WHERE WE STAND 447 



interest. Thoroughgoing publicity is a fundamental safeguard against 

 private extortion. 



LABOR 



The suggested creation of boards of employers and employees, for 

 advisory purposes and for the conciliation and adjustment of differ- 

 ences, seems to have sent cold shivers down some backs. It is evidently 

 shocking to imply that industrial relations might be improved, or to 

 inject labor problems into a forest program. Does it make no differ- 

 ence to the practice of forestry how and in what spirit trees are cut, 

 slash disposed of, and fire prevented ? It does make such a difference 

 that under unfavorable labor conditions the application of forestry 

 would be almost hopeless. And is the public quite unconcerned as to 

 a steady supply of lumber and other forest products? Evidently not. 



The joint boards are proposed simply to afford machinery by means 

 of which operators and workmen in the lumber industry may discuss 

 and adjust their differences. The whole aim of the plan is to induce 

 the industry to tackle and solve the problem of industrial relations, 

 of its own volition and with due regard to the public interest. No one 

 can deny that the lumber industry is in need of machinery to this end, 

 for its backwardness in this respect is notorious. A study of the 

 changes now actually taking place in the rest of the industrial world 

 makes it plain that unless the lumber industry awakes to the serious- 

 ness of its own situation, it will find itself at no distant time in a very 

 nasty mess. 



TO THE SOCIETY 



The fact that the Society of American Foresters has a question of 

 this importance before it for vote and decision is one of the most en- 

 couraging things that has happened for many a long day. We had 

 drifted somewhat beyond the realm of the practical and were in danger 

 of becoming academically ossified. That foresters should use their 

 full power of concerted opinion and action for the advancement of 

 forestry in the public interest goes without saying. We have begun 

 to be useful. 



It is peculiarly fortunate, too, that every forester in the country, 

 through this referendum vote, has the chance to express himself as a 

 forester, cutting loose entirely from whatever employment binds or 

 influences his work-a-day actions. Whether in Federal, State, town, 

 or private employ the opportunity now comes to him freely to express 

 his personal opinion. 



Finally, the Committee is not under the delusion that the fate of its 

 plan or that of the nation will be settled by the vote of the Society. 

 The people at large must work the thing out. The Committee is more 

 concerned with the hope that every forester will give its report the 

 most searching thought, and vote upon it witii an open mind, than it 

 is with the result of the ballot. 



