108 JOURNAL OF l-OKKSTKN' 



PRESSURE ON THE STATES. 



Just as the waterpower monopolists and grazing interests formerly 

 clamored for State control, well knowing they could themselves con- 

 trol the States, so now the lumbermen will be found almost without 

 exception against Federal and for State control, and for the same 

 reason. 



In their fight to ward off governmental control the lumber interests 

 will be joined by other interests engaged in exploiting the country's 

 natural resources whose influence is nation-wide. States are seldom 

 able to resist such pressure. Under the plan for State control the 

 public must attack the lumber interests in the lumbering States, where 

 they are strongest; and zvithout help from the deforested and treeless 

 States, where the sentiment for conservation is most alive. The lumber 

 interests zaould be fighting in their strongest trenches, the public from 

 its weakest ground. 



It is obviously improbable that the several States will enact simul- 

 taneous and parallel legislation in the face of the fact that the lumber- 

 men of any State that refuses to pass such legislation will have a mate- 

 rial advantage in competition against lumbermen in the States that do. 



NATIONAL CONTROL SAVED THE NATIONAL FORESTS. 



During the years when the National Forests were being created and 

 the Forest Service established, what saved them both was that both 

 were free from State control. The opposition controlled practically all 

 of the legislatures of the Western States, so that they passed resolution 

 after resolution denouncing the Forests and the Service. Time and 

 again the Forests and the Service were saved in Congress by the sup- 

 port of the Central and Eastern States. We have National Forests 

 and the Forest Service today only because they were supported by 

 forces which the State control plan now proposes to eliminate from 

 the critical points in the fight. 



WEAKNESS OF STATE CONTROL. 



Manv of our State forest departments and commissions have done 

 good work. A few States have excellent forest laws, but in how manv 

 are the laws efficiently applied? How many States have started out 

 with a definite forest policy and held to it? In how many has the 

 forest work escaped serious injury from changes in policies and admin- 



