382 Forestry Quarterly. 



portant consideration is that instructions to lookout men and 

 patrolmen must be definite in this matter of rank in order to 

 fix responsibility for action. In the ideal fire organization, pa- 

 trolmen will be essentially fire fighters. Under this heading there 

 was considerable discussion regarding the giving of an appoint- 

 ment as forest guard to lookout men and patrolmen, who might 

 in many cases be excellent men for these positions yet who were 

 not ranger material, and in a way were performing the work 

 of day laborers. Some of the committee held very strongly that 

 no new men should be given a guard's appointment who would 

 not possibly later develop into ranger material, and that all look- 

 out men and patrolmen should be day laborers. As opposed to 

 this view it was pointed out that the Forest Service has em- 

 phasized very strongly that every member of the forest force 

 whether he be supervisor, deputy, forest assistant, ranger or 

 guard is an integral part of the fire organization, and each man 

 must realize a sense of responsibility if results are to be ex- 

 pected, also that there is no more important position in the 

 fire organization than that of lookout man, that the qualifica- 

 tions for the duties required were peculiarly exacting. In view 

 of these facts the point was made that it did not look consistent 

 to consider the lookout man as a mere day laborer, that it could 

 not be expected that his sense of responsibility would be aroused 

 or that he would feel that he was part of the fire organization if 

 he were a day laborer, paid so much per day, and liable to be 

 dropped any day, that by giving him an appointment it would 

 in itself be impressed upon him that he was a forest officer 

 and a part of the fire organization, and that he had certain re- 

 sponsibilities and duties. 



The statement has been made frequently that the Forest Ser- 

 vice should not give guards' appointments to all men used tem- 

 porarily on the forests ; that a forest guard should be an assistant 

 to a ranger ; that the Service should reserve this title for men who 

 have decided to enter the Service work to become eventually 

 rangers, and that it is not desirable to give men serving in such 

 capacities the power to arrest. It is extremely seldom that the 

 actual power to make arrests is made use of by any forest of- 

 ficer — there is no need of it — and therefore it is not felt that 



