NATIONAL OR STATE CONTROL OF FOREST 

 DEVASTATION 



By GiFFORD PiNCHOT. 



The plan suggested by the advocates of State control and that of the 

 Committee for the Application of Forestry both hold that the owners 

 of commercial forest lands should be required by law to prevent the 

 devastation of their properties. The spirit and purpose of both are the 

 same. Both agree as to the facts, the fundamental principles, and the 

 remedies. Each provides for both State and National action. The 

 plans differ only in this — that the one looks to the separate States for 

 the chief executive control, and the other to the Nation. 



This is a difference in method only. If I believed that forest devasta- 

 tion could be promptly, permanently, uniformly, and efficiently pre- 

 vented through State control, I should be perfectly willing to accept it. 

 The means are unimportant. The result is everything. 



CONFLICTS IN JURISDICTION. 



Objection is made that National control involves a division of author- 

 ity leading to conflicts of jurisdiction. I have observed that such antici- 

 pated conflicts seldom materialize. Under the smoothly working Recla- 

 mation Act, for example, the Nation builds works for the distribution 

 of water controlled or owned by the State (a vastly more complicated 

 problem), and both the States and Nation are actively concerned with 

 regulated grazing. But if the avoidance of chances of conflict is so im- 

 portant, let us remember that the plan for State control, with standard- 

 ization, supervision, and inspection by the National Government, is far 

 more likely to breed friction than the simple and workable division be- 

 tween silviculture and slash disposal on one side, and fire patrol and fire- 

 fighting on the other. 



AMERICAN AND SAFE. 



It is suggested that National control of this National question is un- 

 American. The same objection was made against National control of 

 transportation, corporations, irrigation, migratory bird life, and many 

 other matters now seen to be rightly assigned to the National Govern- 



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