THE FOUR AND THE FOUR THOUSAND 117 



Opposition press should be given five additional months of offensive 

 while the Society conducts the referendum that should have been 

 taken before the report was published. Publicity is a two-edged sword, 

 and an immense amount of damage can conrc from handling it 

 recklessly. 



The procedure adopted makes the position of the foresters much 

 more difficult. In President Olmsted's annual address he said that 

 success for a real forestry program could be assured "if foresters as 

 a group" were back of it. But instead of giving ''foresters as a group" 

 the leadership of a frontal attack in force, after thorough preparation, 

 there goes forth a little raiding group of nine, and two of these are 

 hot wholly prepared to move. One, indeed, thinks that the ''support 

 and advice" of the opposing forces "should be sought." The program 

 would be farther ahead today if his suggestion had been even less 

 drastic and had read that "the support and advice of the foresters 

 should be sought before proposing it to the public." 



Mr. Olmsted did the Four an injustice in his reference to iheir 

 "attempt to suppress the Pinchot report." What they sought was 

 "the free and open discussion" by which Mr. Pinchot subsequently 

 stated the question was going to be settled. It is free enough and open 

 enough to the lumbering interests who have complete copies of the maps 

 and orders of the campaign, which the Society, by its own action, 

 cannot use for some time. The effort of the Four was to get that 

 free and open discussion. They wanted the report widely spread, but 

 after the Society had been given the chance to back it. 



Mr. Pinchot said, in closing his plea for the report, that he was 

 sure of the support of the vSociety of American Foresters "after it 

 has made up its mind." just so! But some members of the Society 

 object to the idea of having its mind made up for it by a propaganda 

 through the press, instead of through its own efforts to arrive at the 

 truth in its own way. 



The Chamber of Commerce of the United States has for many 

 years submitted every large question to an entire referendum of its 

 membershij). It has never issued a pronouncement on questions of 

 policy e.\cei)t through the results of such a referendum; and it has 

 never found the method too difficult or too long-delayed on any ])oint 

 at issue. 



It will be noted that this j)a])er contains no criticism of the report; 

 nor does the writer now offer any. It is a condemnation of methods. 

 It is an effort to give the writer's answer to that plea of officers and 

 committees for guidance in resjject to "a similar situation in the fiilnre. 

 should it arise.'' 



