DISCUSSION OK THE PINCHOT REPORT 453 



agenc}^ establir.hed by the Government or otherwise might settle a 

 specific dispute, but it will never create a spirit of perfect satisfaction. 

 On behalf of the lumbermen, let me say that living conditions under 

 which their men work have been improved vastly in the last few years. 

 So much for laboi , to which too much space has already been given. 



Figures are presented by the Committee to show that the average 

 mill price of news print paper has doubled-, and th^t lumber has a little 

 more than doubled in the last ten years. Is this done in order to show 

 the result of our approaching timber famine? If so, then we are also 

 well on the way to a general famine of foodstuffs, clothing, shoes, 

 metals, and many other necessities ; greater than all these is the dearth 

 of willing labor. The first thought to occur to the casual reader of 

 such statements regardmg prices is that the lumberman must be one 

 of our detested profiteers. The ground for entertaining such an im- 

 pression is well pri-^pared on the second page previous in the Commit- 

 tee's report, where holders of large tracts of timberland are charged 

 with holding more than is wise to have in the hands of a few indi- 

 viduals who are reserving them for those incalculable profits due to 

 accrue with the further advancement of the timber famine. If pri- 

 vately owned timber is being generally held for speculation, how shall 

 we account for the statements reported by the Committee that while 

 80 per cent of the standing timber is privately owned, 97 per cent of 

 the cut comes from privately owned forests? vSurely not all this dif- 

 ference can be (hie to the more inaccessible nature of the publicly 

 ov/ned timber. If the profits are to be so incalculably large in cutting 

 this reserved timber, let us presume that the public will share a liberal 

 portion of the prolits through the action of the excess profits and in- 

 come tax laws. 



The impression is created that the destruction of private forests 

 through lumbering is a needless act on the part of the lumberman, 

 due entirely to indifi'erence, in spite of repeated warnings of the ap- 

 proaching timber famine. As a matter of fact, no one knows better 

 than the well informed lumberman that standing timber is becoming 

 scarce. He knows that there will be a famine if new timber does not 

 take the place of what he cuts. If he is progressive, broad-minded, 

 and patriotic he does not want to see the end of the lumber industry in 

 America. He realizes and admits that he has not taken steps to per- 

 petuate the sui)ply. He has been looked upon by his neighbors as 

 ])cing engaged in an exceedingly hicrative business, a meml)er of the 



