CONTINUOUS FOREST PRODUCTION 45 



agencies ^^ for studying these matters, the least that can be expected 

 of the government is intelligent individual treatment of each industry. 



The recent government investigations of the lumber industry show- 

 it to be hard pressed. The 1914 census figures show an actual decline 

 in persons engaged in the industry and also in many other respects. 

 Yet this industry privately controls a great share of one of the three 

 great resources which can be perpetuated forever. I maintain, there- 

 fore, that the public interests in conservation of this resource no less 

 than, the interests of the industry demand that complete freedom of 

 cooperation be granted. It must be conceded, however, that if this 

 freedom be granted, the public has a right to see to it in the grant that 

 its ends be served as well as those of the industry. I hold that these 

 ends are not different, however, from the permanent interests of the 

 industry. 



Central Association of American Forest Industries 



Proceeding on the foregoing lines, it is proposed that Congress shall, 

 through legislation, grant to forest industries the right to organize, 

 providing a very definite principle is compHed with. This principle 

 is that the right of membership in this authorized central association (which 

 I have called the Central Association of American Forest Industries) 

 shall be granted only to those individuals, corporations, associations, etc., 

 which can and will make their business conform to certain reasonable 

 standards of business management, labor management, and forest manage- 

 ment, and treatment of the public, which it is agreed we can accept for 

 American standards today. The standards I have in mind should not 

 be of any impossible nature. They should be determined so far as 

 may be by scientific methods and for the rest by the careful judgment 

 of fair-minded men. Table 3 is suggestive of the standards that might 

 be required. It is obvious that such a plan would require a certain 

 amotmt of supervision on the part of the government, but this could be 

 far less than now extended to some other business; as, for example, the 

 National banks. There would be nothing compulsory about member- 

 ship in the association and the function of the supervision would be 

 merely to give permission to cooperate in this voluntary way. 



Since the industry could easily finance its own research if permitted 

 to cooperate, in the long run the nimiber of government men engaged 

 on the problems of the industry would be small — nothing at all compared 

 to the great host now engaged in the uplift of agriculture. The public 



*' The Federal Trade Commission and other government agencies. 



