I have avoided purposely the constitutional aspects 

 of this question because I am not competent to dis- 

 cuss them. It is my conviction that as a practical 

 question of expediency, of getting results, and of 

 carrying the United States forward to the stage where 

 reforestation is the established order of things, Fed- 

 eral control of private forest lands will not work. 

 And I hold to this view particularly at the stage in 

 our progress toward an assured and current supply 

 of timber when, as at the present time, reforestation 

 dpeiids so largely upon a reduction in forest fires. 



Let me fix your attention for a moment upon the 

 scheme of reforestation under which its component 

 parts are divided between the Federal government 

 and the States, with the national government, let 

 us say, attempting to exercise regulatory powers 

 while the State controls taxation and protection. Fed- 

 eral regulation of methods of cutting might readily 

 enough be brought to naught unless completely and 

 adequately supplemented by State laws and adminis- 

 tration dealing with various phases of the fire hazard; 

 or might readily enough become confiscatory if the 

 laws of the particular State did not give the forest 

 owner an opportunity to obtain an equitable taxation 

 of growing timber crops. As a matter of fact, any 

 authority on the part of the Federal government to 

 regulate the use of forest lands is shared by the 

 States, an authority which the States are already exer- 

 cising in certain instances. We would thus have the 

 definite prospect of two sets of regulations under 

 State and national enforcement and not necessarily 

 in Agreement. 



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