HOW LUMBERMEN HAVE SERVED THE PUBLIC 277 



commissioners some pictures, and told them about his workmen and 

 their famiHes at Goodman. And he told it in such a way that one could 

 almost see those people. Prosperous industry in the abstract has a me- 

 tallic sound; in fact, the idea of buncombe may easily associate with 

 talk of it. But a settlement of good Americans or Province men or 

 Scandinavians about a sawmill and working in the woods for a souncl 

 concern that is doing well enough itself and uses them liberally- — 

 hardly any picture can be called to mind that should be more attractive. 

 As for the particular enterprise I have referred to, while I never saw it, 

 [ would bet something that a man coming in from outside, of what- 

 ever stripe he might be, would find it slow work undermining the 

 men's confidence in their employer. 



Now I have finished that part of this address which is entirely 

 disconnected from technical subjects, and it would probably seem 

 detached from the rest and a gratuitous imposition of notions irrel- 

 evant to the whole field of the Society if I didn't make one or two 

 clear connections. Perhaps it will seem so anyway. 



Of these connections the first is that these woods on the American 

 continent are for the use of the people. Of course, we ought to be 

 decent and appreciative in this use, and as honest men we will want 

 future generations to share in the benefit ; but use is the key for each 

 generation as it goes along and in respect to the things it requires. 



Second, cross-cutting the matter at any one time, the American 

 public is interested in these woods and forest lands in two ways — 

 on one side as participating in the ownership of the utilities involved, 

 present and future ; on the other side as consumer oi forest products 

 currently. 



Third, we have got to handle all the matters involved in accord- 

 ance with our own genius as a people — our knowledge, our training, 

 and our capacity. Of that there may be much latent in us that will 

 in time come out; in fact, it looks as if such things were now develop- 

 ing. But what we ha\e done well, what we know we can do, what 

 in fact we are famous for among the peoples of the earth, is to manage 

 things by way of individual enterprise and invention. This continent 

 was conquered and civilized not under the direction of a despot or by 

 a carefully planned system, but through individual initiative, by the 

 push and energy of a free people. The people led and government 

 followed. When an opportunity has arisen or a gap has appeared, the 

 usual course has l:»een for the energy and invention of some man or 



