52 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



opponents of a measure mav block the game even more under the open rules 

 of the Senate than under the close rules of the House. 



To friends of this measure we therefore say most emphatically: Take 

 nothing' for granted. Find out how your senators stand and if they are op- 

 posed to the bill, convert them if possible before the loth of February. On 

 that day we must have the votes to pass this bill, in such form that it will not 

 be thrown into conference, or there will be little left to save in the \Miite 

 Mountains, at least, and a tremendous task of reforestation will have been 

 created before another bill can have been put through the tortuous legislative 

 channels. 



There is danger in a conference because this is the short session. There 

 is very little time between the 15th of February and the 4th of March, when 

 this Congress expires by limitation, and all the tedious work of initiating and 

 advancing the bill would have to be done over again. A conference offers an 

 opportunity for the use of obstructive tactics again in the last days of the 

 session. Senator Newlands announces his purpose to press his conservation 

 commission amendment, and other amendments may be offered which would 

 throw the bill into conference. They must not be passed. Let your senators 

 know that the people of the eastern United States almost unanimously, and 

 a large number of the best citizens of other sections want, not a mere perfunc- 

 tory vote, but the immediate passage of a bill that can be put into effect. 



This measure has been held up too long. It will return to trouble Con- 

 gress until some satisfactory measure becomes a law. It has few opponents, 

 but they are active. Its friends must continue their activity up to the moment 

 when the bill goes to the President. Then, and then only, it will be safe. 



THE LAKE STATES CONFERENCE 



HERE is great promise in such gatherings as the Lake States Forest 

 Fire Conference held last month in Saint Paul. It is probable that the 

 era of great national congresses to deal with conservation subjects of 

 which the American Forest Congress of 1905 under the auspices of the American 

 Forestry Association was one of the first and the most fruitful, has reached 

 its zenith. They have done their work of arousing the people, of bringing cer- 

 tain great questions into the full light of discussion and making them matters 

 of popular interest. Outside of a few to whom such gatherings are a recrea- 

 tion, and of political leaders to whom they furnish an opportunity, people will 

 not give much time to these crowded gatherings and over-crowded programs, 

 but they will go a long way to discuss with men who know how to do them the 

 things that they are now quite certain must be done. 



Out of the assembling of such varied interests as met at Saint Paul, 

 varied in their point of view but with that view focussed on the same object, 

 will come real forest conservation and by and by real forest development. 

 Why? Because every interest of our people, selfish and unselfish, looks to the 

 same end, and as this is real life and not a debating society, the workers must 

 get together and agree on a policy. Such a course is infinitely better economics 

 and better politics than spending good energy in debating non-essentials. 



Throughout the country the same spirit is making itself manifest in divers 

 ways and the men in the far West who are fighting an alleged theory of na- 

 tionalism that no one has really advanced, and the extreme nationalists who 

 are tilting at a state rights doctrine that is not seriously held by any man of 

 statesman's size in the United States, can profitably follow the general ex- 

 ample and get together to work for the common good. 



