THE FOREST SERVICE AND ITS MEN * 

 By H. H. Chapman 



Part I 



The Forest Service will stand or fall upon the question of whether 

 it can maintain within its organization that high standard of ability and 

 integrity which has given to it the confidence of the public, and through 

 this fact alone has made its present tremendous task possible. 



One thing only can undermine this confidence — failure to secure and 

 to retain men with the character and ability to deliver the goods. The 

 Forest Service demands men — men with initiative, experience, broad 

 human sympathy, public spirit, and infinite capacity for taking pains. 

 Such men are not found in the ranks of professional job hunters. 



The Service is essentially an organization of field men, every one of 

 whom, from the greenest ranger and fire guard to the men in the dis- 

 trict office, must combine physical stamina with mental alertness. From 

 the ranger, straight through to the supervisor, district officer, and Wash- 

 ington official, the Service requires men with the qualities not merely 

 of good workmen but of leaders ; and wherever in this organization the 

 quality of leadership is lacking, we find the standard of performance 

 falling short of our absolute requirements. 



The Forest Service is an organization of lighting men, who have car- 

 ried law and orderly progress through the length and breadth of the 

 entire mountainous region of the West ; have put an end to range wars ; 

 evolved a practical working system of Government business in place of 

 the proverbial mass of red tape, and have accomplished the miracle of 

 winning over to a grudging or a whole-hearted support the most inde- 

 pendent and liberty-loving elements of our Commonwealth — the west- 

 ern miners, stockmen, pioneers and lumbermen, and the eastern moun- 

 taineers. 



The problems of administration which the Service has to meet are 

 those dealing with the vast resources embraced in over i50,ooo,ckx) 

 acres of forested, mountainous land, and the use and renewal of those 

 resources, whether they be timber, forage, water-power, i)rotection of 

 streams, fish and game, or scenic values and recreation. These prob- 



* A contribution to the discussion of the paper on "The Technical Forester in 

 National Forest Administration," Vol XVI, No. 2, Journal of Forestry. 



653 



