Forest Service Revenue and Organization 225 



men permanently. No matter how efficient the inspection, no 

 matter how faultlessly thought out are the circular letters, poli- 

 cies, and Manual instructions, they cannot succeed unless strong 

 men have charge on the ground. No one can dispute this. 



In the words of a supervisor of long experience: Reform 

 should 



"begin at the bottom — too much attention and too much 



money has been devoted to overhead organization 



the Service is top-heavy full of men in swivel 



chairs originating bright and new ideas for the man at the end 

 of the line to carry out, when this same end man is not keep- 

 ing up with the fundamentals of forest administration and pro- 

 tection because of these new schemes, interesting but valueless." 



This picture is, perhaps, somewhat over-drawn, but it is at 

 least significant of the feeling of 10 to 20 per cent of the super- 

 visor force — the important men on the ground — as stated in the 

 following opinion : 



"The Service must adopt without any qualification the organi- 

 zation theory that the supervisor's office is the executive unit. 

 . . . Everything and everybody must sooner or later deal 

 with the supervisor — so why not accept it? . . . Under 

 present conditions in the Service, the District Office is superflu- 

 ous in the organization scheme, but has the means of supplying 

 the needs of the supervisor by gradually eliminating the District 

 Office in its present form — and adding the men and the funds 



made available, to the Forest I favor as large 



supervisor units as possible with this proviso: that overhead 

 supervision charges must be kept within bounds. Over-adminis- 

 tration is worse than under-administration." 



As already explained, one of the chief theoretical criticisms 

 of the present organization of the Forest Service is because 

 inspectors usually inspect their own work. One of the best 

 organized businesses in the United States, the Fred Harvey sys- 

 tem, is working along this line. The head official wrote me on 

 January 11 : 



"The inspection feature is one to which we have been giving 

 some consideration along the lines of your inquiry, and we are 

 disposed to think there is merit in having the inspection sepa- 

 rate and distinct from the administration." 



It is certain that the Forest Service has not enough money 



