204 JOURNAL OF FORE,STRY 



popular approval and acceptance as a national policy ; and national 

 policy must be expressed in some concrete form of action or continuing 

 activity before it can be said to have become accepted. 



In 1910, when Colonel Graves took charge of the Forest Service, the 

 National Forest enterprise still hung in the balance. It was standing 

 on trial before the bar of public opinion; and no one could predict 

 with certainty what the verdict would be. On the one hand, a strong 

 sentiment in favor of forest conservation pervaded the country. On 

 the other hand, a powerful opposition to Federal ownership and admin- 

 istration of great bodies of land in the Western States was fighting 

 vigorously to break down the new system. The ultimate decision 

 rested with the people of the West. 



That decision has been rendered ; and it has been given in favor of 

 continued Federal administration because western citizens have be- 

 come convinced that, under the test of actual experience, the Nationaf 

 Forests work to their interest. To secure such a decision two things 

 were necessary — time for a fair trial, and a handling of the Forests 

 sufficiently capable, business-like, and wise to insure the approval of a 

 public requiring to be shown. Both these things called for excep- 

 tional leadership on the part of the man at the head of the Forest 

 Service, through the critical years that immediately followed Colonel 

 Graves' appointment. Along with the name of'Gifford Pinchot, who 

 brought into being the administrative policy for handling them, will 

 stand that of Henry S. Graves, as the man who consolidated the 

 positions that his predecessor had won, and prevented the undoing of 

 the work so well under way. 



In short, these two have supplemented one another in a great com- 

 mon task. What the first began the second completed. Each was 

 singularly fitted for his share of the task, and both were indispensable 

 to its accomplishment. It is almost beyond the bounds of possibility 

 that any other men than these two could have exercised the leadership 

 necessary to bring the forestry movement in the United States to the 

 position which it now securely holds. 



Luck or destiny has smiled on the Forest Service. Two men in suc- 

 cession have had it in charge, each of whom was the one man for the 

 task which fell to him; yet no one could have foretold with certainty 

 when either of them took hold that he had it in him to make good as 

 completely as both did. And inability to make completely good would 

 have turned success into failure. They developed as they went along, 



