SUGGESTION FOR REAPPROACHMENT 

 By W. R. Brown, 



Brozcn Company, Berlin, N. H. 



In the last issue of the Journal an attack was made on the 

 poHcies, administration, and personnel of the American Forestry As- 

 sociation, of which I was then a director, and in reply I would ask 

 the fair-minded readers of the Journal to reserve their judgment as 

 to the matter until they hear the report which is to be submitted by 

 a committee of investigation, a majority of whom it was voted were 

 to be selected from the general membership. Personally, I am con- 

 vinced that while they may tind honest differences of opinion as to 

 policy existing and perhaps some errors in judgment have been made 

 that need rectifying, they will find that the administration has been 

 honest and the personnel actuated by disinterested motives. Due to 

 its long record of service and its present widespread potentialities for 

 influence in creating forestry interest in the general public, it is my 

 earnest hope that grounds of reapproachment be sought by both sides, 

 with a reorganization and a policy adopted that wnll meet with the 

 approval of all. I can see no reason why a reapproachment ought not 

 to be possible concerning a substitute plan for permanent directors 

 to make possible the acceptance of financial support and endowment, 

 which must be acknowledged necessary and desirable, without undue 

 influence over policy, by some plan of community trusteeship outside 

 of the board, and so remove the necessity for the permanent directors, 

 for which desirable end they were created solely as a continuing and 

 responsible body, and with no purpose of controlling policy. As a 

 second desirable reapproachment, the appointment of a professional 

 forester as general manager, divorcing the business publication there- 

 from as a business in itself. As a third, the reorganization of the 

 board by mutual consent by a new election of forward looking men, 

 equally representative of the dift'erent phases of forestry interests, 

 scientific, educational, commercial, and altruistic, so that all sides of 

 the question may be adequately represented, so that free discussion 

 may bring out fundamental truth, and a steady policy of advancement 

 be promulgated in touch also with the practical as well as the ideal, 

 intent on the widest patriotism coincident with fairness and justice to 

 the present generation. I hope that this reapproachment may be 

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