr. 

 Drinker stated to the board in January, 1916, of which Directors 

 Greeley and Jenks are witnesses, that had he known that the Associa- 

 tion would take the position which it did with reference to the support 

 of the National Forests, this money would not have been forthcoming. 

 Mr. Pack's attitude in assuming control was that any measure whose 

 expense he defrayed was to be adopted on that basis alone, without 

 the necessity of sanction by the board. Hence the forester's edition. 

 But the final test of this principle came in the proposal to convert the 

 Association into an autocracy. There were two arguments proposed 

 to justify this: One was that it was necessary to prevent any group 

 of members from capturing the Association by a raid on the meeting, 

 which could have been met by adopting the system of letter ballots, 

 properly safeguarded, that was in fact put into effect to apply to future 

 elections of eight directors, and was therefore not a valid argument. 

 The second, and the one which secured the consent of the remainding 

 members of the board with two exceptions was that the Association 

 w^as running behind and that a large sum of money would be given 

 the Association on the one condition that its control should be placed 

 in strong hands, safe from any possible change or overturn which 

 might result in the diversion of these funds to purposes inimical to 

 the desires of the donors, or in their misuse or waste — sound arguments 

 when applied to a private business corporation, but w^hose sinister 

 possibilities should be sufficiently evident as touching the American 

 Forestry Association in the light of the rapidly increasing popular 

 agitation for thorough-going measures of securing effectual manage- 

 ment of forest lands regardless of ownership. Since this baro-ain was 



