BUSINESS PHASES OF FOREST DEVASTATION 313 



such matters as might concern the carrying out of silvicultural and 

 protective regulations in logging operations. Discussions of the labor 

 problem as more commonly understood — that is, wages, hours, living 

 conditions and so on — would be undertaken not by the Forest Service 

 but through joint boards of operators and labor, made up of equal rep- 

 resentation from both groups, with, perhaps, provision for an impartial 

 umpire in case of deadlock. If the Government is to recognize organ- 

 ized operators, the justice of recognizing organized labor through 

 boards of its own choosing needs no comment. 



The science of keeping forest lands productive calls, among other 

 things, for the skillful treatment of standing forests when they are 

 harvested, involving much more than the mere slashing down and 

 transporting of timber. Forestry requires intelligent, skilled labor in 

 the woods. In order to obtain and hold good men for woods work it is 

 essential to make employment as permanent as possible, and so to ad- 

 just cnditions that the workers will be interested in and satisfied with 

 their jobs, transforming the present "blanket stifT" type of labor into 

 that of the decent, self-respecting, home-making citizen. The woods- 

 man must first be contented with his job if we are .successfully to begin 

 the practice of forestry. After that, in view of the fact that forestry 

 insures permanency to the lumber industry, forestry itself will develop 

 and hold competent labor in the woods. The labor problem is, there- 

 fore, fundamentally involved in the stopping of forest devastation. 



JOINT COUNCILS 



That operators and workers should meet in joint councils has been 

 viewed askance. Why should the Forest Service concern itself with an 

 industrial problem of vital importance not only to lumbermen but also 

 to all the great industries of the country? Should we not steer clear of 

 such entanglements? 



Except for the adjustment of matters essential to the application of 

 forestry in the wods, the Forest Service would not concern itself at all 

 with labor. It would stick to its own business. The commission merely 

 ofifers the lumber industry an opportunity to adjust its own labor prob- 

 lems through mutual understandings arrived at in bi-party councils, a 

 democratic method of procedure already practiced throughout a great 

 part of the world and now applied by many of the more progressive in- 

 dustries of the United States. In cases where the Government could 



