rORESTRY MOVEMENT OF THE SEVENTIES 393 



recorded as the avowed creed of the one " who had been his political 

 leader in the oppressed land from which they both fled : "But because 

 I am a democrat, because I consider the democratic state as the only 

 and certain possibility to banish misery from the world, therefore I 

 also believe that when a people have once won democratic institutions 

 they have not only the right, but als6 the duty to defend those in- 

 stitutions to the last with all means within their reach, even with 

 musket and pointed steel." 



How Carl Schurz, as Secreary of the Interior, in conjunction with 

 his ardent supporter in the cause of forestry. General James A. Will- 

 iamson, Commissioner of the General Land Of^ce, discharged "with 

 all means within their reach" their duty to defend the public timber 

 rights of the people, is written in clear and stirring terms upon the 

 records of that administration. The record is so vibrant throughout 

 with intensity of purpose that the history of the struggle recorded 

 there can not fail to make good reading, as one of the most vital chap- 

 ters in the whole forestry movement. 



For several years immediately preceding that administration the 

 'subject of the rapid deforestation of our public lands had been a 

 matter of growing concern to the General Land Office, resulting in 

 reports to the Secretary of the Interior recommending not only more 

 effective measures to check the work of unlawful appropriation of 

 public timber, but also pointing out and urging the necessity for the 

 adoption by Congress of a total change of policy respecting the dis- 

 position of the timbered portions of the public domain, in order to in- 

 sure a commensurate return of value in effecting sales of such lands 

 or of the timber thereon. In this connection, stress was laid upon the 

 need for provision by law to enable the immediate survey and appraise- 

 ment of the lands by experts, as an essential feature of the policy pro- 

 posed. 



As a result of this agitation of the subject, on the very threshold of 

 the new administration — in fact before it was more than a month old — 

 we find Secretary Schurz, on the 5th of April, 1877, concurring in a 

 report made by General Williamson, and directing vigorous action to 

 compel observance of the law in respect to public timberlands. This 

 was shortly followed up by General Williamson in his annual report 



^ Professor Kinkel. 



' It is well to remember that the agitation for special timber land legislation 

 which had been under way in Congress since 1871 had not yet borne fruit in the 

 twin acts of 1878. 



