that and other parables were forcefully cited at the 

 time ' ' an ounce of prevention, " ' ' penny wise, " ' l pride 

 goeth," etc., but to no avail. 



The public raved while they remembered, but they 

 soon forgot. Those who knew the whims of the great 

 North woods trembled and prayed for rain. For two 

 years those prayers were heard, possibly on the basis 

 that the action of 1915 might have been an oversight. 

 The repetition in 1917 cleared up the doubt. "The 

 Lord help him who helps himself." The next two 

 years were dry. 



This fall it happened. The great fires raged through 

 the unprotected woods, and the people perished miser- 

 ably. ' ' The Tyler cyclone ! The forest fires ! A year 

 of terrible and unforeseen calamities." Certainly that 

 produces rhetorical effect, but it is not the truth. A 

 calamity the fire was, but foreseen. It was rather the 

 natural acceptance of an invitation twice repeated. 



There was no reason why this calamity should not 

 have come in 1917. The fires were there, the drouth 

 was there, the hurricane alone was lacking. The for- 

 est officers passed the season in a dread expectancy and 

 only with the coming of the autumn snows did they 

 heave a mighty sigh of relief. In 1918 the season was 

 even worse. For months there was scarcely a drop of 

 rain. The fires were multiplying in every direction. 

 The woods lay crackling in the summer heat. Again 

 the hurricane alone was lacking. On the 12th of Oc- 

 tober it came. That was all. 



Investigations have certainly shown that those fires 

 were entirely preventable. Anyone who knows how 

 forest fires act, knows that in such a wind a fire can- 



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