Results 



One will find more comprehensive and general information in the 

 longer interviews of Christopher Granger (who was the head of timber man 

 agement), Ed I. Kotok (Research; state and private forestry), Leon F. Kneipp 

 (land acquisition and management), Arthur Ringland (field activities in 

 setting up the new forests under Gifford Pinchot) , Tom Gill (international 

 forestry), Ed Crafts (Congressional relations), and Samuel T. Dana (Research; 

 forestry education), the latter interviewed in cooperation with Elwood 

 Maunder of the Forest History Society. Earle Clapp (research, Acting Chief), 

 shunned the tape-recorder and is currently proof-reading his own written 

 account of his career, a manuscript that will be deposited in Bancroft Library 

 along with the other interviews. 



The single subject interviews consist of Paul Roberts on the shelter 

 belt project of the New Deal; R. Clifford Hall s account of the Forest Taxa 

 tion Inquiry, coupled with H.B. Shepard s story of the Insurance Study. A 

 view from without is provided by Henry Clepper of the Society of American 

 Foresters and Fred Hornaday and Kenneth Pomeroy of the American Forestry 

 Association - a trio who provide a fitting introduction to the series for the 

 reader. George B. Hartzog, Director of the National Parks, comments on the 

 relationship of the two agencies; Earle Peirce gives a first-hand account of 

 the first time the Forest Service stepped in as principal agent in salvage 

 operations following a disastrous blow-down on both state and private timber- 

 lands. John Sicker and Lloyd Swift both contributed a telling picture of 

 their respective divisions of recreation and wildlife management. Without 

 these shorter, f rom-the-horses mouth accounts, the series would have sacri 

 ficed some of its validity. There are of course still other leaders who can 

 give valuable historic information on policy development, men who perhaps can 

 be included in the Forest Service s current efforts to further document its 

 own Service history. 



With a backward glance at the project, one can say that the basic 

 objective of tape-recording, transcribing, and editing interviews with top 

 men in the Forest Service was realized. The question of quality and value 

 of the interviews must be decided later, for the prime value will be measured 

 by the amount of unique material scholars use: the candid evaluations of 

 leaders by other leaders, the reasons behind decisions, and the human reflec 

 tions of those in authority; how they talked in conversation, how they devel 

 oped trends of thought and responded to questions that at times were neutral, 

 at other times challenging. The value of the series also depends on how many 

 leads lie in the pages of the transcripts - clues and references that a 

 researcher might otherwise never connect in his mind or in the papers and 

 reports he reads. 



Since this series was built with tentative hopes that in the end it 

 could justify itself both as a readable series of historical manuscripts and 

 as a valuable source of easily retrievable, primary material, a master index 

 of uniform entries from each volume was developed after the transcripts came 

 out of the typewriter and landed on the editor s desk. Dr. Henry Vaux helped 

 in setting up the broad areas of subjects to be included, and as entries were 



