EFFECTS OF DESTRUCTIVE LUMBERING ON LABOR 



By Burt P. Kirkland 



University of Washington 



The general effects of destructive lumbering on labor have within 

 recent years been so much discussed, that without detailed research 

 little can be added to what is already known. No investigator has 

 devoted adequate time to this field to state positive detailed conclusions. 



The most adequate study of the subject was made by the President's 

 Mediation Commission in the fall of 1917.^ Unforunately no for- 

 ester was called upon to assist in the interpretation of these results. 

 Conditions in the industry from the labor standpoint were summarized 

 by the commission in the following words : 



Social conditions have been allowed to grow full of danger to this country. 

 It is these unhealthy social conditions that we find the explanations for the un- 

 rest long gathering force, but now sharply brought to our attention by the dis- 

 astrous effect upon war industries. 



Partly the rough pioneer character of the industry, but largely the failure to 

 create a healthy social environment has resulted in the migratory, drifting char- 

 acter of workers. Ninety per cent of those in the camps are described by one 

 of the wisest students of the problem, not inaccurately, as "womanless, vote- 

 less, jobless." 



The fact is that about ninety per cent of them are unmarried. Their work is 

 most intermittent, the annual labor turnover reaching the extraordinary figure of 

 over 600 per cent. There has been a failure to make these camps communities. 

 It is not to be wondered at then, that in too many of these workers the instinct 

 of workmanship is impaired. They are — or rather have been made — distinte- 

 grating forces in society. 



Psychologists have shown conclusively that the thwarting or re- 

 pression of the natural human desires produces maladjustments of the 

 most serious nature in individual human character. Of all repression 

 the thwarting of sex instinct and family relationships has the most 

 serious results. Particular note should therefore be made of the 

 Commission's statement that 90 per cent of the men are unmarried. 

 Compare this with the report of United States Census for 1910 show- 



' Report of President's Mediation Commission to the President of the United 

 States. 



318 



